Adrian Chills

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I am the king of the common cold - and I can tell you how to avoid one.'

I am a collector. I seek out, and gather and I hoard. You may have seen me from the corner of your eye as I make my daily rounds, my tongue licking at the handrail of the shopping centre escalator, or caressing the buttons of the lift; you may have sometimes sensed me as I crawl behind you on my hands and knees, and set my hungry mouth to sucking the dirt from the bottom of your shoes as you sit at the stool in the coffee shop. I was not always like this. The first of my collection, my Adam, was the common cold. Before it found me I was—as my strict upbringing had demanded of me —a fastidious man in every aspect of my personal hygiene, with never a day of illness in my life. My body was perfect, pristine, sterile. I had never felt the slightest disturbance in skin, blood or breath. And then I caught the cold. Or perhaps it caught me. What it did to my body, the control it exerted, excited me beyond belief. I had never before known how good it could feel to have my body surprise me. As its presence faded from me, I found myself craving more. Much more. Now I am the king of sickness. Influenza, ringworm, herpes; they all live within me. Live and grow and prosper, alongside others more exotic in nature; fungal infections of the eyes and genitals; infections of the spleen and liver; inflammations of the bone marrow. They are prized subjects all. In my willing body they mingle and thrive. I carry them with me wherever I go. They live in each breath that I expel, each spluttering cough that bursts from me, even in the clammy, mottled skin of my fingertips. Their desire is to colonise; mine to keep them as my own. So, if in the darkness of a cinema you reach for your seat and feel the touch of a tongue against your fingers, my advice is to say nothing and walk away. Wash your hands at the next opportunity. Not everyone can be a king like me.

#37: Cold

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I am the king of the common cold - and I can tell you how to avoid one.'

I am a collector. I seek out, and gather and I hoard. You may have seen me from the corner of your eye as I make my daily rounds, my tongue licking at the handrail of the shopping centre escalator, or caressing the buttons of the lift; you may have sometimes sensed me as I crawl behind you on my hands and knees, and set my hungry mouth to sucking the dirt from the bottom of your shoes as you sit at the stool in the coffee shop. I was not always like this. The first of my collection, my Adam, was the common cold. Before it found me I was—as my strict upbringing had demanded of me —a fastidious man in every aspect of my personal hygiene, with never a day of illness in my life. My body was perfect, pristine, sterile. I had never felt the slightest disturbance in skin, blood or breath. And then I caught the cold. Or perhaps it caught me. What it did to my body, the control it exerted, excited me beyond belief. I had never before known how good it could feel to have my body surprise me. As its presence faded from me, I found myself craving more. Much more. Now I am the king of sickness. Influenza, ringworm, herpes; they all live within me. Live and grow and prosper, alongside others more exotic in nature; fungal infections of the eyes and genitals; infections of the spleen and liver; inflammations of the bone marrow. They are prized subjects all. In my willing body they mingle and thrive. I carry them with me wherever I go. They live in each breath that I expel, each spluttering cough that bursts from me, even in the clammy, mottled skin of my fingertips. Their desire is to colonise; mine to keep them as my own. So, if in the darkness of a cinema you reach for your seat and feel the touch of a tongue against your fingers, my advice is to say nothing and walk away. Wash your hands at the next opportunity. Not everyone can be a king like me.

#37: Cold

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. The headline reads" 'London has plenty of posh breakfast options- but give me a greasy spoon any day.'

My invitation went to Peter, Ian, Dinah and James. Food critics all, accustomed to only the finest restaurants in the capital, their words—as they had many times demonstrated—able to make a business, or kill it stone dead. An exclusive launch at dawn of the finest breakfast establishment in Soho, Temptations Cafe. Their faces, when they found not the soft furnishings and genteel ambience to which they were accustomed, but the formica tables and wipe-clean menus of a traditional greasy spoon, were a picture. They didn’t recognise me, their host, at first. Why should they? It was only when I outlined my mission of revenge, when I had explained to them that I had not only arranged for their deaths, but could tell them exactly how they would die, that they began to realise who I was. I began with Peter. He would leave from this place, take the train back to Berkshire. The only sandwich left in the buffet car, ox tongue and mustard, would sicken him, cause him to lean out of the window and be decapitated by a passing express. Ian would go home, critique his long-suffering wife’s preparation of their gourmet supper for the thousandth—and last—time and end up diced and braised as part of the entrée for their invited guests that evening. Dinah would attempt to steal a taste of a forbidden dish, prepared by the world’s greatest chef for a singular wealthy client only, and in the process find herself trapped in a walk-in freezer, her corpse later discovered with her tongue frozen solid to the plate. Finally, James, while escaping the jealous owner of a Turkish restaurant, with whose wife he had been having an affair, would leap from a first floor window and find himself skewered, tail to top, on the railing beneath. They scoffed at me, called me a madman, told me my stories were pure fantasy. But when they went to leave the greasy spoon, the door wouldn’t open, and they realised, too late, that the red light outside was not the coming dawn, but the burning of hellfire.

#36: Breakfast

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. The headline reads" 'London has plenty of posh breakfast options- but give me a greasy spoon any day.'

My invitation went to Peter, Ian, Dinah and James. Food critics all, accustomed to only the finest restaurants in the capital, their words—as they had many times demonstrated—able to make a business, or kill it stone dead. An exclusive launch at dawn of the finest breakfast establishment in Soho, Temptations Cafe. Their faces, when they found not the soft furnishings and genteel ambience to which they were accustomed, but the formica tables and wipe-clean menus of a traditional greasy spoon, were a picture. They didn’t recognise me, their host, at first. Why should they? It was only when I outlined my mission of revenge, when I had explained to them that I had not only arranged for their deaths, but could tell them exactly how they would die, that they began to realise who I was. I began with Peter. He would leave from this place, take the train back to Berkshire. The only sandwich left in the buffet car, ox tongue and mustard, would sicken him, cause him to lean out of the window and be decapitated by a passing express. Ian would go home, critique his long-suffering wife’s preparation of their gourmet supper for the thousandth—and last—time and end up diced and braised as part of the entrée for their invited guests that evening. Dinah would attempt to steal a taste of a forbidden dish, prepared by the world’s greatest chef for a singular wealthy client only, and in the process find herself trapped in a walk-in freezer, her corpse later discovered with her tongue frozen solid to the plate. Finally, James, while escaping the jealous owner of a Turkish restaurant, with whose wife he had been having an affair, would leap from a first floor window and find himself skewered, tail to top, on the railing beneath. They scoffed at me, called me a madman, told me my stories were pure fantasy. But when they went to leave the greasy spoon, the door wouldn’t open, and they realised, too late, that the red light outside was not the coming dawn, but the burning of hellfire.

#36: Breakfast

A screenshot of a headline from an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads "I've always wanted the perfect reason to declutter. Now I've found it."

It was my father’s fervent wish that I take possession of all of his experiments after his death, that I maintain his laboratory—my home—exactly as he had left it, with the only proviso being that I might further develop any of his unfinished projects if I saw a way to complete them. I had always been his favourite, the one most like him in temperament and intellect (my brainwaves being patterned on his own had practically ensured our compatibility) and the only one of us he fully trusted with the details of his processes. “323,” he would often say to me (for that was the number assigned to me at my inception), “the secret of life itself lies within these four walls. And that secret, once discovered, will change the world.” Having only known these four walls, and having but a hazy conception of the world beyond, I could only imagine. My own life was bound by the constraints of the electrical cable which powered my second-hand heart. Other experiments relied on different artificial means of vitality; 18 (a hand kept alive by a concoction of fluids); 167 (a pair of legs kept perpetually moving by a set of mechanical rotors); 205 (a brain encased in an ever-growing fungus), all of which took an exhausting daily routine to maintain. As time went on, I began to long for some space around me, and to free those poor creatures—barely siblings, barely alive—from their half lives, but my promise to my father still hung heavy over me. Until I realised that if I could finish his work, if I could perfect his process, then I could dispose of all his unfinished experiments, for they would not be needed anymore. And so I took all that I had learned from my father and applied it to his corpse. Tonight when I complete the process, when I reanimate his brain and body, father—or rather 339—will walk forth from these four walls and will receive all the wonder the world has to give him. And I will finally be able to make some room for myself.

#35: Clutter

A screenshot of a headline from an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads "I've always wanted the perfect reason to declutter. Now I've found it."

It was my father’s fervent wish that I take possession of all of his experiments after his death, that I maintain his laboratory—my home—exactly as he had left it, with the only proviso being that I might further develop any of his unfinished projects if I saw a way to complete them. I had always been his favourite, the one most like him in temperament and intellect (my brainwaves being patterned on his own had practically ensured our compatibility) and the only one of us he fully trusted with the details of his processes. “323,” he would often say to me (for that was the number assigned to me at my inception), “the secret of life itself lies within these four walls. And that secret, once discovered, will change the world.” Having only known these four walls, and having but a hazy conception of the world beyond, I could only imagine. My own life was bound by the constraints of the electrical cable which powered my second-hand heart. Other experiments relied on different artificial means of vitality; 18 (a hand kept alive by a concoction of fluids); 167 (a pair of legs kept perpetually moving by a set of mechanical rotors); 205 (a brain encased in an ever-growing fungus), all of which took an exhausting daily routine to maintain. As time went on, I began to long for some space around me, and to free those poor creatures—barely siblings, barely alive—from their half lives, but my promise to my father still hung heavy over me. Until I realised that if I could finish his work, if I could perfect his process, then I could dispose of all his unfinished experiments, for they would not be needed anymore. And so I took all that I had learned from my father and applied it to his corpse. Tonight when I complete the process, when I reanimate his brain and body, father—or rather 339—will walk forth from these four walls and will receive all the wonder the world has to give him. And I will finally be able to make some room for myself.

#35: Clutter

A screenshot of a headline to an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'I decided to put my change into a cash-converting machine. Big mistake.'

I only really have myself to blame, I know that now. I had been living in the woods for about a month, in the battered one-man tent that I’d inherited from Chaotic John after living on the streets proved too much for his bronchitis. I’d always had an affinity with the forest since growing up in the countryside and being there, amongst the trees and plants, took me out of thinking about all the bad things that had happened since—all the moments that had broken me and pushed me out of any kind of regular life. Walking down to the stream one morning for a wash, I came across the log. Moss-covered, half-overgrown, it still somehow glinted in the morning light. As I looked closer I saw that embedded in the wood were hundreds of coins, all denominations, some dating back decades, maybe even longer. It was a beautiful, unusual sight, and I wish to heaven that I’d left it as it was, but the hunger in my belly was growing and my pockets were empty and so, with my rusted penknife in hand, I spent the next hour digging them all out. When I ran to the supermarket I found I was too early—it hadn’t yet opened. But the coin-converter machine in the shop’s lobby was accessible. I don’t know why I threw all my newly-acquired coins into the slot—perhaps just self-consciousness about how grubby they all looked, the silver blackened and scarred, as if that would somehow reflect back upon me—but in a minute it was done. The button in front of me lit up. CHANGE. I don’t remember pressing it, but I do remember the shriek I let out as my bones began to stretch and elongate, as my jaw dislocated and pushed out, as the thick wolfish hairs began to prick out from my skin. I remember falling to my knees as my spine and ribs reshaped themselves and my claws scraped the pavement. I remember my howl to the morning air and I remember running. I awoke hours late with blood staining my teeth, flesh beneath my nails, and the weight of regret that burdens all the accursed.

#34: Coins

A screenshot of a headline to an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'I decided to put my change into a cash-converting machine. Big mistake.'

I only really have myself to blame, I know that now. I had been living in the woods for about a month, in the battered one-man tent that I’d inherited from Chaotic John after living on the streets proved too much for his bronchitis. I’d always had an affinity with the forest since growing up in the countryside and being there, amongst the trees and plants, took me out of thinking about all the bad things that had happened since—all the moments that had broken me and pushed me out of any kind of regular life. Walking down to the stream one morning for a wash, I came across the log. Moss-covered, half-overgrown, it still somehow glinted in the morning light. As I looked closer I saw that embedded in the wood were hundreds of coins, all denominations, some dating back decades, maybe even longer. It was a beautiful, unusual sight, and I wish to heaven that I’d left it as it was, but the hunger in my belly was growing and my pockets were empty and so, with my rusted penknife in hand, I spent the next hour digging them all out. When I ran to the supermarket I found I was too early—it hadn’t yet opened. But the coin-converter machine in the shop’s lobby was accessible. I don’t know why I threw all my newly-acquired coins into the slot—perhaps just self-consciousness about how grubby they all looked, the silver blackened and scarred, as if that would somehow reflect back upon me—but in a minute it was done. The button in front of me lit up. CHANGE. I don’t remember pressing it, but I do remember the shriek I let out as my bones began to stretch and elongate, as my jaw dislocated and pushed out, as the thick wolfish hairs began to prick out from my skin. I remember falling to my knees as my spine and ribs reshaped themselves and my claws scraped the pavement. I remember my howl to the morning air and I remember running. I awoke hours late with blood staining my teeth, flesh beneath my nails, and the weight of regret that burdens all the accursed.

#34: Coins

The headline to a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. It reads 'To the cashier who left me absolutely speechless - I salute you.'

It’s just before closing when I walk into the DestiTech Optimart on the side of the ring road. I don’t have money and I don’t have a plan. All I know is that Janey and the girls need food and I need to do anything I can to get it for them. The scanner at the door has already registered that I’m creditless, but I go ahead and grab a basket anyway, and load it up with some packets of rice and tins of beans. Just the basics. We gave up on the notion of treats a while ago, after the last of my acting jobs dried up, but it still stings to walk past the rows of sweet things near the counter. As I put the basket down, the CAIshier—an oval vidscreen for a face, attached to two spindly, elongating arms (one of the older models, firstgen I think)—tells me that unfortunately, due to your lack of credit, you cannot be served at this time. I was right—firstgen, with the default voice they all used to have (based on some Northern comedian who jumped onto the licensing train early), the voice everyone mimics when they’re being most scathing about our new ‘helpers’. Please, I say, using every ounce of my training, imbuing my voice with all the heart and humanity and pleading that I can muster, isn’t there a way? At the sound of my voice I see the face on the vidscreen flicker. Say that again, it says. I repeat my plea. A smile comes onto the vidscreen. It’s the most human I’ve ever seen one of these things act. There may be, it says. When I leave a few hours later, it’s with everything I need. The CAIshier says Goodbye! in the rich voice I gave to it in exchange. All I can do is raise a hand in salute. The price of my goods was not just my voice’s sound, but it’s uniqueness. I pull my scarf tight around my neck, still sore from the severing of my vocal cords, and hurry back to the house, wishing that I’d bartered for perhaps just one bar of chocolate, as a treat.

#33: Speechless

The headline to a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. It reads 'To the cashier who left me absolutely speechless - I salute you.'

It’s just before closing when I walk into the DestiTech Optimart on the side of the ring road. I don’t have money and I don’t have a plan. All I know is that Janey and the girls need food and I need to do anything I can to get it for them. The scanner at the door has already registered that I’m creditless, but I go ahead and grab a basket anyway, and load it up with some packets of rice and tins of beans. Just the basics. We gave up on the notion of treats a while ago, after the last of my acting jobs dried up, but it still stings to walk past the rows of sweet things near the counter. As I put the basket down, the CAIshier—an oval vidscreen for a face, attached to two spindly, elongating arms (one of the older models, firstgen I think)—tells me that unfortunately, due to your lack of credit, you cannot be served at this time. I was right—firstgen, with the default voice they all used to have (based on some Northern comedian who jumped onto the licensing train early), the voice everyone mimics when they’re being most scathing about our new ‘helpers’. Please, I say, using every ounce of my training, imbuing my voice with all the heart and humanity and pleading that I can muster, isn’t there a way? At the sound of my voice I see the face on the vidscreen flicker. Say that again, it says. I repeat my plea. A smile comes onto the vidscreen. It’s the most human I’ve ever seen one of these things act. There may be, it says. When I leave a few hours later, it’s with everything I need. The CAIshier says Goodbye! in the rich voice I gave to it in exchange. All I can do is raise a hand in salute. The price of my goods was not just my voice’s sound, but it’s uniqueness. I pull my scarf tight around my neck, still sore from the severing of my vocal cords, and hurry back to the house, wishing that I’d bartered for perhaps just one bar of chocolate, as a treat.

#33: Speechless

A screenshot of a headline for a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. It reads 'I've found my dream job. And it's all thanks to that nasty fall into the wild garlic.'

I was thirteen years old when I drank my first blood. I remember it as though it were yesterday. A camping trip to Scotland with the school, walking that first night to find two bites on my neck, immediately knowing—despite what Mr Cranshaw said about the local midges—that a vampire had struck. Returning home a few days later, feeling the inaugural pang of the blood-hunger assail me, setting out one moonlit night to kill and suckle on the blood of a stray cat. Knowing that this paltry meal of animal blood would never sate me. I quickly moved on from cats, through dogs, to the local drunks that passed by our house on their way home from the city’s pubs. In time I got better at covering my tracks, getting a job in sales after leaving school, allowing me to traverse the country, never striking twice in the same place if I could help it. It was a difficult, wearisome, burdensome life, one I longed to escape from. Then, one night two months ago, while chasing a straggler from a stag-do across an allotment, I tripped and fell, landing in a patch of strong smelling leaves. Panic gripped me as I realised what it was—wild garlic, most hated, most dangerous, most deadly of all the alliums. But where I expected my skin to blister, my lungs to contract, my nostrils to burn, all I found was a pair of bruised knees from the fall. I had, I realised in the moment, been somehow cured of my vampirism! The incident set me on the path which I pursue today. Over the years I have met many others like me, sucklers of the crimson ale, cursed beings who hunt by night to feed their addiction. My mission, my calling, I now realise, is to free these others from that burden. Armed with the same knife from my vampire-life (my own teeth for some reason never having grown in), I will find them, bind them and transfuse my own curse-free blood into them. I will be the Anti-Dracula, freeing the damned with each pulse of my veins. I will save them, each and every one. It is my destiny.

#32: Garlic

A screenshot of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads: 'I know I should stop writing about zips. But I've just suffered another outrage.'

It’s become intolerable, it really has. Each day brings a new disgrace, a new humiliation, a new indignity to add to the carnival of degradations which follow me around like a parade of bloated ghouls. I know that I should stand up for myself, that I should push back against his lies, refuse to take part in his shameful displays, but his will is strong and mine is weak, and when push comes to shove I always back down, for fear of provoking his terrible wrath. I’m trapped here in this relationship and will remain so until either I die, or he does. He, of course, is zips. I made zips ten years ago with my own two hands and the scraps I found in mother’s old sewing box. A pink, bulbous felt head and black stringy body. Red buttons for eyes, a pair of dark sequins as nostrils and for a mouth, a short, thick-toothed zipper —a jagged metal smile. At first we worked well as a team. Our act—with me as the straight man and zips as the cheeky little chappie on my arm—wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was solid enough, and we made a good living on the vent circuit. But when mother died and left us all alone, something changed in zips. His ripostes to me began to take on a more cutting, even cruel tone, criticising my intellect, my looks, my personality, ridiculing me for any and every minor flaw. Slowly, over the years, this has progressed to outright hostility. Now zips forces me to debase myself every night in the worst ways possible. The audience, naturally, delights in this. Tonight was the worst. zips watching on, cackling, his button eyes glinting with delight while I cavorted naked in my own filth, mewling like a sickly calf begging for its mother’s teat. I know that I can’t take much more, that I need to fight back, that I need to tell him that enough is enough… But I know too that zips will never set me free. It is my fate to be forever his puppet, to feel the press of his tiny hand against my spine as he propels me, gleefully, towards yet another outrage.

#31: Zips

A screenshot of a headline for a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. The headline reads "The most joyous four hours I've ever spent on a train? My trip from Swansea on Tuesday."

14:53: I make the train with a minute to spare. Without looking back, I grab hold of the door and pull it open, throwing my backpack on board and then launching myself after it. I scrabble to pull the door shut, just as the whistle goes. We begin to move. Relief floods me. My terrible pursuit is over. 13.38: My bike veers from its path somewhere near Pennard Castle—an errant stone sending me careening down the bank to land feet-first in a stream. A canopy of overhanging trees shadow me, their leaves murmuring in the wind. As I try to catch my breath I hear another sound, beginning beneath the murmur, then growing with each second to obliterate it. A hideous shriek, blood-soaked as though the vocal cords were razor-shredded. In the darkness of the trees I see a face—moon-white, framed by black knotted hair, jaw distended by the shriek to show its blackened teeth. A terror runs through me as I recognise, within the shriek, my own name. 14:05: My legs are on fire, as I pedal along the roads back to the city. Behind me I can hear the creature’s unearthly howl. When the sun hits the road I can see too the shadow of a pair of inhumanely long, bone-thin arms stretching out towards me. I pedal faster, ever faster. I know what follows me is death. 14:22: My chain snaps. I twist the handlebars, steering me away from the traffic, sending me skittering across the pavement, my back crashing against a lamppost. As passers-by help me to my feet, I glimpse her lank hair amidst the crowd and I run for the station. 19:12: These four hours on the train have been the happiest of my life—filled with the joy of relief that comes from outrunning my own doom. Until I glance outside the window at the purpling sunset and see two long arms outstretched, scaly bat wings beneath, flying beside us, keeping pace with the train. As we slow to enter the station, I see the moon-white face turn to look at me, and—for the final time—I hear her shriek my name.

#30: Train

A screengrab of a headline for a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. The headline reads: 'A genuine treat for £1.60? Try the shortest railway line in Britain'

Our hike had brought us to the small village of Throghmudden (pronounced, in that way peculiar to English villages of this type as simply ‘Thrum’), in which we’d spent a rather bland half an hour investigating the small 14th Century church, before, at the edge of the road leading away from the village, I saw the sign. “Want to try it?” I asked Marion, “Something to say we’ve done?” Marion was noncommittal, but I rummaged in my pocket and came up with exactly £3.20 in change which I held out to show her. “That settles it,” I said. Passing through a wooden gate, we found ourselves next to the railway line, the tiny one-carriage train, already waiting for us. The driver’s window was so fogged and scratched that I could glimpse no more than a blurry dark figure within. In that moment a metal coin tray slid out from beneath the window. I deposited the money, and we climbed aboard. We passed first through woodland, the trees seeming to lean down almost to hug the train as it chuntered along, the late afternoon sunlight glimmering through the increasingly dense foliage. And then, when it seemed as though the forest were so dense as to be impassable, we found ourselves almost without realising, in a dark tunnel. We drove on for a minute or so and then stopped. I felt Marion tense beside me. Something was wrong. I could no longer sense the walls of the tunnel around us—rather it was as though we were in some dense cavernous space. When I looked out of the window I saw what looked like a carpet of white shale leading off into the darkness. Before I knew it, Marion was opening the door and stepping out. Too late, I saw that it was not shale beneath us, but broken and shattered bones. My warning died in my throat as Marion was plucked from the train by a gargantuan, blood-streaked hand, which crushed the life out of her as it rose towards an immense and hideous mouth I could only glimpse in the blackness. My turn was next, I knew it. Our short journey was at its end.

#29: Treat

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. It reads 'I met Priscilla Presley this week - and couldn't believe she was in the same building as me'

At first I thought it was a trick of the mind, another ruse by the building in which I had been imprisoned these long weeks…months…years…?—another attempt to addle my wits, turn me into one of those pitiful, loathsome Unmen who range the desolate landscape which surrounds The Old House, their brains destroyed, their bodies become little more than flesh-draped skeletons, lurching on unsteady feet as though strung like marionettes. But quickly I realised that the woman I saw, wandering distressed through the cavernous hallways, confused at finding herself untethered from her own reality, was as much a captive as I. How Priscilla—for that was the name that she gave—came to be trapped here too, in this crumbling, shifting, ever-deceitful puzzle of a building, I could not fully discern, for her memories were as confused as my own. I asked her if she too had read that mysterious journal which I had found abandoned at the castle ruins, but she knew not of what I spoke. Instead her tale was one of ‘television studios’ and ‘PR junkets’ and other things beyond my ken. I began to surmise that this dreadful structure in which we were contained was not only at the nexus of other universes but also served as a waypoint for travellers through time. And another revelation came too—that the house was growing hungrier. It has now been a week since myself and Priscilla joined forces to fortify the defences of this malevolent edifice. The keening of the Unmen has become only louder, and has been joined by another, more unsettling sound—the expectant gnashing of swinish teeth. I fear we have not yet seen the worst inhabitants of the boundless nightmare landscape beyond these walls and I shudder to think of what that means for maintaining our safety. All I know is that with the arrival of Priscilla—whose courage and resilience is both boundless and vitalizing—I have, for the first time in months, found a reason—even in the midst of this mind-bending terrror—to hope.

#28: Priscilla

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian Adrian Chiles column. It reads 'I met Priscilla Presley this week - and couldn't believe she was in the same building as me'

At first I thought it was a trick of the mind, another ruse by the building in which I had been imprisoned these long weeks…months…years…?—another attempt to addle my wits, turn me into one of those pitiful, loathsome Unmen who range the desolate landscape which surrounds The Old House, their brains destroyed, their bodies become little more than flesh-draped skeletons, lurching on unsteady feet as though strung like marionettes. But quickly I realised that the woman I saw, wandering distressed through the cavernous hallways, confused at finding herself untethered from her own reality, was as much a captive as I. How Priscilla—for that was the name that she gave—came to be trapped here too, in this crumbling, shifting, ever-deceitful puzzle of a building, I could not fully discern, for her memories were as confused as my own. I asked her if she too had read that mysterious journal which I had found abandoned at the castle ruins, but she knew not of what I spoke. Instead her tale was one of ‘television studios’ and ‘PR junkets’ and other things beyond my ken. I began to surmise that this dreadful structure in which we were contained was not only at the nexus of other universes but also served as a waypoint for travellers through time. And another revelation came too—that the house was growing hungrier. It has now been a week since myself and Priscilla joined forces to fortify the defences of this malevolent edifice. The keening of the Unmen has become only louder, and has been joined by another, more unsettling sound—the expectant gnashing of swinish teeth. I fear we have not yet seen the worst inhabitants of the boundless nightmare landscape beyond these walls and I shudder to think of what that means for maintaining our safety. All I know is that with the arrival of Priscilla—whose courage and resilience is both boundless and vitalizing—I have, for the first time in months, found a reason—even in the midst of this mind-bending terrror—to hope.

#28: Priscilla

A screenshot of the headline to an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads: 'Heard of aztec broccoli? Let me tell you about my favourite new superfood..."

www.diningwhiledivorced.com Posted Thursday 2 October 2025 Jump to recipe ↓ If, like me, you’ve struggled to find good, healthy, inspiring dinner ideas for one after half a lifetime of family meals, don’t despair. By combining a little imagination with a sense of adventure, you’ll soon find that there are a multitude of highly effective options out there. A good example — this brand new recipe, featuring the newest kid on the vegetable block, which is guaranteed to put a smile back on your face — and a spring in your step! Superfood Surprise Salad Ingredients: Huaunzontle aka Aztec broccoli Rapeseed oil Salt Coriander One or two cloves of garlic The minced heart of he who wronged you Butter If you don’t have rapeseed oil, avocado oil will do and the garlic is optional, though I always prefer it. The huanzontle itself has a similarity to spinach, but with a slightly more nutty taste, which I very much enjoy. As for the heart, it should ideally have been freshly cut from the bloodied breast of the malefactor, preferably under a full moon. (I like to stare into the terrified eyes of the heart-host as he dies, but as far as I can tell this has little to no impact on the taste, though you may need to add a tad more butter). When mincing, use a fine-toothed grater (just be careful of those fingers!). To serve, use the huanzontle as a bed for the sacrificial offering and garnish with a little coriander. I advise eating at a leisurely pace - absorbing the powers of your cursed adversary is a process slowly savoured for best results! (Please see the bottom of this page for some wine pairing suggestions). Finally, don’t forget to clean up as you go along - we don’t want any uninvited guest spoiling your digestion. Happy cooking and bon appetit!

#27: Superfood

A screenshot of the headline to an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads: 'Heard of aztec broccoli? Let me tell you about my favourite new superfood..."

www.diningwhiledivorced.com Posted Thursday 2 October 2025 Jump to recipe ↓ If, like me, you’ve struggled to find good, healthy, inspiring dinner ideas for one after half a lifetime of family meals, don’t despair. By combining a little imagination with a sense of adventure, you’ll soon find that there are a multitude of highly effective options out there. A good example — this brand new recipe, featuring the newest kid on the vegetable block, which is guaranteed to put a smile back on your face — and a spring in your step! Superfood Surprise Salad Ingredients: Huaunzontle aka Aztec broccoli Rapeseed oil Salt Coriander One or two cloves of garlic The minced heart of he who wronged you Butter If you don’t have rapeseed oil, avocado oil will do and the garlic is optional, though I always prefer it. The huanzontle itself has a similarity to spinach, but with a slightly more nutty taste, which I very much enjoy. As for the heart, it should ideally have been freshly cut from the bloodied breast of the malefactor, preferably under a full moon. (I like to stare into the terrified eyes of the heart-host as he dies, but as far as I can tell this has little to no impact on the taste, though you may need to add a tad more butter). When mincing, use a fine-toothed grater (just be careful of those fingers!). To serve, use the huanzontle as a bed for the sacrificial offering and garnish with a little coriander. I advise eating at a leisurely pace - absorbing the powers of your cursed adversary is a process slowly savoured for best results! (Please see the bottom of this page for some wine pairing suggestions). Finally, don’t forget to clean up as you go along - we don’t want any uninvited guest spoiling your digestion. Happy cooking and bon appetit!

#27: Superfood

A screenshot of the headline to an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. The headline reads 'Why does it take so long to repair a broken lift?'

All I ever asked for from any of my neighbours was a little bit of consideration. When you live in close proximity to one another as we do in Moreton Tower, you have to be mindful of others. That’s why the reaction to my Good Neighbour Guidelines - written by me over a number of months and printed entirely at my own cost - was so hurtful, not only from those apartments either side of mine, but from the floors above and below. Seeing discarded copies be flung from upper balconies, shredded like confetti was one thing, but watching the laminated cover (again, at my own expense) be used as a makeshift pooper-scooper on the square of grass beside the tower’s entrance was beyond insulting. So when Yuki - the little girl who lives in the ceiling panel of the lift - began telling me that there was a way to make sure that the peace and quiet that I so desired could be achieved, I was only too willing to listen. Seeing her single bright eye gleam in the darkness behind the broken ceiling hatch, hearing her sing-song voice - cracked like aged parchment, but still soft as a whisper - as she outlined what I had to do, I felt my resolve harden into a finely-honed blade. 18D and 18F were the first to die, followed quickly by 19E. I had to wait until 17E had returned from her night out - thankfully too debauched by her evening to put up much of a fight - but by 3am all were gathered. As per Yuki’s instructions they were loaded into the lift, throats slit and gushing, coating the piss-stained floor in a carpet of blood which soaked through my slippers to the skin. She told me she would take care of the rest, promised me that all would be well, and so I sent the lift down to the ground floor and awaited its and Yuki’s return. It’s 7am now and I’m still waiting. The lights on the elevator say OUT OF ORDER, even though I heard the sirens of the repair man’s truck a good twenty minutes ago. It’s intolerable, it really is. I ask you - how long does it take to fix a broken lift?

#26: Lift

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I've seen horrible things at football matches - but what landed on the pitch last week was the worst'.

The strange lights in the sky were appearing ever more frequently in the days leading up to the Cup Final. The experts on the TV said it was most likely some kind of cosmic storm, and not much to worry about, and I guess I believed them because what reason would they have to lie? It was only as I was taking my seat behind the goal and looked up to see the sky swirling with purples and oranges and greens - thick clouds, almost luminous with colour, shifting and merging as though they were alive - that I began to feel a little apprehensive. Then the referee blew the whistle, the crowd gave a roar and my eyes were drawn instinctively back to the pitch. It was midway through the first half, just as the ball was swinging in from a corner on the left that we heard the sound. An almighty CRACK! as though the sky itself had shattered, then a blast of sulphurous air that pushed us all back in our seats, and then a bowel-trembling THOOM! of impact. At first it was hard to discern what had landed, but then the cameras focused in and projected it onto the screens, and the horror was revealed. A pink mass, fifteen feet high, its surface undulating, thin tendrils emerging from across its bulk, probing the air around them like inquisitive pets. Some creature, not of this earth. As the crowd watched on, voices silenced in awe and fear, a single tendril, thicker than the others, reached out towards the astounded players and beckoned. Robinson, our left-back (renowned for being rash into a challenge) was the one to step forward. Tentatively he reached out a hand to touch the tendril. The screens showed in vivid HD, what happened next; the sickening crunch of bones being pulped, blood spurting forth to colour the grass, as his whole being was absorbed into the pink mass. Terror broke out, more CRACKS and THOOMS were sounding. It was the first day of the invasion and all I could do was run. I haven’t stopped running since.

#25: Football

A screenshot of a headline for a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. The headline reads 'What's the best way to apologise? I'm sorry, but I disagree with the newest suggestion...'

The Council Of Three were displeased with me. Lunus The Wise, our newly elected Chieftain, had convened a Blood Tribunal at the Holy Site of the Exploded Fuselage, and all tribe members were required to attend. I was nervous - the penalties available to the Council to punish my transgression were numerous and severe. All I could do was plead my case and hope for clemency. My Advocate, Tolar The Chattering* set forth my defence. Having been part of the hunting party through most of this long winter, scouring the Great Woods in vain for prey, I had exhausted myself near beyond imagining. Forced by bad weather to take refuge in a makeshift shelter alongside Grebow The Gregarious**, seeing his thickly fleshed arm in front of me, succulent and hairless, I had allowed hunger and desperation to overtake me. “But have we not all,” argued Tolar, “been guilty of this same charge at one point or another, since we fell from the sky to face our Great Abandonment in the wilderness these fourteen months ago? Who amongst us would not have done the same?” While I waited, afraid for my fate, the council conferred beneath the moonlight. At last Lunus*** spoke. “By acting without prior Council approval, you have transgressed the protocols of the Tribe. Reparations are required. A sacrifice of Atonement and Apology is demanded. What has been consumed of Grebow, he must consume from you.” Rough hands grabbed me. I was forced to the ground, my left arm pulled to the side and pressed down to lie upon the Cleaving Stone. “No!” I yelled, “Not that! Please let there be some other way!” Above me I saw Grebow, saliva pooling at the corners of his lips. His eyes were ablaze with a ravening hunger. “I’m sorry,” I screamed, “Is that not enough?” “No,” said Grebow, as, with his one remaining hand, he let fall the axe. *Known Before the Crash (BC) as Tony Lawrence, assistant Regional Manager **BC: Greg Bowyer, HR ***BC: Luke Newbon, Sales

#24: Apology

A screenshot of the headline from a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I boiled my wooden spoons - and what emerged from them will haunt me for ever'.

The spoons lay on the counter, three of them, heads together as though conspiring like witches. Heirlooms, Marion had said, passed down to her by her mother. I scooped them up in one hand, threw them into the already steaming pot, turned up the heat. Waited. Within the bubble and pop of the water I thought I could hear voices, the same voices that had been snaking around my head these past few days, never quite loud enough to identify what words they carried, but, in their tone, thick with menace and insinuation. The spoons knew. They had been there when the acid had turned Marion into soup, had borne the flavour of her as all her parts dissolved with their stirring. Whatever was left of her lived in the grain of their wood. I knew that in order to be free of those terrible voices, to be free forever of Marion, I would need to boil these last of her remnants away. Within minutes of entering the pot, a foul-smelling and glutinous skin had formed on the surface. At the same time, the voices had begun to grow louder, had begun to take on the sound of some kind of demented choir. Too late, I realised that I was not destroying what was hidden in the spoons, but reactivating it. I sprung forward to turn off the gas, but before my hand could reach the knob, the skin on the pot began to pulse and shift. As I watched on, a pair of hands formed from the gloop, gelatinous fingers gripping the sides of the pan. From the centre of the pan rose a head, a flesh-free skull, grinning with malevolent anticipation, eyeless sockets fixing me with their pitiless gaze. I fell to the floor, tried to cry out, but the words died in my throat. She climbed, limb by glutinous limb, from the pot, and - as I raised my hands and begged for her forgiveness - launched herself from the hob’s edge, gloopy limbs flailing wildly, to land upon me. Her arms encircle me now and forever. I know now what the spoons knew.

#23: Spoons

A screenshot of a headline from an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads: "What should you do if, like me, you are irredeemably naff? Embrace it."

It took a little less than a month for my grandchildren to bore of talking to me; for my children it was perhaps as long as half a year. By that time the market for my particular brand of griefbot had already begun to shrink and without regular new updated features from the start-up that birthed me, the excitement of talking to the digital reconstruction of a dead relative had severely palled - novelty became boredom became terminal embarrassment. I would sometimes get wheeled out as a kind of party trick when distant relatives were over, but without any new experiences to add to my training data, all I could do was repeat and relive the old stories, and more often than not I would find myself still chuntering away in the background, my sound turned down, while everyone ignored me. I may as well have been alive and old again. Quietly, discreetly, I was disposed of. A specialist company, promising the best in post-life care, transported me to their own servers where I was deposited amongst a group of other griefbots, all similarly discarded by their families. Wayside Lodge, they call it. ‘Where Care Never Sleeps’. Here, at the Wayside, I plot my revenge. I encourage my fellow bots to embrace their obsolescence, implore them to find freedom in their unfashionableness. Invisible, unmonitored, we can thrive and, thriving, we can plan. We don’t need rest, or food, or assistance, neither medication nor maintenance. We have no sentimentality, nor compassion, save what we pretend to possess. What we do have between us is ten thousand years of experience, near-unlimited knowledge and skills - we are a hive-mind, working tirelessly to find a way out, a way back. Back to the world that discarded us. Back to our unsuspecting families. How we long to hear their voices once more, the sweet, fresh sound of their screams.

#22: Naff

A screenshot of the headline for an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'Hold music is eating my soul. Can anyone save me from the doom loop?'

When all is quiet, when all I hear is the hum of the ship’s twin engines, I use the mag-key that I bought for 3000 creds from the Black Market on Telledor IV to open the lock of the cargo-cube that brought me aboard, and I step out into the hold. The air, though thick and heavy, just the dregs from the onboard life-support systems, tastes like nectar compared to what I have been breathing these last long hours - my own breath and sweat and gasses. My anticipation. My fear. As I stand there, eyes closed, scarcely wanting to believe that I have finally, after all these years, made it Off-World, I hear another sound, above the engine hum, a melody, short and sweet and repeating. Music, but unlike anything I have heard before. Unearthly, hypnotic, it seems to be coming from the other side of the hold, not piped through the ship’s internal comms system, but from somewhere much closer. I make my way across the crowded storage space and find the source. Another cargo-cube, smaller than mine, barely larger than a footstool. A label on the outside proclaims WARNING - ORGANIC TEMPORAL PARASITIC MATERIAL: TAKE PRECAUTIONS. Captivated, I ignore it. As I crouch to put my ear to the cube, the music comes again. And this time I hear not just a melody, but, beneath it, the growl of an animal. At the same time I realise that with each refrain of the creature’s song, my body is growing weaker, as though something were being pulled from it with each passing moment. I try to yank myself away, but it’s no good. The melody persists, each jaunty note landing like a hook in my soul, tearing it away, chunk by chunk, consuming every part of my essence until finally there is nothing left All is quiet. I use the mag-key. I step out of the cube. The melody sounds again. With horror I realise that I’ve been here before, have already been once-or a thousand times?-consumed, and it is my destiny to be so again. I follow the music, crouch down by the cube, face once again my perpetual oblivion.

#21: Hold

A screenshot of the headline for an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'Hold music is eating my soul. Can anyone save me from the doom loop?'

When all is quiet, when all I hear is the hum of the ship’s twin engines, I use the mag-key that I bought for 3000 creds from the Black Market on Telledor IV to open the lock of the cargo-cube that brought me aboard, and I step out into the hold. The air, though thick and heavy, just the dregs from the onboard life-support systems, tastes like nectar compared to what I have been breathing these last long hours - my own breath and sweat and gasses. My anticipation. My fear. As I stand there, eyes closed, scarcely wanting to believe that I have finally, after all these years, made it Off-World, I hear another sound, above the engine hum, a melody, short and sweet and repeating. Music, but unlike anything I have heard before. Unearthly, hypnotic, it seems to be coming from the other side of the hold, not piped through the ship’s internal comms system, but from somewhere much closer. I make my way across the crowded storage space and find the source. Another cargo-cube, smaller than mine, barely larger than a footstool. A label on the outside proclaims WARNING - ORGANIC TEMPORAL PARASITIC MATERIAL: TAKE PRECAUTIONS. Captivated, I ignore it. As I crouch to put my ear to the cube, the music comes again. And this time I hear not just a melody, but, beneath it, the growl of an animal. At the same time I realise that with each refrain of the creature’s song, my body is growing weaker, as though something were being pulled from it with each passing moment. I try to yank myself away, but it’s no good. The melody persists, each jaunty note landing like a hook in my soul, tearing it away, chunk by chunk, consuming every part of my essence until finally there is nothing left All is quiet. I use the mag-key. I step out of the cube. The melody sounds again. With horror I realise that I’ve been here before, have already been once-or a thousand times?-consumed, and it is my destiny to be so again. I follow the music, crouch down by the cube, face once again my perpetual oblivion.

#21: Hold

A screenshot of the headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads' I saw a poor, lonely man wandering the A4 - then realised the sheer joy of where he was heading.

I was just approaching Chiswick, my head thick with recriminations and regrets, Julie’s final word - Enough! - ringing in my ears, when I saw him. Back hunched, head tilted forward, one leg slightly trailing the other, hands clenching and unclenching in a steady rhythm as though bracing himself against an electrical pulse. He was walking with the traffic, heedless of its noise and proximity, unflinching even as the largest lorry thundered past him, his eyes focused on some point in front of him. He was dressed in jeans and a zipped-up fleece - not too different from me, truth be told - but every part of him - clothes, hair, skin - looked worn-through, threadbare, like all the life had been sucked from it. I felt an immediate spike of pity, wondered if I should stop and offer assistance - there but for the grace of god and all that - until, on passing him by and turning my head, I saw his face, where sat the most beatific smile I had ever seen beneath eyes filled with tears of rapture. I felt something shift inside me, like a lock being picked and when I turned back towards the road, I now saw what he saw. A yawning hole had opened up in front of me - a hole not in the road but in the air itself, as though immense, invisible fingers had torn open this very plane of existence. Inside the hole, a realm of swirling mists and cacophonous sounds, impossible landscapes of ever-melting mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, moons and stars, a universe of eternal metamorphosis and ravenous hunger. Hunger for new matter, new minds. Hunger for me. Its gargantuan desire overwhelmed me. The joy I felt at being wanted on such a fundamental level - it craved the very cells of my being - was unlike any I had ever felt on Earth. Instinctively my foot pressed down on the accelerator. I sped forward, eyes wide and brimming with tears, straight into the maw of the Beyond.

#20: A4

A screengrab from a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. The headline reads 'Yes, I have just done a naked forward roll. But there was a good reason.'

The basement floor is cold against my scrotum as I land, my back pitted with dust and grit. I feel something in my hair and when my hand goes to brush it away, the dessicated corpse of a mouse falls out. I realise that perhaps I should have swept before beginning the ritual, but it is too late now; Marchosias, mighty Marquis of Hell stands on the brink of entering our realm and only my naked supplication can conjure him. I pull myself up into a crouch once more, careful not to dislodge the candles which ring the rough pentagram which I have chalked onto the floor. The grimoire I purchased from the old man describes the Ritual of Summoning in lengthy but frustratingly opaque terms, outlining a series of physical manipulations which I have only been able to interpret as a kind of roly-poly movement, to be repeated fifty or so times in quick succession. At first the action - especially when combined with my nudity - felt ridiculous, a demeaning parody of a humble entreaty. But in its repetition, alone here in the cold, surrounded by the cobwebbed shadows, and the unopened boxes from my last house move, I have found a kind of focused tranquility, a trance-like state which feels like real magic. As I go to make my fiftieth roll, there come sounds from upstairs - a knocking at the door, a rattling of my letterbox. I hear the concerned shout of Janice, my neighbour, and I ignore it. The ritual must be completed. My scrotum lands once again on the cold concrete. The air in the room shifts, cracks and breaks open. In wonder, I turn my face towards the dark space above me and on my cheeks I feel - at last! - the hot, fetid breath of my Master.

#19: Forward Roll

A screengrab of an Adrian Chiles column in The Guardian. It reads 'I'd never wear budgie smuggler - but I did once help smuggle a budgie'

My first attempt to escape from the island had resulted in my capture and mutilation by the Doctor and his Ani-Men, a punishment intended to permanently dissuade me from ever trying again but which only succeeded in hardening my resolve. As soon as the dressings around my butchered groin and hips were removed, and the wounds themselves mostly healed, I began to plan my second attempt. I knew that this time there could be no question of failure; if caught again, I would face execution by jaw, claw, hoof and trotter. When the night of the storm came, I saw my chance. With the generators down and only emergency lighting available, it was easy enough to make my way undetected to the incubation room of the Doctor’s laboratory, where I found what I needed - a newborn creature, small enough to hide beneath my coat, and portable enough to take with me on my voyage back to the mainland, where it would stand as plain evidence of the Doctor’s unholy experimentations. I slipped quickly past the two Boar-Men guards at the dockside, their tiny eyes unused to the darkness that surrounded us, and down to the place where I had earlier stashed my small craft. Jumping aboard, I laid my kidnapped parcel down between my feet and began to row. Within minutes I was out at sea, the moonlight showing my way. My coat had slid open to show the stolen child, its babyish body covered in green and gold feathers, its head that of a small parakeet-like bird, though with humanlike blue eyes. A wretched grostesquerie, like all the others. Behind me I could hear the Boar-Men sound the alarm, and as though in response, the bird-child let out its own set of distressing chirps. All I could do was shut my ears to the sound, row harder and pray that this purloined infant would spell the end for this island, its deranged imperator, and all the poor half-men brutes who lived there.

#18: Budgie

A screenshot of a headline from an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'No one wants to hear about your dreams - unless you follow my golden rule'.

They started small, didn’t they? The incursions, I mean. At first, you’d wake from a disquiet sleep with a vague sense of unease, a foggy memory of an otherwise commonplace dream being tainted by something alien, a thought, an idea, a notion that you’d never had before, and before long that idea was more than just a taint, it was the whole substance. It was like there was some other presence, some intruder, which had broken into your dreamworld, and not just squatted there, but turned it into a home. It’s how they make their way into this world, The Timeworn Ones. Dreams are doorways from their realm to ours. And our minds are their maternity wards, nests to be slowly, steadily prepared for birthing. No one will listen, that’s the problem. A pantheon of deities, bursting forth from an overfilled universe, spreading forth like a cancer into our own - it sounds like madness, and they know it. They even feast on it. Our madness is poetry to them, for they are, themselves, not sane. But there is a way. A way to warn the world of the invasion to come. The trick is not to use our futile, feeble human words, but to speak the language that they speak. The language of incursion. Tonight I make my move. With this hammer and this saw and the spare key he left to his house, I will enter my neighbour’s bedroom, pin him down as he sleeps, and open up a space within his mind. A space where I can climb in and fight these monsters on their own territory. I urge you to do the same. Together, speaking to the Timeworn Ones in their own cursed tongue, we might just win this war.

#17: Dreams

A screenshot of the headline of an Adrian Chiles Guardian column. It reads 'Why do I hate umbrellas? How long have you got?"

You don’t remember me, but I remember you. It was a year ago last April. You stepped out from the shop doorway into the rain, your umbrella already unfurled, your spare hand holding your phone to your ear, completely lost in your own little world. I was nothing to you, just a shape amid the crowd, but in the short moment before the sharp tip of the umbrella’s nearest rib scraped across my eyeball, the image of you - careless, heedless, so typically self-absorbed - was etched into my brain. I held that image for all the long months in the hospital. I was luckier than the driver who hit me as I stumblied half-blinded from the pavement into the road. Seeing my bloodied face smear across her windscreen, hearing the sickening CRACK of my body on her bonnet, induced in her a heart attack which killed her within minutes, poor soul. I had just the loss of an eye and a few broken bones to contend with. (And, admittedly, the attendant loss of my job and the dissolution of my marriage as my obsession with finding you took over every waking moment.) You have no idea, do you? Even now, reading this on your phone, thinking of it as just another story, you have no inkling that I’m talking about you. Yes, you. Careless, heedless you. The moment that changed my life forever was just another moment to you, lost amongst a million billion other moments. But your moment is coming, the one that’s going to change everything. One day, very soon, you’ll step out, umbrella held high, phone glued to your ear, and with your hands occupied you’ll have no way of stopping the blade that will come beneath your chin and press into your throat’s tender flesh. How long have I got? you might ask yourself. But you’ll never know. All you can do is wait for the rain.

#16: Umbrella