Author: Alexander Fawn

It was the tatty old trainers that gave him away.

There he was, riding the bus with his feet up on the back of the seat in front. From the rear, raised section of the city’s shuttle bus she had a good view of them, but only them. She wondered what he was doing in town. Surely he hadn’t got a job. She considered with a deep and genuine sense of sadness that he, like some many of his kind, would probably never get a job. School was a year behind them both now. She liked the company she had gone to and was planning to do some extra study in the evenings during the following year.

She sat thinking about what sort of person he had been all through their school years. He was always rude, especially to girls. He loved showing off all the time. He seemed to be convinced that he was something special in some way. He wasn’t, of course. He didn’t have any friends of any consequence; being a bully he had a few hangers-on, only because they were afraid of him. The more she thought about it the more depressed she felt.

Every now and again he would wiggle his feet from side to side. He was probably trying to attract attention. She couldn’t remember where he lived. She hoped in earnest that he got off before her. She didn’t fancy the thought of walking past him.

She knew he came from a poor family, but that was no excuse. Other kids were in the same boat and had done well. All this was bringing so much back to her. The day he made her best friend cry. All the clowning around he did on sports day; how embarrassing was that? The time he hid some boy’s clothes so they weren’t there when he got back from the cross-country run. She closed her eyes and shook her head momentarily; he was such a sad case.

Those shoes! Horrible old things, falling apart, with little gold patches on them, now fading. That’s probably why he got them in the first place… little gold patches. She suddenly realised with some clarity that these old bumpers summed him up. That was what he was; how he lived his life; they represented the real him!

Her stop came up and he didn’t move. She moved quickly to the door at the last minute and jumped off as the bus pulled up. She stood, shaking a little, pretending to read the timetable; he didn’t get off.

She didn’t start walking until the bus was truly out of sight.

The businesswoman stepped out from the hotel and made for the beach.

It was late in the afternoon and the stretch of sand along the bay would be almost empty. A late paddle wasn’t her usual thing, but the news was good, so this would be a celebration. She had just checked the current state of her bitcoin wallet and was feeling really pleased with herself. She regarded herself as being pretty savvy when it came to business finance.

The weather had been warm and the cool salty water felt very pleasant as it lapped over her feet. She splashed along in the shallow water for some time before deciding she should return to her room.

As she strolled back along the water’s edge, she saw something shiny tumbling in the surf. She bent and picked it up. It was a beautiful little bottle, green, with exquisite patterns etched around it. As she regarded it, she considered that it could well be quite precious.

Holding it up to the dying sun, she could make out a small piece of paper inside. It had a glass stopper that required some effort to pull free. She tipped out the paper and peered at it in the diminishing light. It was difficult to read. It was faded and appeared to be in some ancient style of script. She could just decipher the word replacement, but she couldn’t be sure.

Then, in the briefest of moments, the glass stopper rattled back into place and she was gone.

Nearby, a bemused young page from the court of King Henry VIII stood looking around.

The bottle, apparently of its own volition, was bobbing away, floating back out into the open sea.

The girl entered the conservatory cautiously, looking around.

When she spotted the professor sitting near the window, staring out into the garden, she approached him with a sense of finality. “I have it now,” she said. “I’ve worked it out. I know, without doubt, that it was you who murdered that nice old Doctor Black.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous!”

“There’s no doubt about it. You murdered him in the kitchen with the lead pipe,” she said.

A voice came from behind her. “He couldn’t have.”

She swung around to face the cook.

“At the time of the murder the professor was with me in the kitchen,” she said indignantly. “If you want to go around making accusations like that, you should talk to the actress.”

The girl thought for a moment. “Ah! Yes. I’ve got it now,” she said, and hurried out.

She found the actress in the study reading a magazine. She cried out, “I’ve got it now! You did it, didn’t you?”

The actress looked up. “Did what?”

“You strangled the doctor with the rope in the hall. Don’t deny it.”

“I couldn’t have,” came the reply. “At the time I was with the reverend in the dining room.”

“Prove it!” the girl shouted.

Obviously, very annoyed the actress got up and they went looking for the reverend and found him in the library, engrossed in a book.

“This silly girl has accused me of murder, would you believe?” she said with a sneer.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so, my child. At the time we were together, I can assure you of that.” He thought for a moment. “However, now that I come to think about it, I did hear the colonel call out, followed by a loud bang that came from the billiard room.”

The girl stamped her foot in frustration. “All right,” she said, “that must be it. Finally. Where is the colonel now?”

“How would we know,” the actress scoffed. She turned to the reverend. “Perhaps we should go with her and put an end to all this silly nonsense.” The reverend sighed, put his book down and followed them.

Outside, in the corridor, they found the cook and the professor waiting for them. With all the commotion going on, they had decided to join the others. At this point, they all went looking for either the colonel or the governess. They found them both in the lounge. The elderly governess was sitting in an armchair with her leg raised. The colonel was placing a cushion between a low table and her foot.

The reverend went to the governess and took her hand asking, “Are you alright, my dear?” She looked up, saying, “Yes. I’ll be fine. I was very clumsy. I knocked over that little table and it caught my toes when it went down. It would have been much worse if I hadn’t been wearing sturdy shoes.” She looked around and seemed to notice the others for the first time. “The colonel has been very kind; he’s been looking after me. Is anything wrong?”

The reverend straightened. “No. Not really. This young lady seems to be bent on accusing one of us of murdering the doctor.”

The colonel eyed her with disbelief. “How dare you. Why, I know all of these people and can assure you none of them is capable of such a wicked thing. Who the devil are you anyway?

With an indignant tone, she replied, “I’m Miss Brown.”

“Well, there you are then. You’re not even in this game!”

With that they all pushed her out into the street.

He is a great big long-haired loving cat,

Maine Coon is his breed.

Worshiped in Egypt, so they say.

A noble creature indeed.

–

Luxurious fur and mighty tail,

Handsome whiskers, paws and claws,

Gorgeous coat and silent walk,

Forever in and out of doors.

–

He doesn’t like loud noises,

He’s really not a fan.

He hides beneath the sofa.

And he hates the mower man!

–

He proudly goes by the name of ‘Rain’,

But a subtle problem lies within,

For when we call him in the garden,

Neighbours rush out to bring their washing in.

–

Banging into ankles in the kitchen,

Always tripping over him,

Giving meows of near starvation,

Then eating food on a whim.

–

Settling down in the evening,

Curling on my loved one’s lap.

TV news reports go by unseen

While they both take a nap.

–

Sometimes, when I’m most in need,

He settles on my patio chair.

We have an understanding.

I can use it when he’s not there.

All in all, he’s a good old mate,

While with some things he tends to lack,

I often express my views on things,

And he never answers back!

Nobody would have suspected what the old woman living at number ten was doing.

Over a period of just a few short months, she had won several large amounts in the national lottery. Each time this was accomplished a donation was made anonymously to the various cat havens and charities that operated locally.

Naturally, an activity such as this doesn’t go undetected for very long and the inevitable investigation that followed uncovered enough evidence that an undercover agent from the Fraud Squad was assigned the case. Although he felt that he had enough evidence to question her, he would approach her informally at first. Taking her in for questioning would not work. She would clam up. He decided to call on her.

At the door, he said, “I hope you don’t mind my calling in on you like this, it seems a bit of a cheek, I know, but I’ve heard that you’ve been winning big time on the lottery draw of late”

“You have?”

He looked embarrassed. “Well, I know it’s supposed to be confidential, but I have a friend you see, and he… well, anyway, I’ve had wins myself. I’ve been quite successful with my system really, but you can never stop learning, can you? I thought we might compare schemes.”

She nodded happily. “Oh! That sounds lovely. I just love buying the tickets, it’s such a wonderful hobby. Do come in.”

After making cups of tea, they sat in her lounge discussing the special thrill that comes with winning. Eventually, he asked, “Have you been doing it long?”

She smiled mischievously. “You wouldn’t believe how long. Anyway, I’m sure you want to know what I put my success down to, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, I’d be most interested.”

“Witchery.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“You know, witchcraft. The ancient art of spell casting.”

He gave a small smirk. “Spell casting, you say.”

She went on, “Yes. When casting spells we do have to follow the Wiccan rules, you know.”

“Really?”

“Oh! Yes. There are strict rules of conduct, rules that all witches must follow when practising their art. Didn’t you know that?”

He began to feel uncomfortable. “No. I can’t say I did. However, I feel obliged to tell you at this point that I’m not really here to…”

“No, of course you’re not,” she interrupted, “I knew that the moment you rang my bell.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You did?” He produced his ID. “I think we need to have you come in for questioning regarding the recent…”

She waved him off. “Oh! That won’t be necessary.”

“It won’t?”

“No.” The finger that was pointed at him made small circles.

He began to purr.

She threw up her hands. “What a lovely colour.” She picked him up and stroked him gently. “I think we’ll call you Marmalade. Yes, we’ll drop you off at the Cat Haven near the bus station.”

It was time to move on.

He came to, very slowly.

Everything seemed to be white; a very bright white. It hurt his eyes. He was tethered down in some way. Although his entire body was almost completely numb, he was conscious of the fact that he wasn’t able to move any part of it. It was painful to move his eyes from side to side and found it best if he just stared straight out to his blurred surroundings. He could make out distant noises, a clattering of metal objects, taps running and muffled voices. He had absolutely no idea where he was. He tried for some sort of memory of where he had been, but to his utter astonishment realised that he had no memory of anything. He simply had nothing to remember!

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew he was becoming aware of a tingling feeling, somewhere further down is body, but he couldn’t figure out where. There was an image of something, maybe a person, moving about in front of him. There were rustling noises and a voice droning incoherently somewhere close to him. He was still unable to move his eyes without it hurting and he wasn’t able to blink, but his vision did seem to be clearing. The fuzzy apparition of someone moving around slowly cleared and he finally managed to focus on a man twiddling a stethoscope and smiling amiably down at him.

“Ah! Ha! There you are,” he said, still smiling and moving to the end of the bed. He came back with a small clip-board. He stood writing for a few moments. He smiled again, returned the board and pulled up a chair. “I wouldn’t normally sit,” he said apologetically, “but that was a very long operation.” He reached across to something out of sight and came back into view holding a small beaker of water.

He took a few sips. “Yes,” he went on, “very long indeed.” He looked around. “Yes. You seem to have all you need.” He yawned rubbed his neck. “Now, rest is the very best thing; for all of us. It was, as I say, an extremely long operation and a most complicated one. There where at least nine of us in theatre for most of the time.” He massaged his face slowly. “We were in there for over twenty hours,” he said, with a look that was triumphal despite his obvious exhaustion. The surgeon stood up.

The eyes in the bed flickered from side to side.

“Yes, of course. You must have questions. Speaking may be difficult for you for some time, in fact… well, no matter, we’ll talk about that later. What can I tell you? Well, cloning humans is still illegal, but we managed to save you.”

The eyes were now watering and making more painful movements.

The surgeon smiled and nodded. “We saved you, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

He seemed to be looking further down the bed. “You’re probably wondering why you’re strapped down like this,” he said with an understanding expression, “complete immobility is the best thing for the time being. We don’t want to disturb anything.” He yawned again. “Excuse me! What else? Um, I’m afraid that at first you’ll need to be sedated prior to eating. We estimate your recovery time will be around six to eight months. Oh! Yes, mirrors are not allowed.”

The eyes were now jerking around frantically.

The surgeon’s face glazed over as he said, “We have broken new ground here. I hazard to guess that in the fullness of time you will be something of a celebrity; although a rather unusual one; but a celebrity all the same.”

With that, he moved out of sight, across the room. He closed the door softly.

It had all started the day one of the boys at school found out were his folks were from.

Most of the school kids had never heard of Palermo, let alone the fact that it was in Sicily. But this kid did, and it really started something. Of course, it didn’t help that local cinemas were running The Godfather and drawing large audiences. Anyway, the inevitable banter about him having connections to the mob finally dropped off as the school year went on and he was able to settle back down to his regular schooling, without the continual references to the Mafia from his class mates.

Well… it almost dropped off; all except for this one trouble-maker who had started the whole thing off. He just wouldn’t let it go. The kid just kept on with his annoying remarks, as though it was still hilariously funny. He didn’t seem to realise that nobody else was finding it humorous any more. He didn’t see that nobody else had kept up with the witty remarks and the derisive banter. All things considered, he just wasn’t very bright.

Anyway, it all came to a head the day the victim came up with a plan to resolve it once and for all. As the last class ended he approached the boy saying that he was willing to share a secret with him, as long as he swore on pain of death that he wouldn’t repeat it to anybody. The serious manner in which this invitation was given had the desired effect. The boy, now full of curiosity, agreed to meet in the maintenance shed at the back of the school after they had collected there school bags.

As the trouble maker entered the shed, the other put his finger to his lips, closed the door and switched the light off, leaving only a small amount of light coming in through a dirty skylight in the roof. “Don’t make a noise. Don’t say anything,” the victim whispered. “Remember, you are sworn to secrecy.” Before the other could reply, he found himself in a complete head-lock, held from behind. He was not able to talk and was having trouble breathing.

“I have been told to pass on a message,” said the attacking boy. “My father says that the people in Palermo have found out what has been going on at school. They are not happy with all this open talk about them, even if it is supposed to be funny.”

At this point he brought out a replica revolver and pressed the end of the plastic barrel hard against the boy’s head. “My father has received word from them. He wants to make the problem go away. Believe me, if he did, no trace of you would ever be found.” The gun was pressed harder. “My father has given me permission to ask you once, and only once, to stop talking about them.” With this, he released him, pushed him to the ground and left.

After a while the boy got to his feet and stood wiping his eyes and trembling.

He never spoke about any of it again.

The boy sat in his room, at his desk, scratching his head.

He could never remember that word. It haunted him that there were ways that would help him remember it, or any word, or any set of words, or even numbers. The intention being that it can assist the memory. It is a very old device that people have used for ages. He just couldn’t think what it was called! He needed it for his essay. It was really annoying that he could remember what this thing did, but not what it was called.

He knew there was several types that could deal with spelling, images, words, music, names, rhymes, and so on. They could be very useful. He knew for instance that in music, the lines on the staff where E, G, B, D and F, remembered by saying every good boy deserves fudge. He could use Roy G Biv for the sequence of colours in a rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. He had learned helpful rhymes like In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.

For the weather, there was red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning. In chemistry he had used bat to remember the depressant drugs – barbiturates, alcohol, and tranquilizers. The phrase by your blocks get ready helps to remember the Olympic rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red.

All of these, and even the one that he had only recently managed to commit to memory, my very excited mother just served us nine pies for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

  

 He had been really impress at school, the day his mathematics teacher had stood in front of the class and said, “May I have a large cup of coffee?” There was a lot of giggling of course, but also a growing sense of curiosity. He went on to explain that this was a method you could use to work out the value of pi. After writing the sentence out on the board, he showed the class that the number of letters in each word corresponded to the numerals in pi, this being 3.1415927.

Thinking back to this, he was jolted into remembering that he had scribbled a note in his book at the time. He rifled through his schoolbag and came up with a notebook. After flipping pages over he found what he was looking for.

Eureka! He had made a note for himself in the margin, it read, I knew Monique had a bad memory.

Ha! Mnemonic! I found you!

Sweeping free through hills and valleys,

The up and down with both sides seen.

Moss giving life to lifeless rocks.

Meadows echoing with the green.

–

Green is the colour of nature’s birth,

In winter and in summer days.

Rebirth thrives where land is burnt,

While sunlight glints on leaves and blades.

–

So many shades of verdant hues,

Supporting nature’s scenery.

Such a gentle and pleasing colour,

Greens growing proud in greenery.

–

Green is where life is found,

Soft behind the brighter flower.

A canvas for nature’s beauty,

Gracing every copse and bower.

–

The sun draws out the countless shades,

Variegations dark to light.

Nature flourishes and feeds,

Presenting all from dull to bright.

–

We each take in this wondrous sight

Of beauty, reflected in the leaves.

The joy that greenery brings to us

Is what each of us perceives.

 

 

It was late one evening when she first heard the scratching.

She put the TV on mute and wandered into the kitchen. She felt sure it had come from here. At first she saw nothing. Everything was in its place; nothing fallen, nothing disturbed. She was turning to go back to her show when she saw it.

It sat, perched on the fridge. Small shiny black eyes, little pink ears and nose and a great spread of white whiskers. She could hardly believe it. It was a rat! In her kitchen! The one part of her house that she kept scrupulously clean. A great, plump, evil-looking creature that just sat staring at her with what she saw as an impudent expression.

She stood very still, considering her next move. She became aware of her trembling. No, she would have to get a grip if she was going to deal with it. It would have to go, that was for sure. She would have to catch it and throw it out somewhere or…or just kill it. Hit it with something hard; drop it in the rubbish bin or flush it down the toilet. She stood like this for some time before deciding that she should start by clobbering it. It was going to get messy, but she could always clean up after the deed was done.

Eyeing her small, heavy skillet, hanging on the rack, she moved slowly across to it, while watching that the thing didn’t move. It didn’t. It just sat watching her moving across the kitchen with a gentle turn of its head. With the pan gripped tightly, she crept forward, raising it above her head. Suddenly, it was gone. All she saw was its disgustingly long tail flip out of sight over the back of the fridge. Summoning up her courage, she found a torch and peered behind the fridge, but there was no sign of it. Maybe it had a hole down there or maybe it managed to get under the fridge.

The remainder of the evening was not spent with any sense of pleasure. It was however, used to come up with a solution. She went out to the shed and found a tin of rat poison. She laced a piece of cheese with a liberal dose of it and placed it on the kitchen floor, in front of the fridge. Having accomplished all this, and feeling rather pleased with herself, she went to bed.

In the morning she went into the kitchen and to her great delight found the cheese gone, save for a few messy crumbs. Her plan had worked. Although she knew there would be a dead creature somewhere, probably at the back of the fridge, she would find it later and consign it to the bin. She would celebrate with a cup of tea first. In fact, although trying to cut down on her sugar, she would give herself an extra spoonful as a reward for a job well done.

She had been sitting for a while, quietly sipping her drink, when she saw a small head appear from below the door of the fridge.

At the same time she felt a griping pain in her stomach that quickly became an agonising, burning sensation that had her tumble off her chair. Writhing in agony on the floor, she watched as the rat came out from under the fridge.

After several long minutes the rat approached her as she lay on the kitchen floor twitching violently. It came and sat very close to her contorted face and peered into her eyes.

As she drew her final breath she considered the fact that the demonic possession of animals had never before been part of her world view.

The rat giggled.