Here are the first paragraphs of Chapter 1:
Chapter 1
Jeremy was sat in his
bedroom. He was looking out the window in an absent-minded kind of way, he had
just woken up at his usual time (9:07 on the dot) and he was very happy with
himself. He would have absolutely hated to wake up at a later time. Lord only
knows what he would have done if he had woken up at 9:08, or, even worse than
that, 9:10, or even 10:00, but that is just unthinkable. No, Jeremy was up, and
he was out of bed, he was just waiting for the next alarm to ring at 9:15 so
that he could go to the bathroom and brush his teeth. Then another alarm would
set off at 9:18 which signified that it was time for him to get ready and put
on his going out clothes for the day. Right now he was wearing his before
toothbrush time and shower clothes, which was a plain white T Shirt (no stains,
he washes his before toothbrush and shower clothes every day) and black
trousers. At 9:08 precisely, the doorbell rang, Jeremy hurried down stairs, an
excited looked across his young, clean-shaven face, and picked up this months
issue of the magazine. The front of the magazine read something like this:
‘DO NOT WEAR JEANS ANYMORE, JEANS WENT OUT OF FASHION
LAST WEEK, WHEN IT WAS THE END OF SUMMER, THIS WEEK IT IS AUTUMN, BROWN
TROUSERS ARE IN FASHION, BECAUSE BROWN SIGNIFIES AUTUMN, EVERYONE WILL BE
WEARING BROWN TROUSERS THIS AUTUMN. WILL YOU BE WEARING BROWN TROUSERS THIS
AUTUMN? IF NOT THEN YOU CAN SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR SOCIAL LIFE, BECAUSE NO ONE
WILL TALK TO YOU, OR AT LEAST, THEY WILL TALK TO YOU, BUT IN THEIR HEADS THEY
WILL BE THINKING THAT YOU ARE A DISGUSTING MORON BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT WEARING
BROWN TROUSERS’
The little man inside
Jeremy’s head woke up with a start and shouted: “FOR FUCKS SAKE JEREMY, LOOK AT
THIS, THE MAGAZINE IS SAYING THAT YOU NEED TO BUY BROWN TROUSERS! YOU HAVEN’T
GOT ANY BROWN TROUSERS HAVE YOU, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! NOW EVERYONE IS GOING TO
THINK THAT YOU’RE DIFFERENT! YOU’RE A FUCKING MORON, WHY DID YOU NOT BUY BROWN
TROUSERS A WEEK BEFORE THE MAGAZINE WAS ON SALE, THEN YOU COULD BE LIKE DANIEL,
WHO IS ALWAYS AHEAD OF THE TRENDS, WELL FUCKING DONE JEREMY, THE NEXT TIME
DANIEL WILL SEE YOU, HE WILL MOCK YOU”
A feeling inside Jeremy’s
head hit his brain like a lead balloon, this feeling could only be described as
intense disappointment in his self. There was only one thing to do. Jeremy
would have to go to the shops and buy brown trousers.
Jeremy went got dressed after
2 minute shower time as quickly as he could. He even missed his alarm for 5 and
½ minute breakfast time at 9:22, but he didn’t care, this was an urgent matter.
As he feared, everyone in the streets was wearing brown trousers. Even the
baby in the pram was wearing a small pair. The mother pushing the pram was
wearing a green skirt. Jeremy thought to himself ‘What the hell is she playing
at?” then reminded himself that she was in fact a woman, and that there was a
separate monthly magazine for women. He was glad that he cleared that up in his
mind. The woman was actually a very attractive woman, and looked exactly like
the woman on Page 11 in last month’s issue of the magazine. Jeremy hoped to
meet a woman that looked exactly like the woman on page 11 some day. He hoped
against hope that it wouldn’t be today. What would the woman think if she saw
him not wearing brown trousers?
On his trip to the trouser
store, the usual annoying occurrences happened. Gassy, the local tramp man,
begged him for money, and as per usual, spoke some poetry to him. It always
annoys Jeremy when the local tramp does this. How would the local tramp feel if
he, Jeremy, said some poetry to him? The little man inside his head popped up
to say a funny joke, something about betting that the tramp would never in a
million years be wealthy enough to buy brown trousers and he would never have
the look to pull it off.
Jeremy’s relief with the
brown trousers came very quickly. He went into the trouser store and found that
there were plenty of brown trousers still left in stock. He brought 7 pairs,
one for each day of the week, and he planned to wash one pair every day. The
relief he felt when he knew that he would be in trend with this season was
unbelievable. The shop assistant even let him change into his brown trousers
in the changing room as a treat, she probably felt sorry for him because he was
wearing jeans, and he explained to her that he might see a woman that looked
like Page 11 in the magazine, and he didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of
not wearing brown trousers in front of any woman who might possibly look like
the woman on page 11 of the magazine. He looked at the shop assistant for a moment, she looked a bit like the girl from page 11 in the magazine, but then
she told him that she really liked The Smiths, and he thought that The Smiths
were soooooo depressing, so he stopped the conversation there and then, but,
instead of doing the usual thing which is to say goodbye, he stared at the girl
and said nothing, which gave him a massive sense of superiority, when he did this,
he felt as though he could take on the world, he felt as though he was the
leader of some obscure Asian country, like Korea or something like that. The
fearful look on the woman’s face was amazing.
The little voice inside his
head spoke up once again “You did good there my son, that woman is probably
really scared that she’s said something wrong but she can’t quite put her
finger on it, yet you made it out as though what she said was something wrong,
you should be really proud of yourself, you’ve won the human race today”
Jeremy had a smile on his
face for the rest of the day. He walked back to his penthouse apartment with a
huge grin on his face. He even considered skipping, then he reminded himself
that skipping on the streets is a really weird thing to do, and he was
definitely not really weird, and why would he even want to be? Most people who
are really weird get laughed at by people like Dan, who is always up on the
trends. He had a lot of respect for people like Dan, the man who is always good with
the fashion and the life of every party he attends. The amount of effort that
Dan goes to is, in Jeremy’s opinion, very respectable, and that is what life is
all about at the end of the day (at the end of the day), being respected by
other people who mostly wear suits.
He sat in his flat and
browsed the internet, he saw a picture of the famous man from the reality TV
show called ‘In Bed With The Saxons’ that followed these teenagers who lived in
a house and got really drunk all the time but were SO random so it’s ok, the
man was wearing brown trousers, the caption of the photograph read:
‘In Bed With The Saxons’ famous celebrity star Andrew
Doogooder enjoying his brown trousers, Andrew says ‘I sooo love my new brown
trousers, I also like, collect buttons and stuff because I’m sooo random, but
not only am I random, I’m also on trend with the fashions of the day, so you
have to be like me if you want to be, like, soooo random and funny like me’.
Jeremy was extremely glad
that he brought brown trousers now. Andrew Doogooder was another man who was
hugely respected by Jeremy, because Andrew has obviously worked really hard to get to where he is.
All of a sudden there was a
knock on the door. Jeremy opened it with the anticipation of 1000 suns
[DISCLAIMER: I HAD TO THINK UP A METAPHOR FOR THIS PART OF THE NOVEL, IF YOU DO
NOT LIKE THIS METAPHOR THEN YOU CAN GO DROWN YOURSELF. FROM HAYDN] he opened
the door, and to his utter disappointment, it was Larry the drug dealer, Jeremy
hated Larry, in Jeremy’s opinion, Larry was an absolute waste of human breath
and air, as well as space and time. Who the hell did Larry think he was?
Selling bloody illegal things to people. What a waste of space.
“I’ve got a huge bag of
heroin in my left pocket, do you want to come to a party tonight?” said Larry,
in a husky voice that sounded like a chain smoker. Jeremy knew that he couldn’t
silence himself out of this conversation, it was one thing silencing himself in
front of the woman who looked like page 11 of the magazine in the store, but
it’s another thing entirely to silence yourself in front of a drug dealer. He
knew what drug dealers were, drug dealers were powerful, venomous people and are
heavily connected to rapists and pedophiles obviously.
‘Do I look like I want to go
to a party?’ asked Jeremy, in the most aggressive voice he could possibly
rustle up from inside the pits of his vocal chords, he noticed that while he was
saying this sentence, Larry was rolling up a huge cigarette, this cigarette
didn’t smell of the usual kind of cigarette though. Jeremy could not help but
be intrigued. ‘Larry, what is that cigarette you’re rolling there, it smells
really funny!’ said Jeremy, in a casual voice as though the last sentence that
he said never happened. ‘Oh this?’ said Jeremy, ‘This is my grandma’s finest, want a drag?’
Jeremy stopped for a second. Would Dan, the man who is always at one in the
fashion universe and the life in any party he attends, smoke a drag of Larry’s
grandma’s finest?
The little voice spoke up
inside Jeremy’s head “Do you remember what Andrew from In Bed With The Saxons
said on Episode two?” Jeremy thought for a second, and then remembered what
Andrew said in episode 2 of In Bed With The Saxons, he said something like “Hey
guys, I’m sooooo random, I love collecting buttons and drinking some vodka
mixed with wine, who mixes wine and vodka anyway, I am soooo random, yeah I’ll
have a drag of that”.
So Jeremy decided in his mind
and said ‘Yeah, I’ll have a drag of that’. He had a drag of it then he felt
something that he had never felt ever before in his mind. All of a sudden, everything
seemed highly amusing. The sheer idea of going to a party seemed absolutely
amazing to Jeremy, and hilarious, so Jeremy accepted the party invitation
straight away. The voice in his head was jumping up and down and shouting in despair,
he was saying something like “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING JEREMY! DANIEL WILL
THINK YOU’RE REALLY WEIRD FOR GOING TO A PARTY WITH A DRUG DEALER, DO NOT GO TO
THE PARTY! NO, DON’T WALK OUT OF THE DOOR, DON’T FOLLOW HIM! WHAT THE HELL ARE
YOU DOING!” But Jeremy thought that this was really funny, he didn’t care about
Daniel anymore, as far as Jeremy was concerned, in this state of mind, Daniel
was nothing more than a useless tosser, desperately trying to cling on to this ‘funny
guy, life of the party’ image that he had going for him ever since his first
day of being on the popular table at College. The only thing that mattered
at this point in time, was attending this party and laughing at things.