The Department of Nothing

So I'm reading Nick Hornby's collection of short stories, Speaking with the Angel, and come across this great story The Department of Nothing by Colin Firth, yes, THAT Colin Firth...hello Mr. Darcy...who knew he was an author, too.

The story is being told by an 8 or 9 year old (my guess) boy who has a close relationship with his elderly, housebound grandmother (she lives with his family). The grandmother captivates the boy daily with a segment of a fantasy/adventure epic that she is creating. The problem is, that she tells him parts of the story in the morning, before he has to go to school, which makes him habitually late for school resulting in detentions, etc.

Here's the part I really liked, with my compliments to Mr. Firth.

"It can still make you go a bit mental to be torn viciously from a mysterious midnight garden to your mum shouting 'cause you didn't eat your haddock. So your life is made of half-finished stories and games that never actually get added up into a whole thing -- unless it's your homework or your broccoli, then you can finish it all, however long it takes.

There's a name for all this: most people call it real life, but actually it's called the Department of Nothing. It's not just one department, but loads of mini-departments. The broccoli and haddock and meat with vomity white bits get made in the Kitchen of Nothing. School is the Paper Department, where they have this special doom-paper so anything that you write on it is doomed. Then there's the Waiting Room where you get told Not now, I'm busy, or You're not old enough yet and all that, and this is also where detentions come from. And then the Department of Vacuum Cleaner comes and sucks up all the second halves of stories and games, so you can never find them again. Grown-ups think they are the controllers, but they're not really, because it's the Clock Department who have the actual power; marching grown-ups about like sergeant majors to one two, one two. Absolutely everyone lives there -- unless they get to go to Grandma's room, which is the only way out of the Department -- except nobody knows that, even though it's blatant. The trick is holding on to the magic to get you through the Department of Nothing. The luckiest thing is that stories come right at the beginning of the day."

You'll be glad to know the story does have (if not a happy) a hopeful ending. I'm half way through the book, and would strongly recommend it.