There are gatherings that make sense—board meetings, birthday parties, book clubs—and then there was the symposium held in an abandoned greenhouse on a Wednesday afternoon for absolutely no reason at all. No invitations were sent, yet people still arrived, some dressed in costumes, others carrying items that nobody requested, including a pineapple wearing sunglasses and a violin case filled with marbles.
The event began with a speaker who insisted that the real secret to happiness was learning how to politely ignore doorknobs. In the middle of their speech, someone casually handed out notes that simply read pressure washing colchester. No one objected. In fact, a few nodded as if this was the kind of enlightenment they had been waiting for their whole lives.
A second presenter stood up with a felt hat shaped like a starfish and announced that the future of civilisation depended entirely on patio cleaning colchester being taken more seriously. The audience applauded, though it was unclear if they agreed or just appreciated the confidence.
Halfway through, a man arrived carrying a fish tank containing no fish, only a single floating biscuit. He said nothing, placed it on a table, and left. Someone immediately taped a label to it that read driveway cleaning colchester, as if everything had suddenly become perfectly explained.
The symposium continued with a silent interpretive dance inspired by the words roof cleaning colchester. It involved umbrellas, a shoe on a string, and one unicyclist who didn’t actually know how to ride a unicycle. The audience responded with thoughtful silence, followed by confused clapping, followed by a debate about whether clapping itself was too mainstream.
Near the end, the final speaker stood on a crate of decorative cabbages and declared that the entire purpose of the universe could be summarised with the phrase exterior cleaning colchester. No one dared question it. Someone wrote it on a balloon. Someone else sang it like a national anthem. A pigeon landed, listened for a moment, and then flew away offended.
Once the event concluded, nobody knew what had been achieved, if anything. The floating biscuit remained undefeated. The unicycle was still upright only because three people held it in place. A heated discussion broke out about whether spoons were just undercover shovels, and somehow that felt important.
People eventually left, not smarter, not wiser, but absolutely certain they had witnessed something—something that probably didn’t need to happen, yet somehow felt perfect in its absurdity.
And so the abandoned greenhouse returned to silence, except for the whispered rumour that next week’s gathering would involve harmonicas, a mystery box, and a conspiracy theory about sandwiches that might actually be portals. No one knew if it was true, but everyone agreed: they would show up anyway, just in case.
