Author: Alexander Fawn

It was his first day as a free man after two years.

He had served time for being in possession of drugs. It had been a long sentence, but it had given him time to fully see the error of his ways. Inside, he had found religion. This was not just a case of seeing the light, but it had given him time to consider how badly he had lived his life. He had thought of all the people he had wronged, the sinful things he had done. Starting at the age of eighteen, when he had bludgeoned an old man late one night and taken his wallet. From that incident he worked his way forward, year by year, crime by crime, throughout his miserable life. He confronted all of it, using the strength he had found in his redeemer. Not only that, he had planned a way to atone for all that he had done, a way to wipe the slate clean.

His plan would make use of the leaps and bounds made in the time travel industry. While in prison he had done extensive research on the companies that provided these services. He had specifically looked into the most suitable provider with plans to visit them in the near future. It was still an extremely expensive service, used mainly by the very wealthy, but he had a stash. This consisted of the proceeds from robberies committed over the years. He had decided that it would not compromise his newly found beliefs, if the money was used for good; used to put things right.

Having recovered the hidden cash, he made an appointment with the chosen time travel agency. At the meeting he explained that he wished to go back to a specific, date, time and location. He had paid for an hour to allow his plan to be implemented in a careful and controlled manner, despite his only requiring a few minutes. The date was fourteen years earlier, when he was eighteen. The time was 8:50 am. The place was the pedestrian mall that led to the town’s largest department store.

It was a few days before the evening that he’d mugged and robbed the old man. It was the morning that the store had its most popular annual sale. It was close to a shop’s entrance where a large crowd would be gathering, waiting for the doors to open.

He entered the booth. He stood, while the technician completed the appropriate settings before leaving and closing the door. There was a flash…

A little shaky at first, he found himself standing at the prearranged corner, watching people turning into the mall. While he waited, he couldn’t help thinking about how his act of atonement would undoubtedly cause problems for the agency. This was something he had considered when the idea had first come to mind. His reveries were instantly dismissed when he caught sight of the teenager. He moved into the queue behind the boy. As they all neared the store the crowd became far denser and more chaotic.

Nobody saw the silencer being screwed on or heard its muffled pop. Those nearest were too occupied with the boy who had fallen to the ground, to notice the man mingle into the crush and slowly fade… to nothing.

Annually they meet.

They go by their own name and gather in private. Speculation and guesswork have come up with names for the group. An assembly of men and women that sit in secluded places. Locations selected for peaceful ambience. They meet to consider the business they each bring to the table. All aspects of worldly affairs are reviewed, considered and decided upon. The common title for what they are about is New World Order. The appellations given for what they do or how they are named are of little consequence. Their choice to remain anonymous needs no explanation. With indefatigable energy and purpose they go about their business. The unknown nature of their existence remains firmly in place, managed by consummate planning and proven methodology.

All rumours concerning conspiracy, propaganda, controversy, globalism, authoritarianism and elitism have no bearing on their deliberations. They only strive to review, consider and decide.

Maybe it is worth considering the idea that they be left alone.

He stood beneath the spread of the tree at the far end of the park.

It was the second Saturday in May. Here it was again, the day they parted. The day they vowed to meet here a year later on this very spot, on her return from her work overseas. They were so much in love, it was a solemn pact. It had been a long year. For him, it was a year of planning and saving, of making plans for their future. A year spent preparing for her return and the life they would have together. He stood, knowing that this year would be different. It would be a special year. This would be the tenth and final anniversary. No more waiting. No more coming here to pay homage. No more mourning over an elusive dream of how things could have been.

After all, he had met someone else. They were married with two small children and his life was good. He wanted for nothing more than his new life had given him. He was perfectly happy. So, why did he keep this pointless vigil year after year? At one time, when the bitterness first set in, he imagined it was to confront her with her cruelty. It would be his one and only precious opportunity to load her with her self-made guilt. But, even this thought of vengeance lost its appeal over time.

No. He knew what had to change. This would stop, along with the deception of making it here, alone, each year. The painful, yet ridiculous deceit of withholding all knowledge of his activities from the woman he now shares a contented life with would have to stop. He could no longer tolerate the duplicity of it. Now, it seemed quite clear to him. He knew what would lay ahead. The stupidity of it all ended here. No, his mind was made up.

This year would probably be the last.

He found a call on his answering machine about a letter.

It was from the woman who lived further up the street. She said it was for him, but had the wrong house number. He could call in on any morning to collect it. He thought it was good of her to let him know, but couldn’t ignore the local gossip that said she was a bit odd. She apparently never went out. This made sense when he considered the fact that most people would simply redeliver it next time they passed the intended house; just put it in their mail box. With all these considerations, he was a little apprehensive about calling in to collect it.

The following morning, he’d shrugged all these silly thoughts off, he’d never regarded himself as yellow. He rang her doorbell. As the door opened he was hit with a waft of spicy odour, it was pungent, but not unpleasant. The woman answering the door had a big smile. She was wiping her hands on an apron. “Please come in,” she said, “I’ll get your letter. I have a pot of saffron rice on the boil at the moment. I won’t be a minute, go on through.” She pointed to a door and disappeared back into the kitchen.

He pushed the door open and went in. He stood for a moment, blinking. The room was yellow; really yellow. He stood taking it all in. The walls were yellow. They were hung with pictures of canaries, sunflowers and daffodils. The curtains, carpet, lampshade, sofa, plastic coffee table with a bowl of plastic lemons, and an old style plastic telephone were all yellow. Arty objects of various sizes, such as a toy taxi, strings of beads, china eggcups and so on, were scattered around on the table, on the shelves, in fact on any surface flat enough to place them. They were all yellow.

She came in with a grateful smile and handed him the letter. “I see you’re admiring my lounge.” Her other hand came up. “Would you like a banana?”

Making meaning quite bizarre,

Their journey paths are badly laid.

They make you wonder where you are.

The lines you read are sickly made!

The assassin had developed a conscience, well not exactly a conscience.

For some time now, he’d been hearing voices. Voices of the dead; voices of his victims. It was some kind of telepathy, although it was coming from the other side, from beyond the grave. At first he saw it as a talent; a gift that he hadn’t known he had. They came from locked trunks in attics, oil drums in abandoned farm sheds, sealed crates in warehouses and from several plots of compacted soil scattered around the outskirts of town. So many of them. At times it would be just one of them, at others, at least a dozen of them all gabbling away at once. Most of it came down to complaints with a lot of really bad language. In a strange way he was getting so used to them that ignoring what they were saying became easy. He could listen or not. He could choose.

At least, this was the case until his attention was grabbed by the word ‘survivor’ coming through the noise from time to time. He only heard the word when there were others all speaking at the same time. It felt as though he was being teased with it.

Then, the time came when the silence that had gone on for a while was broken. The voice, unlike the others, seemed so calm. It was saying, “Yes, you’ve got it. I’m a survivor. You need to know that it’s not just the dead that can accomplish a direct transference of thoughts. You botched it with me when you were disturbed and you left me for dead. I recognised you the night you brought out the silenced gun and pointed it at me. Right now I’m in the main police headquarters in town, having given the police your full description, name and address. They are on the way to you now.”

He sat thinking about what he had heard for quite some time.

In fact, the loner had just finished his frozen TV dinner when he saw the blue light flashing through the curtains.

The special training took place at a secret military location.

Soldiers were being trained in the finer techniques of controlling drones fitted with high resolution cameras. A number of selected army personnel were undergoing an intensive drone tactics course, with several machines being put through their paces across an extensive airfield at any one time. These particular flying machines were designed and built for the sole purpose of infiltrating enemy lines, to spy and return images to a drone handler. The day was like any other at first, with a nonstop buzzing around the installation. Things changed when reports were coming in about a drone going rogue. The handler of this malfunctioning machine and his offsider were called to the Group Captain’s office to report. They stood at his desk and saluted.

The captain said, “At ease soldiers. Just tell me what’s going on.”

The two trainees looked at one another, apparently not sure how to begin.

The captain spoke again, in a softer tone. “At ease, gentlemen. I’m sure the problems being encountered are not of your doing. Just a simple verbal report is all I’m asking for. I understand that you’ve lost contact with your assigned drone.”

“Not lost contact, sir, lost control, sir,” blurted the handler.

“I see. You’re saying that it’s not responding. Is that right?”

“Correct, sir.”

“What’s it been doing, if you are not controlling it?”

The two soldiers looked at one another again, with the handler nodding at his offsider to go ahead.

The offsider, the more outspoken of the two, said, “Following, sir.”

The captain frowned. “Following? Following what?”

“Another drone, sir.”

The captain frowned again. Shaking his head, he got up and crossed to a large board that contained coloured photos of the dozen or so drones that were part of the training programme. He pointed to it. “Which one is yours?”

The handler said, “Top right corner, sir. The dark brown TD09, sir.”

“OK, and this other drone? The one you say it’s following?”

“TD03, sir. The brightly coloured one near the middle, sir.”

The captain squinted at the TD03. “It is colourful, isn’t it?” he mumbled. “Why is that, do you suppose?”

More relaxed now, the handler said. “Dunno, sir. We wondered about that. It’s the very latest model, sir.”

The captain turned to face the two men and asked point blank. “What do you believe is going on? You can speak quite frankly; off the record, if you like.”

Both men visibly relaxed. The offsider said. “If you want my opinion, sir. Off the record, sir. I believe it’s flirting, sir.”

“What?”

“Flirting, sir. We’ve been watching it for a couple of hours and all it’s done is follow the other drone around, sir.”

The captain looked bewildered. “Come now, gentlemen, these machines don’t have genders! There has to be some technical explanation.”

“We can only tell you what we saw, sir.”

“Yes, yes, I appreciate that. Where is it now?”

“On the ground, sir.”

“You got it back then?”

“Sort of, sir.”

“Sort of?”

The handler let out a sigh. “Can I explain, sir?”

“Please do.”

“Well, it’s like we said, sir. Our drone kept following this other one for some time, so we asked the other handler, the guy controlling the pretty one, to have it do all sorts of crazy manoeuvres to see whether ours would follow it, and it did. It even looped the loop with it. It was at this point that we asked him to bring his drone down. In order to get ours down too, you see?”

“I do. Did it work?”

“Yes, they came down together… sir.”

“That’s it, then. We can have the thing thoroughly checked over. I’m sure we’ll find it’s some perfectly logical technical glitch.”

“Sorry, sir. Not that easy, sir.”

The captain looked taken aback.

“No. sir. Sorry, sir,” the handler went on, “they came down together and that’s where they are now, out on the field, right next to each other. What I mean, sir, is they are… touching!”

The captain shuddered, “Yes, well… we’ll have to bring them in.”

“Won’t do a lot of good I’m afraid, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Why not?”

“The handler’s offsider, sir, he’s, well, he’s in hospital, sir. He tried to pick it up and received a shock, sir. He has severe burns to his fingers, sir.”

The captain shook his head in exasperation. “OK, but we’ll still have to bring them in for analysis, somehow.”

“Not very likely, sir. Begging your pardon, sir. I’m afraid the handler lost it!”

“Lost it? What do you mean?”

“He went troppo, sir. He began shouting something about how he wasn’t going to stand for that kind of behaviour, sir.” At this point the handler looked at his offsider seeking some kind of tacit agreement. The other nodded. “Then,” he went on, “he went over to the workshop, got a pair of insulated gloves and a large crowbar. He ran out onto the field and bashed them both several times, sir.”

The captain’s expression was a painful grimace. “Are they badly damaged?” he asked.

“Smithereens, sir.”

At this, the captain returned to his desk and sat quietly for a minute or two before looking up. “I want a full report on all of this, on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. You’re dismissed.”

The two soldiers saluted and wandered out, quietly.

The captain felt a wave of anxiety come over him. He opened his desk drawer and reached in for a tablet.

They just stood there looking out at the rain falling heavily.

It was the sudden downpour that drew their attention. Neither of them spoke, they rarely did anymore. It was just an awkward silence, like so many of them that they now shared. Physical avoidance became the norm. Each of them treasuring the times when their personal space was entirely theirs. A general lack of eye contact had long since been part of their daily lives. Of course, there were times when words were necessary. When it happened, it was painful and laborious for both of them. Each was weighed down by the other’s presence. For each of them an obligatory cohabitation had long been in place, as some kind of tacit agreement that neither could remember having agreed to.

The rain began to ease and their brief moments of togetherness came to an end,

Independently, they had each asked themselves what they could have been thinking when they had decided to get married.

Neither had the answer.

He was stretched out on a sun lounge, soaking up the heat.

Europe was always nice this time of year. This was his regular working holiday. He would spend a few weeks visiting the clubs, bars and gaming houses, for just one or two days at a time. Then he would move on. He knew all the haunts; those places where his prey congregated.

From his comfy recliner on the hotel balcony, he watched the dock workers sweating furiously. They came from all over, but they all had one thing in common; they, like so many of those who frequented the venues he would visit this year, liked to gamble. It never failed. They all liked to work hard and gamble harder. Bless their hearts!

He opened his small velvet bag and checked his tiny cups. They never seemed to tire of the shell game. He wiggled his fingers. He had always been quick with his hands. He smiled as he returned his working tools to his pocket. He squinted at the lowering sun and turned over.

He could lie here for another hour before the bars open.

The Uni student’s car had refused to start that morning.

He had almost made it to the bus stop when the car pulled up beside him. When the side window went down he recognised the driver. It was the Head of Animal Science at the university. This was very nice of him, he thought, realising that he must have recognised him from the Engineering building in the adjacent block. He climbed in, thanking the driver. The elderly professor only smiled. The car was very comfortable, with soft seats and a good heater. Nothing was said until they were crossing the common. The car lurched with a double thump. This stretch of road was notorious for running over rabbits. The student turned and checked out the road kill through the back window while the other slowly shook his head.

The student broke the silence. “Stupid animals,” he said, under his breath. He looked out at the meadows where he knew there were rabbit warrens. “Every year, this happens,” he went on. He looked across at the old man, feeling that he could say his piece, “If you were in one of the fields and you came across one of these animals, you couldn’t get close to it before it takes off like a rocket. Yet, when it comes to roads… well, that’s another matter. They seem to deliberately run out in front of a vehicle and, well, chance their luck I suppose. Of course they don’t always make it.”

He looked back at the professor, who was smiling.

“I’ve a bit of a theory about that,” the younger man said, emboldened by the other’s silence. “I think the male rabbits do it deliberately, showing off in front of the females. Demonstrating how brave and clever they are to come so close to death. By impressing the females like this improves their chances of being chosen for mating.”

The student fell silent for a couple of minutes, then began to shake his head.

“No. That’s not right,” he whispered. “No, that can’t be right. If that was the case and natural selection kicked in, well, future breeding would produce a predominately brave and clever rabbit that by virtue of its nature, would never get run over!” He glanced at the man who had a degree in animal science and had probably written several papers on wildlife conservation, and said, “That’s right, isn’t it?”

At this point the professor pulled into his allotted parking space at the university and switched the engine off.

The student repeated, “That’s right, wouldn’t you say?”

The professor wagged his finger, “Yes, but…”