Statistics - English C/w - Got Full Marks *smirks*
Well, I got full marks for this. It's my coursework for my AS Level English Literature/Language exam, so I guess I worked hard on it. ;) I could post the commentary, which is about sentence structure and shiz, but I won't 'cause it's nearly 2000 words and it'll bore you. We could write about whatever we wanted, but unfortunately we had to look at some crappeh texts in class from which we can "be inspired by", i.e. pike ideas and stylistical syntactical/lexical features. The texts I studied were:
- Bliss by Katherine Mansfield
- Weekend by Fay Weldon
- Listen To The End by Tony Hunter
- Let Me Count The Times by Martin Amis
- Stone Trees by Jane Gardam.
The short story we wrote had to be no more than 1500 words.
I guess I wanted to write something emotive with lots of features in to write about in the stupid commentary, which accounts for 50% of the coursework grade. People who read my articles on Habbox from September 2004 to January 2006 will know my style, and this is very different. It is because we had to write in a similar style to the authors of our studied texts. =)
You may not pike this story in any way, shape or form for your own work without my express prior permission.
Statistics
Fred wasn’t very unusual, nothing unusual at all. Fred was nothing short of ordinary, in fact, Fred was ordinary. He was so unremarkable, so unremarkable, that if you saw him in the street you’d probably eye him for a second, momentarily note the ordinary mousy hair and the ordinary 5’ 11” of forty-something year old man and then absolutely fail to recall him if questioned later.
Not that anybody would question you later; Fred was just that ordinary. Unremarkable, unexceptional, unmemorable.
Fred worked at a factory, and had done for twenty years. He added up numbers in his cubicle, number twenty-seven. Added up the same numbers at the same desk, every day, for thirty years. It was an ordinary job. For thirty years he had added up numbers. One day he would be replaced by a machine who could add up numbers faster than him, every day, for however many years it would be until it needed to be replaced by a better machine.
At lunchtimes, Fred would walk down the road for exactly 4 minutes and 47 seconds the 322 paces to Dan’s Subs (“Sandwiches of SUBstance!”), the sandwich shop. Its sandwiches weren’t very good, but it was the only sandwich shop that was 322 paces from the factory. There was another sandwich shop called Ed’s Delicatessen 568 paces away. Fred had been there once, but it hadn’t been the same.
Fred would always have a Super Cheese ‘n Ham Sub, hold the mayo, and an ordinary coffee. They only did one kind of coffee at Dan’s Subs. Once Fred had toyed with the idea of a Super Cheese ‘n Pickle Sub, but had dismissed it on the grounds that pickle was a poor substitute for ham, even at the expense of a saving of 5p. When Fred had collected his Super Cheese ‘n Ham Sub and ordinary coffee, he would go and sit in the park (110 paces away) and watch the ducks. He would always save the end of his Super Cheese ‘n Ham Sub and feed it to the ducks in the pond. There was one in particular he liked. She (or he, he never was sure) had a bright orange head and always came nearer than the other ducks. So the orange duck always got the most of Fred’s leftover sub. She (or he) was Fred’s special friend. And then he would go back to the factory and add up numbers. One million minus two hundred thousand and one divided by four hundred and seven…
One day Fred was aware of a disturbance in the cubicle next to his. His own cubicle was nondescript. Unremarkable, unexceptional, unmemorable. Startled by his cubicle’s lack of personality, Mrs. Bassett in number forty-five had given him a pot plant for Christmas. Fred watered it every day the minute he got into his cubicle and hung up his coat. Then he would get his ‘Fred’ mug and fill it with water from the cooler. Fred’s mug had been bought after Fred had been to a meeting and seen all his co-workers with special mugs.
‘World’s Greatest Dad!’
‘World’s Greatest Aunt!’
‘World’s Greatest Husband!’
Although Fred thought it was a bit much, these people with mugs saying they were the World’s Greatest something. Fred wasn’t a World’s Greatest anything, which is why he hadn’t gone out and bought himself a mug saying so, failing to realise the mug holders didn’t buy the mugs themselves. So Fred had gone out and bought a mug saying just ‘Fred’.
Anyway, the disturbance. Somebody was being moved in to number twenty-six. It had been terminally vacated by Mr. Harris. Adding up numbers was a job for life. Fred carried on with his adding up. That’s what he was being paid for. Fourteen multiplied by seven subtract open bracket two hundred divided by five point two close bracket…
Then it was lunchtime. Fred got up to walk the 322 paces to Dan’s Subs and saw the new girl in number twenty-six. Fred had never seen somebody add up numbers so beautifully. She turned around and smiled at him. He peered at her nametag and read Pandora, and then looked away quickly in case she thought he was looking at her chest. She had a pot plant as well. It was the same as his, but it had little pink flowers on.
‘Hi,’ she said.
And that was it. Fred walked to Dan’s Subs in 6 minutes 21 seconds. He was thinking, and the thoughts who dared to break the norm of the usual Fred-like thoughts rebounded off his ordinary skull on to other parts of his ordinary skull, until Fred had a headache. After feeding the ducks he walked back in just 3 minutes and 7 seconds. He wanted to see Pandora and say hi to her. He wanted to tell her that he liked the pot plant. How to say it?
I like your pot plant.
I like your pot plant.
I like your pot plant.
‘Hi!’ he said. ‘I like your plant,’ (Damn, missed the crucial fourth word!)
‘Thanks,’ she said.
And Fred went to add up some more numbers. Seven point five multiplied by five hundred…
The next day Fred got up and went to work. The same place he’d been going every morning for the last thirty years. He was wearing a different coloured shirt today. It was blue instead of ordinary white. He was going to talk to Pandora again.
But first, adding up numbers. Four thousand minus the square root of seven million…
And then Pandora walked past his cubicle.
‘Hi!’ she said.
‘Hi,’ said Fred.
‘D’you know where room thirty-one is?’
‘Down the hall, second on your right,’
‘Thank you,’ She smiles. Fred melts. And carries on adding up numbers. One plus one equals two, one plus one equals two, one plus one equals two…
That lunchtime Fred didn’t go to Dan’s Subs. He wasn’t hungry. He was going to W H Smith’s. Fred didn’t care how many paces away it was, he was going. There was a time and a place for numbers, and this wasn’t it.
And then Fred came out of the shop, and he was carrying a bag. And in it was a card with a flower on the front, and inside was a picture of a bumblebee and the caption ‘Bee mine’. He was going to go back to number twenty-seven and then give Pandora the card. He was going to tell her he thought he was in love with her.
He didn’t even feel like a Super Cheese ‘n Ham Sub. He didn’t feel like adding up numbers any more. Five multiplied by who cares divided by whatever…
In fact, Fred had never felt so unordinary. He hadn’t felt like this in thirty years.
But Fred didn’t see the red Landrover until it was too late. So elated, he didn’t spot the big red car come out of nowhere.
Fred died on impact.
His W H Smith carrier bag was thrown out of his hand and lodged itself in a nearby tree. Later, the wind would blow it onto the pavement, and the men from the district council would pick it up without a second thought. Without even a first thought. It was just a carrier bag with a cheesy card in it and the words, ‘To Pandora, love Fred’.
Every year over thirty thousand people die from fatal car crashes. Fred is one of them. Fred, who dealt in numbers for thirty years, has finally become a number himself. A number nothing short of ordinary. In fact, a number that was ordinary. A statistic.
