Author: Alexander Fawn

He was pottering around the garden, thinking about what she had said.

He had tried to cut down hadn’t he? He’d been trying to keep any thoughts of drinking out of his mind for over an hour now, but it just wasn’t working. He glanced back at the house. It was empty. She was shopping.

He went back inside and wandered from room to room aimlessly for a while. His mouth was dry and he needed a drink. His head was throbbing and he knew what he needed to make it stop. Regardless of all the advice he’d been getting, surely he knew what was best for him.

He stood looking up at the cupboard. He knew what was in there. He open it and stood staring in for a while. Finally, he sighed. “Oh! What the heck”. He grabbed a large mug, threw in a couple of tea bags and switched the kettle on.

The travelling salesmen often met up at the little café on the corner.

They could drink and chat, stare out at the passers-by and swap stories about their latest travels. It had become a regular habit that broke the monotony of moving endlessly around the country promoting and selling for their respective companies. They referred to them as their coffee breaks.

The first man said that he’d had a strange encounter. In truth he was always having strange encounters, it seemed to be part of a traveller’s lot. There had always been something of a competitive nature between them regarding the telling of their tales. He put his cup down and began.

“I was in a town down near the coast buttering up this client when this kid runs in shouting about a fire at the end of the street. Well, you can imagine it threw me completely. I forgot all about trying to make a sale and rushed outside. Sure enough, the big, old hotel at the end of the street was blazing away with great plumes of black smoke billowing up.”

The second man said “Wow! And you were right in the middle of it.”

“I certainly was” said the other. “I couldn’t see any signs of action and supposed it was just a quiet time of day. There didn’t seem to be anybody around and the kid was standing next to me looking frantic.”

“What did you do?”

“Well now, that’s the funny thing. I asked the boy if anyone had phoned the fire brigade and he said there was no point, and with that he just sauntered off in the opposite direction.” He sipped at his drink, shaking his head. “I couldn’t believe it. He just strolled away with his shoulders hunched. I guess I was just struck dumb for a bit. Anyway, I rushed back in to the shop and found the guy I’d been talking to just casually reading the paper.”

“There’s a fire!” I yelled, but he didn’t seem to respond, just kept on reading. “Hey mister,” I shouted, I was getting pretty angry now, “I don’t know what your problem is but…”

“Hey! Calm down.” He says. “If there was a fire, I’d know about it.” He looked over at the phone. “I’m the voluntary fire crew chief for the area. If there was really a fire I’d soon know about it.”

I said “No, but…”

He shouted me down again. “It’s OK. That kid has been coming in here on a regular basis shouting fire. He got into big trouble last time. He’s in for the high jump this time I can tell you.”

I went to shout at him again when the door burst open and this bloke screams. “The phones are down! The pub’s on fire!”

“That was it, wasn’t it? Pandemonium broke out. I tell you, I didn’t make a sale that day. Nobody had time for me, so I just packed up and went home early.”

“Amazing!” Said his companion, and went off to order more coffees. When he returned, he put the cups down and stood for a moment. “I had a rum do recently.” He said, as he sat back down. “I was on one of my country visits and going out to a farm, fertilizers, you know. Anyway, I was just about there when I came across this group of people straggled across the lane. They were an odd looking bunch and I slowed right down to take a good look at them.” He fell silent for a moment.

His friend said “Go on.”

“Well, there was this guy, who seemed to be in charge, and several women all carrying these bags, and I couldn’t help wondering if they were cutting in on my territory flogging cheap fertilizer. Silly really. Anyway, it turned out that they were all part of some sort of animal welfare thing, collecting strays and taking them to a nearby animal hospital where they were cared for. The guy started telling me how good his wife was at finding them, then he turned to another woman saying she was excellent at calming them down and actually capturing them.” He frowned. “The thing was he referred to the second woman as his wife as well!” He laughed. “So, by way of a joke, I asked him just how many of them were his wives, and he said all of them and told me he was a polygamist.”

“A what?”

“Polygamist, you know, having more than one wife.”

The other looked doubtful, but said “What did you say to that?”

“Nothing really, not about that, I didn’t want to be rude. I did look over the whole group though, and asked how many animals they had caught.”

“What’d he say?”

“He very proudly announced they had caught forty-nine!”

“Wow! Did you believe him?”

The man telling the story shrugged and said “Dunno.”

The man listening shook his head and smirked “And where was this place?”

“Saint Ives.” Came the reply.

They both laughed. They really enjoyed their coffee breaks.

 The man was holding the canister with exaggerated reverence.

“You’ll never find another product to equal it!” he was saying. He pointed to the rubber funnel that sat on top. “This goes over the nose and mouth” he continued, holding it near to his face, “and this button releases the gas.”

The lady looked pensive. “How affective is it really? I mean, what you claim is quite amazing.”

“I know, I know, people always say that.”

She waggled her head. “I suppose it works on some sort of autosuggestion, or hypnosis maybe?”

He smiled. “No madam. It’s gas. Whatever the situation, this will put a spin on it.”

“What sort of situations does it cover?”

“Absolutely any.”

“Any?”

“Any.”

“Can you give me a for instance?”

“I’m asked that a lot too. Well, for instance… you were responsible for leaving the hot plate on. You simply say I did not leave it on, and take a puff. Walla! You’ll never believe anything else. If you were in a court of law you would say that with total confidence. You yourself would then be quite convinced that what you are saying is not fabricated, but true.”

She seemed satisfied and nodded. “It is very expensive.”

“Of course. There is only one person in the world who knows its formula.” He patted his chest. “Many have tried to duplicate the chemical composition believe me! Tried and failed.” He tapped the side of his head. “That is why you had to go to such great lengths to arrange this meeting. I travel widely, never staying in one place for very long, or any one country for that matter.”

“How long does it last?” She asked.

“It varies a little, but a year is guaranteed.”

She blew out a breath and squinted. That would be good. She’d be long gone by then. “Yes, OK, I’ll need two. Do you have two?”

He wiggled his satchel and said “I do.”

She slowly peeled off the notes and handed over the money. She took the can and held it in front of her. She said “I did not kill my husband” and took a long, deep draw on the spin gas and handed it back. He placed the spent aerosol back in his bag.

Her fingers curled around the handle of the knife in her pocket as she took the second can.

Although it is generally accepted,

That bad black is simply bad black,

While white gets to be goody two-shoes.

Something seems to be quite out of whack!

–

Black hats and white hats in movies,

Showing who was good and who bad,

Have an awful lot to answer for,

Promoting this two-sided fad.

–

Think of the horse Black Beauty;

What a beautiful creature.

Think of a killer avalanche,

With white as its prominent feature.

–

Although black-hearted people

Are generally up to no good;

Speed and cocaine are the white drugs.

Surely that’s understood.

–

Blackberries are really good in a pie.

Black is useful for conducting heat.

Black orchids are much sort after.

A black suit can look stylish and neat.

–

So what’s going on with this white thing?

Is light always better than dark?

Maybe it is, and it may be the case

That my thinking is wide of the mark!

–

I’ll just put an end to such queries,

Now that I’ve had my say.

Thank goodness I’ve little time for either.

In truth, I really like grey!

They met one sunny morning on the beach, at a holiday resort.

He was there taking a break from an office job in the city. He was single with no plans to settle down. He liked what he did, but tended to run himself into the ground. The holiday was just what he needed.

She had just left a clerical position in order to take on a stint of serious study. The break was for her to rest up and prepare for what lay ahead. She was keen to improve herself and knew there was a lot of work in front of her.

They were both within three days of ending their week’s stay before flying back to the city and the lives they had waiting for them.

They hit it off straight away and spent the last days doing things together. They met each morning for breakfast and dined together each night. They talked about their work and study plans. They agreed that a week after getting back they would catch up and keep their friendship going.

At the last breakfast they discussed things they could do in a week’s time. They agreed to meet in the city’s main square and go on from there. He said he had been looking forward to going to the cinema that was still showing a good movie that he had not yet had a chance to see. It would still be on and wondered whether she would prefer an afternoon matinee performance or an evening show.

“I’m sorry” she said, with a pained expression. “I can’t do that.” She flapped her hands to make light of it. “It probably sounds silly but I can’t go into cinemas. I have phobias about closed spaces and crowds. I just can’t do it.”

“That’s a great pity” he said, looking despondent. “I’m a bit of a movie buff myself. I spend a lot of time in cinemas and movie houses watching the latest films on the big screen.”

“Never mind” she said. “We can spend a more healthy time in the fresh air. I belong to a bushwalkers club and we do some really great walks. I’m not sure what’s on that weekend but it’s bound to be interesting. I’ll find out more and let you know.”

“Ah!” he said, shaking his head and pouting. “That wouldn’t work I’m afraid. Walking through bushy areas with trees and plants for any extended period would bring on my hay fever. Wooded areas like that tend to have a high pollen count. When I get the fever it always hits me very hard, it just about cripples me for days.”

“OH!” She replied

“Yes, Sorry!” He said.

“Me too.” She said.

When breakfast was finished they went their separate ways, doing nothing together for the rest of the morning. They arrived at the airport for their early afternoon return flight. They saw each other, smiled and nodded, as they collected their tickets. On board they were each ushered to their ticketed seats.

They didn’t sit together.

The Captain looked at the little green planet on the big screen.

He said “Do we look at this one?”

The First Officer said “Can’t.”

“Can’t, why not?”

He looked at his hand-held instrument. “We’re being jammed. Well, not jammed exactly. They have some sort of cabling system that‘s playing havoc with our instruments. Our tech boys say Earthlings have named it the National Broadband Network. It’s some sort of primitive technology they’re rolling out.”

“Can we wait it out?”

“Oh! No sir. They’ve been at it for years.”

The Captain frowned. “We have to come up with something. Some sort of record for Command.”

“What we’re getting is very scrappy.”

“What do you mean scrappy?”

“As far as we can tell, we are getting short wave signals on everything from average teeth cleaning times to the diameter of something called a football.”

“OK. Keep trying. Keep me informed. I’ll be glad when we move on from here. Nasty little system this one. Messy place.”

“Yes sir.”

The First Officer crossed the deck to the consuls, all buzzing away trying hard to gather information on the planet below. After a while he returned to the Captain.

“It’s pretty bad sir. I don’t think it’s going to be enough to make out a report.”

“What have you got?”

The Officer look down at his hand-held device again.

”OK. History seems to be a complete washout, although the planet’s habitation period seems to be quite short.” He shrugged an apology. “There is a very limited capability regarding the study of objects in space, and their units of measurement seem to vary for just about every land mass, no apparent attempt to standardise.”

“They need soft things for sleeping, most of them don’t like walking with bare feet, they use pronged forks for eating, they all have to clip their nails regularly, they grow grass so they can cut it down again, they draw pictures of flowers to put in their houses that have flowers just outside of them, many of them submit themselves to regular intoxication, their shops have tattered and torn clothes that they sell as new, they eat animals and sometimes each other, they seem to be very secretive about how they mate, there seems to be a general sense that most of them are trying really hard to be happy and nearly all of them use body coverings.”

He peered closely at his screen. “We don’t seem to be able to get a precise fix on how many wars are going on down there, but there are a lot of them.”

He looked up. “I’m afraid it just goes on and on like this sir. Completely useless really, I can’t see that we can use any of it. I mean, there’s just nothing substantial enough to provide a proper picture.”

The Captain shook his head and blew out a long breath.

The Officer shrugged and said “Like I said sir… scrappy.”

“Damn! OK. My quarters, now.” The Captain vacated his chair and waved the Second Officer over.

In the Captain’s room they sat looking at the printout.

“Have to do what we did for Rigor 39… fudge it. We have no choice. There’ll be a hell of a stink if we don’t tick all the boxes.” He dropped his head into his hands and said “I’ve got one of my really bad migraines coming on.” He looked up with bloodshot eyes and said “Let’s just give it a B11 rating and move on.”

The First Officer stood up, saluted and said “Yes Captain.”

He left the room, closing the door very gently behind him.

 

Mum and Dad and Auntie Betty all wanted a boy.

Boys were all the thing, the flavour of the month, the best thing since sliced bread, the bee’s knees, the be-all and end-all, the best of the best, etcetera.

So, baby got called Alex, got dressed in blue and grew up playing rugby and hanging out with the boys, which made sense because they were all the thing, the flavour of the month, the best thing since sliced bread, the bee’s knees, the be-all and end-all, the best of the best, etcetera.

Alex came home from school one day scarred and bloody from a playground fight. The family all cheered and gave Alex an extra scoop of ice-cream.

Alex had nothing pink, no bows and no frills.

Alex went on to drag racing in the town’s car park late at night, doing all-night pub crawls and lifting weights.

Inside Alex there lives a girl… and she’s very angry.

Rimember was a strange month.

It was added to the twelve that had been used on planet Earth when it was still inhabited. This was prior to the system becoming defunct on the basis that other planets had very different heavenly motions.

All this was around the time when Earth became the first Holiday Resort of its kind. By its origins, Riminy was the name given to a small hopping creature called a cricket. Riminy Cricket was a character that featured in something that was referred to much later as the Disney Time, but this was all so long ago!

The entity, had spent a lot of time researching the period. It had always found it amazing that beings actually used physical bodies in order to survive. That whole era when the male and female system was in place had always fascinated it. However, so few decent records of the time were accurately converted to thought-banks during the Great Gathering that took place in the thirty-fifth millennia, and as a consequence a great deal of interpolation took place. Because these old cultures go back so far, it was difficult to determine how valid any of the records really are.

During that time the monthly cycles had been either named after Roman rulers, the Gods they worshiped, or the numerical sequence of each month. Tradition was broken quite unexpectedly by naming the thirteenth month after this one specific insect. Ever since the entity had learnt about this, while undergoing its second Schooling Period in the Fifteenth Galactic Era, it had become consumed with a desire to know more. It felt that it was such a pity that there are no pictures left, and would love to know what Riminy Cricket looked like.

Although Riminy was known to be green, wore a blue hat and had large eyes, no images remained. The creature had been famous for a peculiar song about the strange activity of wishing on a star. Records showed that the word wish was a verb in that era’s language that meant request.

However, it was not until more than three millennia later that the planet Urgonis5 was discovered. This was the first of many such planets, sometimes referred to as wish-stars, where the atmosphere allowed entities to both deposit and withdraw thoughts, in what would eventually become a vast network of thought-banks. These events finally culminated in the creation of the Intergalactic Knowledge Fund.

The question raised was could wishing on a star be a direct reference to these planets? If so, was Disney a prophet not recognised at the time? Speculation about this was strife but didn’t help. Sadly, it became apparent to the entity that without sufficiently preserved records of the events that took place during that ancient period… the truth of it would never be known.

 

So many nameless strangers,

Uncounted as they flow.

Filling out the city;

Each knowing where to go.

–

They come by car or bike.

They come by bus or train.

They come as local workers,

Or visitors by plane.

–

Individual workers

Heading for their place.

Weaving through the city streets

At their chosen pace.

–

They flood the streets and alleys,

Like a never ending stream,

Until they enter glass-clad towers.

Roomed; no longer seen.

–

With the flowing human torrent gone,

It’s quieter on the street.

Just a few, with appointments due,

Go out to meet and greet.

–

Others now walk easier paths;

Still strangers on the go.

Not in town to work a day,

But moving to and fro.

–

A hobo and his dog,

With a park bench for their bed.

A giggling couple, arm in arm.

Window cleaners overhead.

–

Bikies in their leathers.

Tourists with cameras and maps.

Police patrolling up and down,

In uniforms and caps.

–

All now in the city

With some purpose they each came.

All part of this living heart,

But strangers all the same.

–

And within this disconnected mass,

On all of which depends.

The saving grace within this place;

That some will make new friends.

The bar was tucked away down a side alley and known to be a haunt for the criminal fraternity.

The man in the suede jacket was what you might call a petty criminal. He was pretty low in the pecking order of things, but knew that some of the top crime bosses used the bar. It could do no harm to mix with them. He was certainly nervous as he entered. He ordered a drink and found a table tucked away in a corner. The place was full of men drinking and smoking. He looked around surreptitiously. Several of them he recognised as being kingpins in the underworld. He saw one man dressed in a particularly expensive looking suit that he recognised as being someone he had met, but only once. He wondered if the man would remember him. He was sitting on his own at a table tapping into a mobile phone. It could be his opportunity to get a foot in the door.

After several minutes of hesitation he plucked up the courage and walked over, smiling and saying “You may not remember me, we met briefly at the racecourse, last year.” The man in the suit looked up with a questioning expression, then seemed to relax. He pointed, saying “I can’t say I do but take a seat. ‘Suede’ pulled out a chair and sat. He felt that this could well be an opening for him. They sat chatting casually for a time, then quite out of the blue, and in a loud voice, the man says “No! There’s no way I’m going to help you rob the jewellery store!”

‘Suede’, being totally shocked by the unprovoked and completely nonsensical outburst, got up and made his way back to his table. He tried not to let the patrons staring at him see how much he was trembling as he sat back down. He just couldn’t believe what the ’suit’ had said. He was thinking about which jewellery shop the other had been referring to when he looked across and found the ‘suit’ was grinning and waving him back. After a few moments of indecision he got up and slowly walked back. The man, still smiling as though nothing had happened, waved him to the chair.

“You have to forgive me.” He said “It’s a bit of a weakness with me. I just can’t resist pulling stunts like that. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I’m often told I have a sick sense of humour. No hard feelings I hope? Let me get you a drink. I think you need one.” He chuckled to himself as he made his way to the counter.

He returned, and as before they sat making polite conversation for a while before ‘suede’ suddenly jumped up, knocking over his chair. “You swine!” He shouted. This brought the attention of everyone in the room. “I wasn’t here to offer you a job.” He went on with real fury. “I was sent here to test you and now we know. It was you that tipped the police off about last month’s bank job.” With that, he kicked his fallen chair to one side and stormed out of the bar.

Outside, he started to walk slowly back up the alley smiling to himself.

Just as he reached the street he heard the shot.