Author: Alexander Fawn

He came to, very slowly.

Everything seemed to be white; a very bright white. It hurt his eyes. He was tethered down in some way. Although his entire body was almost completely numb, he was conscious of the fact that he wasn’t able to move any part of it. It was painful to move his eyes from side to side and found it best if he just stared straight out to his blurred surroundings. He could make out distant noises, a clattering of metal objects, taps running and muffled voices. He had absolutely no idea where he was. He tried for some sort of memory of where he had been, but to his utter astonishment realised that he had no memory of anything. He simply had nothing to remember!

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew he was becoming aware of a tingling feeling, somewhere further down is body, but he couldn’t figure out where. There was an image of something, maybe a person, moving about in front of him. There were rustling noises and a voice droning incoherently somewhere close to him. He was still unable to move his eyes without it hurting and he wasn’t able to blink, but his vision did seem to be clearing. The fuzzy apparition of someone moving around slowly cleared and he finally managed to focus on a man twiddling a stethoscope and smiling amiably down at him.

“Ah! Ha! There you are,” he said, still smiling and moving to the end of the bed. He came back with a small clip-board. He stood writing for a few moments. He smiled again, returned the board and pulled up a chair. “I wouldn’t normally sit,” he said apologetically, “but that was a very long operation.” He reached across to something out of sight and came back into view holding a small beaker of water.

He took a few sips. “Yes,” he went on, “very long indeed.” He looked around. “Yes. You seem to have all you need.” He yawned rubbed his neck. “Now, rest is the very best thing; for all of us. It was, as I say, an extremely long operation and a most complicated one. There where at least nine of us in theatre for most of the time.” He massaged his face slowly. “We were in there for over twenty hours,” he said, with a look that was triumphal despite his obvious exhaustion. The surgeon stood up.

The eyes in the bed flickered from side to side.

“Yes, of course. You must have questions. Speaking may be difficult for you for some time, in fact… well, no matter, we’ll talk about that later. What can I tell you? Well, cloning humans is still illegal, but we managed to save you.”

The eyes were now watering and making more painful movements.

The surgeon smiled and nodded. “We saved you, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

He seemed to be looking further down the bed. “You’re probably wondering why you’re strapped down like this,” he said with an understanding expression, “complete immobility is the best thing for the time being. We don’t want to disturb anything.” He yawned again. “Excuse me! What else? Um, I’m afraid that at first you’ll need to be sedated prior to eating. We estimate your recovery time will be around six to eight months. Oh! Yes, mirrors are not allowed.”

The eyes were now jerking around frantically.

The surgeon’s face glazed over as he said, “We have broken new ground here. I hazard to guess that in the fullness of time you will be something of a celebrity; although a rather unusual one; but a celebrity all the same.”

With that, he moved out of sight, across the room. He closed the door softly.

It had all started the day one of the boys at school found out were his folks were from.

Most of the school kids had never heard of Palermo, let alone the fact that it was in Sicily. But this kid did, and it really started something. Of course, it didn’t help that local cinemas were running The Godfather and drawing large audiences. Anyway, the inevitable banter about him having connections to the mob finally dropped off as the school year went on and he was able to settle back down to his regular schooling, without the continual references to the Mafia from his class mates.

Well… it almost dropped off; all except for this one trouble-maker who had started the whole thing off. He just wouldn’t let it go. The kid just kept on with his annoying remarks, as though it was still hilariously funny. He didn’t seem to realise that nobody else was finding it humorous any more. He didn’t see that nobody else had kept up with the witty remarks and the derisive banter. All things considered, he just wasn’t very bright.

Anyway, it all came to a head the day the victim came up with a plan to resolve it once and for all. As the last class ended he approached the boy saying that he was willing to share a secret with him, as long as he swore on pain of death that he wouldn’t repeat it to anybody. The serious manner in which this invitation was given had the desired effect. The boy, now full of curiosity, agreed to meet in the maintenance shed at the back of the school after they had collected there school bags.

As the trouble maker entered the shed, the other put his finger to his lips, closed the door and switched the light off, leaving only a small amount of light coming in through a dirty skylight in the roof. “Don’t make a noise. Don’t say anything,” the victim whispered. “Remember, you are sworn to secrecy.” Before the other could reply, he found himself in a complete head-lock, held from behind. He was not able to talk and was having trouble breathing.

“I have been told to pass on a message,” said the attacking boy. “My father says that the people in Palermo have found out what has been going on at school. They are not happy with all this open talk about them, even if it is supposed to be funny.”

At this point he brought out a replica revolver and pressed the end of the plastic barrel hard against the boy’s head. “My father has received word from them. He wants to make the problem go away. Believe me, if he did, no trace of you would ever be found.” The gun was pressed harder. “My father has given me permission to ask you once, and only once, to stop talking about them.” With this, he released him, pushed him to the ground and left.

After a while the boy got to his feet and stood wiping his eyes and trembling.

He never spoke about any of it again.

The boy sat in his room, at his desk, scratching his head.

He could never remember that word. It haunted him that there were ways that would help him remember it, or any word, or any set of words, or even numbers. The intention being that it can assist the memory. It is a very old device that people have used for ages. He just couldn’t think what it was called! He needed it for his essay. It was really annoying that he could remember what this thing did, but not what it was called.

He knew there was several types that could deal with spelling, images, words, music, names, rhymes, and so on. They could be very useful. He knew for instance that in music, the lines on the staff where E, G, B, D and F, remembered by saying every good boy deserves fudge. He could use Roy G Biv for the sequence of colours in a rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. He had learned helpful rhymes like In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.

For the weather, there was red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning. In chemistry he had used bat to remember the depressant drugs – barbiturates, alcohol, and tranquilizers. The phrase by your blocks get ready helps to remember the Olympic rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red.

All of these, and even the one that he had only recently managed to commit to memory, my very excited mother just served us nine pies for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

  

 He had been really impress at school, the day his mathematics teacher had stood in front of the class and said, “May I have a large cup of coffee?” There was a lot of giggling of course, but also a growing sense of curiosity. He went on to explain that this was a method you could use to work out the value of pi. After writing the sentence out on the board, he showed the class that the number of letters in each word corresponded to the numerals in pi, this being 3.1415927.

Thinking back to this, he was jolted into remembering that he had scribbled a note in his book at the time. He rifled through his schoolbag and came up with a notebook. After flipping pages over he found what he was looking for.

Eureka! He had made a note for himself in the margin, it read, I knew Monique had a bad memory.

Ha! Mnemonic! I found you!

Sweeping free through hills and valleys,

The up and down with both sides seen.

Moss giving life to lifeless rocks.

Meadows echoing with the green.

–

Green is the colour of nature’s birth,

In winter and in summer days.

Rebirth thrives where land is burnt,

While sunlight glints on leaves and blades.

–

So many shades of verdant hues,

Supporting nature’s scenery.

Such a gentle and pleasing colour,

Greens growing proud in greenery.

–

Green is where life is found,

Soft behind the brighter flower.

A canvas for nature’s beauty,

Gracing every copse and bower.

–

The sun draws out the countless shades,

Variegations dark to light.

Nature flourishes and feeds,

Presenting all from dull to bright.

–

We each take in this wondrous sight

Of beauty, reflected in the leaves.

The joy that greenery brings to us

Is what each of us perceives.

 

 

It was late one evening when she first heard the scratching.

She put the TV on mute and wandered into the kitchen. She felt sure it had come from here. At first she saw nothing. Everything was in its place; nothing fallen, nothing disturbed. She was turning to go back to her show when she saw it.

It sat, perched on the fridge. Small shiny black eyes, little pink ears and nose and a great spread of white whiskers. She could hardly believe it. It was a rat! In her kitchen! The one part of her house that she kept scrupulously clean. A great, plump, evil-looking creature that just sat staring at her with what she saw as an impudent expression.

She stood very still, considering her next move. She became aware of her trembling. No, she would have to get a grip if she was going to deal with it. It would have to go, that was for sure. She would have to catch it and throw it out somewhere or…or just kill it. Hit it with something hard; drop it in the rubbish bin or flush it down the toilet. She stood like this for some time before deciding that she should start by clobbering it. It was going to get messy, but she could always clean up after the deed was done.

Eyeing her small, heavy skillet, hanging on the rack, she moved slowly across to it, while watching that the thing didn’t move. It didn’t. It just sat watching her moving across the kitchen with a gentle turn of its head. With the pan gripped tightly, she crept forward, raising it above her head. Suddenly, it was gone. All she saw was its disgustingly long tail flip out of sight over the back of the fridge. Summoning up her courage, she found a torch and peered behind the fridge, but there was no sign of it. Maybe it had a hole down there or maybe it managed to get under the fridge.

The remainder of the evening was not spent with any sense of pleasure. It was however, used to come up with a solution. She went out to the shed and found a tin of rat poison. She laced a piece of cheese with a liberal dose of it and placed it on the kitchen floor, in front of the fridge. Having accomplished all this, and feeling rather pleased with herself, she went to bed.

In the morning she went into the kitchen and to her great delight found the cheese gone, save for a few messy crumbs. Her plan had worked. Although she knew there would be a dead creature somewhere, probably at the back of the fridge, she would find it later and consign it to the bin. She would celebrate with a cup of tea first. In fact, although trying to cut down on her sugar, she would give herself an extra spoonful as a reward for a job well done.

She had been sitting for a while, quietly sipping her drink, when she saw a small head appear from below the door of the fridge.

At the same time she felt a griping pain in her stomach that quickly became an agonising, burning sensation that had her tumble off her chair. Writhing in agony on the floor, she watched as the rat came out from under the fridge.

After several long minutes the rat approached her as she lay on the kitchen floor twitching violently. It came and sat very close to her contorted face and peered into her eyes.

As she drew her final breath she considered the fact that the demonic possession of animals had never before been part of her world view.

The rat giggled.

The two ladies are sitting alone in the small room.

The room has three sofas, an armchair and coffee table with magazines. The two women are apparently sisters. One is reading a magazine, while the other is playing with her mobile phone. They are both intermittently discussing Harry, who could be their brother. He could also be either missing, dead or non-existent, and is often the subject of their conversations.

Magazine – “I’m worried about Harry.”

Phone – “No need.”

Magazine – “That’s easy for you to say. I think he’s in trouble.”

Phone – “Trouble? What sort of trouble?”

Magazine – “Well, I’m not sure, but we haven’t heard from him for ages.”

Phone – “Of course we haven’t. Don’t expect to either.”

Magazine – “What makes you say that?”

Phone – “He could be dead.”

Magazine – “Oh! What a dreadful thing to say about your own brother.”

Phone – “He’s not my brother. Don’t be silly. I don’t know where you get such ideas. Are you still taking your pills?”

Magazine – “Pills? What pills? I don’t take pills. You really worry me sometimes. ”

Phone – “Anyway, this cousin, or whatever he is, I think he was very ill at one point. He may be dead, you know. Didn’t he get into trouble with the police?”

Magazine – “Police? No. Not Harry. He was very religious; always helping out at the local church, he was. Oh! No. Very devout.”

Phone – “Devout? What are you talking about? He went to prison for something or other. It was in all the papers. Murder, I think. Not sure; but it was pretty dreadful.”

Magazine – “Whatever are you talking about? Harry would never get mixed up with anything like that!”

Phone – “Well, it’s all rather academic, if he’s dead.”

Magazine – “He’s not dead!”

Phone – “I didn’t say he was. I said he might be.”

Magazine – “Prison… I don’t know how you could dream something like that up, I really don’t. Every Sunday morning he was in there helping the vicar, arranging flowers and…”

Phone – “Flowers! That was it! He was robbing a florist shop. I remember it now. The owner wouldn’t hand over the takings, so Harry shot him. Hell of a stink there was, because of him being a regular churchgoer.”

Magazine – “There you are then. I said Harry was religious!”

Phone – “No not Harry, the man he shot! Honestly, you do…”

Magazine – “Don’t you dare say any more nasty things about Harry. I’m worried about him.”

There was a loud clapping as Matron came in singing, “Medication time, ladies!”

 

 

The dead man’s wife sat in the interview room sobbing softly.

It seemed to her that so little time had passed since the body of her husband was discovered in the garden shed. In fact, it was mid-afternoon, two days later. The forensic people had finished up and a lot more was now known about what had happened. She sat fiddling with the buttons on her coat with trembling fingers.

The detective shuffled things around in front of him, looking decidedly nervous himself. He looked up and forced a smile. “You can relax. I just need to ask you a few questions. We are trying to get a clearer picture of what happened.”

He consulted his notes.

“Can you tell me where you were between the time of seven-thirty and nine on the evening in question?” He looked down at his paperwork again. “Last Tuesday evening, I mean.”

Suddenly her eyes went wild. “What… what do you mean? Where was I? Am I being treated like a suspect? Surely you can’t think that I could possibly have anything to do with my husband’s death? That’s ridiculous!” She went back to sobbing.

The detective suddenly jumped up, knocking his chair over.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “That really is it. I just can’t take it anymore!”

The sniffling stopped, as the woman shrunk back in horror. She was looking nervously around the room as though looking for something or someone who could explain what was going on.

The detective stood with his entire body shaking. His cheeks had turned a dark purple and his watery eyes were bulging.

“I’m just not doing this anymore. Oh! Big deal. Getting promoted to detective… out of uniform… more money. They can keep it. It’s not worth it.” He began to cry.

The woman now sat very still.

Finally, he glowered down at her. “Have you any idea how often I’ve heard that? No. Don’t answer, of course you haven’t. I try to ask the question as nicely as I can, but… but I always get this… ‘Oh! Officer; you can’t possibly think…,’ he said this in a squeaky little voice. “Well, I’m sick of it!” He shook his head in disgust. “Of course I’m asking where you were and what you were doing at the time. Why wouldn’t anyone ask that if they were trying to solve a crime?”

The woman stirred.

“OK I’ll tell you,” she said in a whisper.

“No! I don’t want to know, I’ve had enough. That’s it. I’ve had it!”

By this time the commotion had raised a response and a constable entered the room.

“Everything all right gov?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said. “I’m quitting, or going back on the beat, or… I don’t know what I‘m going to do.” He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “Whatever it is,” he went on, “it won’t be this!” he said, picking the chair up.

He went home, took a long shower, left a note for his wife asking not to be disturbed and went to bed. They could talk about it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, he’d sleep on it.

Young Johnny from number twelve believed in magic, while Jake from number fifteen didn’t.

Since they had both reached ‘the age of reason’, according to common law, it was reasonable to assume that they could make up their own minds about what to believe. For a number of uneventful years they had managed to play together quite happily despite this major difference of opinion.

Young Jake had obviously never seen the several centuries of ancient mysticism that twinkled in his friend’s eye. Moreover, little did he know that the event that was about to take place, on that otherwise very ordinary day in Johnny’s back yard, would stay with him for the rest of his life.

It can only be a matter of conjecture as to what really brought the heated argument about.

For Jake it was probably the endless talk of spells and enchantments, or the constant descriptions of potions, elixirs and brews; maybe it was the endless prattling about incantations and hexes. Certainly, Johnny’s mumblings about primordial cosmic wonders had become more frequent.

Maybe, he was simply tired of all the hocus-pocus.

For Johnny, it was most likely the taunting, and the constant undertone of ridicule that seemed to be increasing year by year as they each grew older. It was probably an accumulation of all this that brought it all to a head, that summer morning in Johnny’s back yard.

It happened that on this particular summer day the boys sat on the old bench seat, shaded by the large Maple tree in Johnny’s back yard. The fierceness of the midday sun cast sharp shadows down from the tree’s branches, with their intricate patterns decorating the flagstones.

The wrangling reached fever pitch.

Suddenly, in what can only be described as a fit of pique, Johnny stood up and approached the shadow of a large Maple leaf.

Without looking back at his friend, he stooped and picked it up.

He folded it neatly, put it in his pocket, and went indoors.

Fairies dancing in a glen,

Only gathering now and then.

–

In the grass they form a ring.

The weeny creatures dance and sing.

–

Joyous sounds beneath night’s cloak,

Rarely heard by passing folk.

–

Secretly, beneath moon and trees,

A spectacle no mortal sees.

–

Softly their mystic music starts,

Matching the beats of their tiny hearts.

–

In a moving circle they parade,

With twinkling garb from petals made.

Toadstools dotted here and there.

Nature’s bounty they each share.

–

Nigh invisible in the night,

Only bathed in dim starlight.

–

Through summer, autumn, winter, spring,

This ritual, an age old thing.

–

Drawing from some ancient power,

A joyful meeting at this special hour.

–

Up until the morning sun,

When mortal life is slow begun.

–

Fairies dancing in a glen,

They only gather now and then.

She needed to spend time with a friend.

Her life was running at a low ebb. It was just one of those times when so many negative events came one on top of the other. She hated her new boss. She was so domineering; telling her how to do the job she had been doing perfectly well for almost three years. Then there was the issue of her worthless boyfriend cheating on her, and to make matters worse she was getting behind with the rent.

The final straw came a couple of days ago when she could no longer stop off at her favourite café.

The new spotty-faced barista was such a jerk, she just couldn’t take his super macho arrogance any more. He would leer at her and make remarks that made her feel really uncomfortable. ‘Spotty’ thought he was being clever but he wasn’t.

He lost a customer.

Right now she was on her way to catch up with her friend to pour out all her troubles in a different coffee bar in town. Her friend had suggested it. It sounded like a good alternative. It was an extra couple of blocks away but it would no doubt be fine.

As she entered she could see her friend laughing happily across the table at someone who had their back to her.

Laughter was good. She really needed some laughter in her life at this point.

She was approaching the pair when she stopped suddenly, turned around and left without saying a word.

As she made her way home she couldn’t help wondering what she had done to cause the Almighty to take such a dislike to her.

How could He allow the man with her friend to be ‘Spotty’!