Author: Alexander Fawn

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.

“Go get it, boy!”

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!

The party going on inside was in full swing.

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.”

“Oh! Really? How’s he doing?”

“He’s as miserable as sin.”

He’d been working on his alpha project for several days.

Some of it had been particularly tricky, especially getting the lighting levels right. He had put a lot into it, and could only hope that what he’d created would be properly appreciated. There again, this couldn’t be predicted, as such a thing had never been attempted before. The whole exercise had really taken it out of him and he felt the growing need to take a break. He had just carried out a few finishing touches to what was a very attractive garden setting, when he decided to take time out. So, after taking a long look at the two quite different figures, he placed them down gently in the garden.

Before he left, spotting the snake wrapped around one of the branches in the apple tree, he said, “Keep an eye on things, will you?”

Now, they may be found.

Sometimes things are hidden,

The other way around.

We should try to view things…

–

We should try to view things…

The other way around.

Sometimes things are hidden,

Now, they may be found.

The kid just knew stuff; it was just that simple.

He stood watching the boy. He was fishing; dangling his cheap rod and line, waiting for a catch. He was twelve and the other was twelve. They went to different schools but knew each other by sight. He knew they would be best friends, and spend time with each other after school hours. They would take turns in each other’s houses and become inseparable. In their teenage years they would do everything together. They would fall in with a bad crowd and make easy money selling drugs. This would end when they were in their early twenties and in the night club. They would be selling their wares when it got raided by police. They were both found to be in possession of, and selling, drugs. They would both be arrested and charged. It would end with a great deal of disgrace for both sets of parents. His friend’s folks would eventually sell their house and move away, while his own family stopped talking to him.

It was all fated and he knew it.

He didn’t know how.

He just did.

He stood a little way off along the bank, staring out across the narrow river. Their eyes met and he strolled across and sat down next to him.

After a bit of idle chat, he said, “You know, I have the feeling that we are destined to be the best of friends.”

It was a week after his grandfather’s funeral that he remembered the incident.

He’d been a youngster when it happened, but he had a clear memory of what took place in the shed, way back then. The old man was in there with something clamped in the vice. He was filing something when he had gone in to see what he was doing. The old man had answered some of his childish questions and he just stood watching. His eyes had landed on a small, metal cash box with a tiny key sitting in the keyhole. He had moved forward to pick it up, when his grandfather snatched it off the benchtop. He was angry!

The whole thing had stuck with him, because his grandfather was a kind and gentle soul, hardly ever saying a cross word. That had always been the case, until that day. The old man had shouted at him saying that he should no better than to interfere with other people’s belongings. The whole episode was so strange, with him turning quite vicious about the boy’s natural curiosity.

Now, standing in that same shed, having agreed to do a little tidying up, he had the opportunity to find the metal box. He started by doing a sort of all the rakes and brooms, before tidying the shelves on the racks that were fixed to the walls. If he came across it by doing this, all the better. That didn’t work. So, after straightening everything up, he began to hunt in earnest. He searched for another half-an-hour before discovering that it had been moved to a cardboard box with other bits and pieces. This had been pushed to the back, beneath the bench.

At last, he was now holding the box in his hand. There was no key for the box. However, knowing that there was no point looking for it, he found a large screwdriver that he could use to force the thing open. Cracking the lid free, he opened it and peered inside. In there, he found a piece of browning paper that had been folded twice in to a small square. As he picked it up, it began to crumble. When he attempted to unfold the paper it all began to flake apart. He could just make out some fading hand-written letters on some of the larger bits.

He thought, not even his favourite forensic scientist from the current tv show he’d been watching could do anything with this!

He stood, looking down at the fragments in the palm of his hand. Poking them gently with his finger tip, they simply broke up even further. Blowing on it made it all float to the floor like so much dust.

With a sigh, he realised that he would never know!

The campaign headquarters had received threats from an unknown party.

This, in itself, wasn’t something to worry about. Politics being what it is, staff were quite used to this sort of thing, either from the other side of politics or some random nutter trying to muddy the waters. These nasty emails had increased of late, owing to the election now being only a few days away. This particular warning however, had said that explosive devices would be used to make sure that the sender’s message would be taken seriously. This being the case, when the first staff member, the Security Manager, arrived and opened the campaign offices, after making himself a coffee, he always enjoyed a coffee first thing, their new coffee dispenser made a particularly good cup of coffee, he had a quick look around as part of his normal routine.

Finding nothing out of place, and after making himself another coffee, he went to his desk, powered up his computer and opened his email account. Looking at new mail, he was disturbed to find an email that was a follow up to the original threat. It stated that half-a-dozen devices had been planted overnight along with a timing mechanism that would be triggered remotely when the offices were fully occupied, at 09:30am.

Seeing that the time was 09:15am, he made another coffee before doing a thorough search. The campaign’s operations occupied the entire ground floor of the five-storey building. All of the rooms were checked and he found six explosive devices, so, after making another coffee, he did a further sweep and found a timer that was set for 09:30am.

Seeing that the Finance Manager was in, he went to his room. He found him looking at his computer screen and said, “You’ve seen it, then?”

“Yes,” came the nervous reply.

Looking at the time, the Security Manager asked, “Who’s managing today?”

Looking at the roster, the other said, “That’ll be Stinky.”

“Oh! That’s not good. He’s a real panic-merchant!”

“Yes, I know. He is bound to panic,” said the Finance Manager, “but we have to tell him.”

“OK, but…” he paused, looking at the time again, he said, “we’ve only got four minutes; so, let’s make it snappy.”

“Why is that?”

“It’ll give us just enough time to make a quick coffee before the place blows up.”

The text came in on his phone while he was washing up.

His hands were wet; he ignored it. He did all the washing up now, since she left. Of course, this included the cooking, the cleaning, making the bed, paying the bills, watering the garden… It went on and on; an endless list of chores that he hadn’t needed to do when she was still living with him. Although their marriage had gone downhill for some time before she apparently packed her bags and left without a word, moving to another town, he couldn’t help feeling that there had been so many things that she had done that he’d taken completely for granted. It almost hurt him to think that life with her hadn’t been that bad.

It wasn’t until later that evening that he remembered his phone pinging earlier. Opening it, he found a strange text that talked about how he needed to make sure the dog was fed… The fact that he’d never owned a dog would indicate that it had come in on his phone by mistake. There was nothing to indicate who had sent it. The only aspect of it that he found disturbing was the fact that the message ended with her name. He wondered what the chances were of a misdirected text being sent by someone with his ex-wife’s name? Pretty slim, he thought.

He was about to turn in for the night, when he realised that the phone message was still troubling him. Reluctantly, he opened the back door and peered out. Shaking his head, he crossed the back lawn and entered the shed.

Switching the light on, he checked the cement floor.

It was undisturbed.