Author: Alexander Fawn

It had been hard work and not made less so by the failing light.

He’d been building up a sweat, but he was nearly finished. At least, the cool evening air had helped. He stopped and listened for a bit. It was almost completely silent. He paused long enough to listen to the harmony that seemed to be playing for him, making his work just that little bit easier; the wind creating a gentle rustle of leaves above, and the occasional soft hooting of an owl.

It was wonderful!

He dug a little more, until quite happy with the depth.

He rolled the bundle in, thus making absolutely sure that his neighbour never practiced on his trombone late at night, ever again.

The young man was talking to the elderly priest.

He was devoutly religious and had been one of the last of the congregation to leave at the end of the service. He began chatting with the holy man about his problems. He was saying that two really horrible things had happened to him during the previous week. One being that his uncle had died and the other was that he had lost a good friend in a fatal car accident. He went on to describe why these things had affected him so badly. In the case of his uncle, he had always got on with him and considered him to be a wise man who had given him some very good advice over the years. He regarded his passing as a terrible personal loss.

With regards to his friend who had died in the accident, they had been at school together and had known him for a number of years. He had been single like himself. They had always kept in touch and more recently, over the last year, they had played tennis regularly on weekends.

The priest said that he was sorry to hear about his misfortunes and went on to make a personal statement, saying that although it didn’t directly apply to religion, his own mother had always given him very good advice about how things tend to come in threes. On that basis he suggested that he go about his daily life very carefully in the near future, for fear of a third misfortune befalling him.

The next morning, he went out and bought a gun.

Since the writer may imagine

Any and all things at will.

They may grant their pen a sentience,

Putting magic in the quill.

–

Let it search and roam free,

Stepping boldly through time.

Have it dust off words little used.

A shift in the paradigm.

–

Allow it to fall with grace and certainty,

Into an endless abyss.

Allow it to go with a wandering current,

Such endeavours will not come amiss.

–

With the imagination that the writer has,

Such a pen they are sure to find.

When thoughts are slow.

When ideas run low.

It’s a pen of a different kind!

He was sitting on the bench, next to the bus stop, remembering.

He had often thought of returning to this spot. Today, he did it. He just sat for a while thinking about his schooldays, almost fifty years ago. Behind him, a small park that he would play in, if he was there early. It was still there. Across the street, the small sweet shop where he bought a bag of broken honeycomb pieces, again, only if he had time. He would catch the bus to school from here. Then later, the same bench, the same bus stop, to a university in a neighbouring town. He had been prepared to study hard for what he wanted his future to be; for what he wanted himself to become. He knew his parents had been struggling from time to time back then, but they had always been there to support him. Then, the years of building up his finance company and the role it played giving advice to those who needed it.

His eye was caught by the man dressed in black with a flat cap climbing out of the big black car parked further back across the street. He had asked for a short time of peace and quiet. He sighed, knowing that this was about to end.

The man approached, carrying a phone, shaking his head.

“Beg pardon sir, didn’t want to disturb you; it’s the Prime Minister for you, sir.”

He was part of an international investigation agency.

With operations in a number of countries, with several branches in each, and literally hundreds of agents working investigations, just like him; but he often wondered about where all the glamour had gone! Here he was, parked across the road from yet another citizen being put under the microscope. He hated these stake-out and tailing jobs. Most of them were dead boring. He seemed to be getting far more than his fair share of late. The buzz was that this was a case with international repercussions, and for that reason alone there was more than the usual sense of hush-hush about it all. He flicked through the paperwork again. They never got told much. She was in her fifties, married with kids, worked in a pharmacy in town, and went to Macramé classes twice a week. As this was his second week on the case, his reports had confirmed her class attendance and her work hours.

At first, absolutely nothing happened, after tailing her from dawn to dusk, day after day. Not until the Tuesday of the third week, when there was an unexpected change in her movements. She left the shop at lunchtime as usual, but took a different route. Instead of walking the short distance to the café where she would regularly have lunch, sometimes meeting up with a friend, she turned a different way out of the building. He was across the road, watching her reflection in a shop window. As she approached a bus-stop, he felt a mild panic. He would have to make a dash for the car and follow the bus if that happened.

To his relief, she walked past the stop. Using a safety crossing, she crossed to his side of the street. She turned and continued in the same direction, away from him. He began to tail on foot. She had walked three blocks before turning right, down a side road and passed a row of shops. He watched as she entered one. Positioning himself on the opposite side and a little further along, he could see that it was a small bakery. A few minutes went by before she emerged with a bag and retraced her route to the pharmacy, A short while later, she came back out and made her way, as usual, to the café for lunch.

This sudden, unexpected change in her behaviour gave him the sense that what he was doing might actually be worthwhile. He had no idea how significant it was, but called his handler with an interim update. The man back at the agency was also intrigued, saying he would look into the shop she visited and have another operative run a check on it.

Later that afternoon he received an urgent call from his handler, setting up a meeting at their usual spot, a small park on the edge of town. Maybe, this was the breakthrough that his agency had hoped for. He had no idea what the consequences of his information had; he rarely did. Just knowing that his contribution was recognised as valuable was enough.

They met as arranged; but his handler didn’t look happy.

He had two bits of news.

The first was the fact that she went to that particular bakery to buy a couple of pork pies for her husband, because it’s the only place in town that sell them.

The second item being that the original paperwork for the assignment contained a typo, and he had been given the wrong address!

As a schoolboy he thought it was great fun, moving books around in his local library.

He didn’t visit the building very often, but when he did, he left a headache for the staff. He would take a book of plays by George Bernard Shaw and place it in the Cookery section. Books dealing with Art and Crafts were moved to the section that held books on Religion. Do-It-Yourself books would end up under Travel. Nursery rhyme books would go to the shelves for books about Gardening, and Hobby books were found where you would normally find books on Philosophy; and so, it went on…

This all ended the day he was caught.

It came home to him then that his sense of what he thought was fun was itself misplaced.

As time went on and he left school to take up further studies it came back to bight him. He was forced to travel to libraries further afield. This, together with the fact that his library card had been cancelled and he was left hoping that it never came to light that he was the only ex library member that had the dubious honour of receiving a life ban!

He should have foreseen how much trouble the agreement would cause.

After all, he was a business man. Naturally, his various business interests were booming. At the time he saw it as no more than a pledge to pay the debt when the time came, as promised. In business, this was being done all the time. He knew there were moral considerations, regarding the nature of it. He also understood that her moral standards were far greater than his. That was why he had kept the details of it from her. He loved her very much, but she had often questioned his judgment when discussing the ethical side of some of his business dealings. On this occasion, it had been the reason he had not allowed her to know anything about this particular contract.

That was the case before she found the signed copy of it, quite by accident, while thumbing through his section of the filing cabinet. She never did find what she was looking for.

At first there were tears and disbelief that he would get involved with something like this. However, this turned to anger as the consequences of what he had done sank in. It was the religious side of her beliefs, beyond the moral aspects of it, that had finally caused her to begin talking about her leaving him.

In the end, he agreed to see whether he could break the contract.

He’d give it a go, but Beelzebub wasn’t going to like it!

It was always all about planning.

She simply wasn’t there when he had his fall. She had left for her sister’s the day before. That’s when she left him a note. What she covertly thought of as her goodbye note. Anyway, he had obviously slipped in the shower and hit his head. This was especially upsetting for her because she had so often suggested that he get a non-slip mat. This came up several times during the interviews at the police station. Most of the time she had managed to hold back her tears. The detective with the shock of ginger hair was very understanding. She was told to take her time and given several cups of tea.

For her, the planning had been meticulous… banking all sorted, prepaid mobile phone, paid for with cash, tickets also purchased with cash, hair cropped and dyed black, a different style of clothes, recently bought for the occasion, along with a broad brimmed hat, and a pair of very dark sunglasses.

To make absolutely sure… she would just disappear.

A taxi to the airport and it would all be behind her.

She was crossing the main concourse when she suddenly stopped, rooted to the spot. The familiar, ginger-haired detective that had interviewed her was casually leaning at the end of the counter in front of her gate. He was grinning and waving her goodbye note.

What was it about the note? She had planned for everything so carefully.

The sick feeling in her stomach told her that she was about to find out…

She thought about all the other things that surrounded her on the table.

They were a pretty mixed bunch. It was all about parts, really. There was her, with her tines above her neck, and him with his blade above his bolster, always arguing about whether or not the lunar cow was one of the celebrated zodiac animals. There was her, with her lip above her handle, always going on about how cats have been known to play stringed instruments. There was him, with his rim above his belly, trying to convince the others that dogs could actually laugh. As for herself, she had always been proud, or maybe just a little vain, about the way her cheek always remained above her bottom. But, more than anything, she really admired the way he held his bowl over his shoulder.

She knew that the whole affair would wash up with them leaving the rest of them high and dry, while he and she would quietly slip away.

He dialled the number that was printed on a scrap of paper.

A recorded message started up, thanking him for his call and informing him that the company can provide home renovations, house painting, air-conditioning repairs, plumbing, hot water installations, small appliance repairs, water filtration systems, electrical repairs, gutter cleaning, roof repairs, bathroom tiling and fittings, gas appliance repairs, carpentry, cabinetry. lawn mowing, gardening, clothing alterations, bulk waste removal, fencing, carpet cleaning and graffiti removal.

When it was finished, he made his enquiry.

A voice came on.

“Thank you for your enquiry, sir, but we don’t do that sort of thing.”

Click!