Author: Alexander Fawn

The whole family was going through a really bad time.

He’d been missing for quite awhile now. In the sitting room a detective was discussing his disappearance with her parents. She the fourteen-year-old daughter, just one year younger than her missing brother, sat across the hall in the kitchen. She could hear a lot of what was being said. Although quite mature for her age, she found the whole thing both creepy and frightening. Upstairs, she could hear other officers searching her brother’s room; maybe for clues. She wanted it all to stop. She wished they would all go away. It was hours before they finally left. A long time had been spent questioning her mum and dad, even longer, working their way through just about every room in the house. They even went around the garden with this fancy piece of electronic equipment. It was supposed to detect areas where the ground had been disturbed.

The police were obviously taking her brother’s disappearance seriously. With all these officers assigned to the case, she thought, and carrying out such a thorough search of their house and property, what did they hope to find?

Was it the tablets she had saved up and used to drug him first, the bottle now well and truly gone to landfill? Was it his mobile phone, pieces of which have since gone down the drain two blocks away? Was it the knife bought at a jumble sale, now thoroughly cleaned, taped to a large piece of rock and dropped from a bridge over a river, in a distant town?

Could it be that they are actually hoping to find her brother?

Good luck with that, she thought.

Centuries ago, a most learned scholar was appointed to be the Keeper of the Book.

This duty would be passed down through the generations until it was required. It contained a great deal of knowledge regarding the future of mankind. The information contained in its pages would remain securely hidden, its location only ever known by one living soul at any one time: the keeper. It would remain this way, until such time when the world’s population became threatened by complete annihilation, and only then. Over recent generations, the need to reveal its existence to the world became more and more imperative. Thus, it came to pass that the growing likelihood of mankind destroying its own planet was deemed by the Keeper of the Book to be the criteria originally needed, to necessitate its unveiling.

Before announcing anything regarding the purpose, or even the existence of the book, the keeper went alone to the place of concealment and as foretold, proceeded to remove masonry. Here, he found a wooden casket. Opening this, he discovered that over time the contents had disintegrated. All that remained was dust.

Needless to say, the keeper was really glad that he hadn’t mentioned it to anybody!

When one thinks of an explosion, it is usually a very loud noise that hurts the eardrums.

Despite this, a massive, violent expansion of matter was not what happened the day the habitat disappeared. Although not known to the creatures that lived there, unseen powers, let’s call them aliens, had the place marked for removal for some time. As projects went, this had been an utter failure; a complete cock-up. There had been dictators and wars, followed by dictators and wars, over and over again. These silly goings on, acted out by inhabitants that never seemed to learn by their own mistakes, had created an ongoing situation that had become irretrievable. As already stated, the powers previously mentioned saw it as a complete mess, and were absolutely sick of it!

In the best tried and tested tradition, mistakes are made to disappear. One moment it was there, the next, not. The faint click that accompanied the going of it was barely audible.

As far as most onlookers were concerned, and there were onlookers, the solar system’s third planet from the sun had never actually existed…

Imagination, tripping the light fantastic,

Dwelling on this, dwelling on that.

Any writer entering the beckoning unknown,

Losing track of where they’re at.

–

Lost in the flourish of imaginary caprice,

With a clouding of shadows, bringing the dark.

Crafting words around random dreamings,

A glimpse of infinity, so wide of the mark.

–

Reality stretched thin like a rubber band.

While burning up the precious hours.

A sentence formed from strange designs.

Literary restrictions, theirs, not ours.

Like stars that dance in their own strange patterns,

Blinded by the unreachable, a poet’s strain.

Innocent decisions are laid to rest,

From here to eternity and back again.

–

Words building like mountains.

Moments of clarity, heaven sent.

Ideas tumbling through happenstance,

Golden moments well spent!

He just knew that it wasn’t going to be a good day the moment he opened his eyes.

He hit the button on the alarm clock to stop the thing jangling. Despite the way he felt, it would probably turn out to be a day just like any other. He washed and dressed, made breakfast and ate it, walked to the bus shelter and found a seat. The 47b came on time. He sat for twelve minutes and he got off in town. He was crossing the street to get to the office when he heard someone shout. It sounded like ‘look out’, but he couldn’t be sure. The next thing he knows, he’s looking up into the morning sky when he hears the swish and thud of doors closing. He suddenly found himself in an elevator, going up.

As he stepped out, an attendant wearing jeans and t-shirt approached. He was chewing gum.

Looking around frowning, the newcomer said, “Hello. What do I do? Sorry, I’m new to this.”

“Course you are, mate. You’re dead.”

“Yes, you’re right; of course. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing. It’s quite natural to feel nervous.”

Taking another look around, he said, “Sorry, but… sorry, I said sorry again.” He shrugged. “I’ll try not to tell you I’m sorry, despite the fact that I really am, of course, to be here, I mean.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, I was expecting to find some nice old man with a beard standing in front of pearly gates, deciding whether he should let me in or not.”

The attendant chortled. “No. No. Nothing like that. Not anymore. We’ve had upgrades.” He chewed for a bit. “Management has decided on a two-pronged approach; we’ve gone both digital and layback.” He dropped his voice. “I don’t mind telling you, we on staff are very happy with the changes.” He took his gum out, looked at it and put it back. “Personally, I think it’s really great that I can chew gum.”

“Yes. I can see that. So then… mate, what do I have to do?”

“Ah! I thought you get around to asking. Simple really.” He jerked his thumb sideways. “Just step over to the machine there.”

The newcomer turned to see a machine that hadn’t been there before.

The attendant went on, “Just log in and answer a few simple questions. Any problems, just yell and I’ll materialise and give you a hand. My name’s Clive, by the way.”

With that, he was gone.

“Oh! OK, Clive. Sounds good. Thanks,” he said, to the space where the other had stood a moment before. He stepped across to something that looked like a jukebox and read the instructions that automatically came up on the screen as he drew close.

It read: If you feel that, during your time, you’ve not done anything really wrong, press ‘A’.

Looking down at the alphabetical keypad, it only had three buttons marked ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. He pressed ‘A’.

After a few beats, the instructions faded and a new message came into focus.

It read: ‘Yes. That tallies with our records. What was your cause of death? If the cause was natural, such as one that comes about as a result of an internal factor that causes the body to shut down, press ‘A’. If the cause was unnatural, such as accident, homicide, suicide, drowning, poisoning, et cetera, please press ‘B’.

He thought for a moment, then pressed ‘B’.

For a while, he stood waiting. Finally, the new text appeared. It read: Confirmation of data provided is now complete. You may now return to the elevator.

As he approached the doors, they opened with a swish. He stepped in and it began to rise.

He was happy with that, but couldn’t help wondering what the ‘C’ button was for.

There can be no doubt that there was a real issue with the road.

It was just a two kilometre stretch of dead straight highway. Some said there was a jinx on it. Most sensible people laughed at the idea. There was definitely no problem with the condition of the road. It had a good surface and you would think it would be a pleasure to drive on. However, locals, who should know better, who used it occasionally, broke down. Tourists from out of town who took no notice of local gossip, until they drove on it, that is. They broke down. It all came to a head when the police went out there on motorbikes to monitor activity and each of them broke down, followed by a police car being sent to find out what was going on, when it too broke down, and this was followed by the tow truck that went out to their rescue them all, which in turn, broke down.

There are some that say that the day the newly licenced son of the council chairman who went out with his tow truck to give assistance to all of these vehicles, but only got halfway when his own truck broke down was the actual cause of the council having the road blocked off to all future traffic.

Whether this was true or not, it was done by having a set of huge concrete bollards placed at either end.

Someone on the town council suggested that now that the road was closed off, it should be rezoned and the area developed as an airport, something they had needed for some time. After all, it already had a runway.

It has to be said that there were those who thought this was a really bad idea!

She shared her troubles with her best friend.

As always, she was most understanding. In fact, she told her about a secret place on the dark web and how to get there. It was an otherwise hidden site where there was a service provider that operated an email system that enabled those in the know to send a message directly to God. That evening, opening her laptop, she carefully used the instructions that her friend had written down for her.

Finding it, she typed in…

‘Dear God

My boyfriend and I broke up last week. We had a big row. I think he has had time to realise that I was right and he was wrong. Would you please have him call me with an apology and a heartfelt request for us to get back together again. Could you also have him bring chocolates when he visits next, preferably the ones with fruit flavours in their centres.

Diedre’

All she had to do now was wait for his call.

As it turned out, they both worked for the same company.

It was the city’s largest home construction company. The offices of Creative Homes were located in the central business district, in a three-story building. There slogan was ‘Building Together’. As it happened, it was on the top floor that Tony Tenon worked as a draftsman. Meanwhile, in the administration section, located on the ground floor, Melanie Mortice was employed as an invoicing clerk. Although it may seem strange, in this large company that employed so many people, they had never actually met. This was all about to change when the coffee machine that serviced the people on the third floor broke down.

As the number of people working on the second floor was relatively small, no dispensing machine had ever been installed there. As a result, the staff on the top floor, this included Tony, along with those on the second floor, were continually using the elevator to use the machine on the ground floor.

As the repairman was not available until the following day, this situation continued both morning and afternoon. This quite naturally made the ground floor machine extremely busy all day.

Despite this, it wasn’t until about three in the afternoon that Tony and Melonie found themselves queuing together behind several others. Behind Tony, Melonie was chatting with another girl from the same office. Melonie was saying that she was trying to catch up with a backlog of paperwork.

When Tony was behind just a couple of people waiting, he turned around and offered to let them go first. Although surprised by this, they both smiled and accepted his offer.

How this random first meeting went on from this point can be quite quickly and easily summed up. They regularly came together socially. They then both joined the same tennis club.

Eventually, as they were obviously meant to… they married.

The accident occurred on a lonely stretch of road.

It was dark and he’d been running late. He’d been trying to send a message to tell his wife this, when he dropped his phone. He should never have tried to retrieve it while driving. The car veered to the left, rolled down the embankment and ended up on its roof. It took an age to wind down the window enough for him to crawl out. It took another age for him to scale the steep bank. At least he is now beside the road and visible, should any cars come by. The back of his head was bleeding and several times he felt he might pass out. For now, it was a case of waiting. Waiting for someone to come along and help. He probably needed to get to a hospital. He was thinking this, when he passed out.

He was barely conscious when he heard footsteps approach. Although he couldn’t move, a feeling of relief swept through him at the thought that help had arrived, at last. He was aware of hands searching his jacket pockets and removing his wallet. Someone was obviously looking for some form of identification. He hoped that whoever it was had a mobile phone they could use to call for an ambulance.

Instead, all he heard was footsteps hurriedly receding…

He was being trained on the job and his boss seemed to be pleased with his progress.

He knew this because he’d heard him talking to other men in the workshop, telling them that he was a bit of a tow-rag. He knew how important a tow-rag was. He knew this, because his uncle’s a plumber and often has to attach a tow-rag to the end of a pipe or any other extra-long thingy sticking out the back of his utility truck. He used a red piece of rag when he could. He told him how important a tow-rag was, because they can instantly highlight hazards. He also said they should really be used at the back of vehicles being towed. It was a courtesy to other road-users. Today, his boss had said that he was a proper tow-rag!

In time, he would find out that a tow-rag is properly named as an ‘oversize load flag’, used on the end of a long load being carried by a vehicle, while a ‘toerag’ is a slang term for a contemptible or despicable person.

Meanwhile, he would try not to get too bigheaded.