Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

I walk down a made-up ancient alleyway, between allotments and the back of old 1920s houses. I am on my way to my job as a secretarial clerk for a strange old accountant. It is a bright, crisp late September morning, everything seems cheerfully still. I look up from my smartphone and see a chicken. This is not uncommon, it must have migrated from the inner city farm, not too far away. Perhaps 2 or 5 miles. I say 'Good Morning', stop to take a picture. I think that this would be great to write into my favourite podcast with, 'From my Guest Today'. It is hosted by a lady, a journalist who interviews notable and unusual guests. There is a segment called 'A Listener Shared", where she reads out quirky tidbits from her massive following - she insists on these being handwritten to her PO Box. I then grimace at myself. She wouldn't choose my letter or photo of this chicken. It's not ordinary but not frightfully extraordinary enough. She features stories like 'my grandma was a bohemian who was painted by Lucian Freud' and 'I have just found out my great love affair is with a jewel thief' and 'here is how you can make a poached egg without stove or hob'.

I have always been so desperate to get in touch, alas the only interesting things I experience are the books I read and the podcasts I listen to, and the fact I work from my boss's home which hasn't changed since his mother and father died there in 1910; apart from a fridge from the seventies, a widescreen TV and WiFi.

This chicken can be my way in. I also trace the stretch marks on my bum onto greaseproof paper and stick them onto my fridge. I'd like to tell her this, but it isn't great art and she might think it's a strange perverse thing. And that's not me, I just do it to keep track of myself. This chicken could quite possibly be my way in. It’s a tricky part to trace, so I always discover new ones, or ones I have missed. I wake up in the night with an almighty gasp, then go to get myself a slice of gherkin and a glass of milk from my fridge, it's door overcrowded with my many shreds of wiggly fine lines in a variety of materials - pens, pencils, charcoal, tea, coffee, crayon, tomato sauce. When I can’t reach my rear end anymore I can always move onto my thighs. This chicken could well be my way in. The gherkin and milk calm me down, but I still feel my heart beating hard underneath my sweaty nightshirt.

The fridge rattles with the crinkle of thin long scraps of greaseproof paper as I close its door. This chicken really could, perched staring at me from the allotment, be my way into writing a letter. This routine happens every other night and is very eerie, on the cusp of frightening. I climb back into bed and put the From my Guest Today podcast on. I live in one room and I watch the fridge, almost always convinced I can see the thin greaseproof paper moving - despite there being no draft. The shiny morning light grants me a fantastic idea. My nightshirt is still sodden.

The letter will definitely be picked and shared on her podcast if I say I found that the chicken had laid an egg!

It's not true, strictly speaking. Nonetheless, I think almost most, nearly everybody, possibly do in fact exaggerate stories to make them sound more interesting. Particularly those who follow the From my Guest Today podcast. I walk briskly to the tube station, as I draft my letter in my notes app. I am late for my work, but I have been setting the time on my boss's grandfather clock back by 3 minutes every day since late July; I had been held up on the district line filming a group of jovial fellas with a speaker playing Oh When The Saints Go Marching In, pretending to play along on brass instruments.

He will never suspect a thing. Some old notes I have on my app say

-Fish Fingers

-Carrots (tin)

-Brandy

-Red wine vinegar ,

Brompton Cemetery

Jeremy Corbyn??

There is also the start of a poem I soon realise I'd copied from someone distinguished by memory, then abandoned. After all, I have never been quite the writer. It's hard to articulate the chicken elaboration. Gwyneth, that's her name - the author podcast host, she would be able to write this a lot better. She's artistic, has depth, clever and has a not try hard vintage aesthetic - this somehow gives her an ‘old soul’ charm. We live in the same borough, me the run-down end, her the lovely end with cobbled streets and pretty public gardens. I know this because I have seen her crying on a bench in one of the small public gardens. Properly sobbing clutching a Mills & Boon and a hand mirror.

I can't write this. I'm never going to hear my name read out on the From my Guest Today podcast. The over-exaggeration needs to be told in person for it to seem interesting or amusing in any way. Right now it's just nonsensical silliness. Rubbish!

If could only have access to her. I know I could though. After I saw her crying, she composed herself in a flourish and briskly trotted off to a cafe. I've passed this place several times and seen her in there, I assume, working. This is usually always on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Once she was wearing activewear. The next week she mentioned on the podcast that last Wednesday she had attended an aerial yoga class. This made me feel special like I had an in. I bang on the brass lion knocker of Martin's, that's his name - my boss, front door. He has failed to notice that I am nearly forty-five minutes late. Today is a Tuesday my diary says, so I know that I have a very good chance of seeing Gwyneth tomorrow to pitch her my chicken egg story - if I stay there all day. I tell Martin that I have a dentist appointment and an early supper with my father so would I possibly take tomorrow off? My father lives in the UAE, but Martin won't remember this. He says it's quite alright.

Whilst I sip milk to soothe my night panic I contemplate that I need proof that the chicken was indeed nesting an egg. I remember there being a Waitrose on my route to the cafe. I am there at 7 am, slip down the aisles, snatch an egg from a box, sprint out as fast as I can, legs and arms flailing. I have never stolen before. I lean against a bike rail across the road from the cafe, slowly stroking my elaboration egg. Sure enough, in she waltzes at 11.57am, wearing a deep red corduroy suit. Vintage.

Time passes and the story has been told. She smiles politely but looks bemused. Her long fake thick eyelashes blink at me slowly. I hand her the egg. She takes it in her manicured hands gently, rolls it over and we see printed in pink

BB 03/09

I walk out of the cafe without an explanation, briskly walking for twenty minutes, go to my room to trace more stretch marks, delete my podcast app from my phone and lie on my bed looking at the damp stained ceiling.

image by Beatrix Potter