Author: Alexander Fawn

She returns from a three day conference across the country, so glad to be home.

Home to her cottage at the end of the lane. She missed her home, her home missed her. As she came up the garden path she pulled her keys out. At the front door she was bringing the key up when she heard a click and the front door popped open. She smiled as she went in. The house really had missed her. She smiled again when she heard the kettle boiling in the kitchen. She throws her travel bag on the bed; she’ll unpack later. Back in the kitchen she opens the cupboard and finds her favourite mug swinging back and forth on its hook. She takes it down with a nod of thanks. Rattles come from the drawer. Half a dozen teaspoons are jostling for first place. With a murmur of thanks directed at those not chosen she takes one out. She can hear teabags milling around in the caddy. Again, she takes just one and nods at the rest.

She pauses, teabag dangling from her fingers. She looks around and sighs with satisfaction. She hears the house echo with a soft hiss.

They are both glad that she’s home.

The old lady was racked with guilt about what she had done.

She had certainly never acted that way before. It was hard to believe that she’d been that rude; that mean. She was at home now with her shopping, staring down at the tin of cat food. It had all happened so quickly, but that was no excuse. When she entered the aisle to get cat food, they were just about out. There was only one tin of her cat’s favourite left. There was a man, very tall, standing immediately in front of it. She felt sure he was about to pick it up. That’s when she did it! That’s when she grabbed it from right under his nose and hurried off to the checkout, leaving him shell-shocked, watching her go.

That night she was disturbed by noises in the street, but it soon went quiet again and she went back to sleep. The following night, she found there were problems watching her television show and the next day discovered that her email wasn’t working at all. Soon after, she received a notice in the mail from her service provider to say that a fault with her kerbside connection had been detected and that a technician would be coming out to repair it. Almost a week went by before anybody turned up. She had thought about calling them to give them a jog, when the van pulled up outside. A technician, very tall, got out and started to do something by the roadside. After a few minutes, he strolled up the path and rang the bell.

He was smiling when she opened the door. He said, “Good morning madam. You received notification about your faulty connection, I take it?”

“Yes. I’ve got no email at the moment. I received a notice about it in the post.”

“Well, I’ve just had a look at it. I’m afraid we’re having trouble getting the part you need. It could take some time, but we’ll let you know as soon as the parts arrive.”

She frowned. “Oh, dear. Nothing you can do about that, I suppose.”

“Not really. We’ll be in touch.” As he went to go, he saw the cat, curled up on the front lawn. “He’s a nice looking fellow,” he remarked.

She felt a cold shiver run up her spine. She now eyed him suspiciously. She asked herself, could this be the man in the supermarket?

She watched him go.

As he climbed into the van, he called out, “Got to watch what you feed ‘em, eh?”

The agency came highly recommended.

It put its high success rate down to its policy of maintaining the strictest level of confidentiality.

He would be meeting her in less than an hour. He had his best clothes with him and would change in the toilet before leaving work. They had been talking by email for several weeks and were finally ready to meet. It was all managed by the agency. No photographs, no real names, complete privacy assured prior to any first meeting of the couple. There, they could speak freely about who they were and what they were looking for in a partner. The agency had posted out details of the meeting venue, date and time.

When he arrived at the restaurant he was very nervous. Before he went in, he stood in a nearby doorway. He combed his hair and made sure his tie was straight. Satisfied with his reflection, he entered the restaurant and looked around. There she was, sitting at the designated table. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

How could she do it? How could she be here?

He was incensed!

How could his wife do such a thing?

He was a leader in his field.

The use of security super scanners had swamped the market because of their simplicity, their being easy to use, and their being almost impossible to fool. The days of relying on a set of keys, combination locks, press button entry codes, fingerprint readers, swipe cards, proximity cards, card reader panels, to name just a few secure entry systems, these were giving way to the installation of super scanners. Passwords and PINs were hit and miss, whereas the super scanner takes one look at you and either lets you in or it doesn’t. The technology being relatively new, there were not too many technicians you could call expert. This is what made him valuable. He worked for the world’s largest company producing them and had studied hard late in his working life to become something of a guru. He was proud of his well-earned reputation.

The scanner diagnostics kit that he used, one in which he had played a major role in designing and building, was housed in a sturdy metal case. It had a combination lock and a handle. It looked like any other toolbox. Inside it had a small, specialist keyboard and a pull-up screen. This was something else he was proud of. Overall, he’d done well for himself and planned to take a well-earned early retirement. It was general knowledge in the company that after his final day in the job he was taking an early morning flight the next day to begin a month long stay in a luxury hotel in the Caribbean. Looking at his workload for his final week, he felt a strong sense of disappointment that his last day would be spent using his skills in a place and for a man he didn’t care for.

He wouldn’t have chosen this one to go out on, but he couldn’t control where he was sent. The job was for a high security room within a financial company’s city building. The manager there had never shown himself to be anything other than a rude, self-important man, with a crude sense of humour. He was generally disliked by any who knew him. In fact, on one social occasion he had tried to amuse those gathered there by saying that the technician had found his diploma in a Christmas cracker! Having made this unkind remark he seemed to be oblivious to the fact that no one was laughing. He certainly had no idea how much he’d hurt the other man’s pride.

As it happened, on his penultimate day in the job, a Thursday evening, the technician was returning from a job when he found himself passing the finance company. He decided to take a quick look at what he’d be coming to on the following day. When he approached the main entrance he was surprised to find that the scanner wouldn’t let him enter. It was good that he checked. He wouldn’t have time enough to fix it in the poor light. He would carry on as planned and come back as scheduled. He felt he should report it. Having the manager’s number he gave him a call. The manager, greatly amused by the other’s plight, said that by being there he’d spoiled his little last day on the job prank. The faulty scanner was not an internal room at all, but the main entrance.

The scanner expert was proud of the way he had stayed calm and in a steady voice had told the manager that he would return the next day. He went back to his car, where he sat for a long time weighing up the situation, together with the pros and cons regarding how to proceed. He finally made up his mind. It was very late when he took off for home. On the way he stopped at a town that he knew had a deep river running through it. Parking behind an office block he opened the boot and took out the case. He walked along several dark streets before coming to the bridge. He paused, looking down into the black water, convinced that no one had heard the distant splash. At home he took a large screwdriver and jemmied the lock on his boot.

The following morning he went into the office and reported the robbery. Naturally, considering the value of what had been taken, the police were called and a detective showed up to take a statement. His immediate manager advised him of the call from the distraught manager from the finance company as casually as he could. Other than that, the day had gone pretty much as expected with cards, one of the secretaries bringing along a box of doughnuts, and well-wishers turning up from around the company, while he cleared out his desk. Management obviously made an effort to make his final day a good one, despite the robbery. Just a few final speeches and a bonus cheque and he left for home, where he was fully packed and ready for his early morning flight. He contemplated the fact that through his years with the company he had only had one major itch, and he’d scratched it.

He was really looking forward to his retirement.

It was a recurring malady.

She felt again the great compulsion that had taken her so many times before. Thoughts and words in her head, bursting to get out. She didn’t always hear exactly what they were saying. It was all consuming. It went with her to school, jumping and dangling all through her classes. It accompanied her home and into her room. It whirled around while she changed and spun even faster when she sat down at her little desk.

She started to scribble.

As the words went down on paper, a great relief swept over her.

Finally, she lowered her pen.

Another story was born.

He was never fond of working away from home for any length of time.

He knew it came with the territory and the pay was good. Some distance from the site he was working on he could see several cranes. The place had been humming with activity for several months; ever since the land agreements were signed by the corporation he worked for. His job was pretty straight forward, but he had to live and sleep on site until it was finished. Back in head-office they figured it’d take around two weeks. He thought that was probably about right. Basically, he had to erect twenty nine enormous structures, each one in the form of a shaped panel. They all had to be fixed in a prone position, each at a set distance apart. He had done similar constructs in the past, but nothing anywhere near this big.

He was coming to the end of it with only a couple of days to go. He knew there was going to be a lot of talk about what he was sent here to do. Knowing some of his friends, he was going to get a fair bit of ribbing as well. He didn’t mind any of it, really. His work would certainly be on show.

If he could finish up for a flight back in two days’ time he’d be able to catch the Grand Final. Although he can well imagine that a lot of people will be out with their binoculars reading his sign.

‘LUNA APARTMENTS FOR RELEASE SOON!’

She rented her back room out.

It went well for a couple of days. Then, she began to notice things; small things at first. They seemed to build up. After a couple of weeks all these little annoyances began to escalate. Things like taking really long showers and leaving wet towels on the floor. Like leaving hair in the sink. Like leaving the sink blocked. Like stealing her food and leaving his food rotting in the fridge. Like leaving his dirty dishes for her to clean. Like him not doing any cleaning. Like not putting appliances away. Like leaving his clothes lying about the house. Like leaving lights on in empty rooms. Like his playing loud music late at night. Like not changing the toilet roll, and of course his really annoying habit of continually leaving the toilet seat up!

He did it once too often and she snapped.

She stood in the laundry room looking into the toilet when he came passed.

“Look, you’ve done it again!”

“Done what?”

“Oh! For God’s sake, man. Time and time again, I’ve asked you very politely to put the toilet seat down when you’ve finished in there. I mean, it’s really not a lot to ask, is it?

“Wow! Get a grip, honey. It’s just a toilet seat.”

She glared at him. “OK!” she shouted, “I give up!”

She roughly pushed him out of the way, causing him to step back and trip on a shoe he’d left lying around. As he fell back, his head hit the sharp edge of the metal laundry basin. He lay on the floor, not moving.

She just stared down at him for a few moments. She was still visibly shaken by the whole incident. Bracing herself, she went down on one knee and felt for a pulse. Nothing!

In the kitchen she found a list of essential numbers stuck to the fridge. She found one for an ambulance. Back in the laundry, she checked his pulse again; still nothing. Returning to the kitchen she put the kettle on. She’d make herself a cup of tea first.

Nothing like making sure.

Her friend had told her all about it.

The young woman from 17b was told that the ‘triple shroom’ experience was the best ever. It was definitely the experience of a lifetime, she was told. Her friend told her she’d been to a number of parties where it had been the main event. Her friend knew a lot about this stuff. She said there were lots of different psychedelic mushrooms, too many to count. She explained that the ‘triple shroom’ was a special mix of three of them. Because the taste can be quite bitter, she said the best method, after chopping them up into small pieces, was to boil them up to make a tea that could be drunk. It was easy then to mask the taste with herbal tea bags while it was on the boil. The young woman from 17b was intrigued and was invited round to her friend’s place to have a private ‘triple shroom’ session.

When the night came, they were sitting in her friend’s kitchen watching the saucepan while it bubbled away. Her friend said that it usually takes a few minutes for it to take effect and it can last up to six hours. When it was ready, two mugs were filled and the woman from 17b was quite excited as they waited for their drinks to cool. Her friend was telling her what she could expect. She said that most people entered a whole new world of unimaginable experiences and self-discovery; a world that enables them to attain a whole range of superior spiritual states, all accompanied by a wonderful sense of euphoria.

Unhappily, this wasn’t the case with the woman from 17b.

She was dead within seconds.

He had never married, and as a result of receiving a very healthy inheritance from a rich uncle when he was a young man, he never felt the need to seek out any form of meaningful employment. Whereas some may have seen him as part of the idle rich, this was in fact not the case. He had, in fact, spent almost thirty years working diligently on his magnum opus. This daunting task was driven by his passion, and based on his lifelong love, of knitting. It was this obsession with the nuances of the craft that drove him to make it the topic of his major work. A large tome entitled ‘The Complete and Ultimate History of Knitting’.

This epic work covered the entire known history of the craft. It comprised of a great rambling description of knitting through the ages from the time of the discovery of knitted items, dating from the period between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, in Egypt. Followed by the spreading of it through Europe and into Britain during the sixteenth century. Then into the Scottish Isles, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before the huge changes that came about during the Industrial Revolution. This being followed by people knitting clothes for soldiers during the Second World War, then on to the revolution in machine-knitted items during the nineteenth century. All this culminating, when coming into the twentieth century, the ease with which people were now able to gain vast amounts of knowledge on the subject through the internet.

This was a great ambling treatise, presented in the most excruciating detail.

Finally, the day came when the man, now in his early sixties, prepared his five hundred odd page manuscript in a large padded postal package, addressing it to one of the largest and most prestigious publishing houses in the city.

This was followed by a lull of several weeks during which time he was, instead of working on his opus, spending long days in a state of agitated anticipation, waiting for a response from the publishing company.

At last, the day came when his manuscript was returned. It came back in the same large postage bag he had sent it in, with the original address obliterated with a heavy black permanent marker pen.

Inside he found his manuscript… along with a small tin of lighter fluid and a box of matches!

It was only available on the black market.

Nevertheless, it was on sale in just about any city you could think of around the world. Generally speaking, it wasn’t hard to find. The global distribution system was the envy of all the cartels and drug lords. It was so incredibly simple. The elixir had very little taste and was completely free from alcohol and drugs, and was incredibly cheap. There were no side effects, but just one powerful, up front, patent effect. Throughout the centuries love potions had been concocted in secret with formulas undisclosed. The elixir however, was different. Certainly, what was put into the tiny bottles was not talked about, but this was because the effect of just one draft of the liquid was enough, more than enough. Nobody ever needed to go searching for another bottle. Well, almost nobody, that is. There were a small proportion of cases that needed to follow up with something else.

The source of the mixture was in plain sight. It was brewed in a very large warehouse in a major city that was known to all. The staff of this establishment was small, only half a dozen or so at any one time. They worked in shifts with a continual stream of shipping container trucks entering at one end and leaving at the other. Although this rotating group that staffed the place were not very keen about explaining the humdrum business of how the international paperwork was handled administratively, or how records were kept for the export of their product, they were always happy to have a complete and open audit by any authority that chose to carry one out. As for what exactly went into the huge tanks that were constantly filling little bottles was never discussed under threat of stopping production, which every member of staff was willing to do.

The idea that production of the elixir could so easily be terminated as a direct result of any authority asking for the formula would be catastrophic on a truly international basis. No government would want to entertain the sort of rioting and community destruction that would so obviously be a natural consequence of such a scenario. The amazing effectiveness of the potion was the one thing that kept everything in place. However, there was one, almost insignificant number of cases where, for a number of reasons, an antidote was requested. This only accounted for a figure slightly less than one percent globally and was taken care of by a much smaller and trouble-free administration programme. Despite this being an extremely expensive restorative solution it was trouble-free because the contents of the bottles were the same.

All of which gives light to the fact that the gullibility of people is truly awesome!