Author: Alexander Fawn

The new woman joining the hospital’s records department was being shown the ropes.

The morning was taken up with the department’s manager explaining the clerical duties for the records clerk. During their lunch break, the manager suggested that she gave the new staff member a tour of the grounds. After a long walk they found a bench and the two women sat down to eat what they had brought out with them. The new woman gazed out across the expanse of lawns and gardens.

“Nice grounds,” she remarked.

“Yes. The new gardener is very good.” After a short pause, the manager said, “The last one was a bit of a grump and to be honest, a lousy gardener.”

The woman was surprised. “Really?”

“Yeh. He was with us for over thirty years, can you believe that? Hardly did a thing. Every time brown patches began to show up on the lawns they had to talk him in to doing some watering. Which amounted to him bothering to turn the reticulation on. He was hopeless.”

She stopped to bite into a sandwich.

“He hardly ever did any weeding,” she continued, “and the flowerbeds looked awful. As far as I know, in all the years I’ve been here, he never did any pruning or hedge trimming. The new guy has been busy trimming them all. They look nice, don’t they?”

“They do.”

The manager looked around.

“When he passed away, he left a very generous donation in his will, well over a million I’m told. He requested that a memorial for him be placed in the grounds.”

“Oh! I don’t remember seeing that.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” She dropped her voice. “That’s it over there.” She nodded back over her shoulder.

The other woman peered around.

“It’s the compost bin in the corner. If you look closely you’ll see his initials scratched on the lid.”

The doorbell rang every few seconds, constantly.

The elderly homeowner, not known for having a happy disposition, finally staggered to the front door in pyjamas and dressing gown. He dragged it open slowly and found a young man holding up a leaflet. The local council elections had come around again and a number of enthusiastic volunteers were canvassing the neighbourhood. This particular caller was new to the work, but felt he could bring a new and refreshing slant to the way people are approached. He let the slim pamphlet flutter a little in the air.

“This leaflet is all you’ll need, to make the right choice!” he crooned, grinning big time.

The man scowled. “You woke me up for this?”

Undeterred and still grinning, the other said, “Absolutely, it’s vital that you are part of the decision process.”

“As I say, you woke me up,” he grumbled.

The other checked the time and raised an eyebrow, “Are you sick or something?”

“Not sick… but I have a condition.”

“Condition?”

“Yes, it’s called old age.”

The younger man scoffed. “Look, you can’t use that as an excuse, this election is important. We all have to pull our weight, you know?

The old man’s face was colouring up and his eyes began to water. “I… I…” he spluttered, too exasperated to form words.

“I’ll just leave you a leaflet then, eh?”

“No! I don’t want a leaflet.”

The young man looked amazed. “Surely, just taking a leaflet isn’t going to do you any harm.”

Pushing the door to, the old man said, “Just go away!”

The door slammed.

The volunteer waited a full minute before ringing the doorbell again and pushing a couple of leaflets through the letterbox.

Things had been a bit shaky between them of late.

She had her suspicions, that’s all she had, but that all changed the day she was about to put a load of washing on and found the receipt. He had always been a bit clumsy. This was a perfect example. Leaving it, screwed up, in his trouser pocket. She sat down with it. It was from the most expensive jewellers in town, and the price! She knew who it was bought for. It was the girl from human resources. He thought she hadn’t noticed the looks they were giving each other at the Christmas party. She’d had enough! That afternoon, on her way back from the shops she called in at the hardware store and bought a bottle of sulfuric acid drain cleaner.

He knew things had been a bit rocky between them recently. He had considered taking her out for a surprise dinner one evening, but he wanted to do something more immediate. Something to show just how much he really loved her. He had found the pearl neckless during a lunch break. He knew she would love it. On the way home, he just couldn’t wait to give it to her. As he went through the front door, a waft of delicious cooking smells hit him. Lasagne! His favourite. He loved the way she always spiced it up with a bit of curry. He suddenly realised how hungry he was.

Maybe he’d eat first.

How naturally they enter the mind’s realm,

Lending shape to spirit and soul.

Some from within, some from without.

Some bring comfort, some fear.

Some have been known to change the world.

Some, far better left unsaid.

–

Thoughts and feelings bringing reason.

Bold or foolhardy they come.

Some checkered, others not.

Hatched somewhere before they enter the mind,

And all bringing their own questions.

–

Do they invoke some gravitational pull to clarity?

Is their value only deemed?

Can both the strong and the weak have the same intrinsic value?

Does their equity prove their worth?

Each being born from knowingness.

Some never flowing into words.

–

Can they be a beacon in a darkness of thoughts?

Does the mind shape these, or do they shape the mind?

Do they shape the world?

Or does the world, as it is, shape and give life to them?

Through the complexity of the brain, do they unify?

Do they, not people, rule the world?

His life seemed to be one continuous stream of disappointments.

Some people say that life is full of disappointments. If anybody knows how true this is, he does. For him, his entire life has been one thing after another; an endless string of things going wrong. The latest ignominy was when they sent him here to this place. He didn’t like it. He wanted to stay in the house. He was comfortable there. He could have taken care of himself; he told them that, over and over again, but they wouldn’t listen. They kept saying that a home is the best place for him.

So, here he is, wriggling around in an uncomfortable bed and looking around at a room that he really didn’t like. They said this was the best they could find. He had grave doubts about that! On top of it all, just to make matters worse, that potty woman in the next room was playing her horrible brass band music again.

All of a sudden, it stopped.

In fact, the whole place went eerily silent. Something must have happened. He struggled out of bed and got into his dressing gown and slippers. Out in the hall, he listened for a bit. Not a sound anywhere. Every room he passed was empty. He soon found that the whole place was empty. He made his way along to the common room. Nobody there!

He stood thinking for a minute. Maybe there had been a fire alert and he hadn’t heard it. Maybe everybody had to evacuate the building. That would explain it. If that’s the case, where did they all go? He went to the notice board, there should be something there about where the muster point is. No, but he spotted the death notices. He squinted at it shaking his head.

They’d spelt his name wrong.

He was driving through town when he heard a loud knocking noise coming from the car.

He instinctively slowed down and was about to say something when a schoolboy ran across the road in front of him. He braked and watched as the boy disappeared down the street. At that moment a police officer suddenly approached the car and tapped on his window. He was smiling and gesturing for the driver to lower his window.

He did this and asked, “Is anything wrong, officer?”

Still smiling, the policeman said, “On the contrary, sir, I have observed your driving manners and have to compliment you on your community attitude.”

The man, taken aback, let out a surprised, “Oh?”

“Yes,” the policeman went on, “as you are no doubt aware, this is a school zone and not only did you begin to slow down just before the zebra crossing, but you braked in time to allow that boy to cross. Of course, he was not crossing the road safely by using the crossing, which is only a short distance ahead, but your actions as a conscientious driver allowed him to get across without harm.”

At this point the policeman straightened and took out his notebook. “What you won’t be aware of, sir, is that we are carrying out a child safety drive at the moment, as part of Child Care Week. We are handing out Driver Safety Awards. They come in the form of a five hundred dollar award token, and I am writing one up for you now, sir. You have definitely earnt one.” He opened his notebook and was asking for the driver’s name when there was more banging coming from somewhere at the back of the vehicle.

The policeman hesitated and moments later a young voice shouted… “Daddy, please let me out! I promise, I won’t do it again!”

He was sitting down, lost in thought.

He was thinking about the years that have passed and how they were inevitably rolling on to what was the end, the end for everybody. The nurse enters the room and notes the worried look on the man’s face.

She approached him. “How are you doing?”

Snapping out of it, he looks up. “Just thinking,” he said, “as I get older, I know that my memories of all that I have experience, the good and the bad, will slowly fade. All those things I have seen and done will be harder to recall. Some of the recollections will take on a vagueness that leave me wondering whether they are truly real or just imagined.” His grey eyes smiled.

She went to speak.

“As for my physical state,” he went on, “well, I know that it is perfectly normal for my body functions to slow down and become less effective. Parts of me will wear out gradually and any aches and pains will take longer to subside…”

“OK.” she said. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

Back at the desk, she asked, “What’s he in for?”

The other nurse checks her screen. “Flu jab.”

“Goes on a bit, doesn’t he? For a seventeen year old, I mean. What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh! Nothing, he’s just getting old.”

The man from the technical department was a creature of habit.

It was his custom to walk from the office to the park, find himself a bench and have a quiet smoke in the middle of the afternoon. He would have to say this was one of his favourite smoking times. With only a couple of working hours to go in the office, it gave him a chance to sum the day up. He considered his work to be fairly complex and exacting; at least, compared with most jobs, it was. Another reason was to make a complete break and reflect on it. He had only just found an empty bench and settled down, taking out his cigarettes, when a man seemed to come out of nowhere. The stranger sat down beside him.

He had him pegged as a stranger. He knew just about everybody from his workplace. Out of politeness, he held up the cigarette packet.

“Do you mind if…?”

“No. carry on.”

He lit up, puffed and blew smoke.

A couple of minutes passed before the stranger said, “You’re enjoying that, eh?”

The other was taken by surprise with the question, but was happy enough to give his thoughts. He pulled a face. “I’ve been told that one can’t actually enjoy an addiction.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been able to get my head around that.”

The stranger said, “They do say those things can kill you.”

The other thought for a moment, then said, “Personally, I think that’s right. I think there’s a lot of evidence to support that.” He waved his cigarette. “You don’t mind then?”

“Not at all. I guess I’m one of those rare people who actually enjoy the smell of other people’s smoke.”

The smoker went on. “I guess, at the end of the day, I’ve come to terms with the whole thing. Somewhere along the way I must have decided that I was prepared to pay whatever the price was, for smoking.”

At this, the stranger produced his own packet of cigarettes and lit one.

Surprised at this, the other asked, “You smoke?”

“I certainly do,” came the reply.

After a long pause, he turned to face the stranger full on, and looking puzzled, asked, “So… our previous conversation?”

The stranger smiled and said, “Ah!”…

He was nervous about giving the speech.

As a local politician, it had been decided that he should officially open the new shopping precinct. It would be a short opening ceremony, but it may well draw a fair-sized crowd. If it wasn’t for his wife’s insistence he would have had someone else make the speech. However, she convinced him that with her moral support he could do it. He knew it would be good for his prestige on the local council. So, after a great deal of thought, he agreed that it was his place to say a few words. He needed to learn them. So, he began to regularly rehearse his lines by shuffling bits of paper and mumbling to himself.

When the morning of the opening came, he arrived to find a large, noisy crowd gathered outside the centre’s main entrance. Supressing his growing anxiety, he mounted the podium and looked for his wife among all the faces. Then he spotted her, she was giving him an encouraging wave. He smiled and nodded back, feeling some of the stress fade away. As his hand went into his jacket pocket for his notes he looked for her again; she blew him a kiss. This surprised him, because it was something she never did. Along with his notes he found a card. When he looked down he saw it was a small head and shoulders photograph of a typist who works at the council. In fact, the woman he’d been seeing.

He froze, staring down at it, with his nerves jangling. It took only a few seconds for the emotions of bewilderment, understanding, guilt, fear, and finally sheer panic, to race through his brain.

During those same moments, somewhere in a building across the street, a professional assassin’s finger gently comes to rest on a trigger…

The boys often played in these woods; today they went further.

They had planned for it. Today they took the overgrown path out towards the old buildings that people said were haunted. They both agreed that it was just a cover story for something else. Probably a drug lab, thought one, or maybe an illegal arms cache, supposed the other. Whatever it was, it was all very hush-hush once the place had been closed down by the authorities. They had never ventured that far until now. Today they had time on their hands. One of the boys, older by a year, had checked it out with Google maps and reckoned it would take them just over an hour to get there.

The route they had chosen proved to be a lot harder to negotiate than they thought, but neither was willing to give up on their quest. At long last, now growing dark, and after more than two hours of struggling through dense vegetation, they arrived at what would have been the front of the main building.

“Great!” said the younger one, “at least we made it.”

“Yes,” agreed the other, “but look at the time. It’ll take even longer to get back in the dark.”

“Maybe we could sleep in the building and go back in the morning.”

The other nodded. “It would be an adventure, wouldn’t it? We’re in trouble anyway.” He looked around, “I don’t know what this place was, when it got closed down. I only know there was a hell of a stink about it,” he whispered.

There was a sign on the ground, obviously fallen and covered with leaves. The older boy crept forward. It was then that they heard a soft buzzing sound coming from the building. He brushed at it until they could make it out.

It read:

‘Body Parts Inc.

This week’s special.

Three arms for the price of two!’

They decided to go home.