The dental receptionist had asked her to take a seat.
She sat, looking around the waiting room. Two others; presumably going in before her. She was glad of a few quiet moments; the morning had been busy so far. She was tired, it hadn’t been a good night. The neighbourhood dog had gone on yapping into the early hours. She sighed and picked up a magazine. Letting it fall open anywhere, she was confronted with a colourful spread about a charity-driven prize on offer. It was an all-expenses-paid-for cruise around islands she’d never heard of somewhere in the Caribbean. She’d often dreamt of going on a cruise. Maybe she would buy a ticket… in an instant, she was gazing down at the white, bubbling water trailing past the side of the liner. It was a beautiful sight. The white of it against the blue. It was hot. A waiter was asking for her drinks order, and she was saying a Margarita with ice would be good, thanks.
Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she mumbled, “Plenty of ice, thanks.”
He had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a good day the moment his alarm woke him.
He seemed to be in a rush from the moment he got up. Things simply kept going wrong. Eventually he was standing next to his car in the garage, checking the time. He could take a brisk walk to the bus stop or take the car. The bus would save him petrol, but the car was a more comfortable ride. He decided to drive to work. He had only gone a short distance down the street when the car sputtered and coughed, then completely conked out. Getting out, he lifted the hood, he couldn’t see anything that would have caused the problem. Closing the hood, he checked the time again. He stood, thinking about how he now had no chance of busing in, when a neighbour came out to see what was wrong. After hearing his tale of woe, he offered to help push the vehicle back to the driveway.
This was accomplished, and having thanked the man for his kind help, he put a call through to a local breakdown service. The man on the end said he could log the call and assured him of prompt service. He then proceeded to gather information, such as name and address, the location of the vehicle, number plate registration, type of vehicle and the time of it breaking down.
The man checked the time and said, “It must have been around ten past nine.”
The man taking the call said, “That can’t be right, sir. Could you check again?”
He took his phone out again and checked. “No,” he said, “within a couple of minutes, I’m sure it was ten minutes past nine when it happened.”
“But sir, it’s only eight-forty-five now, are you sure your watch is telling you the right time, sir?”
“Well, it’s a mobile phone, actually. These things operate on the world clock.”
“In that case, sir, I’m afraid the system won’t allow me to book you’re request.”
“Why not?”
He heard a sigh, followed by the man saying, “I’m sorry, but the software we use here won’t allow me to book a breakdown until it has actually happened!”
He was a philosophy student, when his own belief system was tested.
‘Tested’ may not be the correct word for it, but for him, something happened that challenged his way of looking at life. As a philosophy student, he had no time for the concept of past lives. Of course, this was only his personal belief, and would play no part in his studies. The fact that ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Pythagoras all expressed a belief in reincarnation, carried no weight for him. His father had always maintained a strong case for majoring in philosophy. That was enough for him. However, the strange happening he experienced was brought about by three quite separate things, a bad head cold, an old remedy, and a metronome in a shop window.
His head cold had caused him to take a break from his studies for several days. He was recovering slowly when he had a call from his grandmother, one of his favourite relatives, to pay a quick visit, provided he wear a face mask. A short bus ride was all it took to end up in her kitchen, with mask on, discussing his health. She explained how a particular ancient remedy had always worked for her. That was good enough for him. She had prepared it before his arrival, saying that it was a compound of several herbs, the juice from berries and two kinds of mushrooms. These she had mashed into a purée on her blender. He drank this before he left.
The music shop that he would often visit was only two doors away from his stop. On this occasion, he was looking at the window display, while keeping an eye out for his bus. The latest feature was a large metronome in a wooden case, ticking away as a central feature. He was mentally trying to calculate how many beats-per-minute it had been set at, when the bus came.
At home, in his bedroom, he lay on the bed exhausted. It had been a tiring exercise making the trip out, for someone getting over a cold. It was then that he heard the occasional ticking. He sat up and found himself staring at a metronome, ticking very slowly on his small study desk. As he watched, the room seemed to fade away, being replaced by the sense that he was flying a light aircraft! It was so real! The vibration and drone in the cockpit, the panel of instruments in front of him, the surrounding clouds… Then, after two more clicks from the instrument, the environment snapped into something else.
He was in a field, using a hoe to mound up soil around rows of green plants of some kind. He barely had time to take in his surroundings or to gauge how hot the weather was, before it all changed again.
Now, leaning over someone in a bed, he was instantly aware of the smell of disinfectant and the sounds of noises commonly heard in a hospital… It occurred to him that he had no idea how he was being presented in any of these scenarios; how he was dressed, his age or even what sex he was. He only knew he was there for those few brief moments. He was distracted by these thoughts when the scene changed again.
He was standing on a platform, high up on the outside of a tall building, fitting a window frame. He was aware of the wind moving the boards beneath his feet and the sound of traffic coming from below… but, there was another noise, quite different. It was faster than the tick of the metronome and more immediate somehow. He heard his mother’s voice, asking if he was all right. In that moment, he looked back at the empty desk and fell back onto his pillow.
He called out, “I’m OK.”
She opened the door, saying, “I didn’t want to disturb you, if you were asleep.” She approached the bed. Looking down at him, she said, “Are you sure you’re OK?”
He nodded. “Yes, just had a weird dream, that’s all.
She pulled a face. “I’m not surprised. A head cold can do that. Visiting your grandma may have been a bit much for you. What you need is rest.”
He did his best to smile. “Thanks mum.”
As she left, closing the door gently behind her, he wondered whether it really was just a dream.
He sits late into the evening with his thoughts swirling around the story.
On the large desk in front of him a covered typewriter rests at one end. On the other end, a closed laptop. In the corner of the room, the latest addition. A machine, chosen and paid for by a well-meaning relation, who really should have known better. It is an M-R-407, the most recent model of muse robot. It had taken a long time for researchers working in the field of artificial intelligence to come up with a writer’s muse that would occasionally prompt their companion with ideas and suggestions regarding whatever the writer was working on. The metallic figure sat motionless. It was turned off.
Immediately in front of him lay a pad of writing paper and a pen. He was looking at the blank page, allowing his thoughts to run once more over the scene in his head.
He sat back momentarily, thinking about videos he’d seen of people tapping away on typewriters. Of course, way back, there was a time when laptops were very popular. He didn’t want to think about the figure in the corner.
He leant forward and picked up his pen.
In the silence of the room, came a soft, almost inaudible scratching sound of pen on paper.
Both past and future were being lived out under the same roof.
Their lives had been lived together, but now they lived in two different worlds. She looked forward, while he looked back. Being unaware of the present can create problems. On the positive side, he had no negative feelings about any of his past mistakes, while she harboured no fears about what the future might bring. On the contrary, she enjoyed seeing things change, while he was happy remembering passed times. Whereas she spent time imagining those events that the future held, and he was forever lost in those long-gone memories.
Neither was fully aware of the present, but it was in the obscured here and now that the earthquake came. It was in the present moment that the house shook and the roof caved in.
Sadly, this meant that both past and future no longer lived under the same roof.
At least a dozen rugs were laid out as families picnicked a cross the park.
The late afternoon sun was still warm and the scene was idyllic. This, he thought, was a typical event during the summer. Apart from kids running around, kicking balls and playing chase, picnic blankets were covered with food and drink. There seemed to be so much food; pieces of cold chicken, cheese, ham, sandwiches… it just went on. Plastic containers were opened and flasks of hot drinks were poured into cups. He looked on, enjoying the view with no intention of joining in. It was his place to no more than watch the activities. After all this was his place of residence and all these others were visitors.
Finally, the day began to fade. He kept watch as, one by one, the visitors packed up and moved off. He noticed with interest where blankets were shaken.
They’d been walking around the park for a while, something they often did.
Finding a shaded patch of lawn, they both sat down for a short spell to get out of the heat. One of them sighed. He looked into his friend’s eyes. He knew this would have to come out eventually.
“OK.” he said, “There’s no easy way to say it, but yes, I did it, I killed her!”
Not getting much reaction, he went on. “I just couldn’t take any more of her constant bitching about, well, just about everything I did or said. I just snapped.” He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand, but there it is. She’s buried behind the back shed. I was very careful when repositioning the concrete pavers. Getting them back in place took a hell of a long time. You’ve probably heard me saying to people that she took off without a word. That includes the police, when I filled out the missing person report at the station. I must say, they seemed to be pretty understanding about the whole thing.”
He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Letting out a long sigh of relief, he said, “Thanks. I’m glad I got that out.”
He looked down at the dirty tennis ball he was rolling around in his hand, then he threw it out into the field.
The two schoolboys saved up their money in time for the visiting fair.
They had always been good classmates and best friends, and often spent time at each other’s homes, on both evenings and weekends. As pupils, they both studied really hard, and the home visits were mainly spent supporting one another with their homework assignments. You could say they were future orientated. They both had strong ideas about what sort of careers they took up after school and were willing to put in the study hours to achieve their individual ambitions. It was with regards to the future, that they had read several newspaper articles about the highly successful medium that was due to take up a spot at the upcoming annual show. Her remarkable powers to accurately predict the future by reading a person’s cards meant that she was very expensive. This was what they were saving for.
When the time came, they found themselves standing in a short queue outside the mediums tent, each with a pocket containing their hard-earned savings. Despite all of their planning and discussions about what they were about to do, they were both quite nervous when they entered.
Inside, they found a rather ordinary looking, middle-aged woman, with glasses hanging on a cord around her neck, who sat shuffling the cards. Looking up, she invited them to take seats. They did this, and after paying her for her services were asked to state the purpose of their visit. Each of them, with well-rehearsed speeches, explained what they wanted their futures to hold. When they had both finished, the fortune teller smiled and began to lay out the cards. This was done, with great care, placing each one face down in a complex sequence, on the felt-covered table between them.
When this was done, she brought her spectacles up and put them on. She sat staring down at them for a minute or two in silence before turning them over in what seemed to be slow motion.
At this juncture, it is only fair to say that the medium in question had recently been struggling more and more with failing eyesight. This obviously meant that her lucrative career was unhappily drawing to an end.
The upshot of this resulted in the one who had always dreamt of composing his own concerto went on to university to study structural engineering, while the one whose ambition was to design buildings, took up piano lessons.
It goes without saying that neither of them was ever particularly happy in their future careers!
Although the hall had been hired for a private Halloween party, over one hundred invited guests were sent personal invitations. Most of them were young adults, which explained the loud music spilling out onto the street. It was out there, at the entrance, that the big, burly bouncer stood guard. He was also hired; mainly to keep the riffraff out and to make sure that only those with invitations were allowed in. Most of the invitees, in their appropriate costumes, some better than others, had already arrived and were going gangbusters inside, when the guy without a ticket turned up. Even the doorman who had to refuse him entry would have to admit that the costume was first class.
The uninvited guest came, along with several others dressed the same, as the Grim Reaper. The man on door-duty couldn’t help being impressed with the figure’s spooky voice. He guessed there would be some sort of voice-changer being used, behind the mask. Not fully understanding what the party crasher was trying to say, the doorman asked him to step to one side while he checked the invitations of a number of late stragglers. This done, he turned to the blow-in.
Being as polite as possible, he said, “Look mate, I can’t let you in.”
“I didn’t come to be let in,” the other croaked.
Then, pulling his cloak partly open, revealing the glint of a curved blade, he said, “I’ve come for you.”
He was telling a friend about a chap he used to work with.
He explained that he’d attended some sort of seminar. Apparently, it was designed to help people create a better life for themselves. He said it was all about renewal. He came back from it and straight away gave a week’s notice. He said that each day that passed before leaving, he would come in and tell him what was going on in his life. He was told that he flushed all his medications down the toilet, gave all his clothes to charity, save for the ones he was wearing, He had dropped his phone in the rubbish bin. He got a fire going in the back garden and thrown on all his letters, photo albums, certificates and diaries. He emptied his bank account and donated everything to an animal welfare organisation.
His friend said, “Jeepers!”
“I know, and on the last day he came to work, he was a few minutes late because he’d come to work by bus, having given his car to his cousin the day before.”
“Wow! He did all that?”
“He sure did. As a matter of fact, I happened to bump into him recently.”
