by Derren Brown
* The lift read-out causes me several minor concerns:
1. It shows a series of animated ‘down’ arrows to signify a descending car, interspersed with a display of the number of the floor that it is at that moment passing, or perhaps only merely approaching. It is difficult to tell which is the case. It shows the ‘1’, for example, followed by further arrows, well before the doors open at the first floor, but it is not possible to tell how long the car stands stationary before entry is made possible This would not matter, save for the fact that I like to imagine the lift descending past the various floors as I wait, and am unsure as to exactly how to do that. For example, as the red ‘2’ appears, is the lift at that moment speeding past the second floor? Is the hard metal-lined edge of that higher level sweeping up past the descending lift at precisely that point? I imagine a glimpse of the hallway’s red carpet and fire-hose and a helpfully placed sign pointing out in which direction one might head to reach one’s desired door number; and even, as I like to do, the lives of a hundred residents, caught in a snapshot of laughing and arguing (I try to hear an unlikely split-second of cacophony as each floor is thrown past the door) as well as cooking (to walk the corridors is sometimes to be stifled by an osmic irruption of a hundred assimilated aromas from Europe and the East which hang thick in the air in a heady, unpalatable blend). It is impossible to know, and this makes it frustrating to try to imagine with any accuracy the descent of the lift as I await its arrival.
2. There is a repetitive tock sound which can be heard echoing from inside the shaft as the cables raise and lower the metal box through seven floors without ever killing anyone (an astonishing feat, of which I remind myself whenever I find myself grumbling at the machine’s frequent indisposition for maintenance reasons), but this sound, though metronomically paced, I feel in my gut to be irritatingly asynchronous with the animation of arrows and the numbers on the display. It is roughly three tocks to a floor, and my suspicion is that the read-out moves at a slightly faster pace than the internal machinery; but if there is a discrepancy, it is too small to identify by merely looking and listening while the lift drops a few floors. It is not even quite possible to tell when waiting on the ground floor and following its descent from the very top (when I have shopping with me to justify the ride and break the third-floor rule), a rare situation which gives me the maximum number of tocks and floor numbers upon which to base my calculations. Possibly the noises happen simply a fraction of a second after the display changes, or alternatively they occur at a slightly slower rate. This latter option confuses me, as I know that the floors are of equal height and that the regular noise means that the car has not been interrupted: somehow I cannot make sense of the fact that the noises from the lift can occur at a slightly different pace from the appearance of each floor’s number. Presumably they can, but some limitation to my internal faculties precludes any audio-visual representation of how that might work; instead my head becomes jumbled and I am unable to think it through. This mental block is something I experience from time to time, and rarely do others understand my confusion. I consider myself reasonably adept at mathematics, and am not intimidated by the subject, but occasionally I find myself utterly unable to assemble the relevant mental images or edit the necessary imaginary film that might allow me to understand something that strikes me as counter-intuitive. Most recently, I was measuring the cubic volume of my bedroom in order to see whether or not a portable air-conditioning unit would suffice for the job. The unit, I was assured, would happily serve a room of up to eighty cubic metres. I measured the room, mistakenly, in feet, and recorded dimensions of eighteen by eleven by eleven feet. The volume was therefore 2,178 cubic feet. I converted this figure to metres, by multiplying by 0.3048, and arrived at a room with a volume of about 664 cubic metres. An absurdly high amount, and over eight times that which could be managed by the air-conditioner. I was dumbfounded and checked my calculations, to no avail. After considering the conundrum for some time, I found out by accident that I had to convert each measurement to metres first, before multiplying. Then, dazzlingly, the product of the numbers was sixty-something, and made complete sense. I was shocked to have made what I presumed was a fundamental schoolboy error, and more dismayed to find that none of my friends shared my surprise at the inconsistency of results.
3. Sometimes I am in a hurry to leave the building, and am impatient to see whether or not the lift is close enough to be worth taking. When in a rush, I know that I can walk briskly down the stairs in the same time it takes the lift to travel from my floor to the foyer, so I only take the lift on those occasions if it is already waiting, or if its approach to my floor coincides with my flustered arrival in that part of the corridor. As I hasten round the corner to the lift area, I first check to see if it is descending by looking for whether the scrolling arrows signify ‘up’ or ‘down’, and if it is, I do not have the patience to stop, look and wait for the arrows to then change to a floor number in order to learn its location. Instead, I keep walking, eyes on the display, until a number appears, at which point I can decide whether to continue into the neighbouring stairwell, or stop, return and have the relative pleasure of the brief lift-ride. However, the three or so descending arrows which separate the appearances of each floor number seem to be interminable in these cases; I hover, leaning forward in mid-stride, as if tugging at the lift myself, urging it to hurry, eyes fixed on the display, my sense of time somehow altered to the point that the arrows seem to lower themselves impossibly gradually, like stalactites forming on a cave roof, while I, frozen, fume at my improbable ability to arrive reliably at the precise moment that means having to wait for the full three arrows before the appearance of a floor number. Although the time period in question is only a handful of seconds, at the time this is always disproportionately frustrating (following, as it generally does, my furious attempts to leave the apartment and find my pen, as outlined previously), as if a few wasted moments could impinge at all upon the already suffering time-management of my day. Upon cooler reflection, however, it reminds me of our similar capacity to glance at a watch and believe that the second hand, and therefore the watch, has completely stopped. Somehow, because we have happened to look at the ticking hand at the conception of a fresh second and therefore have to wait the entire duration before the hand in question judders forward again and we see movement (waiting time which here only amounts to a single second), this unusually maximal hand-viewing period quickly strikes us as unnatural, and we even have the opportunity, before it finally steps forward, to process the uncommonly extended stasis and decide that the timepiece has stopped. This illusion of immobility is similar to the game played with the flashing colon that divides hours from minutes on an oven-clock or clock-radio display – a game that has entertained me to the point of minor obsession since childhood. Here, the aim is to negate the flashing, and to create the illusion of a constantly illuminated colon, by closing the eyes for the duration of the symbol’s intermittent absences, and to time the opening and closing of the eyes as precisely as possible in order to sustain the trick perfectly for the maximum length of time, until ocular discomfort or the risk of epilepsy dictate cessation. The process can be altered, of course, to produce the contrasting mirage of no colon at all.
4. On occasions when I am in a hurry, and impediments such as heavy baggage require me to use the lift, I find myself attempting after summoning it to hasten the car’s descent by pressing the ‘call’ button repeatedly in the interim, even though I am fully aware that such an action will not accelerate its arrival. It is as if I have decided that my next action is to ride in the lift, and, being poised to do so with nothing else to consider or do in between, any extended period of inactivity between now (not being in lift) and then (being in lift) is intolerable. Thus I find myself making pointless gestures to hurry along an indifferent world, rather than being able to wait. Similarly, when at a cash machine, I will find myself unable to pause calmly while the cash is counted. Having requested
the money to appear, I will drum my fingers or make grabbing gestures at the money slot until the notes are handed to me. I appear to carry out these gestures in order to make the money arrive more quickly. I am shocked at the fact that I seem to feel I have the ability to make such things as lifts and cash machines operate with greater speed, and that a few seconds’ wait seems to stretch far beyond the reaches of my patience.
† The pleasure taken from seeing balloons of pretension publicly burst has never been stronger for me than when walking to my flat on one occasion, during my years in Bristol. There lived on my street a middle-aged man with an air of high status that was immediately obvious in his sartorial impeccability and the look of faint disapproval with which he greeted most people and things. Certainly this included me, for I dressed in flamboyantly bohemian tatters and frequently had to pass him on our very long street. Having once nodded a hello in passing and not finding the gesture returned, I had taken to ignoring him each time we approached each other on the pavement. Even here his evident, effortless authority was irritating: he would be able to appear quite unperturbed by my presence as we walked towards each other, whereas I would find myself patting pockets, checking my mobile phone or gazing with affected dreaminess into the basement flats of the houses I passed. (This kind of busying-oneself activity, frequently employed in lifts when one finds oneself with an unfamiliar travelling companion, is related to the even stranger gestures we must revert to after making the mistake of greeting a friend who is heading towards us from some distance. The level of awkwardness is cruelly and directly in proportion to the length of street that must be covered. After the initial, enthusiastic wave or gesture of recognition has been made and returned, we must then hold eye contact and smile for a second or two longer while we wonder what to do next, before making gestures of open-armed embrace, jumping daftly in the air or miming to amuse the other, until both parties are just about close enough to each other to talk. The alternative to this promenade pantomime involves, after seeing the approaching friend at a distance, feigning apathy with pocket-checks and extended pavement/scenery inspection until the later acknowledgement of his or her existence. This latter operation means that during the awkward period preceding the eventual greeting, one has been in the unusual position of displaying a lack of interest in a loved one, perhaps long missed.)
On the morning in question, I was about to turn into this same long road when this gentleman emerged a few feet ahead of me from a bank, which was situated directly on the corner. It immediately became clear to both of us that we were about to embark on the long stretch of road to our respective houses with me walking awkwardly close behind him. He had an irritatingly languid gait, which meant I could not comfortably solve the proximity issue by slowing down and putting more space between us. Equally, he was not strolling so slowly that overtaking would have been straightforward: to have done so would have involved an exertion of effort which would either have had to be maintained (but which would have then propelled me down the street at an unnatural pace), or alternatively, were I to have quickly passed him but then slowed down to a normal speed, may have read as obsessive and belligerent in its abruptness.
The third option was to overtake and then slowly resume a natural speed, in such a way that would not be obvious to him as he walked behind me. I use this technique when faced with the same problem in the corridor of the apartment building where I now live. There are many sets of double doors which I need to open in order to walk the length of the hallway to my flat, and it is not uncommon to hear a resident enter the same corridor a little way behind me, near enough for me to feel I should hold open the doors as I pass through them, but (given the large number of such doors) wanting to gain distance so that I can open the remaining ones further down the corridor for myself without repeating the chivalrous gesture each time (an action which quickly becomes embarrassing for both parties). My answer is to get ahead not by walking quicker (which, I worry, would be obvious to the person behind), but by taking longer steps at the same speed, so that I can be seen to apparently maintain the same pace but deftly move further ahead without the other resident knowing how. I figure that with the foreshortening effect of viewing from behind, the lengthier strides are not at all obvious. These efforts are, however, undermined by the doors themselves: until I gain the necessary distance, I am still required to hold open the doors for the other resident, and the necessary pause each time on my part enables my follower to catch up with me, thus rendering pointless my intermittent attempts to gain distance. I then have to double my efforts in the longer stretches of unbroken corridor in order to try to put myself safely enough ahead. This does sometimes work, but it would be an odd sight to anyone who happened to open their door and catch a glimpse from the side. Caught between the twin fears of being seen to not hold doors open for neighbours on the one hand and of obviously running from them on the other, I would be seen taking these exaggerated steps, striding like Hoffmann’s gory tailor towards my door.
I was considering which of these three options to take as I began to walk down my road behind this man, already furious at his impossible sense of self-worth that dictated he walk at a pace uncomfortably slow for anyone caught behind him.
And then a fortuitous event happened. He sneezed.
He sneezed, and instinctively brought his right hand up to contain the germy blast from his thin moustachioed mouth. A second later he withdrew his hand, not realising that a long, thick snake of mucus had attached itself to the back of it. A yard of snot, unusually dense and catching the sunlight of a bright spring morning, was clearly visible to me, so close behind him, as it hung heavily from his face to his dropped hand. Knowing that he was well aware of my uncomfortable proximity, I felt the rush of pleasure of finding our normal roles reversed: his authority had now been expelled at high speed in a gummy rope of face-gag, and I had the privilege of being able to grin happily at his misfortune.
Even from behind, I saw his composure dissolve. Continuing to walk, he flicked his hand at one of the street’s decorative cement plant troughs as he passed it, but this did not rid him of the viscous swag: instead, a second line somehow separated itself from the main strand, swung under and around with undeniable panache, and formed an auxiliary festoon connecting his slimy hand to the council-maintained municipal pot. By this point I was stifling actual laughter, which only became more difficult to control as he was forced to involve his left hand and detach the foul, adhesive length from himself in a messy procedure reminiscent of a clown battling with a plate of spaghetti.
I did not overtake him, but remained close behind and making my footfall asynchronous to his own, to ensure I was audible. And so we walked almost the entire length of the street: I, behind, never having felt happier, and he, I hoped, dying slowly inside with every step.
* Being an atheist is merely not happening to believe, and is not a filter in the way that a specific belief is. The trouble is, the word ‘atheist’ sounds like it implies a belief, but this is only because it unfairly defines itself in terms of the very thing it has no interest in: the belief in God. As A. C. Grayling has pointed out, being labelled an ‘atheist’ is a little like being labelled an ‘aphilatelist’, or a ‘non-stamp-collector’. Most of us are aphilatelists, but that says nothing about us or what we are like. We would probably find it odd to be called one, and it would be presumptuous and wrong of the stamp-collectors to insist that by not collecting stamps we were bound by a specific agenda. Likewise, we may of course choose to believe in anything that makes an inherent strong or supernatural claim (such as that God exists, or even that Elvis is still alive), but to insist that those who do not share that belief (atheists, or people who do say that Elvis is dead) are adhering to a belief system as narrow and specific as our own is plain wrong. Of course there are some atheists (or Elvis deniers) who may take umbrage at believers, and choose to attack in one form or another. They hold themselves up for criticism: are they raising important social awareness or just
ranting maniacally? Both certainly occur, and ultimately history will judge these individuals. But the condition of being an atheist is by definition quite without any binding belief behind it, nor does it suggest any inherent attitude, any more than not believing that Elvis is alive or not collecting stamps dictates anyone’s agenda.
* It had apparently squeaked when I first owned the toy as an infant, although any memories of this early sound are very faint, and may be conjured up more from my mother’s assurances that the tail functioned in this way than from actual recollections. Certainly as I grew up, I heard no such squeak: the mechanism in the white tuft of fur must have worn out, or been damaged when I was too young to remember.
Then, once, as a student, I returned to my parents’ home for the Christmas break and found Mr Bunny on the bed in the guest room. My young brother’s eagerness for stuffed playthings had probably led to this toy being kept – that and my parents’ reluctance, I presume, to throw it away while I was away studying. It had become one of the unloved ornaments relegated to this room, along with any number of misjudged and ugly gifts I had brought back over the years from school exchange trips in Europe. I had not seen Mr Bunny for some time, and had probably not picked him up in ten years. His limbs hung limply from the torso, and I could see the stitching along one leg where my mother had repaired it, following a tug-of-war game I had once goaded our elderly golden retriever into playing from her bed. As I parted the fur to trace the homespun line of matching yellow cotton, I remembered the dog, Tammy, long since dead (put down and carried discreetly from the house in a bin-bag so as not to disturb me on my birthday); my mother’s sewing kit; the Tom and Jerry teddies I had also owned and not thought of for a decade; and the repeating brown-and-white geometric pattern of the old bedspread on which they had once so proudly sat. I suddenly recalled the non-functioning tail and, purely to feel what sort of sound-producing device might be stored in it to have once produced the squeak, gave it a squeeze. A single, clear, soprano hoot peeped as I pressed. Mr Bunny squeaked. Just once. He did not squeak again when I pressed the tail a second time, nor to my knowledge has he since.
