I used to have a mental trick for getting work. It required minimal effort and zero cost. All I had to do was to make an attempt at doing some marketing. It could be a flyer, an email circular or maybe just a letter. Invariably, before the task was complete the phone would ring and I could abandon it. But now that work is scarce, I don’t feel so confident. I haven’t attempted any marketing for a while, maybe I should. They say it’s the thing to do in a downturn. Anyway, it was probably a statistical illusion; the work would have come in anyway.

I imagine most freelancers are superstitious to some extent. After all, a call from out of the blue seems like divine intervention. It follows there must be a way to draw these enlightening bolts in our direction. By writing this, I fear I may be breaking the spell. But what the heck. Maybe it will work for you.

Actually, it gets worse. I invented a deity for freelancers some years ago. To tell the truth, I discovered her. Remember those periods when you were really busy and didn’t know how you were going to get it all done? You may be in one now. Remember when a client changed the schedule and there was a fatal clash of dates? This time you’re really screwed. And then at the last minute the phone would ring (in those days it would be a call and not an email) and one or other of the conflicting clients would change a date and your bacon would be saved.

This happened consistently enough to get the feeling that someone up there was looking out for me, so I gave her a name, Schedula – the patron saint of diaries. I would speak to Schedula, ask for favours, put my trust in her – me a rampant atheist, how strange is that? But it seemed to work. Job followed job in logical succession. Schedula always seemed to work her magic.

To be honest, I have neglected Schedula over the last few years and I haven’t used my marketing feint either. Perhaps that’s the problem. It’s nothing to do with the recession. I have unplugged my psyche from universal space time. My work antennae have stopped transmitting. I am no longer visible on the right wave lengths. But that’s going to change. Schedula, forgive me. I have forsaken you. I am open for business, rearing to go.

I discovered something else a bit spooky. I can bring other people luck. A friend would call to complain how quiet things were and bingo, a few days later their phone would be off the hook. It happened again quite recently. Try it if you like; call if you need work. I will only cost you the price of a phone call. I’m not some rip-off medium. Anyway, it would be nice to hear from you. But hurry, I could be getting busy quite soon.

Jim is not an easy character. But he is very good decorator and by his own admission, very cheap. He has decorated lots of houses on our street. People ignore the health warnings about his temperament. Decorators like him are hard to find. He certainly gets on better with the wives.

Jim did some work on my house, good work. And not just decorating; roofing, rendering and a bit of plumbing. I ran around like a skivvy buying materials so he could keep up the good work. One day I made a joke about something he had done, left a valve shut, it was very trivial, but he took it the wrong way and walked off the job. I left grovelling apologies on his mobile and two days later he turned up as if nothing had happened. I even managed to make a joke about having to be careful not to rub him up the wrong way. But from then on, I handled him with kid gloves.

Jim is quick to bear grudges, quick to take offense, and he never forgets a real or imagined sleight. There was a perpetual ‘them’ or ‘they’ who conspired to do things the wrong way; who were out to frustrate him. Don’t get him started on parking wardens or Polish decorators. When he finished my job, I was glad to have him out of the house; glad not to have his brooding, sinister and small minded perspective to contend with. But whenever it rains, especially when it pours, I am grateful for the work he did on my slates and guttering; my roof is like the proverbial duck’s back.

I had not spoken to Jim for over a year, not since his father died. He’s not the type you want to engage in conversation; well you can’t in fact, all you can do is provide him with an opportunity to shed some more invective. But I was walking past his white van the other day and said hello. At first he ignored me, perhaps he hadn’t heard me. So I said it again, louder. He looked at me and said ‘Fuck Off’. ‘I was only trying to say hello,’ I said. ‘And I’m telling you to Fuck Off,’ he said. He meant it.

I realised at the time that something must have snapped inside him and didn’t take it personally; it was too bizarre. I later discovered he had had a nervous breakdown. Even though the attack was unprovoked and quite irrational, I am not sure it was entirely undeserved. I had thought and said enough things about Jim that merited at least a good Fuck Off. He almost certainly despises me; my type. In a way it was quite invigorating. We spend too much energy bottling up our feelings. Certainly he has, from what little I know of him.

Jim must be in a very dark place. He has no insight to shine a light on his demons. No wife to tell him to pull himself together. It’s all out there. I fear things might get worse, that Jim will flip into psychosis. One of his customers on the street is a retired professor of psychiatry. I wonder if he’ll tell him to fuck off. Maybe he should.

P.S. In case your decorator has just thrown a wobbly, Jim is not his real name.

Mush was long listed for the Fish Short Story Prize

When does life end? For Ken it ended abruptly. He lost his balance on a traffic island and fell under a cement truck. Horrified onlookers turned away from the grisly sight. Others covered their mouths, retching. The truck driver didn’t feel the impact but realised something was wrong when he saw people gesticulating in his wing mirror. Ken’s head did not escape the ten ton onslaught. His memories and daily routines, such as the trip to the corner shop, had been reduced to mush.

Passing drivers slowed to gawp at the body. A builder on a scaffold described the scene to someone he had been chatting to on his mobile phone. A man of military bearing returning from the same corner shop to which Ken was heading carefully unfolded the business section of his newspaper, the part he never read, and placed it over the new synthesis that was Ken’s head. News of stock market turmoil took on a more sinister hue as blood seeped through the headlines.

The truck driver arrived to inspect the scene. He was pale, shaking and looked round for support but none came. He had not seen Ken. No one saw him trip. The inner ear infection that had been troubling his balance remained undiagnosed. The ambulance siren heralded a change of mood. Those with jobs to go to, headed off. The drivers behind hooted to encourage the gawpers to move on. A police car arrived. The two young officers decided against lifting the red blotter. Traffic was diverted and the onlookers were corralled behind blue and white tapes. A shocked neighbour identified Ken who apparently lived alone but had a sister somewhere, New Zealand possibly.

However, Ken was not entirely gone from this world. True, he had forgotten the reason for his outing that morning, to buy some cigarettes. And although his thoughts were unstructured, there was a lot going on within the hyperactive mousse formed by the merger between the logical left and the intuitive right sides of his brain. The compulsions that once crowded his daily thoughts had evaporated into the traffic fumes and he was thinking clearly in five dimensions. Had it been possible to capture this outpouring, he would have won at least a Booker and a Palm D’Or. Decades-old sexual encounters he rehearsed in his masturbatory fantasies rallied to grant Ken one last volcanic orgasm. In short, Ken’s fall from grace had produced in a few seconds what years of mysticism and meditation had failed to achieve, complete creative and sexual liberation.

Plastic gloves were stretched over sweaty palms – scooping Ken off the road would be a messy business. His precious DNA, four billion years in the making, would soon be swimming alongside sanitary towels and the morning’s ablutions. From the perspective of the scaffold, he struck an odd pose. Who wears brown corduroys these days? His legs were twisted awkwardly though he felt no pain. In fact he was running, running along an empty beach, splashing in the shallow waves. He felt the sand splurge between his toes and the tropical sun beat down on his red, sunburned back. The crystal clear water shimmered with a myriad tiny lenses until he dived in headlong to shatter the illusion. At first he swam low, simulating flight, his tummy almost touching the barren sand. But then the sea bed fell away and Ken became king of a rocky metropolis festooned with gently undulating fronds. Sea cucumbers trawled the avenues for detritus while clusters of star fish searched for buried treasure. A large jellyfish gently pumped its way towards the light: a regular heart beat, not Ken’s. Then through the blue-green, sun-dappled water emerged the coral mountain where tiny polyps waved their greetings and brightly coloured fish played dare among the sea anemones. Ken felt at one with nature, an equal among his fellow creatures.

The strong undercurrent had carried him beyond the sandy bay and when he looked back he could barely see the shore. But Ken was where he belonged; away from denial, away from belittlement. Back on the beach, Ken’s mother Eileen was busy with her youngest, a curly-haired little girl of around three. Ken resented this demanding infant, even more so because he was expected to play father when the child’s own father was away. He spent the rest of his life trying to escape this trap – a trap of obligation toward a mother who could not understand his pain.

Eileen didn’t look up as Ken walked tearfully towards her across the hot sand.  ‘Couldn’t she understand? I nearly drowned out there.’ That would have taught her. A man with dark skin and strong, swarthy arms had plucked him gasping from the sea and rowed him back to shore without a word. If only he had taken him back to his mother, if only he could have saved her too. As he lay in the middle of the road, Ken saw the baskets of silly baby things he would have to carry back to the car park. At least she hadn’t forgotten his snorkel this time.

The police were measuring distances, taking photographs. The truck driver sat on a low garden wall, his head in his hands. He would see these forensic images at the inquest six weeks later which would decide upon an accidental death. He had been dreading it but thankfully there were no grieving relatives to corner him, no recriminating looks. His well-rehearsed apology was not required.

Some weeks later, Ken’s half-sister Cheryl received a solicitor’s letter informing her of the news and that she had been mentioned in his will. ‘Poor old Ken, only fifty eight. Shame he never got married. At least he can keep mum company now. Still, it was nice of him to remember me.’

A short story

There’s a guy in reception to see you, he’s got a big black box.

What does he want?

He says he’s a creative writer.

I thought all writers were supposed to be creative.

I dunno, maybe it sounds better than writer on its own.

Whatever, why does he want to see me?

He said he’s really optimistic about our company.

I am pleased to hear it but what has this got to do with me?

Maybe this is how he chooses his clients.

I see, he just hangs out in reception of companies he’s optimistic about?

He did seem to believe he had a good reason to be here.

Spooky! Anyway what’s his name?

He didn’t say.

Can’t someone else see him – I’m busy.

He insists on seeing you.

We run an open company here, we have no secrets.

Shall I ask him to leave?

I don’t need a creative writer, everyone around here can write, okay!

He wants to help us to communicate our philosophy.

That’s what marketing does isn’t it?

Do they? Anyway I’ll ask him to leave.

Tell him I’m busy but he can leave his box of tricks. I’ll take a look at it later.

He may not be prepared to do that.

Tell him he can pick it up tomorrow, any time.

Here it is. He hopes you find it useful, it’s yours to keep.

Really! It’s huge …‘The Creative Writer’s Pack’

Go on, open it up.

I can’t, it’s locked – is he still out there?

No he left immediately, he wasn’t at all put out.

How I am supposed to open this?

You’re not going to believe this. He said, ‘Tell him to say Abracadabra.’

You’re kidding me – that’s a joke …Abracadabra!

It’s not, look it’s opening, the lid is opening!

It could be a bomb! Quick….

No, it’s full of books, old children’s storybooks…

Yeah, and they’re all crumbling to bits. I’ve had enough – tell him to come back for his box right now, call him on his mobile.

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Are you telling me you know what this is about?

Perhaps it’s about how the power of language can create the world we live in.

So we have got to start telling each other kids stories, ‘Once up on a time there was a petrochemical company that dreamed of world domination.‘ Get real.

It’s not that simple. The creative writer uses language to help create the company we want to be.

We have a mission statement, thank you.

It’s not a mission statement, more a dialogue with our vision of the future.

Hang on a minute, I remember that book, my mother used to read that to me. How could he possibly know? I am not kidding you, those are my actual books! Those are all my books!

Did you hear the joke about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman? Like the story of the Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Or the three trials before the prince wins the hand of the princess. They all follow the rule of threes. Things that come in threes seem to be funnier or more satisfying. Aristotle wrote about it in his book Rhetoric. Winston Churchill demonstrated the rule’s power in many of his speeches. Adjectives are often grouped in threes to emphasize an idea such as my favourite edict about creative projects; ‘You can have it good, quick, cheap – any two’. Snappy dialogue often turns in threes as in, ‘Face it, Brian, I’m a bad father, a lousy husband, and a snappy dresser.’

The rule also works visually. On this site, I have divided my services between three panels. I didn’t deliberately set out to do this; this was how the cards fell once I had finished endlessly shuffling them. Designers generally advise you to use no more than three different fonts or three different colours. And then there’s the ‘three click rule‘ – that no content should be more than three clicks away from the home page, though for me that’s already one click too many.

Why these holy trinities are so compelling lies buried deep within our psyche. After all, when we come into this world we form a trio with our parents. It is the perfect relationship, it implies protection, belonging and love. Perhaps we are always trying to re-discover that state of perfection and therein lies the power of three. So if you have a communication challenge  – good, bad or indifferent – trying thinking in triplicate.