Author: Alexander Fawn

The fact is, I don’t really know how I got here.

I think it must have started the night they had visitors over. I had been used once or twice during the day, but hadn’t been put back properly. I remember something heavy being placed on top of me. Later in the evening, somebody was clearing up. I was swept off the counter top with lots of other bits and pieces and dropped into the kitchen’s rubbish pot. I had never been in there before.

Then I was tipped into a bag, with things being piled on top of me. I recall the bag being lifted out and the top being tied off. I remember being carried, because I was swinging around. Then a bigger drop and a lid banging down. I seemed to be in there all day, and in the evening everything was moved and a rumbling of wheels was heard.

The next morning there was a lot of noise. There was a great whirling sound of machinery and I was lifted up and tossed into something. Then a great jaw closed down and I was squashed with a lot of other stuff. The noise and the movement went on for hours. Finally I was tipped, and that’s where I am now.

I’m sure I shouldn’t be here because I’m not being used. I was used regularly, before any of this happened. I wish I could glint more, then someone might see me. I’m sure I am needed somewhere!

Meanwhile, at the house.

She says, “I wish I could find that key.”

He says, “Don’t worry, it’ll turn up.”

The woman at the reception desk gave him a welcoming smile.

Still a little shocked, he stood looking around. He felt light-headed and not at all sure about where he was. The surroundings were both strange yet peaceful at the same time. The woman was waving at him. She called out, “Please come forward. This won’t take long.” Wondering what wouldn’t take long, he approached the counter.

“Welcome,” she said again, tapping at her keyboard. “Let me see now, yes, there you are. It happened this morning, I see.”

“What did? I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

She scrolled the screen. “Oh! Yes, I see. Bound to be some trauma.” She stared at the screen again. “Ah! Nasty!”

“Nasty?”

“Yes, machinery related ones often are.”

“What do you mean by machinery?”

She looked up with a frown. “I’m going to have to leave it there, sorry. It’s a policy. Besides, it is generally best if a person has it all come back to them naturally.”

“I only know I was out at the mine site doing maintenance work on the rock crusher, when…” he fell silent.

“Yes, well, as I say, let it come back naturally.” She stretched across to a printer and removed a small card. She handed it to him, saying, “This will get you through security.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we’ve had to tighten our screening process. Nothing for you to worry about, I’m sure.” In almost a whisper, she said, “Apparently, we had a couple of wrongens slipped through.”

He nodded and looked down at the card. “It doesn’t have my name on it.”

She smiled. “Quite right. We don’t use those here.”

He grimaced and flapped the card. “I don’t see any mention here that I’m a vegetarian. I’m pretty strict about that.”

“That’s not a problem. We don’t eat here either.”

“Oh! Really?”

She smiled politely and said, “Really. Anyway, this will all be explained later. I understand there’s a bit of a queue down there, because of the latest security upgrade.” She pointed to the door behind her. “If you make your way through there. Just keep going past the golf course…”

“Golf course?” he interrupted.

“Yes. Just follow the path,” she went on, “it’ll swing round to the right and you’ll see the gates, very large and pearly, you can’t miss them. Just hand over your card.”

“Of course. Eh, thank you.”

She nodded.

He was almost at the door, when he turned and went back. “My offsider,” he said, “It’s coming back to me now. Such a nice young lad. One of the new apprentices. He was right there, next to me.” He looked around.

She moved across to another screen. “You’re right, it seems that you went together.”

His eyebrows shot up in anticipation.

“Sorry!” she said with a sympathetic look, “he’s got history. I’m afraid he won’t be joining us.”

It’s where poems and stories come together.

It’s where peace and harmony meet.

It’s where thoughts run free, by unfettered degree.

In short, it’s a writers’ retreat.

It’s not hunting shooting or fishing,

Or anything so dubiously mannish,

That takes them there, away from all care,

Allowing all burdens to vanish.

–

There’s a complex, serious ‘out there poet’,

With essays on the shelf.

There’s a simple, trivial, ‘poet in hiding’,

Just writing for himself.

–

There’s a time when people write,

When self-expression needs to vent.

There’s a place that takes there workings,

When a concept’s fully spent.

–

There are no rules that govern

How a notion comes to be.

Nor any imposed boundaries

To stop it flying free.

–

Both the serious ‘out there poet’

And the trivial ‘in hiding’,

See their work take form, on each platform,

With their points of view providing.

–

With points of view in many a guise,

With both stories and rhyme being written,

It’s easy to see how it comes to be,

Once the writing bug has bitten.

–

So, for both the ‘serious’ and the ‘’trivial’,

Let their rhyming voices sing.

So that each may have their say

In their own distinctive way.

Let their notions interplay.

Each to do their very own thing.

–

It’s where ideas and notions come together;

Where fact and fiction meet.

It’s where thoughts can flow and ideas grow,

With meditation and musings replete.

It’s a place unlike any other.

In short, it’s a writers’ retreat!

She sat down with a cup of tea, made herself comfortable and dialled the number.

A woman’s voice came on, “Hello.” There was a pause. “Sorry. How did you get this number?”

The old lady said, “Pardon? My hearing isn’t so good.”

“I don’t understand how you got this number,” came the reply. “For you to be calling here is most inappropriate.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“I can only repeat, however did you get this number?”

“Oh! I see. I bought it on the Internet.”

“You did?”

“Oh! Yes dear, you can buy just about anything on the Internet.”

Prolonged silence. “On the Internet, you say. We need to look into that.”

“Yes. It wasn’t cheap, I can assure you of that!”

After a silence. “You do realise that strictly speaking this line is not a line for the… well, not for the living.”

“Yes, I know, but I really wanted to schedule.”

“Schedule?”

“Yes, with your man. You know, the one bony chap with the black cloak and the big scythe.”

More silence.

She went on. “I’ve always been something of a private person, you see. I know it’s getting close. Popping off, I mean. I’d really like to slip away quietly without family, friends and neighbours all gathering around, commiserating and generally carrying on.”

More silence.

“There was an awful fuss that time I dropped the iron on my foot. It was… well I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that.”

A polite cough was heard from the other end. “No. Probably not.”

“I was hoping you could schedule him for next week… preferably Tuesday. They’ll all be away you see, the family, on holidays, and the old man from flat number seven never calls in on a Tuesday.”

Still nothing on the other end.

“I was hoping you’d understand.”

A long silence, followed by, “Thank you for the call madam.”

Then, in a softer voice, “I’ll see what I can do.”

It started out as just another bus ride into the city.

He had been daydreaming, staring out at buildings as they went by. She had been peering into the bus, looking to see how full it was. He found himself staring back at her as the bus pulled up at the stop. It was her bright blue eyes that caught his attention. He watched, as she worked her way along looking for a seat. If only he wasn’t so much of a romancer. He felt a thrill run through him when she stopped, looking around. She gave just a flicker of a smile and sat down next to him. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as she took a book from her bag. She opened it at the bookmark and began to read.

He sat for a while wondering how he could start up a conversation with her. He caught the title and could see it was a book of poems by a Percival somebody he had never heard of. He considered the possibility that she wasn’t going all the way in to town. She may get off at the next stop! He had to think fast.

“Now, there’s a coincidence,” he said, trying to sound casual.

She turned her blue eyes on him. “Pardon?”

“The book,” he smiled, “I read it just a few weeks back.”

“Oh! Really?”

“Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you; just thought it was one heck of a coincidence, that’s all.”

“That’s OK,” she said and went back to the book. She carried on reading for a while, then suddenly, she stopped reading and closed the book. “What did you think of him?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“The poet; what did you think of him?” she repeated.

“Oh! Yes, well, brilliant, of course. He has such a wonderful way with words.”

Her face clouded a little. She looked surprised and disappointed at the same time.

He said, “What?”

“I guess that would make us pretty incompatible.” She smiled as she put her book back in her bag.

“It would?”

“Oh! Definitely.”

He was afraid to ask, but did anyway. “You’re not so keen on him?”

“Oh! I think he’s really dreadful!”

“You do?”

“I certainly do.”

“Why read him then?”

She pulled a long face. “Not through choice, I can assure you of that. It’s just part of my English studies. He’s just one of three very different poets that we have to write a paper on. You know, to compare them.” She stood up saying, “My stop.” She smiled and her eyes twinkled. She moved to the door. The bus stopped. She was gone; lost in the crowd.

If only… if only he’d told the truth. What if he had asked if the book was any good? What if he had said he really didn’t know much about poetry? Would she have enjoyed telling him all the things that she found awful about the poet’s work? Would they have got into a deep conversation?

Anything could have happened. Before she got off she could have scribbled her phone number down on a scrap of paper. They could have caught up for a coffee and a chat from time to time. They could have done this more and more regularly over a few weeks. They could have gone steady. She could have gone on to complete her studies. He could have finished night school. They could have married. They could have saved up and bought a house. They could have had children. They…

The bus reached his stop with a jolt. He got off. If only he wasn’t so much of a romancer.

He never saw her again.

It was a quiet day in the street.

The yapping dog across the street, in number 42, had been driving him nuts for weeks. But today, it was eerily quiet. His mind went back to the day before. On his way home from work, he stopped off at the shops in the high street. As he came out of the supermarket his attention was grabbed by the name on a vehicle’s door. It was a utility vehicle, belonging to a plumbing company, parked in the street. What he noticed was the name of the town it was from. He had lived there himself a few years before, it was a good two-hour drive away. Something other than a plumbing job had obviously brought it all this way from its home base.

Having a few minutes before his bus, he strolled over to take a closer look. It was then that he saw the scruffy little dog curled up on some old sacks in the back. At the time it had occurred to him that it looked very much like the yapper from his street. It was a Yorkshire terrier, but they must all look alike to some degree. He felt a twinge of guilt when he found himself wishing this was the one from his street, about to be taken across the country, never to be heard from again.

He leant forward. It was wearing a collar with a name disc partly hidden under tufts of hair. He didn’t want to wake it up. It would have been useless anyway, as he didn’t know the name of the troublesome dog in his street. He could see the letters ‘e l o’, just maybe that was all there was to it; a pet named after a pop group.

He went back to his bus stop and waited. Shortly before the bus came, a man returned, climbed into the utility and drove off.

That was yesterday. Today, a deathly silence had fallen over the street. Maybe the woman in number 42 had done what the man in number 44 had suggested, quite forcibly, that she get a muzzle for her dog. It was such a yapper; only a small dog, but amazingly loud.

The man who lived across the street from the offending animal was now enjoying the rare silence, stretched out on his sofa, reading his book, when his doorbell went.

He opened the door to be confronted by a nervous looking lady from number 42. “I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s my Angelo.”

The whole thing became clear to him in a flash. “Angelo?” he echoed, playing for time.

“Yes, you know, my little doggy. You’ve probably heard his happy little bark.”

He froze for a moment, then gathered himself. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, help, of course!” she flapped her hands. “Sorry, I’m a bit frantic I’m afraid. Him being out there somewhere.” She waves a hand at the street. “He’s simply not use to it. You know, the big wide world. He knows nothing about it. I keep him in the house you see. He must have escaped.”

“So,” he said slowly, trying to calm her down by example, “you’re telling me that you’ve lost your dog, right?”

“Yes. Right.”

“And you came to me… why?”

She lowered her voice. “The neighbours either side aren’t very nice,” she whispered. She was obviously completely oblivious to just how much angst this creature had been creating.

“OK. I’ll look out for it,” he said, and closed the door.

He returned to his book, enjoying a newfound peace.

His book was about to be published and it was time for him to take a well-earned break.

It was a novel. It had taken him several years to write. It was a large work, dealing with the family history of the lords of the Celtic regions, covering six generations. It was full of detail, cram-packed with the nuances concerning the daily lives of the inhabitants of the isles. The painstaking research had taken up almost all of the long hours it took to write. It dealt with how the lords of the isles clung to the hope that despite all odds, they would endure as a Celtic nation.

Although he had not shared his research notes with anyone, some of his friends had showed interest. With some of them, despite their not having read any of it, even dropping hints about him being something of a genius!

His flight was booked and paid for. Within a couple of days he would be on a warm beach, having drinks brought to him.

He was putting the phone down, having just arranged an appointment for the next day with the nice lady at the publishers, when the room went dark. At first, he thought it was a power cut, but it was the middle of the afternoon. He was sitting in total blackness in the middle of the afternoon!

As he came to, still feeling rather woozy, he found himself standing in what looked like a cage. It was dimly lit, and as his eyes adjusted, he could make out metal bars, a small, high window, and a sparsely furnished room that seemed to be a cell. He also became aware of somebody approaching from a dark corner.

“I suppose I should say ‘welcome,’” he began. He looked around. “Doesn’t seem appropriate though, does it?”

“Where are we? What are we doing here?” the other managed to blurt out, with more than a small tremor of fear in his voice.

“You’re a newbie.”

“A newbie? What kind of newbie?”

“Slow down. All in good time. I’ve been here for almost six months,” he then added with a thin smile, “with just three weeks to go.”

“And me?”

“Dunno. You’ll be told later. You’ll find that on the slip of paper you get with your first meal. If you can call it a meal.”

“Who’s doing this? Who put us here?”

The other dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think they want us to know who they are.” He put his finger to his lips. “You might find out more later, if there’s ‘talking time.’”

“What do you mean?”

“There are lots of cells here. Sometimes at night we get to talk to each other. Sometimes a loud siren goes off and we all keep quiet. As far as any of us can piece it together, it’s all about people that have transgressed against the English language. Some say it’s all down to aliens, but I don’t know. My book, ‘The History of Macramé’ was about to be published when everything went black and I ended up here. You’ve replaced my cell-mate. He’s just been released. He was a speech writer for some president or other. They came down on him hard. He got three years! Poor bugger!”

He scratched his head. “To be really frank about it, he wasn’t very bright. He didn’t seemed to know very much about politics either, which was surprising, considering how he made his living.” He threw up his hands. “Anyway, what about you? How were you taken?”

“I was putting the phone down. I had been talking to the publishing house; making arrangements to go in and sign the papers. The room went black. That’s all I can remember.”

The other sighed and said, “I know. The thing that bothers me is I don’t know what I’m going back to, where I’m sent. I was in a taxi coming back from the publisher’s when they took me. There’s one cabbie that didn’t get his fare. I don’t know how it works, you see? That’s what bothers me most. Did anyone feed my cat?”

He moved to the bars and peered out. “There’s no one to ask, you see. I wish I knew who they were.”

He turned back and went on.

“They play this bloody recording at lights out; must go for about five minutes. It goes ‘A book badly written about a boring subject should never go to print.’ It’s probably meant to send you off to sleep. It doesn’t, I can tell you that. I mean, what a hackneyed statement is that? Do they think that’s going to help? After all, taste is taste right? We all know there’s no accounting for it. Right?”

“Right.”

“Sorry, I’m probably going on a bit. The last guy, the script writer, well, I could never hold much of a conversation with him.”

He looked around and pointed. “Anyway, that’s your bed over there.”

Seize the day, forget tomorrow.

Know it when you see it, take the leap.

Make the present moment felt.

Stand firm within it, it’s yours to keep.

–

Precious moments may not return,

Don’t be blinded by routine.

Validate being in the moment.

Reach out for it, when it’s seen.

–

A moment can be lost forever,

Leave all else in the past.

Give the present its wings.


Seize the now, it may not last.

–

Know the time to make it yours.

Be prepared to take and hold.

Do not take the moment for granted,

Recognise the chance, be bold.

–

There are no snares or labyrinths,

But break the shackles, if it’s needed.

Make the moment all your own,

Don’t let it pass unheeded.

–

It’s all in the beauty of the moment.

Find your voice strong and true.

There is no time like the present,

Don’t wait for it to call on you.

–

These moments are not stopped but missed,

For all of nature’s bounty is truly now.

Knowing tomorrow is never promised,

No preparation’s needed, just know the how.

–

Do not squander what it is.

Grasp it with a fervent will.

Lay claim to what is there.

It’s carpe carpe diem still!

She had always been an imaginative child.

Nobody would have suspected that the large cardboard box that sat snugly in the far corner of her bedroom, the one that the new refrigerator had come in last year, was in fact a time machine. Well, not exactly a time machine, yet. It was a work in progress. It was being built. When she had asked her parents if she could have the box in her room, they had been surprisingly tolerant about it. Carrying it up to her room had been a difficult thing and quite a drama. Her parents had found a fair measure of humour in the thing.

It had a small opening on the side, much like a dog-flap. Inside, was a small podium, on top of which was mounted the main control unit. It had taken several months to accrue all the materials necessary. These had been mainly easy to acquire things, such as empty tissue boxes, kitchen foil, rubber bands, empty cans, sticky tape, contact adhesive, lengths of wire, in fact, a great deal of wire. When she first began building it she had hoped it would be like the Tardis, very much bigger on the inside than on the outside, but it wasn’t. However, it was truly remarkable that the whole thing ran on just two ‘triple a’ batteries.

As the time drew closer and closer to the evening when it was planned to activate it, she found it extremely hard suppressing her excitement. This, together with the idea of surprising and impressing her parents. She thought this outcome would be an added bonus. Unfortunately, she hadn’t fully thought the whole thing through properly.

On the morning she went missing, all the usual reports and enquiries started up.

It was several days before anybody noted the absence of the box.

The detective entered the interview room and dropped the file down on the table.

“Good morning,” he said with a grin. “I just thought I’d pop in for a chat.” He looked down at the file, then up at the suspect. “I’m sure you’re just dying to tell me what you’ve been up to; helping yourself to things that simply do not belong to you.”

The suspect dragged his thumbnail across his lips, indicating that he wasn’t going to say anything.

The detective’s eyes glazed over slightly, then he laughed and said, “Ah! That’s good, very good, your mouth has been zipped.”

The suspect slowly nodded.

The detective grinned again and mumbled, “Marvellous invention zips.”

The interview room fell silent. The suspect frowned, and let out an involuntary, “What?”

The policeman was obviously enjoying himself. “Zips,” he repeated.

The other sat glaring.

“Yes,” he went on, “invented by a chap in the late eighteen-nineties. Then, the modern version, the one you and I know today. Yes, it was improved on and really took off a couple of decades later.”

The suspect stared in disbelief.

The detective sat nodding, he seemed to be deep in thought. “My word. Awfully clever things; based on the wedge and hook principal.” He leant forward and tapped on the folder. “It’s all about making things come together, you see. Coming together and staying together.”

The suspect was becoming visibly agitated.

The detective went on. “He was a travelling sales man, the guy who first came up with the idea; name of Whitcomb. What kind of name is that, eh? First name Whitcomb.” He held up his hand, “No. Don’t answer that.”

“You know, these things have dozens of tiny teeth with weeny hooks and hollows. I mean, what an invention! It’s hard enough to invent the idea that these miniscule, odd shaped components should all lock together like that, but to figure out how to actually make it! Think of it, a thing like that; to manufacture all those separate bits so perfectly that they mesh; they just come together!”

He made a slow hand movement.

“And you slide this thing, I forget what it’s called, backwards and forwards to open and close the whole thing. The simplicity of it. The cleverness of it.”

He snorted. “Just think about how long it takes to button things up. You know, a shirt, a jacket.”

His eyebrows raised. “Did you know they have to manufacture a special tape, just for zips?”

He clasped his hands behind his head and gave out a long sigh. “I mean, people like us, the good and the bad of us, we just pale into insignificance.”

The suspect said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course, you don’t,” replied the other and opened the file. He read for a moment. “Would you like to know?”

The other just shrugged.

“What we have here, received from forensics earlier this morning, is a thumb print.”

The suspect stiffened.

“One beautiful thumb print. I must say you did a pretty good job of wiping the jewellry shop clean before you left, what a tidy fellow you are, but… you missed just one nice, big, clear thumb print.” He held up the evidence sheets and jiggled them.

“I’m not saying anything.” The suspect growled.

“No. I wouldn’t expect you to. We have you cold on this one and you’ll be spending time for it.” He sat back in his chair. “I’d like you to be truly amazed when I tell you that your place has been turned over and we’ve found the loot.”

The other’s head dropped.

“Do you see what I mean, now? About things coming together, I mean. I do like it when things come together.”

The suspect was still staring at the copies, now laying on the table. He sighed and said, “OK. OK. No point now in… well, denying or anything. Just tell me what all that zip stuff was about.”

The detective put his head back and closed his eyes for a minute.

“Oh! I don’t know. This can be a pretty boring job, really. You have no idea how mundane it gets sometimes. It’s always me that ends up doing the interviewing, and to be honest, I just get sick of it!” He closed his eyes while he massaged his face.

“Can you imagine,” he went on, “how many suspects I’ve had to interview in this room over the years?” He put his hand up. “No. Don’t bother. Not even I know the answer to that. Just about all of them had to be worked on for hours, and in most cases with no result. Just think about how mind-numbingly boring that is. But you…” he looked at the robber and wagged his head, “…you, my friend, are a piece of cake.”

He picked up the papers and slid them into the file. “How easy was it, eh? You leave a nice piece of evidence that you were in the jewellery store on the night of the robbery. They wipe all the glass cases ready for the next day, you see. So finding the print you missed wasn’t that hard.”

The robber said, “What was all that stuff about zippers? Did you just make all that up?”

“No. Watched this interesting documentary about it a couple of nights ago.” He chuckled softly to himself. “I mean, with the evidence we had on you, I could have jumped straight in with it. I could have been out of here in less than a minute, but there’d be no fun in that, right?”

The robber went to speak.

Before he could say anything the detective said, ‘that would have been so boring!”

He stood up. “You have no idea how satisfying it’s been, teasing and annoying you in here today. There should be more of it. Honestly… taking things that don’t belong to you, it’s very naughty.”

He chuckled again as he left the room.