Wants

Paul wants people to stop coming in to the office and interrupting him while he’s trying to eat his Cornish pasty.

Colin wants everyone to become vegan.

Paul wants Colin to stop running, face his fears and go home. (Not necessarily in that order.)

The attendees of a Living with Diabetes workshop want the air con in the room they’re using turned up higher because they’re all feeling cold. (In response, Paul turns it up as high as it will go, 29 degrees, and waits for them to complain about it being too hot and/or start passing out.)

Darren, who teaches Tai Chi, wants to know what his friend’s yellow bicycle is doing chained to the railings outside. (Paul has no idea. “It’s a mystery,” he tells him.)

Speaking of mysteries, Paul wants to know who the third hand belonged to in the video Luka Magnotta made of a boa constrictor killing a kitten. (As do apparently many other people who recently watched Don’t F**k With Cats on Netflix.)

Colin wants another cup of tea. (Black.)

The dad who waits in the foyer while his son participates in a kids kung fu class wants to know when the sofa and small fridge for his beers are going to arrive.

Paul wants the dad who waits for his son in the foyer to stop making the same joke every week since the month before Christmas. (It’s beginning to sound like a cry for help.)

The kids from the kung fu class want a drink of water. (They take turns standing on a chair to help themselves from the kitchen sink.)

Paul, carrying stacks of orange plastic chairs from one room to another, by hand because he can’t find Lionel, weaving his way around the kids from the kung fu class running in and out of the kitchen, anticipating the mess they will be making, wants the kids to hurry up and master whichever colour belt represents the art of cleaning up after oneself.

Janet wants Paul to call a taxi for her friend Myrtle. (Myrtle and Janet are in their eighties and have been playing bridge in the day centre next door. Myrtle is nearly blind. Her friend Janet sports a blue beret and is always in a rush to head in the opposite direction after their game has finished.)

Paul wants to know why these two old ladies keep coming in to ask him to call a taxi every week. (There is no logical reason for them to do so, they could just ask the staff in the day centre. Paul even goes next door and asks Paula, the assistant day centre manager, why. She has no idea. “It’s a mystery,” she tells him.)

Daniela, the Italian teacher, yawning as she uses the office computer to print off some worksheets for her beginners class, having already spent 8 hours working her regular day job, says she wants her brain to be in the same time frame as the rest of her body today.

Dan, the kids kung fu teacher, coming in to the office to pay for the rental of the room they just used, wants to know what Paul is listening to. (Cypress Hill.)

Paul wants to know how the kids in the kung fu class were today. (“Mental,” says Dan.)

Speaking of mental, one of the women from ‘the cult’ wants the orange key to the cupboard where they keep their guru’s framed portrait. (Whether this woman is the same woman who was witnessed touching her own breasts, Paul doesn’t know. She is not touching her own breasts when she asks for the key, and Paul has never seen her touching her own breasts, but he can imagine her doing so, which troubles him, and keeps recurring as a mental image throughout the evening and into the early hours of the next morning, until he finally falls asleep.)

Rami wants to tell Paul a secret. (He’s an incarnation of one of the ancient races of Syrius: the crystal people. Paul is relieved that Rami is not one of the dolphin people, whose trait is shimmering, as he would have struggled to take that information quite so seriously. Nonetheless, Paul makes a mental note to keep a look out for people who shimmer and, if he spots any, to test out the idea that cetaceans are telepathic by thought-broadcasting a series of dolphin clicks, which he hopes will be translated as ‘I love you’.)

Rami also wants to know if Paul would like anything from Tesco? (He’s on his way there now. Paul says “No, thank you.”)

Paul wants to try and make a bit more sense of the world. (To which end he opens a number of browser tabs on the office computer and switches between lengthy in-depth podcast interviews with Elon Musk, Roseanne Barr and the outspoken political scientist Mark Blyth. Paul is encouraged to find that not only do all of these individuals make some solid observations about modern life, they also have some very good ideas about how to improve things. Paul is glad that someone is on the case in this respect because, quite frankly, when it comes to the bigger picture, he just doesn’t have the energy any more. Which fact Colin would no doubt partly blame on Paul’s proclivity for Cornish pasties, but Paul thinks the root of which may just be a bit more complicated than that.)