The Beginning / The End

It's her idea. She sits there smoking her cigarette and looking at me. There's a pigeon pecking around the tables so I look at that.
"Why not?"
I shrug and take a sip of my coffee.
"It's a fucking good idea. Me and you. We'll be like..." She kicks at the pigeon. "like that guy from Chitty chitty Bang Bang?"
I frown.
"The child catcher," she says.
"The epitome of childhood evil?"
"Fuck children. Will take a big net and catch people's stories then you can write them down."
"Like the BFG?"
"Big fucking gimp."
I look at her and she smiles. "Go on" she says. "Me and you."
"What do you get out if this?"
She shrugs then drops her butt into my coffee. "Coffee's fucking shit as normal. What's this these English, fucking, sorry, fucking, excuses for cafes? I don't want some spotty boy creaming himself over my espresso." She finishes her drink.
"So what do we do?"
"What?"
"How do we start?"
She lifts her sunglasses and looks at me.
"How do we get people's stories?"
"We go and fucking find people."
"Yeah, but how?" I fold my arms. ""Hello, can I ask you to tell me a story?" - I mean, that doesn't sound weird."
"You make your own story."
"Sure, but..."
"There's nothing wrong with being a bit mysterious you know?"
"So, like?"
"I don't know, get a card or something. Get people to phone you. You know - like those whores do in phoneboxes?"
"Let me think about it," I say.
"You get five seconds."
I look at her and she smiles. Then I say yes.