Meanwhile (in a sense)…

  Elsewhere…

  Thrimp

  Wiltshire

  United Kingdom

  Earth

  -Lee-

  Writing a cookbook was high up on the list of things Lee was going to do to make money at some point, when the time was right. That is to say, when he had mastered the art of food. That time certainly wasn’t yet—there was still an ocean of discovery to be traversed—but every experiment took him a step closer.

  His broadly holistic-deterministic approach to philosophy overlapped quite unfortunately with cookery. He was of the view that whatever food happened to be in the house at the time was there for a reason, that it constituted the conditions of a culinary challenge that the universe had seen fit to lay down for him. Fate was his teacher, and every concoction he produced was a lesson it wanted him to learn. This approach, he believed, would lead him to develop a true chef’s instincts, a genuine mastery of food that couldn’t be unachieved by following recipes, which were shortcuts.

  As his intuition developed, the general quality of what he produced must, logically, increase exponentially. And, like any good exponential curve, it was to be expected that the increases in the initial stages would be more or less undetectable.

  The initial stages were turning out to be quite long.

  A fizz in his bones: he felt the alchemist’s urge to combine, the chef’s urge to delight. His instincts led him to a bag of fresh peanuts that was close to going funny; then, with that as a base, his creativity intertwined with destiny to form a magical thread that drew his eye to some chillis that he’d had to buy a whole bag of last week even though he had only wanted one.

  He felt connections crackle in the ether.

  They drew him to a bit of leftover ginger, and a red onion that he’d used half of in a salad that was still in the back of the fridge. As he was extracting the onion, a no-longer-plump tomato fell off a multipack of yoghurts and caught his eye. It needed to be used soon. Experience, however, cautioned him.

  No no, he intuited. Today is not your day. He put it back on top of the yoghurts, pleased by his display of wisdom.

  Satisfied with the blueprint of his condiment, he threw the assembled, in quantities that felt right, into the blender with a glug of oil and obligatory garlic.

  Bzzz.

  Following its usual modus operandi, the blender immediately and violently threw all of the ingredients up the sides of the jug and whirred away to itself, happily unobstructed. Knowing through previous arguments with it that fluid was the panacea to its tantrum, but wary of overcomplicating the thing, Lee pondered for some time, torn between simple water and the juice of a lime. Surrendering himself to subconscious guidance, he sought a lime and, unable to find one, substituted an orange.

  Bzzz.

  The result was surprisingly white.

  A fingertipful took Lee on a journey.

  That just tastes of peanuts, he thought at first. Raw peanuts, which kind of just taste of wood.

  Then the garlic greeted his tastebuds warmly. Upon entry, however, it immediately began a vehement disagreement with the peanuts, following which, as though hearing the commotion, the ginger barged in and put the other two in an needlessly aggressive headlock. This achieved a brief moment of uneasy equilibrium, in which Lee dared a moment of optimism.

  Then the chilli smashed in through the window armed with a bazooka and the party and all its guests evaporated in the resulting fireball, causing Lee to say ‘oh’ and have a hurried glass of milk.

  Well, he thought to himself as he soothed his mistreated tongue. Food should tell a story. No one says it has to have a happy ending.

  The day’s research concluded, he had learned something—though he wasn’t yet sure quite what—and come away with an arguably edible peanut sauce to boot. That was two ticks in the achievement box, and the day barely even begun.

  Triumphant, he practiced handstands for a while as a way of avoiding the washing up. He was following instructions of a particularly good internet video, which professed that after a few months he could expect to have progressed enough to be able to do them easily, at any time, in any place. He considered this an impressive and valuable skill, which he would have for life once mastered, and therefore a wise and valuable investment in his future.

  Before long, however, the warmth of the early-summer late-morning combined with the physical exertion of repeatedly failing to invert himself and toppling over to bring upon him a hearty sweat, reminding him that he hadn’t had a shower in what was probably an unacceptable length of time.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He had, in fact, been avoiding the shower. The act of washing himself had been rendered horribly disagreeable thanks to a new rule he had made, following the advice of a video he had seen on the internet. The video had promised immediate improvement in every aspect of health and energy levels and general happiness, together with some other benefits he hadn’t really understood but had great faith in the importance of, if he simply ended his shower with three minutes standing under it on its coldest setting.

  He belief in the wisdom of the cold shower was absolute, as was his hatred of it.

  Reluctantly, labouring under the weight of anticipatory dread, he peeled himself away from his garments, including his hat; then, like a hermit crab vulnerably transplanting itself from one shell to the next, he scuttled nakedly into the shower.

  Standing under the steamy stream of pleansantly-warm water, he glared at the temperature-control knob with the fearful resentment of a dog eyeing the vacuum cleaner.

  He inhaled sharply; the day he stopped to think twice about it would be the day he broke the habit. That day would not be today!

  He reached out and turned it down, just a fraction.

  For a few seconds, nothing happened...

  Then the water cooled down a little. There was a pleasing absence of drama; just the watery equivalent of a cool breeze, refreshing and mildly invigorating. He luxuriated. If this had been all there was to do, he would have embraced it.

  But this was only stage one on the journey down to absolute zero, the lowest extreme of the temperature-control knob. There were four more to go.

  His hand reached out again.

  Stage two was cold. As it hit, the muscles in his back tensed and his awareness spiked, bringing the world into crystal focus. He felt his skin prickle with goosebumps. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, maintaining control of his body’s reaction to a sensation that could only be described as unpleasant. There was nothing to be achieved by lingering here.

  His hand reached out again.

  Stage three invoked images of winter ice and all the sensations of desolation and hopelessness that went with it. He was reminded that cold was not just a source of discomfort, but of danger. His body reacted to the existential threat; chest and arm muscles clenched, hard. His heartbeat began to race and he breathed fast and deep. He turned around and around, unable to remain calm under the torrent of freezing sleet. He gave himself long enough to confirm and internalise just how unspeakably cold it was before moving on; to linger here would be meaningless torture.

  His hand reached out again.

  Stage four.

  Shock hit. His breath came fast, hard and deep. Brow furrowed, jaw clenched; unable to move freely now, every muscle in his body contracted; he took a wide-legged stance, clenched his fists, dropped his shoulders and stood like a statue of a warrior. He breathed like a maddened horse, a primal growl emanating from his chest, his eyes staring wildly behind closed eyelids as his mind receded from his body, replaced by the primordial spirit of desperate survival instinct.

  He stayed like this for a time, refusing to die, refusing to capitulate, mastering the sensations. Slowly, he forced his mind to reluctantly return from its emergency bunker somewhere deep in his spine to his abused, suffering consciousness. Slowly, his breathing became rhythmic. The beast-like growl fell into a repeating pattern that became a mantra, stabilising his wildly thrashing spirit. His calves cramped from clenching. His entire body posed like like rock.

  His hand reached out again.

  It hesitated.

  It turned the knob.

  All the way down.

  Stage five. Absolute zero. The mind was overwhelmed; it could not persist. The growl in his throat rose to a strange hum, almost a monk-like chant, at once mediatative and full of primal force. Acting on its own, his body moved slowly through a series of bizarre, hyper-controlled movements and stances, somewhere between qi-gong and a bodybulder’s posing routine. Where this came from, he had no idea; nor was he in a suitable state of mind to consider the matter. Ancient survival instincts governed him entirely, his senses all but shut down. He was aware only that this was the most unpleasant sensation that he had ever known, that the limits of what his body could tolerate were breached, that by standing here like this he stupidly, irresponsibly, madly unlocked the door that led to death, that every moment he drew closer to it, felt its claws scratch at him, knew that his defences were exhausted, overwhelmed, that he was beaten, lost, hopeless, alone…

  …and then…

  …when his desperate grip on life and warmth was finally broken…

  …when he was finally defeated and gave up on hope…

  …like a battered canoe passing from the rapids into the still lagoon beyond...

  He calmed.

  His mind stilled.

  His breathing slowed.

  His muscles relaxed.

  He became one with the cold.

  He inhaled slowly, deeply, and opened his eyes.

  It was cold—very cold—but he was in control. His breath came easily now. He felt the delicious, raw sensation of life-giving oxygen filling his chest and bubbling into the rushing current of his blood, feeding the muscles of his body with the power to act upon the world. Layers of stultifying, thought-impeding crust fell away from his mind and it raced and sparkled, like the ‘after’ shot on an advert for washing-machine cleaner shown on an expensive new television. He stared at the physical universe through upgraded eyes, feeling his place in it, and it glimmered and twinkled back at him.

  He was conscious, alive, healthy, strong, and focused. Everything was clear. Life was simple. All he had to do was decide what he wanted, work out how to get it, and take small steps towards it, consistently, for a long time. If he did that, he’d win at life and be happy. If everyone did that, everyone would win at life and be happy. He smiled to himself at the revelation; he ought to have the thought tattooed on himself before he forgot it. With this sort of clarity and this sense of power, life was going to be easy.

  This was the state of enlightenment that lay on the other side of stage five—the whole point of the exercise—and it was wonderful. Three minutes passed in blissful, cold peace. By the time they were over Lee had completely revised his plan for the day to include a healthy run in the sunshine (which he vowed to repeat every day from now on), a healthy meal of fish and vegetables (which would be the start of a new strict diet regime, starting today), and some of the holiday homework he had been set (because he was, starting now, someone who worked hard and achieved things in life). All he needed for a complete new start as a better person was energy and focus, and he was overflowing with them.

  He spent the first minutes of the rest of his life towelling himself off and feeling fantastic. Then he made a cup of tea and sat back down in front of his computer.

  Now that he’d sorted out the formula for the rest of his life, he could have a well-earned break; it would still be there waiting when he got back. In the meantime, there were giant warcrabs to hunt.