What Am I?
Spoiler: this is about me. Other stories are available
This is not a riddle with everything left out before the final question. I did once think up a riddle — only once — and if you want to skip to the end, I’ll give you the answer there. The riddle was: It takes two to make me, but once I’m made, I’m only a memory. What am I?
But that’s not the What Am I? question for today.
“What do you do?” somebody asked me at a party recently.
Direct question. I went with “As little as possible” rather than my usual “I’m retired” because we were all smiles and that seemed appropriate. But he persisted.
“Yes, but what are you?”
What am I?
I held out my arms and looked down at myself and said “Isn’t it obvious?” and moved away. I’m not good with direct questions.
But that question. What am I?
Fintech hack?
I have a friend who persists in referring to me as “the financial hack”, although when we first met I was running a media-training consultancy. I had been a financial journalist before that, an offshore financial journalist what’s more, flying out to rich and secretive islands, but that was a long time ago. I moved into fintech early on.
I wrote a book titled E-Commerce in Retail Banking for one publisher, and shortly afterwards, a book titled What Do Mummy and Daddy Do While YOU Are Asleep? for another publisher. It pleases me, now, from this distance, that they were so close together.
I can make myself sound quite — what? Interesting? Okay, that would be a stretch, but I’d settle for — never mind. Moving on.
I’ve published poetry and articles on crypto-currencies. I’ve ghost-written speeches for [Redacted] and articles for celebrities. I’ve given readings of my own work in churches, public halls, once in a hospice and once at a festival. I’ve attended and — stretching a point — once or twice spoken at fintech conferences.
But what is the true answer to that question?
More to the point — in the sense that “Fine” is the quick’n’easy answer to “How are you?” — what is the quick’n’easy answer to “What are you?”
I’m retired. I live in Falmouth. My main activity is wandering aimlessly around town.
Not good enough. Really not good enough.
I’m fzzzt! crackle! years old. I have a family fzzzt! but crackle! respect bzzzz! wrrrrr privacy burrrrrrr zzzzt click.
To Moscow with a potato
A banker once turned to me in the middle of welcoming everybody to a press reception and said “Now, you strike me as somebody who’s totally unemployable!” [He apologised later. I took it as a compliment.]
I’m an unemployable person.
I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark off the Tannhäuser Gate — no, wait. That’s Rutger Hauer’s Tears in rain monologue from Blade Runner. Oops.
I’ve never been chased by Harrison Ford across a future that didn’t happen, but I was once punched by the author Beryl Bainbridge at a Duckworth party. I’ve never seen attack ships on fire, etc., but I have flown under the Golden Gate Bridge in a helicopter.
I’m an unemployable person who flies under the radar.
All those moments — gone like tears in rain but still quite useful for deflecting the direct question.
Has it gone away? Can I come out now?
What am I?
The question is unanswerable, isn’t it? Not just for me, but — unanswerable.
Being is in the eye of the beholder? Or something like that. I was once questioned at length at Sheremetyevo Airport about the potato in my luggage — and I have absolutely no idea how that fits in here.
Except that now I’ve started myself off on remembering these quirky little story-prompt (hint) memories, it’s difficult to stop. I’m going to end up interesting even if it trips me over into a five-minute read.
I’m an unemployable person who flies under the radar and travels with root vegetables.
Maybe we’d be better off going back to the beginning. We’re here together, after all, and…
It takes two to make me. So that would work. Shall we?
It takes two to make me, but once I’m made, I’m only a memory.
What am I?
I’m a conversation.
Ahem! Purists would argue with the “a”, because you (we) generally “ make conversation” rather than “make a conversation”, but either way, I hope I’ve given you a pleasant few minutes of reading.
If your imagination was sparked at all by my story-prompt memories, you might like to read this book.
The potato was returned to me, by the way, and I took it all the way to my destination on Tverskaya Street.
Nothing’s made more interesting by being explained — so I’ll leave it at that.
