Author: Alexander Fawn

He’d always had a problem with the word puce.

He remembers the time it first popped up. He was crossing the river on the ferry, a short ride from his residence to work. Two girls were arguing about the best colour for the shoes one of them was about to buy. They were looking at photographs that showed the outfit that one of them had on. The shoes would have to go with this. Their conversation was all about colours, basically. That was when that word came up. Because it was the colour eventually decided on, the word ‘puce’ came up several times, leaving him perplexed. First, he wondered whether it had any connection with vomit, then dismissing the thought, he looked it up on his phone. It really was an actual colour! Staring at the sample given, he saw it as a sort of poor cousin to maroon. It was really ghastly!

When they got off, he watched the girls make their way into town. He whispered to himself, “Good luck with that.”

Anyway, that was the first time. After this first encounter, the shock of it wasn’t so bad. When the bedspread and the eyeshadow came up, he felt only mildly nauseous.

Nevertheless, on all following occasions, he held the view that the person who had originally mixed the colours to create and name it, was probably in league with the devil!

He had been ready to retire, when they made him an offer.

Retirement wasn’t compulsory, of course. He’d given the company a good number of years and he figured someone at the top felt they should give him a promotion and a nice corner office with magnificent views across the city and beyond. He’d work diligently in the role of Accounts Manager, and was now being offered the position of Negotiations Advisor. He wasn’t at all sure what that entailed, but it sounded impressive. Naturally, he had been involved in some decision-making discussions from time to time. Obviously, someone figured this was qualification enough. It was generally known that he’d lost his wife a few years back and they never had children. Was this being taken into account?

All of this transpired a few months ago and he’d accepted gracefully and had gone straight out and bought himself a new suit. He was now fully ensconced in a daily routine. He was offered a secretary, but he figured that would be pushing it. When not staring out the window, he would turn his chair so that passers-by could see he was on his phone. Once or twice a week he would make a three-minute call to a supplier or customer, giving his best impression of someone deeply involved in some sort of negotiation, for anybody looking in. That would be it. That would be his only self-imposed duty for the week.

As for the remainder; three things. He had taken up listening to audio books through his local library, he had found a channel that ran podcasts that were of particular interest, and finaly, a classical music channel.

He could enjoy most of these things while watching the traffic below, the pedestrians waiting at the crossing, and the ongoing antics of pigeons fighting over who gets to sit outside his window.

He sometimes feels that the role he enjoys was some kind of horrible mistake, some sort of horrendous administrative blunder, and has wondered whether asking about it would be the right thing to do.

He would have to think about it…

Night was falling, making it harder to follow the tracks.

The tiger was last seen heading this way. He wasn’t going to stop until he had killed the beast. The carnage left behind in the village was motive enough to confront and spear the beast without mercy. The heavy undergrowth was making it particularly hard going, as he fought his way through bushes. It was slowing him down, but allowing the creature to get away, only to return and cause more misery for the people in the village was not an option.

Suddenly, he heard a noise; something moving. He stood perfectly still, holding his breath. It was close by. He made sure he had his spear ready. The noise came again, this time, from behind him.

Swinging his garden rake around, he came face to face with her. She looked really angry!

“What are you doing, hiding in the bushes?” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve called you twice, teas on the table, and it’s getting cold!”

It was a long time ago.

She would return; go back after three decades to the place where it happened. She had a couple of days off work coming up, she could use one of them. She wasn’t going to tell any of the ladies in the office what she was doing; no need. This was for herself alone. It would be a four- hour drive with just one brief stop to stretch her legs. It wasn’t a big thing; there and back comfortably in a day, with no nighttime driving. She could revisit that very spot. Surely, the place is still there, she thought. She doubted whether that part of the town had changed much. She would be there in broad daylight instead of late evening, but that couldn’t be helped.

She began to remember.

She remembered coming out of the cinema, choosing a café, sipping coffee and chatting about school. They were both only weeks away from leaving. Then the walk to her bus stop. She recalled how tightly he held her hand. It was a lovely feeling. Then they had stopped, and gently pulling her into the entrance of a dark alley, he had kissed her. Just once, that was all, nothing else, and they quickly moved on. She recalls how nothing was said after that. From the bus, she had waved and watched him wave back, with that lovely smile he had. She had kept watching as long as she could, as he made his way to his own stop.

Then, that horrible memory came… She remembered catching up with an old schoolfriend, only a few weeks after leaving school. She had told her that his whole family had migrated.

On the day, she arrived around noon, to what was a bustling town. After parking her car, it took only a couple of minutes to find the spot. She stood looking across to the lane’s entrance for a while, before crossing. Once there, she found the exact location, a few steps in. Then, putting her mobile phone to her ear, acting as though she was on a call, she turned her back on the main road and closed her eyes. She stood perfectly still, for several minutes, remembering…

Back at the car, she sat wiping her eyes. The experience had been wonderful. She had really enjoyed the thrill of the whole thing.

No one need ever know what decision she made on the drive back.

She would do it all again next year.

He heard a rattling sound at the front door.

When he opened it, the girl through the keys down in a temper and ran up the hall saying what a terrible day she’d had at school. Although momentarily shocked, with a firm voice, he told her to slow down. At this, she collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Pushing her back up against the wall, she drew her knees up under her chin, still crying. As he went to her, she looked up and squinted through her heavy-lensed glasses and explained between sniffles that the horrible boy in her class, the one that she was always having trouble with, had taunted her for the entire day. It was the usual thing, he called her names, most of the time it was ‘Froggy’, because of her appearance. When she finally went quiet, she looked up at him, expectantly.

He had very mixed emotions about how he would respond.

Despite this, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he didn’t have a daughter.

The brave goblin would ask the goblin queen for her hand in marriage.

He had a plan and sufficient savings to purchase what he needed. First, he would visit the witch, who lives in the cave behind the cascading waterfall, to purchase the map he would require to safely enter the forbidden wood. This would show him how he could carefully navigate his way around all of the hidden dangers and lead him to the cottage of the wizard. From the wizard he would learn and pay for the secret location of the mystical blacksmith who could forge the magic sword that could slay the dragon. With the sword strapped securely on his back, he would swim across to the island of the dragon, climb the mountain, enter the dragon’s lair and slay the beast. He would then search through its plundered treasure. He would work his way through the great pile of ill-gotten gains looking for the grandest diamond ring that he could find.

His plan went like clockwork.

Having accomplished all this, he returned home and made himself presentable by putting on his finest clothes. Then, with the ring in his pocket, he entered the goblin palace, where he sought an audience with the queen.

There, he bowed down before her. Holding up the magnificent, sparkling ring, he asked her for her hand in marriage.

She said no.

She was a keen gardener.

This served to fully occupy her time, after her husband had passed away, but she had a major problem. The dog from next door had got into her garden yet again, undoing all the hard work she had spent on it, digging large holes. She was at her wits end. She had spoken to its owner several times about keeping the animal under control and out of her garden. Each time, he would flatly deny that his beloved dog would do such a thing. Each time, he became more and more angry with her. On this occasion, when she had gone round and spoken to him once again, in the most reasonable manner she could muster, he was positively rude. Not only that, he had used the most disgraceful language! Returning home, she was close to tears.

Little did she know that a solution to the whole nasty business would soon present itself.

It happened a couple of days later. She was in the shed, cleaning up a small watering can when her life took a sudden turn. Without her knowing what she was doing, the can, actually a lamp, began to vibrate. Moments later, a Geni appeared, and after the heartfelt thanks, it granted her three wishes.

That evening, she gave it some serious thought. She could solve the problem of the annoying neighbour without anyone believing that a Geni had appeared in her shed. So, before she went to bed that night, she wished that he was dead.

It was the following morning that the ambulance arrived, along with several other people, coming and going. Meanwhile, she wisely kept a low profile, sitting in her back room, catching up with a number of articles in her gardening magazines.

A few days later the funeral took place and a ‘For Sale’ sign went up next door. The whole affair was now over, and it was on that very night that she used her second wish. Although not yet fifty, she had suffered from joint pain and stiffness for a number of years. She simply wished it would go away, and of course, it did! She slept very well that night.

What came next was a complete surprise. When she woke the next morning, she could here noises coming from the back garden. Going to a window she stood and watched as a dog, not her neighbour’s dog, not the one that she’d been told had been taken to the local pound, but another dog, was digging holes in her garden!

She spent the rest of the morning in a state of confusion and guilt. By the afternoon, having spent so much time trying to come up with a way to put things right, she wondered whether it was possible to undo a wish that had already been made. With this in mind, having picked a selection of flowers from the border at the front of her house, she made her way to the cemetery.

Once there, she knelt down on the lawn in front of the plaque. She carefully placed the flowers beside it and said what she had come to say. In a soft, but intense voice, she said that she wished that she had not wished him dead. Nothing happed! She stayed for a while before getting up and making her way home.

She was not to know that only with the application of the most sensitive ultrasonic, ground-penetrating sound equipment, could anyone hear the frantic scratching!

The man in the suit that waits at the bus stop is not waiting for a bus.

Although he does check the timetable once in a while. The stop is conveniently located across the road from the ally that runs down the length of two high-rise buildings. He peers up and down the busy city street from time to time. Other than that, he keeps his eye on the lane. Occasionally workers come out of the buildings, but his focus is on the side door of the building on the left. He is waiting for a particular man to come out and turn towards the back of the building. Behind the building there is a quiet area where smokers retreat to during the day. One or two people have come out and returned just a few minutes later, but none of them were his man.

He has been there for a couple of hours. He doesn’t mind the wait. The man he works for pays well. Unlike his boss, he is a virtually unknown figure in the city’s underworld. He undertakes all manner of chores. Most of them require a good deal of patience. This was something he was good at.

Finally, across the way, an older man with grey hair, also wearing a suit, finally emerges from the said door.

The man at the stop crosses the road as the other turns and walks the length of the building and disappears around the back. Following, he takes the same route and slowly turns the corner of the building. Doing so, he taps his jacket pockets and curses under his breath. Asking for a light, the older man clicks his lighter. Having lit his cigarette, the younger man thanks him and moves a discreet distance away. He takes out his phone and starts tapping the screen.

After a few minutes, as the older man moves to stub his cigarette out in the metal tray provided, the other moves closer, but waits until he is alone. He locates the still warm filter tip and flicks away the surrounding stubs with his finger.

Taking a small plastic bag from his pocket, he turns it inside out and uses it to pick up what he came for. The boss will be pleased. Easy money, he thinks.

It’s all about the DNA.

The astronaut sat looking out at the blackness of space.

It had been several hours since receiving, what appeared to be, the very last message from Earth. It had been the last communication because the planet no longer supported life forms; was no longer inhabited. It was the death nell for what had remained of a dying planet. For a number of years, it had been obvious that the self-destruction was coming to a head. His mission had never been fully clear to him, but his life in the space service had him simply obey orders. Now, knowing that the unlikely possibility of him managing to return safely to the launch area, would be pointless. The last signal had announced the end; the end of everything. He would be returning to a dead and silent planet.

There’d be no hustle and bustle of busy streets, no noisy traffic or sounds being made by industry. Despite all he knew, the reality of this came crashing in on him as he wriggled in his seat and lent forward to peer out into the vast emptiness that had absolutely nothing to offer him.

Although, now just a piece of redundant cockpit equipment, the speaker began to crackle. Without thinking, he tinkered with the controls.

He was doing this, when he heard, “Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?”

Autumn leaves,

Springtime breezes,

Summer heats,

And Winter Freezes.

–

A sparkling moon.

A frost that’s bitter.

Whistling winds,

And leaves that litter.

–

Times for withering,

Times for growing.

Times when summer sun is blazing,

Times when winter skies are snowing.

–

Buds and blossoms, seeds and needles,

Clouds that change with every sky.

Nights longer or shorter dark.

Days humid, wet or dry.

–

Such diversity throughout the year,

Even ancients knew the reason.

But each time is in its place,

Complementary to the season.

–

Autumn leaves,

Springtime breezes,

Summer heats,

And Winter Freezes.