41. Imagining Imaginings and Doughnut Brittle
The second of my fiction ‘Ben’ Nevis short stories. This time Ben is not on the side of a mountain in Yorkshire but in the busy heart of London.
I have been experimenting with writing speculative fiction short stories to explore how I think about the world. The first of these, Cold Weather, Warm Data, was publishing by the wonderful Unpsychology magazine last year as part of their Warm Data special issue with Nora Bateson. I reproduced the story here earlier this year and you can read it free. The latest issue of Unpsychology is on the theme of Imaginings (with two volumes both available as PDF downloads and to buy as beautiful print editions). I wondered how my hero Alexander ‘Ben’ Nevis, a scientific type, would fare when faced with the challange of imagining. Now read on…
Imagining Imaginings and Doughnut Brittle
Mark McKergow
A ‘Ben’ Nevis short story
I hate going to the city. Particularly London. The countryside is much more conducive to proper thinking, rational, precise, sorted, based on facts. That’s why I love to walk in places like the Yorkshire limestone country. Mind you, some pretty irrational things can happen there too, as I’ve reported here before.
So one day i had to come to London, and was in Piccadilly Circus, the very heart of the West End where theatreland meets shopping paradise meets tourist traders meets flashing signs meets hustle meets bustle. My meeting at the Royal Institution (founded in 1799, one of the oldest scientific societies in the world) was an hour away. Fifty eight minutes, to be exact. It’s good to be exact. The Institution is in Albemarle street, a few hundred yards away, which my phone said would take me nine minutes to walk. What to do for the next forty-nine minutes?
I wandered over to the statue in the middle of the circus. Folk always say this is a statue of Eros, the Greek god of love. However, sculptor Sir Albert Gilbert made him as Anteros, the god of reciprocated love or counter-love, in honour of Victorian philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury who loved his fellow people. Anteros was Eros’ brother; they look similar, but look closely and you can see his distinctive long hair and plumed butterfly wings. Gilbert knew what he was on about. Eros and Anteros are members of the Erotes, all winged deities with connections to love, sex and passion. Not much passion in the middle of a traffic island at just after nine in the morning though.
It has been said that if you sit by the statue of Anteros in Piccadilly circus for long enough you’ll meet everyone you have ever known in the world. Something about an infinite number of monkeys writing the works of Shakespeare in that idea, it seems to me. Unprovable, impossible, unrealistic and almost certainly untrue. “You’re missing your chance” I muttered under my breath to nobody in particular. I wouldn’t be back here for a while. If ever. Maybe.
I walked across to a little booth sitting near the Criterion Theatre at the corner of the Circus and Regent Street South, by Lillywhites sports shop. Lillywhites started off in 1863 selling cricketing goods and cigars. Now it’s Nike and no smoking paraphernalia of any kind. Progress, I suppose. The kiosk was a dull green colour and offered hop-on hop-off bus tour tickets in addition to the usual souvenir hats, keyrings, maps, soft drinks. “Fancy a bus trip sir?” said the tall chap behind the counter. “Don’t look as if you come from round here.”
I was about to argue when I caught a glimpse of myself in the shop window. He had a point. I didn’t exactly look like a city boy. With Gore-tex boots, Rohan trousers, anorak, scarf, bobble hat – you could tell I preferred the hills to the city. My name’s Alexander Nevis but everyone calls me Ben, after the mountain in Scotland. The gear works well up there. At least at the Royal Institution they want what you’ve got to teach, not what you’re wearing.
“No thanks” I replied. “No time.” Which wasn’t strictly true – I had forty-two minutes. Perhaps the slightest hesitation gave the game away, as the kiosk man came back at me.
“What would you like?”
“Sorry pardon?”
“What would you like? Something to eat, maybe?”
“What do you have?” I asked, a bit bemused.
“That’s not what I asked. What would you like? If you could have anything?”
“What’s the point of that? Is there a menu? So I can see what’s possible?”
“No menu, friend. No list. This isn’t a choice, it’s an imagining.”
“That’s no use! I’m a scientist. I deal in facts. Like what’s on the menu. Peer-reviewed facts, preferably. Agreed by sane and informed professionals. So, again, what do you have?”
“I don’t have anything, mate. There isn’t anything - until you call it. So try something here… what do you really like eating?”
“Umm… well… maybe… doughnuts.”
“Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere. What kind of doughnuts?”
“The ones with jam in the middle… no! The ones with nuts on and chocolate sauce”. My mouth started watering.
“And what else do you really like eating. No limits now…?”
“Hazelnut brittle… Crunchiness, sugar, naughty, nutty… bash it up and share it out…”. I could almost feel the sugar rush coming on.
“OK! So, now, what might happen if you put them together?”
“Apart from a lot of sugar?”
The kiosk guy chuckled. “Not just put them together pal, what if you actually combined them? Made a new thing?”
“What, you mean ‘doughnut brittle’?”
“Ah… yes, could be. Tell me more about this donut brittle.”
“But it doesn’t exist!”
“Ah, but it does. At least, it just started. You called it. And until you call it, it isn’t. And now it is. So, how is it?”
I have no idea how we’d managed to get to this point. Just a couple of minutes ago I was minding my own business with a statue. And now, apparently from nothing, I was pitched into another world. There was silence. I realise that the bustle had stopped and all there was was me, the kiosk guy and a sense of potential.
“Erm…. Doughnut brittle… It’s… brittle with, um, doughnuts. Tiny little donuts…. No, it’s got that lovely yeasty doughy taste and it’s also crunchy… and the nuts are all through it, not on it.
“Go on, mate… you’re doing champion!” Maybe he wasn’t from round here either?
“And there’s chocolate sauce – in the middle!” I continue, picking up the pace as things start to expand further. “So maybe it’s bite-sized, kind of egg sized… no, that won’t work if it’s too brittle… wait, yes it does! If the outside is brittle and the inside creamy, and it tastes doughnutty, wow…”. I faded into a wan sense of fascination with this new and so delectable morsel.
“What else can it do?” asks the kiosk guy. What a strange question. Food doesn’t do anything, surely.
“You’re thinking that’s a rum question, aren’t you? ‘What can it do?’ is a much more interesting question than ‘What is it?’. Takes us into a whole new area of emergent futures we haven’t yet seen or even thought of.”
I pause. What could it do? Be an amazing gift? Act as part of a game involving eating the pieces? Challenge the dominant narrative of how crunchy and doughy can’t coexist? Park its tanks on the cronut’s lawn? Cronuts – hrmph, they’re just croissants fried with cream inners. Bread on a dirty weekend in Paris.
“Well…. How about they’re sold as a uniquely desirable gift… connected to a game… about paradox and fuzzy logic…, to be played in an erotically charged environment? In Paris?”
“What else could it do?”
“Be an iconic example of strangeness? The kind of thing people eat in secret – all together? Parties of doughnut brittle eaters meeting secretly in discreet suburban houses… Supplies hard to get but I know a guy who knows Big Sam from Peckham who can get them from Denmark, that kind of thing?”
I looked up. The kiosk guy nodded. “That’ll do” he said. I feel kind of dizzy, breathing a bit heavily and yet elated. The traffic noise comes back. I glance at my watch. Twelve minutes until my meeting. Where did the time go? Half an hour. And yet I’ve been somewhere new, seen something that nobody’s ever seen before as far as I know, and it’s all been created right here on a traffic island.
“Cheerio pal. See what happens when you call something new and see what it can do? Imagine…”
He pulled down the shutters emphatically. I gathered myself and set off for the Institution. What could doughnut brittle do? At the traffic lights I started to think about red and green ones. Maybe green with a red filling? Halloween! And the zebra crossing – black and white stripes., like a piano keyboard… maybe get them endorsed by Jools Holland? On TV. At New Year’s Eve. Hootenanny!
I walked along Piccadilly towards Albermarle Street and each turning I passed give another kick to the possibilities. Air Street – make ‘em light as a feather! Vine Street – wine flavoured versions for before and after dinner. Particularly afterwards. With port, brandy or scotch. Sackville Street – take a leaf out of Vita Sackville-West’s book Orlando and have a mix of delights for men, women, and more.
I turned up Albemarle Street and walked along to the Royal Institution. I looked into the café on my way past; Tunnock’s Teacakes, pain au chocolat – but no doughtnut brittle! The dream is on!
Dates and mates
Unpsychology magazine is a wonderful publication edited by Steve Thorp and Julia Macintosh who carefully sort through, edit and produce it as a labout of love. They cover all kinds of things exploring mind, culture, ecology, psychology and soul. The next issue 10 has the theme Edges; the closing date is February 2024. Why not submit something creative for publication?
Better still, Unpsychology is on Substack! If you’re here, it’s easy to give them a follow.
Steps To A Humanity Of Organisation is now taking a break over the festive season. We’ll be back on Wednesday 10th January 2024. All the best to you for a peaceful, restorative and happy time.
Enjoy the festive time, Mark!