Author: Alexander Fawn

He was only twelve, but he still missed his dad.

His mum never wanted to talk about it. He would always remember the shouting and the arguments that went on late into the night. He had a vivid memory of those tears that ran down his cheeks as he lay in bed listening to them. Later, he remembers his uncle telling him that his dad had gone away with the lady that used to work in the post office. He had remembered her clearly, when he was told about it. She seemed to be a nice lady. She had always said hello and smiled at him.

Then, a school friend said he had often seen him on a Saturday, walking a dog in the local park. He said he was sure it was him. That’s when he began walking through the park on a Saturday, in the hope that he’d see him again. It was a long time ago for him in his young life and he wondered if he would recognise him. He did this for several weeks before he saw him. It was him! He was walking a dog and coming towards him. He was so excited at the prospect of talking to him, even if it was only for a brief moment.

His dad was smiling as he approached. At that moment, from somewhere behind him a small voice cried out. He walked straight passed without even looking at him. The boy turned to see him as he manages to gather up the young child, and still holding the lead, walk away with the lady from the post office. That’s when those old tears started again.

Once more, those same tears from all that time ago, ran slowly down his cheeks.

The Chief Scientist and head of the DNA test laboratory made a startling discovery.

He was trawling through the animal test records when it occurred to him that the common house fly had never had its DNA catalogued. A few days later, having completed the tests, he was studying the results. He was confused by what he saw, so he carried out a second series in case they had not been done properly. The results came back the same. At a stretch, he considered what he was looking at was DNA, but its configuration was so strange that it was more like something he had read about. It was an article about tests that had been carried out on organic matter that had been found on the surface of an asteroid. He began to form the opinion that the common house fly may well have an unknown origin never before discovered.

He also went on to speculate that if these creatures were in fact alien, there purpose here on our planet could easily be to play the role of observer. It was hard to imagine a better way to maintain an ongoing programme of watching and evaluating a foreign species. If this was the case, it would be a simple yet exceptionally clever method of keeping track of the progress that mankind was making with respect to the planet and its wellbeing. Unhappily, it was during this moment of realisation that three flies unexpectedly landed on his desk. Slowly, they each turned to face him. It was at that moment he suffered a massive heart attack and dropped dead on the spot.

It was some years later that quite unexpectedly the Chief Scientist and head of the DNA test laboratory made a startling discovery…

Smoking on board was strictly forbidden.

Space travel had become pretty routine with ships flying regularly from planet to planet. He was just one of half-a-dozen technicians aboard the joint international supply company’s craft, sailing around the cosmos. He’d tried to give the habit up, time and time again; failed every time. The first few days in outer space were murder. He roamed the decks looking for a place to light up. Finally, he found a small room on C-deck that, despite smelling a bit off, gave him the privacy he needed. Considering the number of cigarettes he’d smuggled on board he could go there once a day until they landed on Phargus 9. You could smoke on Phargus 9.

He had just finished scraping the gunge off the filters in the main galley when he saw how late it was. Nicotine called. He made his way down to C-deck. Quiet as usual. It was always silent down there. He crept along the dimly lit passage. At the end, he silently worked the heavy lever, being careful not to touch the red fire-alarm button, and stepped inside.

It was only moments later that the cleaner strolled down the same corridor, checked the garbage disposal schedule on his hand-held screen and jabbed the button with his elbow.

There was no way on Earth, or in space for that matter, that he could know the Russian word for ‘Shute’.

The man at the corporation knew that client confidentiality was everything.

He was never happy when police authorities took an interest in his operations. There were very strict protocols to be followed when sending a customer back. The majority of them simply wanted to relive some precious, happy time. They just wanted to be there again when she married or he graduated. For some it was to relive a football match or to witness once more the finish of a boat race, or to enjoy the spectacle of some grand opening. All these things were possible after a strenuous vetting programme, a substantial fee and an understanding that they would be carefully chaperoned at all times to ensure that no interference with events that had already taken place could be interfered with or altered in any way. This indoctrination and training was rigorous and on occasions an immediate refund was made. The organisation could not allow mistakes.

The man waiting for the time specialist detective to arrive knew only too well that in the dozen or so years the Time Corporation’s Travel Agency had been providing their services there had been slipups, but nothing as big as this one. This particular twenty-four hour package was purchased by an extremely wealthy client who wanted to go back a couple of years to watch a sporting event. This had been perfectly straightforward with no concerns. What was a little unusual, although such cases had occurred, was the immediate follow up booking to be returned again, this time two weeks earlier. The client wanted to be there for an earlier game as a lead up to the final. This was all the man in the agency knew. If there had been any issues the police would know all about it.

When the detective arrived he got straight down to it. Apparently, there had been a major event scramble. He learned that there was a great deal of panic going on back at headquarters. After sending back several scouts to find out what had occurred to cause the scramble, the following came to light. The wealthy customer in question had returned with ill intent. Having been swindled by a crime boss a few years earlier, he had gone back with a plan to lose the chaperone and kill the man. However, on his arrival he learnt that his intended victim had had a heart attack and had died a few days before. This prompted the customer to make the second booking. Unfortunately for everyone, he also managed to give the second chaperone the slip and this time murder the man prior to his having a heart attack. To complicate things further, the perpetrator had managed to avoid making the return trip.

That all occurred just over a year ago. It’s still being worked on.

These event scrambles take a lot of fixing…

Slippery, pernickety, Jock,

Kept all his loose change in a sock.

When the mugging begun,

The culprit went down,

Slippery, pernickety, Jock.

She really liked him, but her mother wasn’t too sure.

He asked her if she fancied a ride in his car and she’d said yes. It was a nice looking vehicle and his idea of letting her join him when he paid a visit to a friend in a nearby town meant that she’d get to sit back in comfort on a thirty minute drive with his car radio playing music nonstop. He collected her from home, as planned. To her surprise, he pulled over after a few minutes and asked her if she’d like to drive for a while. She was thrilled and couldn’t believe her luck. She had driven her dad’s car a few times, just for fun, but she didn’t have a licence. He was good about it when she told him, saying that he had no problem with trusting that she would drive sensibly.

She soon got the hang of it and with his permission opened it up once or twice to see just how fast it could go. She really enjoyed driving it and when he asked if she wanted to keep going until they got to town, she jumped at the chance.

As they entered the high street, he had her pull over, outside the bank. He checked the time, saying that they were now running late visiting his friend. He did need to pop into the bank quickly, but they should hurry. To save time, he suggested she stayed behind the wheel so they could move on quickly when he came out. He suggested she keep the engine running and be prepared to take off as soon as he came out. With that he got out and went into the bank.

She couldn’t help wondering why it was so important to be at his friend’s house on time; he had always struck her as being very cool and laidback. Anyway, she’d had a great time driving.

She couldn’t wait to tell her mother all about it.

He’d found the ideal place to stash his gear and sleep under a roof.

When he discovered it, the room was empty accept for a few bits of rubbish. It was at the back on the upper floor of an old derelict building; abandoned not condemned. In fact although it was in bad need of repair, it had been built to last. The room was one of many, but it was all he needed. Sure it was messy, but he liked it that way. At least he no longer had to listen to his mother’s constant complaining about his untidiness. He had been squatting there for several months and had kept this fact to himself. When he’d spent a day begging in the town and eating when he could, he would take the long route back to the house, in case he was followed. He would look back from time to time to make sure. This was his place.

Then, quite out of the blue one day, he returned to find that the back door, his entrance, had been opened. The small piece of paper he regularly wedged in the gap at the bottom of the door had been moved. At the top of the stairs he found the door to his room was slightly open. He made a point of always leaving it closed when he left. When he entered, he was pleased to discover that no one was there. However, he found evidence that someone had been. In the relatively clear corner of the room he found a number of items that were not there when he left.

There was a bucket of water, a mop, a broom, a sponge and a cloth. A piece of paper was wrapped around the broom handle, held in place by an elastic band. He took it off. It read:

‘Note from landlord

I own this property.

I’ll let you squat, free of rent, if you clean your room.

Property inspection – one week.’

The added note.

‘To the owner

It’s true that it’s hard for a leopard to change its spots.’

He packed up and moved out the next day.

As a boy he had always managed to shrug off the mundanities of the real world.

All this he could leave behind and transcend from the everyday humdrum to go beyond, into a magical domain. This was achieved by allowing his powerful imagination to enter a world of make-belief. A place where he could create fantasies and allow dreams to come alive. He could fly away to places of his own choosing. He could pilot a space cruiser through a star belt or slay a dragon or discover buried treasure on an unmapped island. He could do all these things, there were no restraints or limits set on what he did. He could fly like a bird or swim like a fish. He could lounge in the Serengeti sun with a pride of lions, he could hunt with a pack of foxes in the Arctic tundra or fly great distances with the wedge-tailed eagles in outback Australia or he could dance with the fairies by moonlight in an English forest. He was able to do all these things.

It was always with a great deal of reluctance that he felt the need to return to the real world, where he was the Chief Executive Officer of the International Global Resources Corporation.

The man in the agency looked across at the candidate with a knowing smile.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, I’ve read your CV. It’s very impressive. I see you have a very thorough knowledge of the myriad of ways possible to communicate with your fellow human beings.”

The young man wriggled. “I suppose so.”

“Yes, you would suppose that.” The account manager looked down at the resume on his screen and started reading.

“Email, Kindle It, Skype, SMS, Viber, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Yahoo Mail, Reddit, Tumblr, Evernote, Messenger, WordPress, Outlook, Gmail, WhatsApp, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, AOL Mail, Pinboard, Bitty Browser, Trello, Copy Link, Digg, Pocket, DZone, Pusha, VK, Mix, Flipboard, Slashdot, Box.net, Fark, Buffer, BlogMarks, TypePad Post, Viadieo, Wanelo, LiveJournal, Odnoklassniki, Known, Telegram, WeChat and Diaspora.”

He tapped a couple of keys and went on.

“Amazon Wish List, Line, Mail.Ru, Diigo, Mastodon, Symbaloo Bookmarks, Hacker News, Threema, Mendeley, Meneame, Refind, Mixi, CiteULike, Netvouz, Plurk, Tuenti, Svejo, Twiddla, Wykop, XING, Yummly, Design Float, Kakao, Diary.Ru, Hatena, Douban, Blinklist, Draugiem, Rediff MyPage, Renren, Sina Weibo, StumbleUpon, Yoolink, PrintFriendly, Protopage Bookmarks, StockTwits, Balatarin, BibSonomy, Google Classroom, Kik, Care2 News, Houzz, Instapaper, Folkd, Papaly, SiteJot and Qzone.”

He finally looked up.

“I’m afraid I can’t recommend you to the client.”

The applicant looked shocked. “You can’t?”

“No, I can’t. It’s really quite simple.”

The knowing smile returned.

“The fact is, when you entered the room you didn’t smile and say good morning.”

The room, or a replica of it, was a sad reminder of the brilliant surgeon and scholar.

He had produced some of the finest medical papers in his time. He had made tremendous strides forward in the field of advanced levels of neuro-communication. Now, in the city’s science museum, the room was a testimony to the man and his work. Students from all over the world came here and passed through in small groups to witness in physical terms, the man’s life. On the desk they could see the very pen that he used to write so many of his papers. Beside it, the strap that was used to keep the pen held in place when his grip became too week to hold it in the normal fashion. Next to this, a larger strap with a pad of high friction rubber to enable the hand to press down to steady it while writing. It had been developed at a time when his hands became susceptible to constant shaking.

On a small credenza beside the desk, his keyboard, with the oversized keys to cope with his inability to write using his hands and his failing eyesight. The apparatus next to this, the voice recognition microphone and associated software used when he could no longer write or type. Lastly, when he lost the power of speech, the first ground-breaking version of his head net, designed to emit thoughts that were sent to an electronic receiver screen where they would appear. Here, the students are told of the many stages of advancement during the last few years of the man’s life. The final segment of their time in the room was given over to choosing one of the party to don the head net. This would be a demonstration of how thoughts were sent to the screen fixed to the wall behind the desk.

However, on this occasion, before the selected student could actually place the neuro net on his head, words began to appear on the screen…