I knew a plain man – he had a plain face and a plain haircut. He wore plain t-shirts. He ate plain sandwiches and listened to plain music. He had a plain voice and said plain things. If you didn’t have to interact with him, you would barely notice him. No one thought about him. There was very little to say about him, very few adjectives you would use – and you just wouldn’t go out of your way to describe him anyway. He had a very plain name.
I was minding my own business, eating ready salted crisps.
He was there.
He gave me a nod of recognition.
I went home and looked at all the things in my house – the colours of my walls and the colours of my clothes – and pledged to transform, starting with a purge of anything that suggested I was plain like him. I threw plain items into a bin bag but all that did was expose the plainness of my surroundings. It was impossible to get away – when I took my plain clothes off, I saw my body was ordinary and when I closed my eyes, I realised my thoughts were unremarkable.
In the pale gloom of early evening the air became spreadsheet grey and I felt overcome with weariness, a complete lack of ability to make the effort to be interesting. I didn’t leap from my seat and I didn’t switch on the light, and now I could feel all my own adjectives were seeping out and drifting away.
Digestive Press 