Author: Alexander Fawn

When she was young she had a method for getting off to sleep.

She would watch animals running around on her bedroom ceiling. It was green, with grass and bushes and trees. She used to watch them each night before drifting off into gentle slumber. There were rabbits chasing around and frogs sitting on lily pads. Once, she had seen a mole come out of a hole.

She could summon these up and many more. Sometimes a bird would fly across the room from one side to the other. She had managed to conjure up all of the creatures known to her, and this had made them real, although imagined. The method worked really well for so long. However, sometimes a different thing would appear, not one that she recognised. She didn’t like it. It was black and crept low along the ground. It wasn’t one of her animals. Its face was quite ugly with great shining, purple eyes.

Then there was the night when she had snuggled down comfortably after watching her friends at play. She remembers it vividly. She was lying on her side with her head cushioned nicely in her pillow, when she was startled by a puff of warm, acrid breath hitting her face. Opening her eyes she had come face-to-face with two large violet, glowing eyes.

That was the night she stopped doing it.

The boy found the book in the attic.

It was an old Boys Annual that had seen better days, but was still readable. The scribbled note inside showed that it had belonged to his grandfather. He can hardly remember him, although he had the feeling that the man was a bit odd. He knows that he had never really warmed to him. He thought the book looked interesting, so he took it back to his room. That night he began reading it. He was a few pages in when he noticed that a word had been underlined in red. The word was ‘bother’. It made no sense at the time and he carried on reading. It was when he discovered the word ‘this’, that he began to wonder whether this was some sort of secret code. Was the old man trying to tell him something?

Although it was getting late and he had already begun to feel tired, finding this second word and the possibility that there was a secret message hidden in the pages woke him right up. A further search came up with the word ‘nonsense’, near the end of the book. Now, he knew for sure that it was a message. He turned back to the beginning of the book and started a more careful search, going from page to page.

It was here that he found two more words that he hadn’t noticed before, on pages that were more grubby than most. They were certainly underlined like the others. These were the words, ‘do’ and ‘not’. He felt sure he was getting somewhere. He went on and found the word ‘as’. Then further on he found the two words, ‘is’ and ‘just’. Just to make sure, he took his time working his way carefully through the whole book. After assuring himself that he had them all, he got pen and paper and wrote the eight words down using the sequence they had appeared in the book. When he was done, the sentence read, ‘do not bother as this is just nonsense’.

He had never liked his grandfather.

He first saw her coming out of a shop in the high street.

It was a sunny day with rain forecast for mid-morning. He had no plans for the day, other than spending time wandering around town. Most of his Saturday mornings were like this. It was never anything you’d call exciting, but looking in shop windows, sometimes buying the odd thing, and visiting a café. It was a time-out thing for him. That is, it was that kind of day until he saw her come out of the newsagency across the street from him. He was instantly smitten. She was like something out of this world. She walked slowly passed shop windows, pausing from time to time to look at things.

This continued for some time, with her occasionally going in and coming out of shops, before he realised he had been following her for several minutes. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. He hoped she wasn’t aware of him. To be accused of stalking… although that’s exactly what he was doing, would ruin any chance he ever had of getting to know her. Finally, after staring in through the window of a clothes shop for some time, she went in. Outside, across the street, he watched as the rain began. He had no umbrella with him and he had seen that neither had she.

Taking a chance, he raced back along a couple of streets to where he had seen small telescopic umbrellas for sale, he bought one and ran back. It was coming down heavily at this point and he used it. Returning to his vantage point he saw her still in there talking to the shop assistant.

Eventually, she looked as though she was saying goodbye, about to leave. He dodged a car to get across, then held himself in readiness. The timing had to be right. When she came out she stood under the awning for a moment, wondering how long it would be before it stopped.

He approached, saying, “May I?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Well, thank you! Talk about great timing.”

They both stood for a moment looking out at the rain. Together, they both blurted out, “Horrible weather!”

They laughed, and that started it.

Timing can do that.

His progress with writing the story was slow.

He knew it was going to be a large book when he started. At this point, chapter six was beginning to take shape. Thinking back, his first chapter had not gone well. It had been a lot of boring background stuff, so, he had deleted it. When he read through the second chapter, although it gave more information about the where and the when, this too was pretty humdrum. He decided that he could do without it. Chapter three wasn’t much better. It went into a lot of mind-numbing description about the building. This also ended up in the bin.

Chapter four didn’t add anything to the action. It had gone on and on about the four men and what had brought them there. Reading back through it he had found it all very tedious. Details about getting their hands on the required floor plans and how they managed to acquire the various components they needed to build the explosive device was uninteresting to say the least. It had to go.

The build-up of how they broke in and made their way to the basement, in chapter five, made tiresome reading. The account of how they carried out the wiring made dull reading, and the narrative dealing with how nervous they were all getting, became pretty dreary after the first few paragraphs.

Meanwhile, chapter six was going nicely and it was pretty straightforward. He felt he was finally getting to the essence of it. After all, the bomb had gone off prematurely and they all died. That’s all there was to it, really.

There’s a lot to be said for short stories.

Do we find it in a raffle

Or in a roulette wheel?

Do we turn to magic,

To seal the deal?

Is it sought in a lottery ticket

Or a roll of the dice?

Does it come with a winning hand?

Wouldn’t that be nice?

–

The purchase of a talisman,

A lucky gem or stone.

Are reading palms or crystal balls

Where miracles are shown?

–

Do we avoid black cats and ladders?

Do we hunt for a four leaf clover?

Do we take care when umbrella opening,

Allowing myths to take over?

–

Are we careful with mirrors,

Or how we hang a horseshoe?

Are we simply waiting

For dreams to come true?

–

Do we rely on fortune cookies and rabbits’ feet?

Or do we need to admit

It may be a word that is simply used

When we don’t know the how or the why of it.

Unlocking the door, they walked into the apartment and began looking around.

They had been told to take anything they fancied by the grieving father. The previous occupant had been a good friend and they were still reeling from the tragedy. He had always been a bad driver. Whenever they travelled with him his impatience with other road users had made them both uncomfortable. They began to look around. He was looking for the letter opener he’d always admired, along with anything else he fancied. She had her eye out for kitchen stuff. He found the things that he wanted. She too had rummaged around and found the gold rimmed tea cups and the large wok. Finally, they returned to the lounge with what they had gathered.

She said, “You know, I’m not sure about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s not yet cold in his grave and here we are scavenging his flat!”

“Don’t be silly! We were told to take whatever we wanted before his parents clear the place out.”

“I suppose your right, but I don’t know what makes me more ill at ease… being driven by him or being here.”

He chuckled. “I know what you mean, he was a madman behind the wheel. Just an accident waiting to happen, I think. Anyway, we’ve got what we came for, let’s go.”

They made their way out, locking up as they went.

The spirit of the previous tenant, hovering near the downlight in the corner of the lounge room, had watched as they had taken what they wanted. It had also listened to their comments about his driving.

It considered this to be rather scathing.

There again, it thought the eulogy that he gave at the funeral was nice.

The first part of the ritual takes place annually in a room known only by one.

The small chamber with a hidden combination lock is secreted in the basement of a derelict stone cottage. The ancient building is heavily surrounded by a growth of bushes at the quiet end of a little known village, nestled on a hillside. The place is located in a mountainous region of Europe. It is here, that once a year, a shepherd boy, chosen generation by generation by the Dark Lord, to attend the place. It is his duty to milk the teeth of the Eden snake that resides there and capture its venom in a small bottle. It then falls to him to take this to an appointed place on the escarpment to deliver it.

It is there that he meets the man who is destined to cause chaos in the world. The man, never aging and as old as the snake, drinks the venom and is invigorated. He then returns to seclusion. He bides his time, waiting for the right moment to make himself known to the world.

Most would think this unlikely, naturally…

The four girls from the office sat around the bed chatting amiably to cheer the patient up.

It had happened the previous afternoon. Reception had been particularly busy with lots of calls coming in. The company’s elderly telephone operator was now in the intensive care unit with wires and tubes strewn across her body. The incident came out of the blue. One minute she was sitting, the next, she was on the floor.

The drugs hadn’t worn off, but she was doing her best to keep up with the conversation. It was very thoughtful of them to take their lunchbreaks to come and see her. She lifted her head and looked at them bleary-eyed. “Did the call get put through?” she asked.

“Of course it did,” the youngest girl said, “I was there when it happened. You silly thing. Fancy you worrying about that!”

They all giggled.

She laid back in the bed and closed her eyes. It wasn’t clear to her whether she’d had a heart attack or not, but the doctor had said it was likely that she’d simply been overdoing it. He had said that stress comes about when you feel under pressure to do something and you are having trouble coping. He said that untreated it can lead to serious illness. On learning that she had been doing the same job all her working life, and considering her age, he suggested that she think about retirement.

She’d had time to think about what he said. Her health would definitely have to take priority. She wouldn’t be going back. Just because she had never really done anything else, it didn’t mean she couldn’t give it away.

She opened her eyes, they were still giggling. “It was lovely of you all to come in to see me.” She smiled at them all. “I think I should tell you that I won’t be coming back.”

Shocked faces stared back.

“Oh! Don’t say that. The place won’t be the same without you,” one of them said.

“No. It’s nice of you to say that, but I really think it’s time for me to stop. I’ve had time to think about it you see, laying here. I have to consider my health. I know I’ve been with the company a long time but that doesn’t mean I can’t move on. I need to slow down and find something else.”

Her visitors looked on with glum faces.

At that moment, a distant ringing came through the ward.

The old lady picked up the digital ear thermometer and held it beside her head.

“Good afternoon, how can I help you?”

She’d been dusting in the bedroom when it happened.

They argued. One thing had led to another and they argued. He ended up raising his voice and being unashamedly nasty. It wasn’t like him at all and it only took a moment or two, making his way back out into the garden, to realise this. He felt quite ashamed of what he said. He went straight back.

He pushed the door open gently and went in.

“That was rude of me. I’m sorry,” he said.

She shrugged. “Me too.”

“No need to be, I shouldn’t have been so aggressive.”

She smiled. “Yes, I know that. It’s the reason why I’m sorry.”

“Come again?”

“It’s the reason I’m sorry,” she repeated.

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m just saying I’m sorry that you said something that you feel you need to apologize for.”

He sighed. “So, if you are still sorry, I presume that you haven’t really accepted my apology.”

“No, you misunderstand. I have; I have completely accepted your apology.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes it does,” she replied.

After a moment, he said, “Tell me how it could make sense when you consider that you said you were still sorry about it after I had apologised. That has to mean that you haven’t accepted my apology.”

“Well, yes, you’re right. I didn’t really accept your apology until I told you I was sorry about it.”

“OK. So, everything’s OK then?”

“Yes, fine.”

“That’s good. I really am…” he stopped himself, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

He closed the door quietly.

It was well into the evening when the conversation started up.

He really wasn’t looking forward to talking to her again. She had this tendency to blame others for things she was totally responsible for.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she was saying.

He went to reply.

“When I think of all the medical bills I had to pay, all of the after care, the medications. In short, I ended up with one hell of a bill. It took me almost six months to pay it all off.”

“Well,” he replied, “you probably don’t want to hear this, but one does have to ask what you were doing out there in the first place. I mean, it’s an old car, not really good for maneuvering through the sort of terrain you were in at the time.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” she replied, “the car just came out of nowhere. He must have seen me! He just ploughed right into me.”

“Yes, but they were only dirt tracks. What were you doing there?”

“Cant a girl just make her way out to the beach in the evening? Just to park somewhere, then wander down and sit on the sand looking out across a moonlit sea.” She fell silent for a moment. She went on, “I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly something I like to do.” She gave an audible sigh; and with that, the room fell silent.

He hoped he wouldn’t be hearing from her again anytime soon.

He sat reflecting sadly on the fact that once you’ve found that you possess the knack of talking to the dead, you’re really stuck with it.