Late into the dialogue they realized they would cease to exist if they didn't give themselves names. They realized that without names, the author would not remember them - like those stories where the characters in the story are aware that they are characters in a story. So they settled on Hamish, though due to time being limited, a surname was never established for him, and Rodney. Rodney Bacon. Rodney didn't want to be called Rodney, but he was okay about Bacon. The English guy said that just because he was Scottish sounding, Hamish didn't necessarily have to have a stereotypical Scottish name, but in fact, Hamish was happy with Hamish. Time was running out at that point, so Rodney had to accept Rodney, and besides, he was banking on being referred to by his surname mostly anyway.
Of course during most of the original conversation, names weren't mentioned up until toward the end. However in the retelling, names were employed pretty much from the get-go. Eggs were a big factor throughout though.
The whole dialogue from the point where Hamish had reprimanded Bacon for not setting the egg timer led up to them realizing they were characters, because it became apparent that something didn't makes sense. Because at first it subliminally seemed to be that they were two guys living together, that was, until Hamish had pointed out that in fact this was a boiled egg factory, and if Bacon went through that door, he would see the conveyor belts, with all the guys packing boiled eggs into boxes. And he'd see all the other 'kitchens', the doors to them, lining the long wall on the same side of the factory floor as their door, each with another pair of guys also boiling two eggs in a pan just like he and Hamish were. And he'd see the faded red painted steel shutters over on the far right, with the loading bay where the eggs were packed into the vans for transporting far and wide.
Subliminally, the implication prior to the idea that it was a boiled egg factory, was that Bacon had always assumed that the door Hamish was referring to, was just a normal door to some ordinary room. In fact Bacon was scared to open it and see the white-hatted, white-coated egg packers, as if it would drive him mad. As if he had been very secure in thinking that they simply shared this apartment they were in. He thought he and Hamish had just been two regular guys who shared living quarters.
Meanwhile, Hamish is talking like he can't believe Bacon wasn't aware they lived in a boiled egg factory and 'even if he hadnae seen the other employees packing the boiled eggs into boxes, surely he mustae seen the red and yellow vans with the 'McTavish's Eggs' signs around the town at least?' though that was not really how he spoke at all. It was a much more naturalistic accent than the author was able to relay.
There were discussions about what businesses the eggs would be supplying, and that turned out to be such concerns as pickled eggs in jars makers and Scotch egg makers and mayonnaise makers - and there was a debate about the way mayonnaise was made.
Hamish insisted that some mayonnaise makers preferred to crush boiled eggs rather than the usual technique Bacon believed was likely to be the case, that uncooked eggs were used, probably just the whites. The transparents.
'And why only boil two eggs at a time?' Bacon wondered. Hamish said that any more in the pan and the eggs just start smashing into each other, whereas only two tend to just dance around each other. And their customers preferred unbroken boiled eggs.
And don't bother pursuing the line of inquiry about huge pans, or vats of eggs, hundreds, all boiling together tightly packed.
Bacon was skeptical about the whole thing. Surely pickled eggs in jars makers would simply boil their own eggs? And why hadn't this come up before? It all seemed rather haphazard this apartment they lived in actually really being part of a boiled egg factory.
And the raison d'etre behind the Scot's irritation that something rarely used was lying fallow during a process it was made for, had now been undermined by this boiled egg factory development, since no doubt, eggs were on the go constantly, and egg timers were routinely activated now this wasn't simply an apartment. Now, the Scot's irritation had to be rationalized as being over a co-worker's neglect of a repeated part of the factory process.
So it was around this time that it started to dawn on them that it seemed Hamish knew a lot more about what their existence was about, and Bacon seemed almost like an amnesic, which was when they'd begun to realize they were simply ciphers for a weird script about boiled eggs. All underscored by the egg timer ticking ticking ticking.
Bacon asked if they were in fact a couple, and Hamish said that they weren't, and as this was going on they realized that even though Hamish seemed to know more, in fact neither of them knew very much about themselves or their lives at all. It was questioning that, that led them to realize that they barely existed at all, and were in fact in danger of ceasing to exist completely very promptly.
There was a brief discussion concerning some attempt at blackmail, but that turned out to be a dead end. Other possible ways to finagle the author into giving them an existence beyond the egg timer's bell were all proposals that were easily quashed with simple logic. Pay him off? Threaten him? Appeal to his mercy and compassion? That was, until they hit upon the name idea.
By inventing names for themselves they would stand a better chance of ensuring that the author would remember them and they would therefore continue to exist. There wasn't much time however. They could see how close the ticker was to zero. So they set about making names for themselves. Well in fact it was more Hamish that did the making there. Bacon did more of the complaining. He didn't think 'Hamish' worked because of the pronunciation, but Hamish insisted people would 'get it, nae worry,' though he didn't quite put it like that. The ticking somehow seemed louder. Bacon was satisfied with Bacon in good time. Well he had no choice really.
So the egg timer's alarm? It finally rang. And by the time those eggs had boiled, and the author had eaten one of them with some soldiers, saving the other egg for later, Hamish and Bacon had firmly established themselves as fictional characters.
