Author: Alexander Fawn

The lodger drove home after an exhausting day.

He had been in the house for an hour before realising that his keys were missing. He wandered into the front room and found his landlord lounging with his feet up reading the paper, as usual.

“Dam it!” he said as he entered.

“What?” came the disinterested reply.

“I can’t find my keys.”

“Bet they’re somewhere.”

“Eh?”

“Somewhere, you know, wherever you lost them.”

The lodger made an effort not to get annoyed. At the end of the day, the man was his landlord.

“Yeah, right. You’re probably right. Anyway, happy birthday!”

The other didn’t look up, but mumbled, “Thanks.”

The lodger stood patting his pockets. “They have to be here, somewhere,” he whispered to himself.

The other said, “They’ll turn up when they’re good and ready.”

“They have to. All my keys are on it.” He sat down. “They have to be in the house somewhere. I know I had them in my hand when I came through the front door.”

The other said “You’ll have to go back to wherever you’ve been since you came in.”

“I know, but I’ve just about been in and out of every room in the house since I got home.”

“They’ll turn up,” the landlord repeated. He turned a page and went back to his reading.

“Sorry, I wanted to give you your present before going to my room.”

“Present?”

“Sure, I picked it up on the way home. Sorry, it’s locked in the boot.”

The landlord jumped up. “Did you make a coffee when you got in?”

“Yes. Why?” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I do. We’ll go room to room. Let’s start in the kitchen.”

Once upon a time, there were two men.

They both worked for the Bureau of Meteorology where they produced weather maps.

It came to pass that they both decided to take a week off despite the fact that they were behind with their work load. They said they were confident that they could catch up on their return.

However, the story goes that they each went their own way.

One stayed and took a local holiday while the other decided to take an extra week to travel overseas to play sport. He decided that he would fly to Italy. At the very last minute he arranged the flight and booked himself in to play at the Club Ca’Del Moro. This meant that his colleague, the one who remained behind, would have to finish the cartography on his own.

All of this was on the premise that the menace, played tennis in Venice, while after departing, this left the other to solely taking part in, despite not having his heart in, in fact he was smarting, while restarting the charting.

 

When people talk of our planet dying,

Although it’s hard to comprehend,

What are we actually talking about,

When it all comes to an end?

–

Is it a completion of what was started?

A brand new state with no more pendings.

A story that’s been fully told.

A story that has no alternate endings.

–

There are endings, and there are endings.

Stones and rocks no longer worn with time.

All part of the great abandoning.

No penalty, no half-time.

–

All those finishing breaths.

No more late night shopping.

No more incurable diseases.

The ultimate stopping.

–

No more sleeps and no more dreams.

No more tears or sighs.

No more glorious sunsets,

As the planet dies.

–

No more searching for anything lost.

No more emails to send.

No longer a requirement to remember things,

As it all comes to an end.

–

No packing of suitcases.

No more fires to put out.

No more timings or count downs.

Everything opting out.

–

No more puddles to step around.

No more sorry sights to see.

No trying to lose weight.

No wildlife running free.

–

No more sending messages.

No more fashionable craze.

No more births or deaths.

An end of nights and days.

–

No more philosophising.

No darning of a sock or a sweater.

No accidental drownings.

No more making things better.

–

The final wash of all ebbing tides.

The end of all pain.

Goodbye to all the elements.

Nothing left to attain.

–

No more going in and out.

No more to and fro.

This would be the final one,

As far as endings go.

It started with a phone call from his girlfriend’s office.

Apparently, she had to leave urgently, but left a message at reception asking them to call him. The message was to meet her at the address given. The girl at reception said she thought his girlfriend had been acting strangely and had a feeling that she was in some sort of trouble. She had looked upset. Outside, the weather was bad. A forecast storm was building. There was not a lot of rain, but it was extremely windy. He left his office and ran almost all of the three blocks to the building in question. As he entered, he checked the address he’d written down. It said, she would be on floor thirty-six. He went straight to the elevator; inside he pressed thirty-six, noting that it was the top floor. On the way up, he had a chance to wonder what was going on. He couldn’t imagine what sort of trouble she was in.

Coming out of the lift at thirty-five, he saw that floor thirty-six was accessed by a flight of stairs. At the top he pushed a door open. It led out to the huge flat roof that covered the entire building. The storm was still blowing wildly. As he stepped out a fierce gust of wind slammed the door shut behind him. Being nearly blown off his feet, he lunged for the nearby handrail. He held on as hard as he could while the howling, gale-force wind buffeted him around. Despite the noise of the storm, he could hear someone calling for help. Keeping a tight grip on the rail, which ran along a low wall, he worked his way around the stack of air-conditioning units that sprouted up from the centre of the roof.

As he got to the corner he saw who was calling. He had to blink hard a couple of times. It was his loopy neighbour from 19b. She was gripping the handrail and cackling. She had been extremely upset recently, when he’d accidentally backed out and run over her pet hedgehog, Cyril.

She began moving towards him slowly, pulling herself along against the wind and laughing maniacally. A large baseball bat hung from a clip on her belt.

He couldn’t help noticing that she was tethered with a safety line, connected to one of the large metal rings set in concrete, and he wasn’t…

Witches on their broom-sticks filled the skies.

The now excited wicked witch from the great metropolis, where so many of them had gathered during the time of the Great Wiccaring, cackled the way witches do. She had found him. She hovered, waiting for the great witch of witches to join her. She hovered on her broom-stick above a young lad, not letting him out of her sight. She would be highly rewarded for being the one to find him. Prophesy had it that a young boy would be born that would possess the power to destroy the Supreme Witch, with an abundant spinning. This latter part had always been the subject of lengthy debate but had remained a mystery.

And so, it came to pass that decades of witchery ruled, while these malevolent creatures flew criss-cross over the stricken city seeking him out. And now he was found. The child sat playing with his spinning top. It was made of wood and painted with bright colours that blended into a rainbow blur each time he spun it. The witch had an evil grin as the Supreme Witch approached. At this point the boy stood and ran quickly into the street, then ducking through a series of alleyways came to the airport’s lofty chain link fence. He began to climb.

The supreme leader of the vast community of witches came down and floated directly above him. He sat straddled on the top of the fence. She drew her wand. He took his top from his pocket and lifted it high above his head, smiling. Not to be distracted by this childish behaviour, she raised her wand to deliver her most potent black spell on the unfortunate boy when she heard a noise.

With a gentle ‘phut’, she was instantly sucked into the engine of a Dreamliner.

What made her stop and pick it up remained a complete mystery to her.

She had always been someone that was perfectly content with her own company. From her comfortable recliner, she looked out at a sparkling sea beneath a clear blue sky. Occasionally she’d watch small boats sail past. Sometimes she would watch as a cruise ship bring tourists to the island. Those who could afford it would spend a week in the five-star hotel, nine floors below her luxury apartment. There were swimmers and surfers, of course. Her window also provided a panoramic view of the sandy beach, with multi-coloured sun shelters, beach tents and umbrellas. She could look down at the idle rich soaking up the sun. She could see it all, content to while away her days, just doing this.

She would sometimes think back. She would bring back images of the peeling wallpaper, faded curtains and noisy water pipes. A rude landlord, noisy neighbours, along with a job that was mind-numbingly boring. A pittance of a wage that meant she was just scraping by from week to week. Filthy weather that was cold and miserable, and a boyfriend, if you could really call him that, and their rocky relationship, that was going nowhere. Then, the day in the shopping mall, passing by the kiosk that sold lottery tickets. Then there was the person she would never know who bought the winning ticket and dropped it as they walked away. There it was, the impulse to walk over and pick it up. To walk away with the winning ticket. Not just the winning ticket, but the unsigned jackpot prize winning ticket. Next, the anxious waiting period to cash it in.

Then… then this! She came back to the present, enjoying her view out through her window. She had never been able to figure out what it was that made her stop and pick the ticket up.

She could live with that.

He sits quietly in his usual corner.

She moves out from behind the counter, a tray of food and drink in hand. Look how gracefully she moves, he thinks. In fact, she’s a graceful person. Always polite. Customers love her. She’ll always stop for a cheery word. She walks past him to deliver the meal to an elderly lady, and because it’s quiet in the café today, she stops for an extra-long chat, treating the old dear more like a friend than a customer. How long had he been coming here? Coming mainly for the chance to exchange just a few short words with her, to see her lovely smile light up her face. Trying so hard to build up enough courage to ask her out. He felt so hopeless!

She comes back, glancing out into the busy street as she returns to the counter. He notices that she does this often. Ever since the day of the accident. It happened right there on the road. Three cars colliding together. The terrible noise it made, and the frantic running around trying to pull people out of buckled side doors. The flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. The tow-trucks trying to clear the way while traffic built up, coming into town from both directions. Those in the café that day had ringside seats. Smoke and alarms and chaos. One fatality and three critically injured.

Whenever she passes the spot; whenever she looks out and remembers, is there some personal sadness in her face? Was there an unspoken and private grief in her expression?

He thinks, I wish I could talk to her. I wish she could see me. I wish I weren’t dead!

It was a complicated series of actions that he needed to take.

There was a great deal of pressure on him to get it right. The technician slid into the crawlspace and switched his head torch on. He opened the control panel and stared for a while at the wiring looms. There were a lot of them, all colour coded, with each section numbered. To the untrained eye it would be simply chaotic, but to a trained professional it didn’t pose much of a challenge. The only question was, in what sequence to perform each cut, each part replacement, each transfer of circuitry. That is why he had memorised the twenty-eight steps in their precise order before squashing himself into the very tight space. In his head, he had the procedure set out in a list of actions, much like the tracks on a music CD.

He went to back the terminal screw off the purple wire on rack B4, when he stopped. That’s not right, he thought. He wouldn’t do that until he’d rerouted the red on rack D7 to rack B3. He was running through the list that he had so carefully committed to memory and learnt by heart, when he suddenly realised that somehow it had been set on ‘shuffle’.

The ward was quiet now, nearing the end of the day.

The old man sat by his wife’s bed, holding a bony, colourless hand. A hand that he had held and loved for a lifetime. A full and happy life that he wouldn’t have changed for anything. He is at one with all its ups and downs. She had been there with him through all of them. She had been there from the beginning. The beginning… the Laundromat he used, coming home. The girl behind the counter. Her with her blue eyes and happy face. His longing to talk to her. Not about clothes or dry-cleaning or prices. Talk to her in a coffee bar or just somewhere else.

A smile creased his old face. He had finally asked her out. And what about his surprise when she laughed and said yes. How foolish he felt that day. Realising that she had been waiting for him to pluck up the courage. He stroked her thinning hair away from her face. That day in the laundromat, how precious it was. How often through the years had he thought back to it? Even later, when the owners sold up and moved on, it didn’t take his memories away. Not a bit of it. His recollections held fast. They kept him where he needed to be. He pulled a tissue from the side and dabbed his eyes. Happy eyes, giving tears of joy. Joy from such happy memories. He sat back and looked at the clock. He looked around. Visitors were leaving.

He closed his eyes. It was a stroke that brought her here. Not enough blood flowing to a major part of her brain stem, the doctors had told him. They said it was a coma, a state of prolonged unconsciousness. That was nearly a week ago. A week of coming in the morning and leaving in the evening. He looked at the clock again. He always obeyed visiting hours. The nurses appreciated it. He knew she was being looked after; given the best of care, but… what could he do? How could he contribute? He felt so desperate, so helpless. He would come again tomorrow, and tomorrow, until there was change. Every night, at home, now an empty shell of a place, he prayed for change.

He stood up slowly. He leant over her and kissed her forehead.

The heart monitor beeped a little faster. One eye opened slowly, and a soft smile rippled over a pale, wrinkled face. As beautiful as the day he met her. The day he walked into the local Laundromat, that isn’t there anymore.

“You always did make my heart beat faster,” she whispered.

He began to sob with joy.

It was advertised that this particular fortune teller would be coming to the fair.

She was so excited. This was her opportunity to see what the world could offer a young woman with big aspirations. She always felt that she was going to the top of whatever she did. Despite her high level of self-confidence, she saw this as a way of confirming her feelings. She soon found the tent and read the sign. A thrill ran through her as she read the name. It showed that one of the most famous seers in the world had actually come to the fairground and pitched her tent. She was in great demand, with lots of articles on the Web, all singing her praises and her accuracy.

The sign hanging on the flap said, ‘Next’. She entered and sat down at the table. Almost instantly the old fortune-teller appeared. With a beaming smile she sat opposite. The young woman handed the required fee over, a roll of banknotes held by a rubber band, several months’ worth of hard savings.

The seer opened a box and dropped it in.

For the best part of half an hour several packs of cards were used to gradually cover the table. There was a great deal of pack cutting, counting, selecting and turning over of cards involved. Finally, when all had been dealt, the old seer stared at the complex pattern of selected cards. She was nodding as she was reading them. Her head suddenly stopped and she looked up with a look of terror. Her hand went to her heart and her eyes closed. She remained like that for a few beats.

Then, with trembling hands she opened the money box and retrieved the roll of notes. These she placed on the table in front of the girl. She got up quickly and without a word disappeared behind the curtain.