A Day in the Life of Ian McEwan

One day Ian McEwan was walking down the street, thinking about the world. Suddenly, a seventeen year old boy scurried over to him and said ‘I love you I love you Ian McEwan. When will you realise?’

The boy was wearing a Korn t-shirt and his bottom lip had a ring through it. Ian McEwan tightened the sides of his mouth into a wry smile. Then he looked down and hurried ahead, but the boy followed after. ‘Ian. Ian my pumkin, how can you deny there’s something between us?’

Ian McEwan was thinking in high intellectual terms about how hopeless the boy’s attempt was at literary allusion. Such an obvious, juvenile prank. It did not take bucketfuls of wit to make a crude reference to Ian’s book of late, ‘Enduring Love.’ Anyone could have thought of it.

So he turned to the boy and said ‘Look, I have no idea who you are, so will you just get the hell away from me!’

Ian McEwan had been in such situations before. It wasn’t just excitable fans who accosted him, but also shady characters from his past. He had thought long and hard about the social and political implications of these incidents, where troubled individuals boldly confront the refined. He knew too what literary potential such twists of fate could offer - where two conflicting characters neatly serve as opposing sides to some cosmic dilemna. Ian McEwan was a clever man, and he was not about to be tested by this idiot.

What Ian McEwan was about to do may be of surprise to the reader. Things were about to get messy, but Ian knew it was the thing he had to do. He turned to the boy in the Korn t-shirt and fanned his hands out on either side of his face, pulling strange, weasel-like expression. The boy was confused, but this is what Ian McEwan intended. It was what Ian was about to do next that marked the point where everything changed. The event - which was only just starting to unfold - would ignite a whole network of possibilities, the likes of which would alter the lives of them both, forever.

Ian McEwan pointed to the left of the boy. The boy looked left and Ian McEwan let a clenched, preying-mantis fist jab the boy’s right cheek. Then he pushed he boy into a lampost, prompting a stifled yelp.

Ian McEwan ran away feverishly. Pages from is briefcase fluttered behind him in a jetstream of scrawled notes. They landed softly once Ian had petered out of sight.

Later that night, when Ian McEwan’s wife and children were in bed, he sat down in front of his typewriter, cracked his knuckles, and rested his fingers on the keys. After a deep breath, he began work on what would be his next masterpeice.

‘My next story,’ he said out loud, ‘is going to be great.’