When Hugh was in a second-hand book shop one day he came across a book about setting up your own chocolate factory. He had never felt a need to set up a chocolate factory before, but the book seemed interesting. It was a woman's account of her attempt to produce chocolate in her garden shed. It was a big shed, as garden sheds go, but it was small for a factory.
   The book gave Hugh many hours of enjoyment and a need to set up a chocolate factory in his garden shed. His shed was smaller than the one described in the book, but he set up his factory in it because he saw this endeavour as no more than a hobby. He'd consume the chocolate himself, if it was fit for consumption, and he might even give it to friends and relations in the unlikely event that the chocolate tasted reasonably good.
   After a few months of experimentation he was producing chocolate that tasted slightly better than reasonably good. He made chocolate cakes and biscuits, and he sold these at a market on Saturday mornings. People were reluctant to try his chocolate at first, even though he was giving away free samples, but after they'd overcome their fear of being poisoned they tried it and they were invariably pleasantly surprised. Hugh was pleasantly shocked that he was actually making money out of this venture.
   One evening, a man called Ned came to see him. Ned was a local businessman who owned a supermarket, a hardware shop, a pub and a farm. "I've come here to buy your chocolate factory," he said to Hugh. "I've always wanted to own my own chocolate factory, just like Willy Wonka. Now there was a great businessman. I've always aspired to be like him, as a businessman rather than as a person. He was a bit odd as a person."
   "My chocolate factory is not for sale."
   "I'd give you a job. You'd be the manager. I've got big plans for your factory. Not as big as Willy Wonka's plans, but bigger than anything you could imagine."
   Hugh wondered if he should point out that Willy Wonka was a fictional character. He decided against this. "It's not for sale," he said. "I'd rather be my own boss."
   "Of course you would. When you're your own boss you won't have to worry about your boss telling you how useless you are, unless you hate yourself. A boss like that isn't going to amount to much, and neither is an employee who doesn't know how useless he is."
   "Why don't you set up your own chocolate factory?"
   "I tried once, but it's not easy making chocolate that people actually want to eat. I only succeeded in making chocolate that people wanted their enemies to eat. There isn't much use for chocolate that you don't want to eat, unless you can force-feed your enemies, and there aren't many people around who can do that, not like in the good old days when there were plenty of people going around the place making other people consume things against their will, and there wasn't a thing the law could do about it. We didn't need TV in those days. That's why we didn't have it. That's why we didn't have electricity -- we didn't need it. All we needed to do for entertainment was to look out the window and see someone talking to a tree. You'd say, 'Someone has made them eat something that's making them behave in this peculiar fashion. I wonder who it could be. It could be anyone of about a hundred people.' And then we'd spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out who the culprit was. It was like an episode of 'Murder, She Wrote'. We need 'Murder, She Wrote' now because forcing someone to eat or drink something that may have peculiar side-effects is practically a crime these days."
   After Hugh had insisted that he'd never sell his factory, Ned left.
   A few days later, a woman called to see Hugh. She said she'd tasted his chocolate at the market and she'd been inspired to make her own. She offered Hugh some of the chocolate sweets she'd made. They looked too tempting to resist, so he tried one. It tasted odd. Not bad, but odd. It made him feel a need to sit down and close his eyes.
   When he opened his eyes again he was tied to a chair in a room he'd never seen before. Ned was there. He smiled when he saw that Hugh had opened his eyes.
   Ned said, "You've probably guessed that I've made you consume something you wouldn't have taken of your own free will. You wouldn't have tied yourself to the chair of your own free will either. And the only way to release yourself is by agreeing to sell your chocolate factory."
   "Never."
   "I can wait. And it's much easier for me to wait because I'm not tied to a chair."
   Ned did a tap dance to demonstrate how not tied to a chair he was.
   "People will know I'm missing," Hugh said.
   "The story that will be spread around town is the one about you needing to get away after your little breakdown. You've been working too hard in your chocolate factory, trying to combine it with your day job. Photos of your breakdown will be spread around town as well."
   Ned took out some photos of Hugh in tears as he tried to knock down a wall with an umbrella "You'll never guess what I gave you to make you do that," Ned said. "I have a video as well. If you agree to sell it now, no one will ever have to see these photos or hear about your breakdown."
   Hugh knew he was beaten. He said, "You can have the recipes and the contents of my shed, but you'll have to move them to your own premises."
   "That was the plan all along. Do you actually think I'd be associated with your ramshackle little operation? I told you I had plans for the business that were bigger than anything you could imagine, but I had no idea you couldn't imagine anything bigger than your garden shed."
   "And there's no way I'm working for you."
   "Now that I know you can't imagine a chocolate factory that's bigger than your garden shed I'm not sure I'd want you as manager anyway."
   Ned moved the factory to a former butcher's in the town, but the business only lasted six months. When he needed to get revenge on the people who criticised the Christmas decorations in his supermarket he couldn't resist adding something to the chocolate. Before long, half the town were talking to trees, pretending to be cats or feeling unwell. Ned thought the whole enterprise was worthwhile. He had fulfilled his dream to own a chocolate factory, selling chocolate that people liked, and then he had made those people sick.

   Toby can think of two things wrong with the claim that school days are the happiest of your life. He only spent one day in school and it wasn't very happy. The only things he learnt from his formal education were that he didn't need to spend longer than a day at school, that this day wasn't as enjoyable as a day spent watching a shed leaning to one side, and that pet rabbits don't like being called after infamous historical figures. He was nineteen when he had his first and last day in school. He was much taller than the other children. They laughed at him, and they made fun of his height. They asked him if it was snowing on top of his head. They thought this was hilarious, and they wouldn't drop the snow joke. It expanded all the time, like a snowball rolling down a mountainside. By lunchtime they were asking him if the skiers relaxing in the chalet on his head were aware that the Yeti in the leather jacket had found a can of petrol and he was building a bonfire outside. They were, Toby said.
   The class went on a field trip in the afternoon. Toby thought he'd enjoy this, but it only gave his classmates more opportunities to make jokes about his height. It wasn't long before the skiers were fleeing in terror down the mountainside. The class walked through actual fields on their field trip. Toby wanted to point out that he could walk through fields any day, and on any other day he wouldn't be ridiculed by kids, unless he was with his nephews. The teacher told them how to tell the difference between dandelions, buttercups and daisies. She spoke about the insects and animals that live in hedgerows. Toby didn't think it was necessary to say that giraffes don't live in hedgerows, but she did, and she explained why giraffes don't live in hedgerows. She repeatedly explained why a Yeti wouldn't live in a hedgerow, but only because the kids kept asking her.
   The teacher told them to close their eyes and listen to the songs of the birds. Toby closed his eyes and thought about a shed collapsing, but his thoughts were drawn to the songs he heard. One song sounded familiar, and it wasn't coming from a bird. It was his uncle Ken, who was singing a Percy French song. Ken had sold his house years earlier and he started living in hedgerows because he believed that all houses would fall down eventually. Toby had tried to convince him that this only applied to sheds, but he wouldn't listen. He built shelters that were completely concealed by the stones, bushes, wild flowers and weeds in the hedgerows.
   Toby's classmates and his teacher heard the sound as well, and it didn't take them long to locate its source. Ken came out of his shelter when he realised he had visitors. He was delighted to see his nephew in a school uniform. "You'll have a new star pupil," he said to Toby's teacher. "I've been telling him for years he should go to school. He has brains. I don't know where he got them from. It wasn't from his parents. His father fell in love with his mother when they first met. He thought long and hard about how he'd win her over. He kept smelling dogs until he found the smelliest one, and then he gave it to her. You'd think she'd have taken a step back and said, 'There's something I need to be doing,' and then run away. But no. She agreed to marry him instead. The time they spent together during their engagement was shaped by his need to avoid the irate owners of smelly dogs..."
   Toby realised that his life story was being told. Because the audience was so young, some details about how his life began would have to be omitted, but sooner or later Ken would get to the story about how Toby and his brother set up their own business selling cakes made out of mud. The kids were listening intently to Ken, and so was their teacher. Toby came to the conclusion that school wasn't for him, and a swift exit was called for. He ran to the nearest gate and he tried to jump over it. He had successfully jumped over gates thousands of times in the past, but his movements were restricted by the school uniform, and this attempt proved to be unsuccessful. His foot hit the top of the gate and he landed on his head at the other side.
   He didn't know how long he was out for, but when he regained consciousness he was surrounded by his classmates, his teacher and his uncle, and Ken had reached the story about how Toby and his brother built their own airplane, also out of mud. The school day was nearly over, so they had to return to their classroom. On the way there, Toby expected to be asked if the people on his head were attempting ski jumps that were beyond their ability, but the kids didn't say a word to him. They just looked at him with reverence, perhaps because of the success of the mud cake business or the spectacular failure of his jump. Despite this new-found respect, he still decided that school wasn't for him. He didn't think he'd be able to endure another lesson on why zoo animals don't live in hedgerows, and he had a good job in the bank to go back to.

   For many years I suffered from agoraphobia. I could never leave the house, but I was able to take it with me wherever I went. The view outside my front window kept changing and I could close the curtains on the people who laughed at me for walking around with a cardboard box on my head. I was never lonely in my house because I had so many visitors. People loved calling around, although some of them only knocked on my front door because it was an excuse to punch me in the face.
   When a married couple moved into the box next door the walls seemed as if they were as thin as paper. I could hear everything they said. They had the same conversation every evening before they went out to a party or to a friend's house. He'd say, "I wouldn't use that sandwich, if I were you, not if you're going to use it as a hat."
   She'd say, "I can use whatever I want to use as a hat."
   "In that case, I'm going to use my bullet-proof vest as a hat."
   "But people don't usually shoot you in the head."
   Just before leaving the house she'd always say, "Spread some shadows over the furniture to keep the dust off. The man with the gun will come out of the shadows. He'll keep looking at his gun, so you don't need to worry about him."
   She always said this very loudly. I got the impression that she wanted me to hear her because she thought this would stop me from breaking into their house. Sometimes they'd stay in and invite friends around. Their parties would keep me awake all night.
   I moved house when I was able to afford the mortgage on a bigger box. My new neighbours sing to each other instead of speaking. The song always sounds happy, even when they're arguing. Her voice was full of light and love when she accused him of having an affair with her sister. I don't mind these arguments because I rarely listen to the lyrics of songs.

   Perhaps we'll go to Galway next week. If we don't make it all the way to Galway we can stop in a field and start building a new Galway. This is how my uncle Billy created Dublin in 1972. He was on his way to Dublin to see a man about a dog. He was still fifty miles away from his destination when he stopped in a field to sleep. Billy could sleep for a week. This was because he'd get into long arguments with everyone he met in his sleep. He'd get into long arguments with everyone he met when he was awake as well, but real people would never argue with him for longer than six or seven hours.
   He slept in the field for five days. When he woke up he found that someone had built timber walls and an iron roof around him. He decided to make this the new Dublin and he'd wait for the man with the dog to come to him. Many people joined him in his new Dublin over the following weeks. One of the newcomers was a man called Tim. Every time he was struck by lightning, he'd dance. He was struck by lightning three or four times every week. On cold nights, people would crowd around him for the heat after he was struck. They were liable to get kicked by his dancing feet, but a good kick in the head only helped keep out the cold.
   Billy was often woken from his sleep by a kick from Tim, so he decided it was time to expand Dublin. He built more rooms in the field. The town kept growing, and the influx of Dubliners gathered pace. It took three years for the man with the dog to arrive. Billy decided not to buy the dog. The man and the dog stayed in the new Dublin. Billy went back home to Limerick, but when he got there, everyone had gone to the new Limerick. Billy stayed in the old Limerick because there was no one there to disturb his sleep. In his dreams he populated the abandoned city with people who never tired of arguing with him.

   Tommy was walking past a bus stop when he met Laura. She said she was going somewhere on a bus and she asked him if he'd like to go with her. He said he would.
   When they got there they got off the bus. They were alone. They watched the clouds pass by above them. They agreed that they were enjoying each other's company. The clouds, it seemed, were not enjoying each other's company. A cloud shaped like an axe attacked a cloud shaped like a fly.
   Tommy and Laura went on another bus that took them to another place. They enjoyed being at this other place. Other people were there. Strangers. They enjoyed being amongst strangers because it was half-way between being alone and being with friends. This is where they wanted to be. They'd go on enjoying being where they wanted to be until they began to want to be somewhere else or until one of the strangers produced an axe.
   They had to wait two hours before this happened. No one produced an axe, but Tommy and Laura did begin to feel a desire to go somewhere else. Most of the strangers had already felt this need and had gone somewhere else. Many enjoyable hours could be spent wondering where the strangers went to. These hours would be reserved for later in the day or at night because they had something else to do in the meantime: going somewhere else. When they left, there was only one stranger still there. He was looking out over the sea. They wondered why they hadn't thought of doing this before. They considered staying behind to attempt looking out over the sea, but the lure of somewhere else was too great, and they left.
   When they arrived somewhere else they found that they were in a restaurant. This made sense because they were hungry. A waiter appeared. Many pleasant hours could be spent wondering where he came from, but the likelihood is that he came from the kitchen. When he left, he almost certainly went to the kitchen because when he came back the next time he had food with him. It was more or less what they had ordered from the menu. They said they were pleased with their food. The waiter went away again, but this time he went up a stairs. Over dinner they discussed where he might have gone to. They came to the conclusion that he had gone to tell someone else that they were pleased with their food. When they had finished their dinner they went up the stairs to tell this person that the waiter wasn't lying. They were afraid that the waiter would get fired for lying.
   They came to an office that contained the waiter and two strangers. The waiter had his hands raised over his head, and so had one of the strangers. The other stranger was holding his hands in front of him. One of his hands was holding a gun. The other hand was holding a wad of cash. Tommy and Laura said they really enjoyed their meal. The stranger with his hands held over his head apologised to the waiter for accusing him of lying. The waiter accepted the apology. Tommy and Laura waited until they felt a need to go somewhere else. After half an hour of waiting in silence they were still carefully examining themselves for the slightest spark of this need, but there was nothing. Laura remembered the stranger looking out over the sea. She suggested looking out over the sea from the window. She did this with Tommy. The waiter and the two strangers joined them.
   The sun had just set. They discussed where strangers might go when they leave somewhere to go somewhere else. The stranger with his hands held over his head said he was planning on going to a boat when he felt a need to go somewhere else. The stranger with the gun said he was going to his cottage. He expected the need to go there to hit him within the next few minutes. He told them they were welcome to follow him there. He stood completely still as he looked out over the sea, waiting for the need to strike. The others watched him closely, hoping to see signs of the need taking effect.
   The first effects of the need could be seen when he turned around and walked towards the door. The others followed him. The journey to somewhere else was a two-mile walk. They went into his cottage. He closed the door and turned on a light. They could hear the sound of waves. It seemed as if this sound was coming from outside. The stranger with the gun told the waiter and the stranger with his hands held over his head that they could lower their hands to whatever height they normally kept their hands at in circumstances such as these, and he asked all of his guests if they'd like a drink. The waiter said he'd like a whiskey, but the stranger who used to have his hands held over his head accused him of lying.
   When drinks had been poured for all of his guests they looked out over the sea. They knew they were facing in the right direction because of the sound of the waves, but a wall was blocking their view of the sea. They wondered how many other strangers were looking out over the sea at that moment, like they were. This thought occupied their minds for many hours, and it kept out the slightest hint of a need to go somewhere else. It was dawn before the thought started to lose its grip. Tommy and Laura felt a connection with the strangers and the waiter. There was a danger that they'd become friends and they'd have to start talking to each other, so Tommy and Laura left to find more strangers and waiters.

   Cynthia arrived at her caravan at seven o' clock in the evening. It was raining, but she didn't mind. Some people's concept of hell was a caravan holiday in the rain, but this was her idea of a perfect holiday.
   There was a tiny restaurant in a nearby caravan. She went there for her dinner. The chef had invented a type of bean that makes other food hide. Apples would roll off the table to get away from it. He asked her if she'd like to try the bean, but she went for the chicken instead. The chef looked disappointed. So did the chicken.
   She started talking to the couple at the next table. It would have been rude not to talk to them because they were so close. An apple couldn't have escaped through the space between the two tables. They introduced themselves as Melanie and George. They said they enjoyed looking at the birds along the coast. Cynthia said she enjoyed bird-watching as well. Melanie warned her not to spend too long looking at the blackbirds around the caravan park because of one particular blackbird who had given the others a bad name. When he opens his mouth you'll see a ruby inside. You'll reach out for it, but it will always be just beyond your grasp. You'll keep reaching until you'll enter the blackbird's stomach. There's a good chance you'll get out eventually, but the exit might not be so pleasant. Cynthia said she'd bear this in mind when she was out bird-watching, but she didn't think there was much danger of being swallowed by a blackbird.
   The sun was shining when she woke up in the morning. She wasn't too disappointed because there was rain in the forecast. She stepped outside. Most of the other holiday-makers were still asleep. She went to the ditch at the other side of the caravan and she looked out over the fields. She listened to the song of the birds. When a blackbird landed on a branch near her she remembered what Melanie had told her. She didn't have much time to dwell on this thought because as soon as the blackbird opened its mouth she could think of nothing but the ruby she saw. She reached out for it.
   Her mind was freed of its fascination with the ruby when she noticed that she was somewhere dark and wet. She wasn't alone in the blackbird's stomach. George and Melanie were in there too. "I feel like such a fool," George said. "I've always prided myself on my ability not to look at things. I assumed that not looking at a blackbird would be a simple task, but I was wrong."
   They were in the blackbird's stomach for hours before they were spat out. They were dropped into an empty field, in an unfamiliar landscape. They walked through the fields, hoping to find a house, but after walking for miles they hadn't even come across a proper road, just dirt tracks. They tried following some of the tracks, but these always led them to more fields or into woods.
   It was the middle of the afternoon before they met another human being. They saw a small sail boat in a field. A man was sitting inside it. He was blowing into the sail. Cynthia asked him if he could give them directions and he said, "The only direction I know is the one I'm facing. It makes things much simpler when you only have one direction, although it doesn't help you get there."
   He started blowing again. Cynthia, George and Melanie walked in the direction he was facing. During the rest of the day they came across a few empty houses and barns, but they didn't meet anyone else. Clouds crept across the sky in the evening. They found a barn before the rain started, and they spent the night there.
   It was still raining in the morning, but not even this could cheer up Cynthia. They were planning on staying in the barn until the rain cleared, but at nine o' clock they saw the man in the boat again. The boat floated past the barn. "Sailing is so much easier when you have a bit of water underneath you," he said. "Climb aboard."
   Cynthia, George and Melanie climbed into the boat. They had little trouble getting into it because it was moving at walking pace, but it gathered speed as it went down a hill. They wanted to get off then because it was moving too fast, but it was moving too fast for them to get off. They narrowly missed many trees. Cynthia, George and Melanie kept screaming, and the sailor kept blowing into the sail.
   They came to a long flat lawn, but they were still moving too quickly. They were heading straight for a windmill. It looked as if they'd go in through the open door, as long as they missed the spinning blades.
   They narrowly missed a blade. They went in through the front door of the windmill and they came out through the back door. They landed on a circular lawn. They were slowing down, and they finally stopped when they dropped into a hole. Cynthia, George and Melanie climbed out of the hole, and they realised where they were. "This is the crazy golf course next to the caravan park," Melanie said. "We're back!"
   "I'm starving," Cynthia said. "I could really do with that bean right now."
   They went back to their caravans to change their clothes and then they met up again in the restaurant to try the bean.

   George showed a great deal of caution in everything he did. He feared that sudden movements would cause people to back away from him. If a sudden jerk of his head caused one person to leave a room, the other people in the room would surely follow. Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon he'd be sitting on his armchair, quietly minding his own business on his own, when he'd suddenly spring to his feet and do a tap dance. He put this down to being possessed by a spirit. He didn't know if it was the same spirit inside him all the time or if it was many different spirits, either residing in him all the time or just passing through and making him dance on the way. He decided to write a book because he believed there was a good chance that the spirit or spirits would take control of the writing process at some stage.
   He started writing about his bike, and after that he paid as little attention as possible to what he was writing. He wrote one chapter while he was reading a book about the Boer War, and he often wrote while he was gardening. After two weeks he started reading what he had written, and he was very surprised by what he found. There was nothing about the Boer War in it. It seemed as if there were many different voices competing to be heard. One of them had a hatred of gardening. Another was obsessed with old detective films. Sometimes they spoke to each other. They often referred to someone as 'himself', and George suspected that this was himself. They seemed to regard him as an idiot they had to endure.
   All of these voices suggested many different spirits residing inside him, but George started to wonder if this was a trick played on him by his subconscious, and if so, was there any way he could get revenge on his subconscious. He couldn't bear the thought of anyone getting one over on him, even if the other person was really himself.
   Whether it was his subconscious or the spirits, he needed to establish who was boss, and that the boss wouldn't tolerate his staff disrespecting him behind his back or inside him. He wrote another book, and this time he paid close attention to every word he wrote. It would be a re-affirmation of his own role in his life, and a subjugation of the unruly forces inside him. He found that he enjoyed writing the word 'emblem'. He used it several thousand times in the book.
   He was pleased with his creation as he read through it. At no stage had any of the inner voices taken control, or so he first believed. As he read through it for a second time he noticed that the first letter of each sentence was part of a word, and the words were part of phrases like 'George is an idiot'.
   George was furious. He decided it was time to teach his inner trouble-makers a lesson. He read the first book again to get an insight into the characters of these spirits, or of his subconscious. One of the voices mentioned a strong dislike of country music. Another one said that ballroom dancers should be exiled to their own island, or to their own planet, if this became possible at some date in the future. George started listening to country music and he went to ballroom dancing lessons. He took up line-dancing as well, just to annoy his inner foe who despised country music. He spent a lot of time gardening and he watched DVDs of romantic comedies. He found other clues about the likes and dislikes of these inner characters, and he did things to make life for them as uncomfortable as possible. This is what led him to spend more time with his brother, Eric. The inner voices regarded Eric as an idiot. George thought they were right about this, but he went to see his brother nearly every evening just to annoy the voices. Eric could ramble on for hours about stupid things or remain silent for hours as he tried to think of something stupid. When George went to see him one evening he was looking at his shoe and he had a feeling that something was missing. After hours of staring he realised that what was missing was the 'S' to make 'shoe' a plural. He couldn't find his hoe either, but that's another story.
   George wrote another book. Just like in the last book, he paid very close attention to each word, and he often used the word 'emblem'. When he had finished it he looked at the first letters in each sentence and he saw that the inner voices had been put in their place. They were very respectful towards George. They used phrases like 'George is a man of great intelligence, wit and sophistication whose taste in music is beyond reproach'.
   He gave up ballroom dancing because he agreed with the sentiments expressed by his inner voices, but he kept listening to country music, even though he didn't like that either. He didn't want them to forget who was boss.