Author: Alexander Fawn

For him, Monday was never a good day.

There had always been something about it, beyond the fact that it was the beginning of the working week. Something else; something sinister.

When he looked in the bathroom mirror, he scowled when he saw that his acne was coming back. Then, he took a cup of tea to his wife, in bed. He forgot her usual serving of three sugars. She spat it out, all over her brand new bedspread; a present from her mother. On the way in to work his car broke down. He had to leave it at the garage and go in by bus. The only bright spot would have been his usual coffee, at his usual café, served by the lovely waitress that always made his day, but she was off.

He got to work late. During the morning his paper jammed in the printer, burst into flames and all the smoke alarms went off.

The building was cleared and they all stood out in the street waiting for the fire brigade. It started to rain, heavily. When they all finally got back inside, his boss called him into his office. He handed him a week’s notice.

On his lunch break he rang his wife with the news.

She hung up.

He lost his wallet somewhere on the bus getting home. When he got home he found her packing her bags. She was leaving for good. When she backed out of the driveway like a maniac, shouting that he would never see her again, she ran over the neighbour’s dog.

All in all, he didn’t sleep well.

On the following morning, it was Tuesday. Tuesday is a different day. It is not a Monday. Never was. Now he can move on with his life and create a whole new future. He will go into the café as usual, albeit by public transport. With no wallet, he would have to pay for his drink with loose change. It didn’t matter. He will sit there and think about what it all means. He will be served by that sweet angel that has somehow taken on human form.

He entered and found his usual spot. A good sign that, he thought. He just needs to let all this other stuff go. Reinvent himself. Boldly go where no man… whatever; he would forge forward towards a greater, brighter destiny. Besides, the lovely waitress always made him feel better about things.

After a minute or two, the Arcadian nymph that only looks like a pretty waitress, glides over to his table.

She smiles her lovely smile and says, “Can I get you your usual today?”

He freezes. Her words strike home. In that moment he is thrown into a whirlpool of mental agony. He is swallowed up by a great, dark cloud. He finally looks up as she comes slowly back into focus.

“My usual today… today… usual,” he mutters. “I wish you could get me my usual today.”

She waits patiently.

He frowns at her. “I lost that yesterday!”

He had books, folders and sundry paperwork spread over the cubicle’s table.

He sat studying in his usual spot. The local library was the ideal venue for working on his course papers. It was a small cubicle, one of several that ran along the wall, just large enough for a single bench seat and sufficient room to pile up reference books along with his own stuff. He was studying medicine and was in the process of producing a paper on crude drugs; those medicinal drugs that are derived from natural sources. It had been going well until he heard a rustling in the booth behind him, with a phone going off almost immediately.

A woman answered, saying, “Oh! Hi! How’s it going?”

There was a pause.

“Nothing much. You?”

Pause.

“Really?”

There was a long pause.

He looked around, wondering if it was worth gathering his stuff up and moving.

The woman said, “When did this happen?”

Pause.

“Poor kid. Did he need an x-ray?”

Pause.

“Yes, better to be safe, I always say.”

Pause.

“Well, that’s something I suppose.”

Pause.

“What about Tiger Balm?”

He pricked his ears up.

After a pause, she went on, “Eh? Not really, I know it’s analgesic; old as the hills.”

Pause.

“What’s that?”

Pause.

“No. I didn’t!”

Pause.

“What a cheek!”

Pause. The medical student sighed and began closing his books.

“She didn’t!”

Pause.

“What did you say to her?”

Pause.

“I don’t think so.”

Pause.

“What! While he was still there?”

Pause.

“Is he still working there?”

Pause.

“But, if it was drugs, why would they do that?” The student stopped packing his bag.

She went on. “Not really, I met her at a cooking class. That was ages ago.”

Pause.

“Dunno, but he was forever quoting bits from Corinthians, so it doesn’t surprise me.”

Pause.

“I know.”

Pause.

“He’s OK.”

Long pause.

“No. The boss decided to redesign it instead.”

Pause.

“Somewhere in Egypt, I think.”

Pause.

“Yep. Me too.”

Pause.

“Is it?”

Pause.

“No, I hadn’t heard.”

Long pause.

“Do you mean actually in the cinema?”

Pause.

“Who was?”

Pause.

“Do they know who did it?”

Pause.

“Don’t know. You never met his mother, did you?”

Pause. The student was resigned to come in again on the following day to finish his research.

The woman said, “OK.”

Pause.

“OK.”

Pause.

“Don’t forget the Tiger Balm. Bye.”

As the student left the library he made a mental note to look up Tiger Balm.

He’d never heard of it.

As she left the last shop she checked her list.

It had taken an age when she considered her plastic shopping bag only contained four items. As it happens, none of them were for her. On the list: jar of pickled gherkins, pregnancy test kit, kitty litter and jumbo-sized paperclips.

An extra-large jar of pickled gherkins for her brother who collects bugs; he just wants the jar. He dropped the last one and some of his specimens escaped. He told her that the jar was a perfect, size, shape, and everything. Who could argue with that?

A pregnancy test kit for her friend, who works at the canning factory on the edge of town. She convinced her that she really couldn’t bring herself to go into a shop to buy one herself.

A small bag of kitty litter for her Mum’s phone. She dropped it in the sink and has had it drying out for a couple of days. Then she found out that you could bury it in a bag of kitty litter to dry it out.

A box of jumbo-sized paperclips for her boyfriend who has a passion for modelling little art pieces with them. He made a bicycle once, using large paperclips and a couple of cardigan buttons.

She was on her way to the bus stop when she saw the girl from her office, who was about to enter a coffee house when she was spotted and received a friendly wave.

She was nice, but a hell of a gossip. What the hell! It would be good to get the weight off her feet. She gave her a smile as she approached. They went in together and found a table.

“Hey! I’ll get them,” she said, “I’ve just had a successful morning’s shopping. It’s my treat.”

Not really thinking, she put the bag down and went to the counter. The bag gaped open and the girl peered in.

When she returned. The girl said, “I must say, you have an unusual collection of items in there.”

“Don’t ask!”

The valley was beautiful.

He looked out across the vast slopes of green. He could see, and just about hear, the gushing flow of the river as it meandered through the length of it. Its pattern seemed to replicate the twisting road that brought him here. Despite its isolation, it was certainly magnificent country. Everything looked so fresh from the recent rain. Mother Nature at her best. His close colleague had told him about the place, how he had visited the area when he and his wife toured here last year. Looking at their photos had been the clincher. From that moment he wanted to come and see for himself. Now he was actually here, he would have liked to tell someone about the scenery spread out before him, along with a picture, but his mobile phone was not accessible.

Was it the wet conditions, a lack of attention to the road, or too much gazing out at the view?

All of the above.

He had to mentally re-orientate the scenery since the car had landed on its side. He hung to one side uncomfortably, with the seatbelt jammed. As the vehicle had rocked slowly to a standstill he had watched his mobile phone slide out of sight.

Although he had seen no other vehicles on this stretch of the road, the man at the motel had assured him that this route was very popular with tourists.

Sooner or later, a vehicle would come along, until then… he had the view.

 

The girl had always enjoyed feeding the birds.

Today the park was less busy than usual. This made it easy for the woman to keep her eye on her daughter while she walked around with her paper bag. This was despite the fact that she was a fair distance away. The mother was quite content with the wooden bench, catching up with her magazine.

There were a number of birds flitting around and generally following the small child, happily wandering to and fro with the bag full of birdseed. Every now and then she seemed to stop and carry on a conversation with a bird. This had been going on as long as the mother could remember. It had been a concern at first, but both the doctor and her teacher had said it was nothing to worry about. Kids often dream up imaginary friends she was told. It was perfectly natural.

At one point she saw her sitting down in deep conversation with a bird. She could see her chatting away, dropping seed from time to time. This went on for ages. Finally she got up, waved goodbye to her feathered friend and ran back to her mother.

As she approached, her mother said, “You had a nice long time with the birds today, didn’t you dear? Has all your seed gone?”

The girl looked into her bag and said, “No, some left.” She looked back to where she’d been. “I found a chatty one,” she said. “He was lovely. Told me a lot about his friends and his mum and dad and…” She stopped. “You know, some of the birds were very unkind to him.”

“Unkind? What do you mean?”

“Well, his young brother got hit by a car. He died. It was very sad.”

“Oh! Dear!” said the mother.

“Yes,” she went on, “they blamed him, said he should have taken better care of him because he was older.”

The mother looked perplexed.

“I mean,” the girl continued, “what could he have done? They were really rotten to him.”

“Well,” said the mother, remembering the medical advice, “you certainly found out a lot today, didn’t you.” She gave her an understanding smile.

“Yes,” said the girl, scrunching the top of her bag closed, and he said we should move on, because it’s going to rain.”

She looked around. I think we should go and stand in the Pagoda, it seems to be empty.

The mother smiled at her again. “Yes, it would be empty my love. On a nice day like today.”

“But the rain!” the girl insisted.

The mother laughed, and looked at the sky. “I think that’s highly unlikely, besides, we don’t have an umbrella.”

With that, there was a giant clap of thunder and it bucketed down.

After a few minutes he came to.

He didn’t know where he was or what was happening.

Before this, he banged his head and knocked himself out.

Before this, the chair wobbled and he fell onto the kitchen floor.

Before this, he climbed up and reached for the rice.

Before this, he took one of the chairs and placed it in front of the larder.

Before this, he saw the new bag of rice up on the top shelf.

Before this, he opened the larder and found his rice canister was empty.

Before this, he took the chicken out of the fridge.

Before this, he decided on left over chicken and rice.

Before this, he made a cup of tea and sat thinking about what he would get for tea.

Before this, he took his jacket off and laid it over the back of a chair.

Before this, he entered the house and went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

Before this, he got home and walked up the front path and put his key in the lock.

Before this, he got off the bus at the end of the street.

He remembered getting off the bus…

She was visiting her friend.

She had known her a long time. At school they had been the best of friends. After a kiss and a hug, her friend said she’d put the kettle on. From the armchair in the lounge the visitor called out, “And little Johnny?”

“With the ex,” she called back from the kitchen.

She came back with two cups, saying, “That’s not exactly true.”

She puts the cups down on the table and flops into the chair opposite. She sits quietly for a moment, then says, “He’s with the man who used to work in his uncle’s hardware store.”

She stared out of the window for a moment.

“The man who smiled at me,” she went on, “the smile that stayed with me through those long days before I met him again.” She smiled softly. “The man who kept inviting me out to the pictures, so many cinemas, so many films. The man who one day admitted he was only doing it so he could spend time with me. The man who said he wanted to be with me, forever. The man who once loved me.”

Her eyes watered. She sipped at her drink and returned her cup with a trembling hand.

“The man I married in the church not far from here,” she continued. “The man that said that giving him a son was the best thing anyone had ever done for him.” Her head shook, and a look of desperate misery came over her. She looked across at her friend, who was still sitting silently.

She wiped tears away and said in a weak voice, “He, who wanted to visit the local pub more often than me. Who took to drinking at home, who lost control of his drinking habit, who lost his job, who would get so angry. The man who broke my tooth. The man who broke my heart.”

She forced a grimace. “That’s who he’s with.”

Her friend lifted her cup slowly and said, “Right.”

People had always regarded him as weird.

The man looked down from his third-floor window counting the brightly coloured gnomes in his neighbour’s back garden. This, in itself, would be of no consequence, but the fact that this was done at least twice a day, was. He was a man who lived mainly in the past, trapped in his origins, beginnings that, although quite bizarre, brought him to where he was. He slipped into one of his regular yet sudden flashbacks and remembered how as a kid he wanted to wear his cap backwards like all the other kids, but he couldn’t because to do it always gave him nosebleeds. That, and how he was forever getting mysterious rashes.

As he stands staring out, he reflects on his father’s preoccupation with picking hairs off any bars of soap he found in the bathroom. How he liked to do it in private, even when others needed to use the toilet. In his head he could hear the knocking. He didn’t find the sound at all unpleasant.

He reflected on the fact that so many times he would open his school lunch box, only to find it empty, and how his mother found the prank so incredibly funny. He thought about how she took great pleasure in getting brain freeze by swallowing ice cubes, and how she would sort the mail by smelling each letter for several moments before opening them.

Then, there was the time his father tinkered with his equipment and managed to play the National Geographic’s sleep-inducing video titled ‘Rain Forest’ backwards, with sound. He remembers the pungent cloud of opium smoke that often drifted throughout the house, and how fervently his father had worked on his treatise on molecular structures and how he frequently referred to the topic, despite it making no sense, as comparable to the business of stuffing scarecrows.

He ruminated on how his mother, after one of the many blazing rows with his father, would get her revenge by lighting up a cigar, also, her frequent seizures that came on whenever her mood ring turned blue, together with her randomly selecting books, removing them from the study, piling them up on the back lawn and setting them alight.

Of course. There was his father’s obsession with the coming of the new world order, his hatred of queuing like a sheep to book in for a flight, within an airport’s silly bollard and rope chicanes, and his habit of accumulating his toenail clippings in a large jar under his desk.

These parents, now passed away, together with the fact that he had no brothers or sisters, meant that the apparent madness ended there, with him.

He glanced at the clock. He would don his dress suit and call for a taxi. He would arrive at the concert hall in plenty of time. He would sit at the incredibly expensive Steinway piano long before the curtain rose. He would enthral the audience with a rendition of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in D major, before slipping away through the rear exit to walk the six blocks home.

This would be time enough to return to his ruminations about lunch boxes, scarecrows, soap hairs, and the rest.

He focused again on the garden below. He would have just enough time, while there was still sufficient light, to count them again.

Reasonable enough; yet, people had always regarded him as weird.

As he approached the elevator on the ground floor, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

The sign taped to the door said, ‘Closed for maintenance.’ After the day he had already suffered, this really was the last straw. As he trudged up the six flights of stairs, he felt he should be grateful to have someone waiting in the apartment that would be understanding and always happy to listen to him. His flatmate was going to have trouble believing all this, but anyway, it’ll be good to get it off his chest. He thought about his friend. As a companion he does have his drawbacks, but he’s a good listener.

Finally, gasping for breath, he went through the front door, calling out, “Home! Home early!” He heard, “Hi! In here.” He found his buddy sitting in an armchair reading the paper.

He stood for a moment, still catching his breath. Eventually, he said, “Hi! You simply wouldn’t credit the day I’ve had. It has been one disaster after another.”

His friend smiled. “Oooh! Do tell.”

As he sat down opposite, he said, “So much has happened.” He screwed up his eyes to bring it all back. “It all started in the office, just before lunch, when the Internet went down. Of course, that stopped everything and we had to take our break early. The canteen was crowded, so I decided to get some printing done while the queue thinned out a bit.

When I got to the machine there was this sign hanging on it saying ‘Out of Order’. It was really frustrating, so I thought I’d get a cup of coffee to let myself down a bit. It had a sheet of A4 paper with ‘Not Working”, scribbled on it. So I went back to my desk to make a note about doing the printing later. That’s when the air-conditioning cut out. I mean, it just stopped!”

His friend said, “Unbelievable!” and shook his head, obviously taking it all in.

“Anyway,” the other went on, “that’s when the boss turned up and sent everyone home. Well, I knew I needed to get some cash out, so I stopped at the bank on my way to the bus. I was surprised to find quite a crowd in there, then I saw the reason. A sign on the ATM, saying, ‘ATM under repair’. So, I cut across the park to get to the stop and was amazed to find a notice stuck on the door to the public toilets that read ‘Closed for Repairs’, and another sign hanging off the drink fountain saying ‘Do not use’. I couldn’t believe it. What are the chances?”

The other just sat shaking his head.

He went on again. “When I got to the bus stop, I had to stand and wait, because the seat was broken. Of course, the bus was late, and when I got here, and this will make you wonder whether I’m making all this up, what do you suppose was stuck across the elevator’s door?”

He looked across at his friend.

The hand, that moments before had been massaging the back of his neck, dropped to the side. His eyes went a dull grey and he slid sideways with a limp arm hanging over the side of the chair.

The other got up and went to his flatmate. He stood for a moment shaking his head. He opened the top buttons of his shirt, exposing a small panel in his chest. He flipped open the cover and checked the tiny screen.

Flat battery!

The party was in full swing with several dozen people.

They were all drinking, nibbling finger food, laughing and talking… all at once. It seemed hot in the room. Although nobody else seemed to notice. He wasn’t really much of a party-goer. The guy in despatch at work invited him. He wasn’t sure why. He knew some of them from the work place. Not many. He had spoken to a couple of people in the half hour he’d been there. He looked at the time. He began thinking about slipping away. He could probably do it without anybody noticing.

That’s when the woman rushed over to him extending her hand. “Fancy meeting you here. Are you with the company?”

He went to answer.

“Of course you are. Our host tells me you’re in records. Most of these,” she looks around, “most of these are in the city. I’m not of course, still out there in the country.” She laughed. “Same old, same old. Quite busy though.”

He was beginning to wonder who she was.

“What’s it been, three, four years?”

He went to open is mouth.

She said, “I was just saying to my friends over there, time just slips away doesn’t it? Don’t you find that? Time just slips away. I’m sure you do. We all do.”

She stops to look around again.

“Are you still painting? Wonderful hobby. My ex used to paint. That’s before he had his trouble.”

She flapped her hand.

“Some sort of intestinal obstruction apparently, poor dear. Of course, it went untreated for ages before we figured out what it was. Even then, we had absolutely no idea that it was going to be life-threatening. It turned out that his blood supply was being cut off… somewhere.”

She paused to sip at her wine.

“Anyway, he wasn’t very good. Even he used to say he wasn’t very good.”

He was sure he didn’t know her. He had never even thought of painting.

She started to snivel and took a tissue from her bag.

“You must think me a fool.”

He shook his head.

“He was actually a wonderful man you know. You met him didn’t you, at the gallery that time? Of course you did.”

His eyebrows raised.

“Of course you did,” she repeated, “you were discussing Jan van Eyck’s thing about painting with oils on wood.” She scrunched her face into a smile. “I remember how enthusiastic you both were.” She touched his arm. “Thank you for that. I’m sure that little chat meant a lot to him.”

At this point, he was preparing to say something, when she threw up her arm, almost spilling her drink. “Oh! Look!” she cried. “They made it. I wasn’t sure if they’d be here. I must say a quick hello. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll be right back. Promise!”

She rushed across the room into the crowd.

He slipped away.