RICHARD
An Eye For Detail
Apparently, I have an eye for detail.
It’s both a blessing and a curse: Colleagues are always grateful when I spot their errors, particularly when it comes to reviewing important reports, checking figures on spreadsheets or the content of presentations.
Then again, it can be a pain in the butt constantly getting pestered by other people asking me to sense check their work.
Some days, it seems all I’m doing is sorting out other people’s mistakes, which means my own work is always rushed, and I rarely have time to do it properly.
Tha’ts whu its alwtys full o mistkes.!
LIZZIE
The doors to the art exhibition opened and a flood of enthusiastic visitors roamed the room. One piece in particular caught everyone’s attention. “The detail is remarkable,” they said. “Art is a remarkable… thing, isn’t it?” And someone replied “Yes, it is, remarkable!” People stared at three copper panels, a nose and two eyes, gigantic and kind of lopsided. “Just remarkable!” And this continued for hours, the word remarkable passing on from visitor to visitor like the plague. Suddenly, the eyes bulged and the nose sneezed on the stunned visitors who quickly decided that art wasn’t that remarkable after all.
SERENDIPIDY
You’ve heard the expression ‘the devil’s in the detail’, but I guess you’ve always taken it to be just an idiom.
Not so. If you look closely enough you’ll find that, hidden within the detail, the devil is indeed lurking and, what’s more, he’s looking closely at you too.
Wherever there’s complexity and confusion, he’s there, and the closer you look, the more absorbed you become, the closer he gets to you and the more absorbed into your life he becomes.
Until, finally, without even knowing it, you’ve become the devil…
And you’re screwing up the detail for everyone else!
LISA
The Search
The wall is full of more faces since you were last here. Fresh faces of women in their late teens and early twenties with the whole of their life stretching before them.
This is no casting couch. This is not the hunt for the star of a West End Production. We’re deep in the East End looking for their abductor, perhaps their killer, the reason why their loved ones haven’t seen them recently.
We’re convinced they’re all connected. And just need one tiny little detail, a miniscule clue that helps us link and ultimately find them.
It’s not looking promising.
NORVAL JOE
Because his vision had gone completely and his hearing was reduced, Billbert could only listen as Linoliumanda explained in detail how she had not followed anyone and the root of their problems was actually Sabrina.
All the while, Mr. Withybottom kept shouting, “Linny, get back in the car.”
Billbert sat on the curb.
Sabrina asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
Billbert sighed. “I can’t see anything.”
Sabrina scoffed. “You shouldn’t have left out that detail. It’s a classic Black Knight move.”
She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling my grandmother for help. Linnyninny, why don’t you listen to daddy and go?”
TOM
No Way Out
It was not so much Timmy was stupid as he was missing one important detail. Without it one would just wander down blind alleys. The missing detail was in plain sight. The man in the café saw to that. The man in the café was placed between a rock and hard place to kept Timmy in play in spite of those who were hell been to tube his career in the eyes of the high council and the elliptical reasoning of the protractor’s guild. The detail was flower in the vase: Semper Augustus. Timmy touched a petal absently. So close.
PLANET Z
I think the last time I played soccer was for the residential college’s team, where I was used as a scrub placeholder whenever a starter needed a minute or two on the sideline to catch his breath.
Another player took me out from behind, and I landed on my head.
I got up and ran back into play, yelling like a maniac… after being knocked out cold for two minutes.
Twelve men on the field. My last-ever yellow card.
And a Miller Lite in a bloody towel held to my forehead as I stumbled laughing to the First Aid Center.