Authors: Danny Wallace
“But it’s so hard to interest the media,” said Katherine. “It’s a
positive
message, you’d think they’d be up for that.”
“I put in a call to BBC Bristol the other night,” said Josh. “They said if we can assemble a large group there and chalk for peace, they’d probably cover it.”
“That’s good,” said Mike.
“Have you ever thought that maybe … you just need to simplify your message?” I said, and the attention of the group was mine. “I mean … I know War Is Bad’ is too simple, but I think maybe saying things like, you know, War Is the State of the Flickering Human Mind’ might put a few people off.”
“We got that leaflet from the Infinite Possibility Web site,” said Katherine. “I actually think that’s a great message.”
“It is, it is,” I said. “It’s just that I don’t really understand it.”
“Well …,” said Josh. “Can you come up with something better?”
I now had my challenge for the evening.
Mike had bought another bottle of rough red wine and was now off playing the trivia machine. Katherine and Josh had been debating the ethics of the U.S. using oil as a wedge to gain political control over other countries, a debate I had tried to join in on until I realised that they’d both done some background reading while I’d only seen an episode of
Dead Ringers
.
I’d been doing my best to come up with a punchy new media campaign to help this brave group of peace campaigners to victory. But inspiration just wasn’t coming.
“Have a go?” said Mike, back from the machine and holding out what looked like a rubbish cigarette. It was a joint.
“In
here?”
I said, looking around the pub.
“Outside,” he said. “Not in here.”
My God. This was a watershed moment. Could I really allow Yes to make me break the law?
Yes.
“Right,” I said. “I’ve got it. I’ve absolutely got it this time. This is brilliant.”
I assembled my notes, which came in the form of a beermat and, as such, didn’t really require much assembling.
“Okay … what are we aiming for?”
“Peace,” said Katherine.
“Yes, peace,” I said. “But what else beforehand?”
“Media coverage,” said Josh.
“Precisely. I have devised a new and original media campaign which will lead directly to the governments of this world laying down their weapons and picking up … I dunno … chalk, instead.”
I had been outside the Goose, breaking the law with Mike, when it had happened. I’d looked up, seen a beautiful painting hanging from the front of the pub, and been transfixed. Utterly transfixed. The smoke had framed the painting for a moment, and it was then that the idea had struck me.
“That’s it!” I’d said. “That’s the message!”
“So what is it?” said Katherine.
“This has to be catchy, yes? And it has to communicate a real, social message?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how about we use …”
I looked from person to person, anticipating their reaction.
“Geese.”
I didn’t get quite the reaction I’d hoped for.
“Geese?” said Josh.
“Geese,” I confirmed. “’Geese for Peace.’”
I let the words hang in the air. No one said much.
“Oh, come on. ‘Geese for Peace’—it’s brilliant!”
Still no one said anything. I decided this might require further explanation. And despite the room appearing to spin slightly, I gave it a go.
“What we do, right,” I began, “is we make tiny little signs saying, ‘Geese for Peace.’ And then we stick them outside geese farms and near geese in general. We then tip the media off that the geese are getting agitated about this whole war business and have started, against all the odds, to stage their own animal peace protests.”
Katherine and Josh just nodded at me, openmouthed—clearly they were impressed. This was going well.
“We get some photographers down there. We secretly tell people up and down the country to make their own ‘Geese for Peace’ signs, and quietly stick them in the ground in farms and zoos. The media will have a field day. People
literally
won’t believe it, Katherine! It will be like Mother Nature herself is rising up and saying no to
war!”
Katherine put her hand up to correct me.
“Yes to peace”
“Sorry. But it will be like the geese themselves are making a stand. Imagine it! Geese, the world over, saying yes to peace!”
“I like it,” said Mike, who was clearly on my level although I couldn’t help but suspect he was a little stoned. Lucky
I
wasn’t, or we wouldn’t have “Geese for Peace.”
“But why geese?” said Josh.
“It rhymes with ‘peace’!” Mike and I said, in near unison.
“Ohh,” said Katherine, obviously finally realising the brilliance of my scheme.
And then—quite out of the blue—I had
another
excellent idea.
“Hey, Mike,” I said. “Imagine this … What if there was a shop called Pizza Hat … and all it sold were
hats
shaped like
pizzas?!”
And then Mike started to giggle, and then so did I, and then we couldn’t stop ourselves, and we laughed like mentals, and I hit my hand down on the table and nearly knocked over the wine, and Mike laughed even more, and we both started to virtually cry with laughter at the thought of hats shaped like pizzas.
“Pizza
Hat!”
Mike exclaimed. “Hit the Hat!”
Yep. He was definitely stoned.
And then we talked about my brilliant “Geese for Peace” idea a bit more.
An hour or so later as I stumbled home, I realised that maybe the effects of the little disco cigarette I’d had with Mike had affected me in more ways than I’d previously thought. Fair enough; it’d had nothing to do with “Geese for Peace,” because that was blatantly a very strong concept, but it was what happened next that concerned me.
I’d made it home and decided that a nice cup of tea was what I needed most in this world. So I started to make one. It took a lot longer than it usually did, and I found the plume of steam that rose from the kettle so fascinating and beautiful that I must’ve watched it boil three times before even trying to find a tea bag.
When eventually I did, I got the milk out the fridge and found a spoon, which I promptly dropped. It clattered on the floor.
As I stooped to pick it up, I suddenly realised this was it.
This
was my invention.
A spoon you couldn’t drop!
A spoon … that hovers!
That’d be amazing! But how would I make it hover?
Tiny fans, maybe?
Yes, that’s it! Dozens of tiny fans attached to the underside of a spoon.
I ran to my desk and started to make some rudimentary sketches. I was buzzing. I had just invented the hover spoon! Oh, how the offices of the Patent & Trademark Institute of America would stop and applaud when news of the hover spoon spread! And best of all we could do spin-off spoons … teaspoons, table spoons … even a huge, hovering ladle!
I phoned Ian.
“Hello?”
“Ian, it’s Danny!”
“How’s it going?”
“Not bad—listen. What would you say if I told you you could have a spoon”—I paused to allow him time to picture a spoon—“that could
hover!”
Ian didn’t say anything. Well, clearly, he had some pretty big thinking to do. Ian always thought he knew where he was with spoons, but I’d just messed with his preconceptions. The boundaries of cutlery had been given a severe kick into the future, and I think Ian knew that. I was a revolutionary, passing on my insight and vision to, well, a
normal
person. I mean,
you’re
a normal person. What would
you
do if a visionary like me phoned you up and told you he’d invented the hover spoon?
And then I realised Ian had hung up.
I decided that my so-called equal, Ian, was just too caught up in convention. He was still living with a very 1990s view of spoons (and cutlery in general to be honest), and if you ever meet him, I’d like you to promise me that you’ll point that out to him.
Moodily I switched my computer on and checked my e-mails.
Omar had written to me again. And he sounded antsy.
DEAR danny
BUT WHAT IS THE ACCOUNT DETAILS. I MUST HAVE THE DETAIL SO I CAN GIVE YOU THE MONEY. WHAT ARE THE ACCOUNT DETAILS. GIVE THEM TO ME.
IT IS GOD’S WILL!
OMAR
I made a “harumph” sound, I drank my tea, I ate an inexplicably large amount of toast, and then I went to bed.
“You’re going to do
what?”
said Ian, slamming his pint down on the table.
It was the next day, and I was seeking his advice.
“I’m going to give Omar my bank account details.”
“You’re going to give him your details! Oh, brilliant! First the hover spoon, now this. Two of the worst ideas in the world in just twenty-four short hours …”
I thought it best not to mention the peace geese, which, for some odd reason, had lost some of its power overnight.
“Well, what if I don’t give him my savings account details? What if I started a brand-new account into which he can deposit his many millions of dollars? I have to help him.”
“But
why?”
“He seems very insistent. The poor lad is about to be murdered by his late father’s political enemies, Ian!”
“It’s a scam, Dan!”
“Oh, not
you
as well,” I said wisely and with some degree of pity in my voice. “I have experience of scammers, my friend. And if this is a scam, then it’s a bloody clever one.”
“Danny, of
course
it’s a scam! I’ve seen stuff like this on
Watchdog!
They send out thousands of e-mails, and if you respond, they know the e-mail address is real, and then you get loads more of them. All they need is one person like you—a person who says yes when they should blatantly say no! They’re going to try and rip you off!”
“Listen here, Mr. Cynical. I was like you once. Not so long ago I would have
definitely
thought it was a scam too. But this whole Yes Man thing has started to teach me the benefits of thinking positively. I should trust my fellow man. Approach things with optimism. Treat people like they’re already friends. And is it
really
too far-fetched to suggest that the murdered sultan of Oman, whom I never met, used to speak of me with such affection that his son, facing a possible murder plot by the same men who killed his father, might want to get in touch with me, Danny Wallace, in order to secure the safety of forty million dollars?”
I hoped Ian was considering what I was saying carefully. But I’m disappointed to say he really jumped the gun.
“Of
course
it’s too far-fetched, you fucking idiot!”
Sometimes I pity the cynical,
“He’s invited me to his house, Ian. I hardly think he’d invite me to his house if he were planning on scamming me before I even got there. It’d make dinnertime a little awkward, don’t you think? He just wants a little of my professionalism in business.”
“What
professionalism in business? You can’t even use a stapler properly! This was all done by e-mail, wasn’t it?”
“Of course. Omar is lying low at the moment. He had to set up a free e-mail account so that he was in no way traceable. You know. By his enemies, and others.”
“And he’s asked you for your bank account details?”
“Yes. And to travel to Holland with cash gifts for his late father’s business associates.”
“Anything else?”
“My phone number.”
“And I suppose you gave that to him as well, did you?”
“Ian, it is God’s will! And anyway, this is incredibly liberating. I feel like I don’t have to make any choices anymore. Everything’s done for me.”
“Look … I forbid you from giving this man your bank account details. Okay?”
“You can’t forbid me from stuff! What are you going to do? Tell my mum and dad?”
“If I have to.”
“Please
don’t tell my mum and dad.”
“This Yes thing is a little dangerous, Dan. I thought all you’d be saying yes to would be nights down at the pub and perhaps lending me a tenner now and then. I didn’t realise you’d be doing things like this. This is dangerous. And it could get out of hand—these e-mail things often do. You’re lucky Omar is the only one who’s asked for your details….”
I didn’t say anything.
It dawned on Ian.
“Other people have asked you, haven’t they? Oh, Danny, no … who else has asked you for your bank account details?”
The fact of the matter was
loads
of people had suddenly asked me for my bank account details. And word of my willingness to help Omar, son of the murdered sultan of Oman, must have spread in some pretty royal circles.
In the days that had followed our initial exchange, I was contacted by people like His Highness Shaik Isa Bin Sulman al Khalifa, Emir of the State of Bahrain, who had apparently heard some pretty good things about me and wanted me to be his property manager abroad in return for a share of one hundred and twenty million dollars.
And let’s not forget King Asiam Okofonachi of the Aziam village deep down in the Accra native clans and the great-great-grandson of the mighty warrior legend Okofonachi. King Asiam had just been told he had one month left to live and while he was dealing with that just fine, he was nevertheless determined not to leave his huge gold fortune to his two sons, because “they are involved with drug sniffings and harlot doings.” He was happy, however, for a random stranger like me to have his money—provided I promised not to spend it on drug sniffings and harlot doings. Oh, and P.S.: Could I please pop over to Ghana and bring lots of money for, you know, setup costs and that.
Actually, hang on. These were
definitely
scams, weren’t they.
No. Wait.
Trust in Yes
.
“Right. Okay,” said Ian, rubbing the bridge of his nose in the way that slightly weary teachers who wear glasses often do, just to show you that they care, and they’re a lot more intelligent than you. “And you didn’t find it suspicious at all that kings and emirs and bloody Dukes of Hazzard were all suddenly e-mailing you out-of-the-blue and claiming you’re their saviour and then asking for your bank account details?”