Author: Alexander Fawn

He was trying to get back in.

He’d only been out a short time. There was no proper explanation as to why this should happen. He’d done nothing wrong. Returning and finding he’d been shut out wasn’t actually new. It had happened before that he’d had trouble getting back in. Why was getting back in such a problem? He needed to get a proper night’s sleep. He wondered whether this sort of thing happened to other people. For him, the phrase, ‘completely out of it’, takes on a whole new meaning. It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t fair.

After all, it was his body!

The boy sat looking down at the ants.

He really liked ants. He liked to watch them go about their business. He liked to count them. They were swarming around something. It looked like a dark blob of something, he didn’t know what. He wasn’t sure what they were doing, but he liked to count them. When there was only half a dozen, it was easy. Today he was looking at dozens. At least forty, he thought. They were acting strangely, he thought, right here in the middle of the concrete path in his back garden. He sighed and looked around. Nothing going on. It would be hard going, but regardless of the number, circumstances would give him a chance to actually count them all. He’d give it a go!

He did have one thing going for him. They were definitely acting strange. Normally, the constant coming and going made it difficult. Once they had found something worthwhile, they’d take off back to the nest with it. At the same time, others would join the scene, and all of this would make counting even harder. However, these guys weren’t going anywhere. No comings and goings. He could only think that they were curious about what it was, but not finding anything worth taking.

He began counting. Because they were all huddled around the same unknown thing, there would be no need for the usual additions and subtractions.

One, two, three…

After several minutes, he stood up.

There was one overriding issue that he always had trouble with…

They kept moving around!

Helping himself to things came naturally to him.

He enters the café. Nobody seems to be wearing masks. He picks up a newspaper, on his way to his table. It’s open at a half-finished crossword. He drops it on the table, then finds a pack of kiddies’ crayons in the rack. When he returns, he sits studying the clues. Approaching lunch hour, the café gets busy. The woman joining him at his table looks flustered. She’s about to put her phone away when, explaining that his battery is dead, asks if he could make a call. There was something particularly warm and polite in the way he asked that made her respond without hesitation. He makes a quick call and returns it, thanking her and offering to buy her a coffee. The offer surprises her, but instantly gives him her preference.

Standing, he apologises and informs her that he doesn’t carry cash and his card is maxed out. Hesitating for just the briefest moment, she smiles and tells him that it’s not a problem. Somewhat surprised at her own acceptance of the situation, she takes his order and makes her way to the counter where she places her order.

Returning to the table she stands for a moment before sneezing. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she says, blowing her nose. “I think I might be coming down with something. I really should get myself tested, what with this pandemic going on.”

He now possesses something perfectly capable of curing him of his ways, permanently!

He walked around the busy store, thinking about what he had to buy.

He had always fancied one of those cordless drills. Then, there was the ongoing shelving issue. There just weren’t enough shelves in the garage. You could get these do-it-yourself packs and put up a four or five tier, heavy duty shelving unit, that would certainly do the job, he thought. He checked the time. There was certainly a lot of customers. Although he didn’t want to think about it, there was the problem with his hammer, the one he lent to the guy at number twelve who has never returned it. He’s had it for over a month, now! When he’d asked about it, the neighbour said he couldn’t remember borrowing it, but would have a look for it, just in case. That was last week, and he’d heard nothing back. He would ask for it once more; if that didn’t work, he would have to replace it himself.

He looked at his watch again.

He remembered the screws. He knows he needs to stock up on countersunk screws. He was trying to remember what length they should be, when he heard somebody call out.

He approached the counter. “Double burger and a large fries, thanks.”

They were having yet another one of their arguments.

It has to be said that all married couples probably have an occasional disagreement, but this pair were at it regularly. Either one of them would accuse the other of doing something they shouldn’t have done or of not doing something they should have done. As was often the case, it would go on so long that the original complaint gets lost during the confrontation. In fact, they were still going strong after five minutes, when he had reached boiling point, and was just about steaming!

Raising his voice an extra octave, he said, “Honestly. You have to be the daftest person I’ve ever known!”

“Goodness!” she replied, “What a coincidence!”

The sun was pleasantly warm, the breeze balmy, and the lapping waves were sleep-inducing.

He was stretched out on a comfy sun lounge located on a beautiful pine-fringed beach on the Nicoya peninsula, Costa Rica. It was 2034; not too far removed from his real time back home. He’d decided that his recent ground-breaking advances into the heady world of time travel meant that he deserved a few days away. He was trying to decide whether to stay for one week or two. His neighbour would collect his mail and deal with the rubbish bins and his friend from the inventors’ club had agreed to pop in daily and feed the cat. He gazed around. The place was remarkably remote. There was absolutely nothing to stop him from rewarding himself with a well-earned break. He was mulling all this over, when he heard a distant crackling sound that was growing louder. He knew what it was, but didn’t have time to think.

Suddenly, he was standing in nothing but his swimming trunks on a partly snow-covered slope looking down at a remote collection of colourful houses in a small village. Checking out his monitor, that was always kept on a lanyard around his neck, told him it was now two years earlier, it was 2032 and he was in a southern region of Greenland.

He hardly had time to take it all in when he heard the crackling again.

He was now being lashed by a fierce wind and monsoonal rain, which would have blown him off his feet had he not been close enough to the trunk of a tree that he was now hanging on to. It took a real effort to wipe his eyes and consult his device. He could only just make out that it was 2514 and he as situated on a remote southern slope of the Khasi Hills, close to a mountain peak, in India.

Just as his arms were about to give out, he heard more crackling.

He was now standing on burning sand. It had to be a desert. Shading his eyes from the glare, the monitor informed him that it was 1825. He had gone back in time, not that it really mattered. He was now in the Sahara Desert on the African continent, somewhere in a remote south-west corner of Egypt.

Had you been close by, you’d have heard him curse.

Letting out a deep sigh, he mumbled, “The cat’s found the sodding remote control again!”

They had been going together for almost a year.

It had been by sheer chance that he saw her coming out of a restaurant with a man that he didn’t recognise. He watched as they made their way, arms around each other, to his car. She was obviously having an affair. This was confirmed the following morning when he called her. To say the least, it was a contentious conversation, with him not holding back with his anger, and her trying hard to tell him that it was a once-only thing and how much she regretted it. Her explanation about how she had drunk too much obviously fell on deaf ears.

It was only a couple of days after finding out that she’d been unfaithful, that his car came off the road. The fact that the vehicle had hit a tree and killed him on impact, was not known to her for over a week. It was at that time that she had mustered up enough courage to call and explain again how it was just one terrible mistake and how much she loved him. The person that answered his mobile phone, not recognising her voice, simply gave her the bad news.

Although a full year has passed since these events, she is still unable to sleep properly at night and her days are not going any better. The sense of guilt that has constantly plagued her is something she has never felt before. In fact, it is this ongoing issue that brings her to the rooms of the lady she is about to consult.

The woman in question is a highly regarded medium that she has arranged to visit. Although she has never before actually given much thought as to what lies beyond the veil, as requested, she has written down a full and detailed account of what she hoped to accomplish by her seeing her.

Now, with the medium sitting across a small table from her, while she reads, the client waits nervously. She sips at a cup of tea that’s been made for her. She’s been told that it always helps to relax the clients.

When told to close her eyes and sit comfortably, the medium says, “Let’s begin.”

She felt herself slowly drifting off into a heavy sleep, but could still hear the soft whisperings of the medium.

To this day, the client has never been sure what actually transpired from that point on, during the session. She has often wondered whether something was put in the tea, but there was just no way of knowing. She only has a clear memory of opening her eyes and finding the medium looking up at the clock.

Smiling, the seer said, “He says he accepts your apology. No, wait… he says, all is forgiven.”

The medium glances at the clock again, with both of them noting that a little over thirty minutes had passed.

With a knowing look, the medium asked, “Do you feel you have received what you came here for?”

Dabbing at her eyes, she laughs self-consciously. After a great sigh, she says, “Absolutely…”

The outcome was, and still is, no more sleepless nights.

His own, personal ‘use by’ date was up.

He knew this because he was no longer on the bus going home, but in some kind of waiting room. He was sitting alone. There were several chairs, but he was the only… only what? He didn’t know. He was watching the man sitting at his desk, going through a lot of paperwork. The man finally beckoned him over with a twitch of his finger. He got up and sat back down on the chair provided. He could now get a proper look at all of the ledgers and loose paperwork that the interviewer had been looking at. He supposed the word ‘interviewer’ applied, although he wasn’t sure.

The man began to tidy up the paperwork. “According to these records,” he began, “you should have expired. Several days ago, as a matter of fact.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Have you had any near-death experiences recently, like being nearly hit by a car or struggling to get back to shore after being dumped by a huge wave, for instance?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.”

The other grunted and whispered, “Odd.”

The man squirmed in his chair. “Does this sort of thing happen very often?”

“No. It’s quite rare, in fact. I’m only called in for these special cases.” He grinned. “I must say, it’s a welcome change from my regular duties. You know… routine bookkeeping.”

The expired man frowned.

“I can arrange for a short delay of course.”

“How long a delay?”

“Can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. It’s the best I can do.”

He heard himself saying “OK”, when he found himself back on the bus. He felt a little strange, like coming out of a dream. Maybe he nodded off. Either way, his stop was coming up and he was looking forward to getting home and having tea. She said she was doing a Tuna Casserole tonight. A favourite of his.

Getting off the bus, he went and stood at the pedestrian crossing. The light turned green and he began to walk.

The truck came out of nowhere.

Only they knew about it.

Although nobody knew what they were up to, sometimes they would play their pretend game. He would go up the street where they both lived and collect the youngster. Most of the time they would go for a short walk to the local shopping centre. From the moment they walked through the main entrance, he would take on the role of the father of the boy. They would go in as father and son, shopping together. It was great fun! Of course, the youngster had far less understanding about the game than he did. As it was, he knew that he wasn’t really the father of the youngster, but only he knew that. After a while, when they had finished going in and out of shops just looking at stuff, he would see that he took the other home.

They only played the game a few times before it went wrong.

It happened when he decided that on that particular day, they would do something different. It would be just a short bus ride, a couple of stops, then cross the road and get another one back. However, when the bus pulled in, the driver frowned, looked around, then gave them a concerned look.

He asked, “Where are your parents?”

The older one grimaced and said, “Well, I’m the father, you see… sort of.”

The driver said, “Is that so? How old are you?”

It was at this point, the older one took a firm grip on the youngster’s hand, saying, “Sorry! Only joking,” then, quickly made a beeline for the nearest side street and kept running, looking back repeatedly until he saw the bus move off.

Eventually, he got the young one back to his house safely.

Despite his age, on his way back along the street, heading for home, he wondered whether their game was such a good idea. Maybe he should wait until he was older before he did it again.

Older than seven, that is.

They sat together, considering their situation.

She was crying and he was trying to comfort her. They had always known there could be drawbacks. Like her, he realised that things had got so far along that there was a good chance that their old life was now gone. They may well need to start again. He knew that this meant moving across country. Whether the people that were after them were actually aliens from another dimension or not, really didn’t matter. Whoever they were, he knew they would hunt them both down. Because they had witnessed something that they should not have seen or even known about, he figured that if and when they caught up with them, they would both be killed. Until then, going back to their apartment, packing and getting out to the airport as quickly as possible, was the right thing to do.

He put his arm around her. “We can get out of this, that’s a promise, honey.”

She took a hanky from her purse and blew her nose. “Those creatures,” she whispered, “what were they?”

“Don’t know, but we shouldn’t have been there!”

“Will they come after us?”

“We have to assume they will. Right now, we should try really hard to get back and pack just the bare essentials as quickly as possible.”

She began to cry again.

The taxi driver was well used to listening to the claptrap of drug addicts.

He said nothing.