Author: Alexander Fawn

He sat staring at his coloured computer screen.

He thinks, why am I doing this? What’s it all about? What kind of life am I living here? Whatever happened to my freedom? There is unsolicited mail, advertisements that cover my text, authorisation codes that fail, sites I can’t unsubscribe from, the internet being painfully slow, annoying pop-up ads, a WiFi that keeps dropping out. I’m continually being asked to fill out surveys, there seems to be so many passwords to keep track of, downloads that take for ever, software updates that cause problems, logins not working, email attachments that just won’t open, and now, the blue screen of death!

He takes a deep breath. Then, it’s delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. No more, mail, ads, or WiFi. No more posts, photos or video clips.

He leaves the house and settles into his favourite chair on the back patio. He knows he has to be brave, as he enters his own, personal New World Order!

Only those that were chosen could ever hope of escaping the torments of hell.

Each year, Satan allowed just one of the fallen souls the chance to escape the realm of Hades. It took the form of a vast lottery. Each and every lost soul, from all levels of sin, was eligible for release from the great abyss. The time was approaching yet again and a great buzz of excitement went through the infernal regions. The idea of this onetime prospect of sudden freedom was rife throughout the nether world. The anticipation of just one transgressor being freed, just a solitary member of the damned given the chance to avoid purgatory’s eternal torment, was present in every wrongdoer’s black and evil heart.

The Great Beast alone performed the annual lottery. He, the Angel of Darkness, the ruler of the everlasting fire of the underworld, the Fallen Angel that ruled over the abode of the damned, the place of torment, the bottomless pit of the lower world, would exclusively preside over the selection of one hundred souls from the boundless population of the immeasurable inferno of perdition. This number was reduced to ten by the King of Hell on the second pass, followed by a reduction to three, and finally, one. Only he, Lucifer, he that ruled over the Realm of Damnation, only he knew the identities of any of the cast down chosen throughout the selection process.

…but, of course, the Prince of Darkness, being just about the worst kind of rotter imaginable, wasn’t actually going to lose even one of his tortured souls. It was a simple contrivance. There never was a hundred, a ten, a three, or a one. He just loved watching false hope.

Pretty dastardly, one might think, but there again it should be remembered that each soul had chosen the path that had led them there…

She was just someone who liked to hang on to things.

Her mother had tried to talk her into throwing out all of the really old toys that she was never likely to play with again. However, despite now being in her late teens, she hadn’t wanted to throw anything out. As a consequence of this, a large wooden box, full of such things, had, for several years, been a permanent feature in the corner of her bedroom. It just so happened that this irksome topic had come up again, just before going to bed. On this occasion, although it did no more than cause a mild annoyance between them, it did make the teenager wonder whether her mother could be right. Climbing into bed, she thought about it. After all, being honest with herself, she would have a hard job remembering exactly what was in there.

Before she was able to get fully comfortable, something in her room sounded. It may be outside, she thought. That had happened before, with things blowing around in the garden. Concentrating on the noise, she wondered if it was coming from the toy box.

Getting out of bed, she went to it and listened. Almost immediately, she heard it again. Opening the lid, she peered in, waiting. There seemed to be movement coming from under all her old toys. It was just a soft rustling sound, but now it was accompanied by something stirring. As she began to take things out, she was quite impressed with how calm she was. Finally, she found something green and soft. It was wriggling. She lifted it out.

It was ‘Mopsy’, her old green rabbit. She had loved this soft toy when she was really young. She remembered how she would cuddle it in bed every night. Turning it around, she saw that it couldn’t be her old companion. She whispered to herself, “Of course, you can’t be him; you’re much too new.”

It squirmed a bit and said, “No, I’m not new at all.”

With hardly any surprise, she said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite sure. I’ve been refurbished.

She frowned. “Refurbished?”

“Oh! That’s just a fancy way of saying drycleaned and blow-dried. You know, just for the occasion. For you, d’you see? But if you don’t like it…”

“No! That’s fine; you look good. I mean, really good.”

It was at this point that she stopped to think about what she was doing. Was she really chatting with a stuffed toy?

The answer came quickly, when her alarm sounded.

Slowly waking up, and remembering the night’s events, she looked across at the undisturbed toy box and began to giggle.

This stopped abruptly when getting out of bed she saw something soft and green tumble silently to the floor…

The teenager at number forty-two was learning to play the drums.

He wasn’t particularly popular with the rest of his family, although he kept his bedroom door closed whenever he practiced. He had the drum set squeezed into the corner of his room. He always tried to drum softly, but it didn’t always work. His other interest was the Saturday night dance at the village hall. He knew his family appreciated a quiet night. He wasn’t much into dancing and just wasn’t ready for a girlfriend yet. Although he knew the time would come. Anyway, he enjoyed the brief pause during the evening, when the organises put on a sort of talent show. Sometimes two or three acts would get up on the stage, some nights only one.

That was the case this particular evening. It was a boy he remembered from school. He didn’t really know him; only by sight. He’d been told he was learning to play the alto saxophone. The would-be drummer was intrigued.

When the time came, the teenager climbed up onto the small stage carrying his instrument case. Using the chair provided, he sat and took the saxophone out. After jiggling the keys for a bit, he played a version of the Buddy Holly number, ‘Raining in My Heart’. His performance only lasted a couple of minutes. In the hall, it seemed very loud. There were a few wrong notes, but he pressed on regardless. When it was finished, there were a few muffled sniggers, followed by a steady clapping, as he put the instrument back in his case and returned to one of the seats that lined the side wall.

On the opposite side of the room, the would-be drummer sat watching the performer sit himself confidently in the chair with his instrument case slid between his feet.

He was surprised at the profound and quite emotional effect this one incident of listening to the other’s performance had on him.

He wasn’t at all sure which of his feelings was the strongest, his admiration or his envy…

He was standing at his workbench, not sure how the thing could be fixed.

Maybe it can’t be fixed, he thought; I just don’t have the tools that I need to make a proper job of it. He really needed a set of adjustable clamps to reposition the parts. Then, by tightening each one individually and carefully, it could be returned to its original shape. Using a special super bond glue that is made for assembling metal parts, would mean that he could do an even better job. The trouble with that idea was that he didn’t have either the clamps or the glue. He looked around at the tools that hung on his tool boards with a sigh. Some of them began to rattle. He was startled when they began speaking.

“Use me,” said the hammer.

“No, use me,” said the screwdriver.

“Better to use me,” said the spanner.

Getting over the shock of having his tools speak to him, he said, “Sorry guys, there’s no way I can repair this without the things I need.”

The hammer said, “You could use me to knock the thing back into place. That would form a friction fit.”

“Better still, use me,” said the screwdriver, “you would only need to use a couple of screws to make the parts really tight, that would hold it together.

“For the very best results,” said the spanner, “you only need a nut and a bolt, then use me to make them extra tight. Do this and it will never move again.”

He stood back and looked at each of them in turn. “I’m sorry guys,” he said.

Picking it up, he turned and walked out of the shed.

They meant well, but there are times when just a few basic tools are simply not enough, he thought, as he dropped it in the metals bin.

The man’s complaint was registered with the hotel’s receptionist.

The building manager promptly responded to his call. Entering the room, he introduced himself. “I’ve been told that you have a complaint. Something about your window. I’m sure it’s something we can get fixed.”

The guest said, “It’s not the window. I wish it was that simple.”

“No?”

“No. It’s the view. Specifically, it’s the newlyweds to the left of the building, on the third floor in the building opposite. Their bedroom curtains are never closed. It’s not at all decent.”

The manager moved forward to the window. “I don’t understand. I’m looking straight across at the fifth floor, from here. I can’t even see the third floor.”

“No, it’s more about the angle.”

“Angle?”

“Yes. It’s not easy. You have to stand on the chair in the corner and look down.” Then, he added, “It’s better with binoculars, of course.”

The man with the small hobby farm was clearing some of his land.

He burned most of what he’d cleared, but made a stack of logs. He decided that there may be those who could use them, as the recent weather had been particularly cold. He put a small pile at the front with a sign saying they were for sale. He wouldn’t charge much. In rural communities it was generally accepted that they all look after one another in times of need. However, looking out of his front window the next morning, he saw what was obviously the exception to this unspoken understanding. It was the miserly old codger from a little further up the lane. He was loading the pieces into the back of his old utility vehicle as silently as he could. With that, he drove away quietly, with obviously no intention to pay for them!

Although the man was his neighbour, he had never liked him. He was rude and never had a kind word to say about anything or anybody. He decided that he would gather up more logs later that day and replace them, with the idea that he’d keep a sharp look out.

Sure enough, early the next morning the battered truck was there again. Like the day before, the timber was taken with no intention of paying for it. Watching this, the man began to form an idea. Being something of a keen carpenter he selected a suitable piece from his stack and took it to his workshop. There, he found the unused stick of dynamite, left over from a time when he needed to dislodge large boulders on his property. He carefully measured its diameter, then drilled into the end of the log. When the stick was firmly in place, he made a wooden plug and glued it in. Sanding the end made what he’d done invisible. Then, later that day, it went out the front with other pieces, to form another small pile.

It had been the following morning, after he had looked on, witnessing the prepared pile being stolen, yet again, that he had a troubling thought. It occurred to him that the rotter might be just brazen enough to sell the logs on to one of the good folks that live in the village. What if this rogue sold the wood to one of his best friends who would have no idea what danger they were in.

Each day that passed had him thinking about how he could put the matter right, without exposing the nature of what he had done; each time without success.

However, it was a few sleepless nights later that he heard the explosion coming from just a short distance away.

With an evil grin, he relaxed.

The man heard the siren as he made his way across the field.

He was on his way to talk to his neighbour who owned the farm property next to his own. He’d heard that the owner planned to build an artificial lake on his farm. He was curious and wanted to know how big it would be, how deep, where on the property it would be located and mainly, why was he going to the trouble and expense of creating a manmade lake in the first place. As neighbours they had always got on.

As he approached, he smiled and put his hands over his ears, as if to stop the sound.

The farmer gave a warm greeting. “I know, but I had to switch that on,” he said. “We’ve got a mob of wild donkeys in the area. You know how much damage they can do.”

The visitor nodded and said, “Ass alarm. Ooh! A lake, umm…”

The farmer looked surprised. “You speak Urdu?”

The story goes that he was woken in the early hours by angry voices

He couldn’t believe that it was happening. It seemed to be so out of place. It was definitely some kind of argument. It was a woman’s voice that dominated. She was telling someone that it was so unfair that her husband should be taken from her, at his age. She was saying something about their recent marriage and how this wasn’t the way it should go. He could just make out the time on the ward’s clock. Surely, three in the morning was not the time for a doctor’s visit, although that was what it sounded like. The doctor, if that’s who he was, spoke quietly about what needed to happen, but she wasn’t going to have a bar of it, and told him so. Then, quite suddenly, it fell silent. He lifted his head to see the man leave. In the poor light he could just make out a tall figure, dressed in black, with a hood!

The following day, the medical staff were amazed to find that the brain tumour was no longer there. He was discharged during the afternoon and a jubilant wife was called and told she could come to the hospital to take him home.

It was during that journey that a heavy vehicle shot through a red light and crushed the car they were in.

When the local paper carried the sad story of the recently married, young couple dying that way, his wife showed him the article. He hardly ever read the newspaper, but this was different. Knowing that her husband had been in the hospital at around the same time as the dead husband, she thought he should see it. She left him reading it.

A few minutes later, returning the paper to his wife, he agreed that it was a very sad business.

That was all he said.

For all intents and purposes, the girl who lives at number fourteen is perfectly ordinary.

She is just a seventeen-year-old, who lives at home with her parents. They are both working. She lives in an ordinary house near to a town. It’s there that she works in an office as an admin support clerk in reception. She likes her work and travels there and back by bus. She has a boyfriend that she really likes. That day, she left the office right on time and caught the early bus. At home she got ready to go out. Travelling back into town by bus, she met her boyfriend in the foyer of the town cinema. After the movie they went to a favourite café, where they drank coffee and talked about the film. From there, he drove her home. That night, she was full of joy when she switched her bedside light out and settle down to sleep…

On the following morning, she woke up as a sixty-two-year-old widow, with a small dog.

She had been retired for several years and was living in a bungalow in another town. After breakfast, she got ready to walk her dog to a nearby park before going on to a convenient store where she would buy a paper, then return home.

It should be pointed out that this second persona, along with all of her friends, neighbours and relatives have absolutely no cognisance or memory of the first.

Whereas, you would think that most sensible people would consider that this entire event was, to say the very least, mindbogglingly remarkable, it is not.

Unbeknown to almost everyone, this sort of thing is happening all the time…