I hunkered down in the chair, smoothed my hand over the notepad, and started writing, suddenly very grateful to a bunch of people who came to a stranger for answers, so it could take his mind off all the questions he was afraid to ask himself.

COLIN

Oi, Danny Mulberry.

When I first saw your photo in the paper, I thought you looked like a right tosser, giving it all that with the forks like you’re Liam Gallagher or something. (Fair play, you do look a bit like him, but don’t go thinking that’s a good thing.) Anyway, your mug popped back up again when I needed some paper to line the bottom of Barry’s cage, but then I was looking for something to read while I waited for the kettle to boil so I pulled you back out and used the sports pages instead. No loss really, I haven’t been able to dredge up much interest since Drogba left Chelsea.

Barry’s my bird, by the way, not some guy I keep hostage in my flat. And a feathered bird, not a girlfriend, because chance would be a fine thing and Barry would be a shite name for a girl. Anyhow, after I read the story about you, I thought maybe you weren’t a complete tosser after all, because a lot of it actually made sense to me. Don’t get excited, that could just mean I’m as bonkers as you, but on the other hand, if you reckon you’ve got the meaning of life sorted, more power to you. To be honest, I don’t really care about the meaning of life, because at the end of the day what’s someone like me going to do with that kind of information? I just thought that being enlightened and all, you might have some options for a thirty-three-year-old man who hasn’t gone further than his front door to collect the Tesco delivery for four months and three days. Whose best friend is a budgerigar. It’s me, by the way, in case you need that spelling out.

It’s happened before, but since my redundancy, Marlene (who actually was my girlfriend) moving out and then a nasty incident on the Circle Line with a gang of lads, I feel like I’ve lost the will to live just a little bit. And it’s not like I had a very strong one to start with. The thing is, I can’t seem to find a reason to go out any more, and it’s starting to scare me because of how much I don’t care. Please don’t suggest I see my doctor, because I’ve seen him (on Skype) and he saw me. Neither helped.

I guess maybe I just want to know there are other people out there in the void I’m screaming into and, who knows, my biggest problem could turn out to be that I’m reduced to asking for advice from a Liam Gallagher lookalike out of a free newspaper. Send help.

I’m joking about the send help thing.