One Remarkable Thing

Chapter 6.

REMARKABLE SCREAM: PHD Candidate Francis Ink’s fiancé proposed to her with a ring wrapped around the protruding waist of an unnamed, unsettling, unkempt doll of a troll. While romantic at the time, now even a cursory glance at a troll in any form leads to a one-two hour panic attack and the complete loss of a day.

PHD candidate Francis Ink’s fiancé left her to move to Peru. In turn, PHD Candidate Francis Ink found herself briefly obsessed with the cup-sport “Speed Stacking”, going as far as to attend and document the National Speed Stacking League (NSSL) finals in Galveston, Texas. Entranced, the academic pivoted her thesis to follow the league’s top athlete - thirteen year old Bobby Gubbin - on his journey to break the formidable 4.753 second barrier. This thesis, she felt, was far more compelling than her previous study on Bridge Trolls which, after four years, she found dated, dull, and - for reasons now obvious - despairing.

This revised – and remarkable – thesis was unfortunately lost when an airport baggage handler booted her suitcase off the Galveston runway and into an unlit snow drift for reasons unknown.

PHD Candidate Francis Ink faced a lengthy compensation process and a looming thesis deadline. On the plane back home - after a two hour panic attack - she analysed her final talk with Bobby Gubbin which had been a charged, inspirational affair at a roadside Denny’s. What was it that drove Bobby Gubbin to his level? Why did he try so hard at something so inane? Why did she purchase so many bottles of the discounted Uncle Uncs Hot Sauce from that Denny’s sales rep? If she had not had stuffed so many of these bottles in her bag would she have been able to get a ‘carry on’ and therefore avoid this entire claustrophobic pressurised hellscape? Was a Denny’s hot sauce rep to blame for the destruction of her academic career? Or was this all a complete blundering mistake of an over-emotional erratic idiot person who had dedicated their life to the study of a toll-wielding fantastical creature of no cultural or sociological significance?

While inhaling a paper bag, a particular notch on the corkboard of Bobby Gubbin’s athletic mind struck PHD Candidate Francis Ink right between the eyes; Bobby believed that people only got One Remarkable Thing. One Remarkable Thing to distinguish their life from the rest. One Remarkable Thing amongst a sea of ordinary acts. If this was true, then what was PHD Candidate Francis Ink’s one remarkable thing? She hoped to fuck that it wasn’t trolls. Dear god, do not let it be trolls.

The idea upset PHD Candidate Francis Ink to such an extent that she began to scream at an incredible volume with an incredible inability to stop. Eventually, the plane was forced into an emergency landing in Nova Scotia where PHD Candidate Francis Ink was forcibly removed from the aircraft by a short and gruff in a charming sort of way Airport Security Officer named Hank. While driving to airport jail in the back of Hank’s electric, airport-issue golf cart, the two – remarkably – fell in love.

Francis Ink never got on a plane again. In lieu, she devoted herself to a local cattery and by the end of her life had saved and re-homed seventeen thousand cats.

Her original Bridge Troll thesis was years later discovered in a university library archive where it was heavily criticised and ultimately discarded.

REMARKABLE PARROT. At some point Keith stopped thinking about the fact his bird was speaking to him and more about the depth of their conversations. Samantha, a red parrot, had been his Grandfather’s, and Samantha’s Grandfather had been Keith’s great great Grandfather’s. And so on. Keith found himself at the front of a steaming train filled with birds that had never quite seen from their view. It had been about 9AM last Tuesday morning when Samantha had enquired about which herbal teas Keith had in at the moment. While perusing the tea jar, Keith was blindsided with the realisation that this should never be the concern of birds. He opened the cage then the window and out Samantha flew, upsetting the various grandfathers he had never met and leaving his house far emptier than he had anticipated.

REMARKABLE SPLEEN. New York Liberty were up seven points against the Minnesota Lynx according to the wall-mounted television set that was up far too high for comfortable viewing. Dr Steppenhoe found his neck in an increasing crick as he worked on repairing the damaged spleen of the child - he made special effort to not learn their names - on the table in front of him. The building shivered from nearing bombs, the lights flickered, and the signal briefly cut out of the wall mounted television set just as the Minnesota Lynx charged for a heroic recovery. Dr Steppenhoe grimaced as a Giant Annoying Nurse blocked his view while passing a freshly sterilised scalpel.

“Losing”

“Damn right,” Dr Steppenhoe thought. She had a lot of money on the Minnesota Lynx. Another shake of the building. A flick of a scalpel. “Rats”, she internalised, staring at her freshly severed artery. A prolonged, steady machine drone sang Dr Steppenhoe out of this world as she collapsed to the floor. The Giant Annoying Nurse stepped forward, fresh scalpel in hand and set to work on the child’s spleen. The beeping returned to a steady, regular sequence and the television set cheered as the Minnesota Lynx equalised in the last few seconds. The building shook. Overtime.

The Giant Annoying Nurse was blown up later that evening. The Minnesota Lynx came fifth in the season. The child is now a man.

REMARKABLE FIRE: Charlotte was largely static in life apart from that one time she ran into the burning kitchen of the sandwich shop next door to pull out the heroin-nodding chef she often feuded with over parking spaces.

REMARKABLE GROYNE: The morning an electric blue Toyota Aygo obliterated Hubert’s fence he was in the process of mindlessly packing a bag for a job he neither cared for nor was particularly good at. It was only upon noticing the large piece of fence embedded in the rear left tire of his gun-metal grey Fiat Punto that he decided to do something about it. After a short, droning call with Boss Matthew he spent the unpaid day of leave digging holes and hammering posts. He had so much fun, in fact, that upon completion of his repair, he continued on with the fence. Stretching first across his driveway, then the road, through his neighbours garden, over into the woods, the motorway, the next town along, and so on until he hit the sea. At its lowest, the tide still reveals a barnacled, slimy, incredibly well constructed fence with no discernible end. Huberts role was filled by the end of the month.

REMARKABLE GETUP: The decision to get out of bed the day after the event was without question the most remarkable and uncharacteristic feat of strength in the otherwise unsatisfactory life of the resident of flat 13B.

REMARKABLE OUT THERE: He never learned the official term for it - if there even was one. He only knew it as ‘out there’. He often ran around the outskirts. Starting by lacing up His shoes and tapping the cracked concrete of the step to His front door. Then jogging down His street. Then a few more streets that He had no real connection to. Under the main road. Through the park – unless that group of teens were there. Then all the way up the old logging road until He was able to see ‘out there’. At which point He would turn right - never left - keeping ‘out there’ in His eyeline as He followed what He thought to be an old wild pig run but was actually a filled in trench from when the council dug in an ultimately doomed sewer line in the 80’s. Ending at a large cement block of no apparent purpose, He would take another right and leave ‘out there’ in His dust. As the years span on so did He. ‘Out there’ became less of a concern, but in unexpected moments He remembers the intense hold it had on the person He no longer recognises. ‘Out there’, for a time, really sucked an orbit.

Looking back at the time of ‘out there’, He is often baffled by the things which were unquestioningly fundamental at the time that he has not even gone so far as to consider for years. For example, at that time He really enjoyed a particular brand of instant coffee because it produced a distinct crema often lost in most store-bought instants. It also had this remarkable ability to only taste like shit 20% of the time. He had bought one tin of this coffee a week for almost a year before the local discount supermarket hiked the prices by 86p and He - without really acknowledging it - never bought it again. There was a folk album He listened to every morning for 3 weeks while the seasons were changing from winter to spring and the days were getting longer, the winds calmer, and the skies gloriously grey. He always thought He never liked the sunshine because of the obligation to embrace it, yet He always found himself happier when it was nice outside even if He was doing the same things He did when it was cold. This really annoyed Him because it made Him feel as simple and plant-like as everybody else. Even so, one morning He woke up and did not listen to the album or think about her in the way He had been and He tapped the concrete of His doorstep after tying His shoes and listened to something else entirely and come to think of it that was the last time He laid eyes on ‘out there’,

He had since moved away. He was in a busier place now. Everything clearly labelled and sign posted. His front door did not have a step and the closest piece of land that wasn’t smothered in concrete was a one hour train ride and even then it was cut up with well marked and maintained trails that should not be stepped off of. Would He be somewhere else had He gone ‘out there’? Would He be someone else entirely? He had been very focused on who He was at that time - painstakingly so, leafing through notes

He handmade in His mind hoping the scraps of paper would fold themselves into a book, or at least some form of easily scannable leaflet reminding him who He was and why He was there. All the while He neglected to look up from the back of His eyes and take in the smaller, tactile truths of His existence to date like how much He enjoyed and missed that instant coffee or the folk album or her or how much He spent a small portion of His day every day staring at a very accessible patch of land. If He had gone ‘out there’ maybe He would be a different person, or maybe He wouldn’t even have noticed He finally went off the pig trail because He was too busy thinking about things that were no longer there or particularly mattered. ‘Out there’ was now ‘somewhere else’ and He had no idea where it was, but at least he had a firm grasp on what could have been which was - He finally acknowledged - fucking useless information.

He worried that perhaps He had missed His one remarkable thing. The opportunity to leap into the unknown and cement a purpose in the shape of the lingering ‘out there’ had passed Him by and now He was doomed to floating in a sparse liminal zone where that small population of missers loiter. A population of overthinkers, oversleepers, overindulgers condemned to obscurity. Or perhaps it would just be Him.

While He lies in bed each night methodically trudging along His well-trodden pig trail of a life, unbeknownst to Him, ‘out there’ is still ready and waiting to be noticed; He’s just not looking.

REMARKABLE OUT THERE (2): Unc Furtaw lives ‘out there’ and fucking hates it there are too many bugs and despite his best efforts he is not one.

REMARKABLE BUGS: Mallory Bugson once saved her entire glow worm colony from certain, pesticide related death which left her with temporary blindness and permanent glory. Despite these heroics, she would consider her most remarkable moment being glowing in the face of Unc Furtaw as he was succumbing to the final throes of hypothermia after a five year and seven day long narcotics bender. Mallory Bugson’s tiny glow ignited a tiny, thought-to-be-dead hearth of soul within the shell of Unc Furtaw and ultimately sparked an unstoppable momentum towards a perfectly acceptable woodsman, chili farmer, and friend.

So yes, her remarkable thing is either that, or Mallory’s husband Horacio. She did love Horacio.

REMARKABLE OUT THERE (2.1) After some thought Unc would like to retract his previous response and addend that his remarkable moment was actually selling his first bottle of Uncle Unc’s Hot Sauce to Farmer Mahone as he has great connections to roadside diners and a really fit wife. He also met a bug.

REMARKABLE NOW: Stevie is in the process of doing her one remarkable thing and she won’t tell anyone what it is.

REMARKABLE TROLLS: While looking for a place to smoke a joint, undergraduate Gina Hina-Vina discovered a half-finished thesis on trolls stuffed on a shelf in her university library archives. Enraptured, Gina Hina-Vina spent the entire evening and early morning reading. She ended up falling asleep into a book about local myths and legends around 7AM which caused her to miss her economics final and ultimately led to her failing to complete her final year. In protest, Gina Hina-Vina refused to leave the library archives. To date, she has been there forty two years and become something of a public figure.

REMARKABLE CUPS: Thirteen year old Bobby Gubbin had always been big for his age. He had been at the top of the National Speed Stacking League (NSSL) for the past three years and hated every minute of it. Unable to even look at cups with a non-athletic mindset, Bobby had recently been confined to drinking out of bowls following an unexpectedly explosive incident at a road-side Denny’s. Yes, very funny, Bobby had thought. It is a stack of pancakes! No, haha, not quite the same as a stack of- Yes, haha, you’re right, he had spat out through gritted teeth. Yes, maybe they should replace the cups with- enamel grinding into nerves - that would be better wouldn’t it? You’d like that wouldn’t you? That would make you feel special wouldn’t it? How’d you like me to STACK these CUPS through YOUR HEAD?! And just like that, he was no longer welcome in any regional Denny’s branches.

Of course, this had been after his successful record breaking attempt in Galveston, Texas. The 4.753 barrier shunted to a hefty 4.751. And with such a victory came the inevitable hollow vase of a skull as Bobby was finally able to take a good look at the spoils of his efforts. I mean really, what was the point? What was the goddamn point? He had missed birthdays for 0.002 seconds of touching cups. Jesus Christ. He didn’t have a friend in the world but he did have 0.002 seconds. What was next? 4.749? 4.748? Years of chipping away at a fraction before the inevitable slug through the eye socket in the car park of a roadside pancake house he wasn’t allowed through the doors of.

That was unless Bobby Gubbin changed something. Re-wrote the thought-to-be-written. Furious fists pounding into the fibre-optics of time. This did not need to be his story. He was Bobby Goddamn Gubbin - master of time.

The snow was beginning to catch in his eyelashes. He had numbed to the cold hours before while waiting in the trench, but this was a healthy reminder to pick his feet up a notch. Getting through the fence had been a real time sink, but he had loved the feeling of prying metal with his bare hands. Anything other than cups in his fingers felt like touching a tesla coil. Zap! He couldn’t get enough.

The wet, slippery grass turned to wet, slippery tarmac under foot and he picked up his pace. He was now exposed under bright flood lights. Security may be lacklustre, but they weren’t complete dolts. Prepared and deeply impressed with himself, Bobby pulled out a high-vis vest from his maple-stained tracksuit pocket. The con-man's invisibility cloak. Once on, he dropped his pace. Calm returned. He was supposed to be there. Visibly invisible. He was Bobby Gubbin, professional athlete.

Sounds of life and machines began to rev up. The hum of an engine. The beeps of reversing vehicles.The footfall and plastic-wheeled buzz of the excitable, tipsy wanderer. Bobby checked the inky scrawl on his hand: D4G62245. At least that’s what he thought it said. Sweat and snow had had their way with the lettering. A plane flew low overhead. He checked his watch: bang on time, Bobby Gubbin doesn’t miss. A boxy vehicle towing multiple trailers whizzed past him. Bobby raised a hand, caught the vehicle, and swung into the passenger seat. The tired-eyed Driver looked at Bobby, his high vis, nodded, drove on; Bobby Gubbin had always been big for his age.

The boxy vehicle pulled to a sharp, electric halt next to a large aeroplane waiting for them on the runway. The sudden jolt sparked the unmistakable sound of a large stack of suitcases falling down in the trailer behind them. Bobby hopped out of the over-engineered golf cart alongside his middle-aged colleague with the tired eyes and set to work loading the fallen suitcases into the open, exposed belly of the aircraft. He checked each suitcase quickly, methodically, for the crucial marker he had spotted through the window of the roadside Denny’s. The suitcase filled with an unnatural level of discounted hot sauce upsold by a jittery waitress, as well as, crucially, raw footage, notes, and audio tapes of his most recent record attempt, along with his final interview with PHD Candidate Francis Ink. An interview where he had devoted his life to the NSSL via binding verbal contract, as well as his most recent winnings to his sponsors - a neon green energy drink called GAS. Tossing it into the boot of her rental, Bobby saw clearer than he had ever seen before: his way out. Raw, unpasteurised opportunity. An unnamed, unsettling, unkempt troll keyring swinging from the zipper of an otherwise unremarkable black suitcase.

As Bobby sifted through the stack of suitcases with remarkable speed and efficiency, his middle-aged colleague raised a tired eye. These new kids, the colleague thought, don’t know the meaning of taking your time. Relax, kid! Stress isn’t going to get you anywhere. He grabbed a suitcase and was immediately confronted with the unmistakable sound of smashing glass from within. He froze. Eyes drifting off into a space only he knew. A spot in the near distance. The large black recycling bins stored outside the main terminal building. Oh god, he thought, I never left-

“OI”, Bobby yelled, “Put that down-”. But before Bobby could finish his sentence his tired-eyed colleague had taken flight. Their lanyard briefly snagged on the suitcase as he dropped it, swinging like the medallion of the insane. A choke, yelp, rip, and he was gone. Bobby rushed over and picked up the suitcase. There it was. A spikey-haired troll doll, now with an airport lanyard caught around its neck. ‘Martin’, the lanyard read, and Bobby chuckled. Odd name for a troll. Loose hot sauce leaked from the suitcase onto the gritted runway. Hands shaking, he went for the zipper. Shit! Padlocked. How had he not seen a great big padlock securing the zips. What was he supposed to do now? He can’t rip a padlock open with his dainty little cup hands-

“OI”. A deep yell soared through the wind. Airport security. The high-vis militia. All liars like him, no doubt. They would be there in a few seconds. He couldn’t open a locked suitcase in- what, four seconds? Four seconds. What was he talking about? He’s Bobby Goddamn Gubbin, four seconds is his goddamn wheelhouse. He owns four seconds. He takes four seconds for a walk around the park every morning. This is his. Damn. Dog. He glanced up at the plane and locked eyes with a gawping PHD Candidate Francis Ink through a small oval window. He smiled. Winked. And booted the suitcase into the shadows. As the suitcase disappeared into the abyss of the runway, Bobby

Gubbin outstretched his arms and appeared to briefly float. Seconds later he was submerged in a sea of muscular high vis.

At that moment, for the first time, Bobby was – remarkably – happy.

REMARKABLE SLIPPED DISK: Frank threw his back out tackling a terrorist on a small runway in Texas forcing him to undergo six weeks bedrest and a small course of opioids which he refused after the first week as a large tropical bird in the garden had begun talking to him. By week three he had the best sleep of his life. Frank’s friends and loved ones would note a distinct change in his disposition in these six weeks that lasted for the rest of his time. While happiness is just one of many emotions in the palette of human experience and cannot or ever should be a lifelong state, if you asked any number of Frank’s peers how he was after the accident, you would garner the same response: ‘Thank the lord for that hot sauce terrorist because we’ve got ourselves the old Frank back. But between you and me, that big red bird was askin’ me about chamomile.’