Author: Alexander Fawn

There was an assortment of odd-looking people at his grandfather’s funeral.

Although the old man had worked for a major pharmaceutical company in the city, none of these looked like company people. However, he was not surprised, because he didn’t really know much about him, except that he had some funny ways. When he was a kid, he would go to his big old house with his parents. Living so far away, they’d not visited him very often. When they did, it was obvious that he was into some really weird stuff. He was a follower of some spooky occult group, he knew that much, but the old man didn’t talk about it; not to him, anyway. The truth of it was that he didn’t like him much. His sense of humour was often a bit off!

Anyway, his parents had been out to the house, on the understanding that they could take anything they wanted before arranging for the place to be sold. They suggested that he do the same, just in case there was something he was interested in.

He remembered, as a kid, how he had seen a black metal box, way up on the top of a cupboard in the cellar. When he asked about it, the old man got really grumpy and told him never to touch it, saying that it contained secret stuff. He’d said that if he ever interfered with it, he would regret it. At the time, it all seemed a bit overdramatic, but he had agreed back then that he would leave it alone.

All these years later, he saw his opportunity to see whether the box was still there. On the day, it was only his curiosity that had him take the long drive to the place. Other than this, He couldn’t imagine finding anything there that he would want.

When he arrived, he made his way directly to the cellar door. The house had always been a dim building. Now, with the electricity off, opening the door he could hardly see the steps that led down. He tried the light switch just in case, but no joy. Using the torch on his mobile phone, he descended slowly.

When he reached the basement floor, he looked back and saw that very little light was entering the room from the door above. His torch was the only thing that allowed him to look around. Moving to where he had seen the high cupboard, he held his phone as high as he could and made out the dark shape of the box, still sitting there. With more searching, he found a wooden chair that seemed strong enough to take his weight. Pulling it to the base of the cupboard, he climbed on. Phone in one hand he picked the thing up and very carefully climbed down.

Putting the metal container on the chair, he stood looking down at it, taking a breath. It was just as he remembered, it had a lid, but no visible lock. Propping the phone on the back of the chair, he needed to use both hands to prise it open. The shadow of the lid prevented him from properly seeing the rows of small glass phials that sat inside. Then, by opening the box further it caused some sort of spring mechanism to bring a heavy metal plate down, crushing the tiny bottles with a loud bang!

His phone clattered to the floor and the torch went out.

Instantly, a great waft of stinking odour hit him in the face. Grabbing a hanky to cover his face, he staggered back. With eyes watering, he could hardly breathe. The stench was overwhelming, yet reminiscent of his schooldays, when stink bombs had been all the rage.

He slammed the box shut and began searching for his phone. Eventually he found it and managed to switch the torch back on. Feeling sick, he began squinting around, trying to locate the foot of the steps.

It was when he was moving slowly to where he thought the stairs were, that he could have sworn he heard a faint giggling…

There were a dozen people in the surgery’s waiting room.

He looked around. The mother and the daughter would go in before him. Then it would be his turn. Not long now… He blew out a breath. He would try really hard to explain to the doctor what he thought was wrong with him. In fact, he wasn’t at all sure what had made him phone for an appointment in the first place. The toddler was rummaging in the toy box, finding things to play with. The mother half watched her daughter, while playing with her mobile phone. The girl found a small wind-up car. She turned the key a few times and put it down, it immediately took off across the room, as the mother was told to go in.

The car hit the leg of the table in front of him. It came to a halt, but the spring mechanism kept whirring. He sat watching the thing run down. The spring was making less noise and the key went around slower and slower.

Then, it stopped.

In that moment, he knew full well what was wrong with him!

He got up, and smiling at the receptionist, he left.

The housebreaker had been casing the street for a couple of weeks.

Most of the houses were expensive, two-story properties with fronts set back from the road and large back gardens. It was something of a burglar’s paradise! He knew the old guy in number seventeen was a serious stamp collector. He would be his favourite target. With those, he would break them up and sell most of them individually. He could do very well out of that one house, probably more profitable than the rest of the street put together. There was a problem. Whereas most of the residents went out, leaving their house empty from time to time, number seventeen didn’t; only during the day, and that had occurred only once. He had to come up with a way of getting him out, even if it was for a short time.

An idea came to him. It was pretty outrageous, but he felt it may well work. He knew he could gain access to number seventeen’s back garden. That was how he’d go in, through the back. Across the road at number eighteen there would have to be a diversion; something of interest. His plan was to wait until eighteen was empty, then start a house fire. Most people would come out into their front gardens to see what was going on, whereas the old man would probably only stand at his front door to watch, but that would be enough.

Several nights later, his patience was rewarded when the family from number eighteen went out. This was his chance. It was all very new to him, so he would take it slowly step by step. He has the materials ready; an old scarf that he could feed through the letterbox and a bottle of petrol.

When the coast was clear, dressed in dark clothing, he crept along the front of the house, staying low. At the front door, he soaked one end of the scarf and lit it.

It was at that point that things began to go horribly wrong.

He dropped the flaming material when he tried to poke it through the door. It fell against the leg of his trousers, which immediately caught fire. While trying to put it out by slapping his leg, the sleeve of his jacket caught fire! Rolling around on the front lawn, screaming and trying franticly to put himself out, brought the next-door neighbour, the man from number sixteen out. Seeing the dilemma, he rushed back in to grab a blanket. When he came back out the man was screaming even louder, with parts of his clothing still burning. Throwing the blanket over him and patting all around the man on the ground, the flames were finally extinguished.

By this time, people were in their front gardens and out on the street investigating the terrible noise. Somebody must have called an ambulance. It had to make its way through the milling onlookers before reaching the house. The attending paramedic quickly saw that the burns were sufficiently bad to need immediate hospital treatment.

Limping badly and still in pain, he made his way to the ambulance, assisted by the paramedic. As he rounded the back of the ambulance, he could see the man from seventeen was standing on his front doorstep, watching.

That’s exactly where I wanted you, he thought.

Regardless of where she was, the sun on her face and the wind ruffling her hair felt refreshing.

It was the right thing to do; the only thing. Memories kept coming back. The sound of the crash, his final breaths, the flashing lights, the hospital, the interviews, the reports, her days in recovery. All these things that had plagued her over so many days and nights she now managed to bat away. There was no point in hanging on to these. The only thought that persisted, despite her efforts, was his presence. It was as though he was there, right there with her. She could feel him standing next to her, taking in the view.

In the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She slowly turned her head. He was there! He was there looking at her with that smile she loved so much.

Then, with tears welling in his eyes, he shook his head.

Shaking and feeling weak, she turns and climbs back over the rail.

She sat fondling the list.

Outside the sun was shining and the sky was just the right shade of blue. The forecast said this was going to be another warm day with gentle breezes in the morning. She looked down at the pool. It was certainly inviting, but she had a few things to do before that. Not many, but it was important to get it right. She paused for a moment to consider the fact that this was easily the most significant to-do-list she had ever set down on paper. Her mind went back to the day before and all of the arrangements she had made; the visit to the bank, the second visit to the estate agent. Inspecting the list carefully, she confirmed that they, along with all the earlier stuff, had been properly ticked off.

She sat back with a sigh and a self-congratulatory smile. It was almost done. Only four boxes left to tick. First, she would have a light breakfast. Then, listen to the next section of the “Learn a New Language”, audio book. After that she would take a long, calming swim in the pool. After drying off and sunbathing for a spell she would come in and complete her list by ticking off the final item.

Sending him a text, letting him know that she won’t be coming back.

It was a fact that the boy could only remember stuff if it was in some way numbered.

It was all pretty weird, really. He knew he was seven, but beyond this it meant that all sorts of interesting facts without numbers just couldn’t be retained. Despite this setback, he knew that over sixty percent of the world’s lakes are in Canada, that ninety percent of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere, that Russia has eleven time zones, that the surface of the sun is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, that cats sleep an average of fifteen hours a day, that the largest bowling alley in the world is in Japan and has one hundred and sixteen lanes, that the shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar war, lasted thirty-eight minutes!

He also knew that Finland has been ranked as the happiest country in the world for seven years straight, that around eighty percent of orange cats are male, that winds on Neptune can blow faster than 1,200 miles an hour, that the sun is about four hundred times larger than the moon, that a giraffe’s tongue can be twenty inches long, that lions can sleep up to twenty-one hours in a day, and that the human circulatory system is more than 60,000 miles long.

He knew for certain that Walt Disney holds the most Academy Awards, it being a total of twenty-six, that wearing a necktie could reduce blood flow to your brain by up to seven and a half percent, that your brain alone burns around four hundred to five hundred calories each day, that approximately ten percent of people are left-handed, that your heart beats an average of 100,000 times each day, that octopuses have three hearts and that in 2004 Neil Armstrong’s hair was sold for three thousand dollars.

All this wonderful information, but there’s the rub, d’you see? It has its downside.

Like the day he got lost in the city and couldn’t remember his name. When this was asked for, by the nice policeman who found him wandering around looking lost, all he could tell him was a house number and a post code.

This whole thing is very hard to believe!

He considered his new method of writing to be of the ‘embedded’ kind.

Having recently come into a sizeable boost to his bank balance, and being a writer who enjoyed writing a story or a poem about just about anything, he thought he’d try something different. It would be something similar to that of a journalist being assigned to go with some sort of military unit, as it goes into battle. Although, his own intentions were far safer. He would simply travel to those parts of the world that would allow him to soak up the ambience of the place and the earth-shattering events that took place there. This would inspire either a story or a poem to flow freely from his pen.

With this in mind, he had sat with an atlas book opened to show the world spread across two pages. There were three places that immediately came to mind. At the time, he had sat thinking about the sequence he would take.

His plan was to fly to Christchurch in New Zealand first, were there had been an earthquake in 2011 that killed 185 people. From there he’d fly to Mulitaka in Papua New Guinea, where, more recently, a huge landslide had killed anything up to 2,000 people, or more, while they slept. Finally, he would fly to America and visit the place where the Twin Towers were attacked by planes being flown into them, killing nearly 3,000 people all told. As far as possible, he would talk to people who were there when it happened and probably write either a story or a poem that would describe the event.

This was his plan.

On the day, he was crossing the road to get to the taxi rank, to have a car take him to the airport, when something unexpected happened…

When he woke up, he was not embedded, but bedded. To make matters worse, he was suffering from memory loss. He had no physical injuries as far as anyone could tell. The hospital staff were all very nice, but weren’t at all clear about the circumstances that brought him there. It had been suggested that a sudden heart attack had caused short-term memory loss.

At this point, he could only lay there, thinking about what might have happened. He could only remember crossing the street. Had he nearly been hit by a vehicle, with the shock causing a heart attack? Was his large suitcase too heavy to carry, bringing about the same medical condition? Maybe he had remembered something he should take and suddenly turned back, and fell, or did he simply fall and hit his head? Were there any witnesses? How did he get here?

He had no memory of any of it!

Whatever happened, he was definitely embedded in it. One thing was for sure. When he regained his memory, he would definitely write a story or a poem about it.

For the man, it was just another night full of dreams.

They were so regular, so insistent, that it became quite a normal occurrence to wake up with a head full of them still buzzing around. Dreams about power. Power over others. There were lots of people he didn’t like, several groups of them, in fact. In his dreams he had ideas regarding a solution to the problem of ridding himself of the unwanted. People that he considered to be inferior. He had explained all this in his book, although he has often wondered whether that was a good idea. He could do much more than just write about it; so much more, but did he really want to do any of that? Let’s face it, he wanted the top job. He knew he could make a difference, but for the good, surely! He could sweep the place clean; promote the idea of toleration between the groups. There had been a number of electoral victories of late. Maybe the time was right. Maybe his time was right, for him to do good.

There were dreams he’d been having of the mass extermination of particular peoples. He had to be realistic; they were just dreams. There were definitely groups of citizens that he had no time for, but the idea of genocide didn’t really sit at all well with him. Not now, in his waking hours, thinking about it seriously. No, he wanted to be remembered for the good that he’d do for the country. He had no idea why he had fostered such evil thoughts of mass murder. Absolutely not; he didn’t want future generations to remember him for that!

The fact was that in just a few short weeks he could be made chancellor, and after his time in the post he would like to be remembered as Adolf the Good!

In the bathroom, he stood giving extra attention to the small moustache beneath his nose.

He paused, looking at himself in the mirror. He thought again about being remembered as Adolf the Good.

“Yes, I’d like that,” he murmured.

He was on his way back home.

Home for him and his machine was an underground bunker, accessible by a tunnel coming from beneath the old workbench in the corner of the disused shed behind the derelict farmhouse at the end of a pot-holed lane on the outskirts of the small hamlet. He’d been traveling back through the Andromeda Galaxy, when his small craft hit a series of dangerously high levels of radiation. It was bad enough to make his instrument panel flicker. It had to be caused by galactic cosmic rays, probably emanating from a supernova exploding somewhere nearby. Increasing his external radiation protection field, enabled him to use the panel to give precise readings. It was obvious that it was a recent event and the levels were increasing exponentially. In fact, he would barely make it before his time craft became irreversibly disabled!

In his vessel, there was no way to accelerate through time, only pass through it. It was on that basis, that he was literally holding his breath as he typed in a warning for future flights. It was quite obvious that this sector of space would cripple his vessel if he ever came this way again.

He only just made it through and was greatly relieved when, after uncloaking and dematerialising, his machine came to rest on the pad, in the bunker. It was not uncommon for him to feel exhausted after a long flight. On this occasion, even more so. In fact, before climbing out, he fell asleep in his comfy bucket seat. He snoozed for a couple of hours before coming to. It was also the case that his memory of any flight details often seemed to fade on his return.

Running a final check of his panel, he saw what looked like the beginning of some kind of cautionary note on the recording screen. It was both incomplete and disturbing. He had a vague memory of the instrument lights flickering, but had no idea what could have caused it. Whatever it was, it had caused the problem with the recorder.

Still feeling tired, he really wanted to call it quits for the day… but, it was a warning and he shouldn’t ignore it. He had the feeling that it may be important. The only way to find out what it was would be to reset the coordinates in order to precisely retrace the outgoing and incoming route of his last journey.

So, punching in what was required, he launched again.

He was just sitting at the bar minding his own business

The Cuba Libre tasted good, He needed that. Breaking off with his recent girlfriend was still hanging around like a bad taste. He was still not sure why she’d ended it, but he missed evenings like this, after work, catching up in town somewhere before going back to her place. Looking around, he realised how much he missed her. More than anything, how much he missed her company. He was thinking about this when the girl came in and sat at the far end of the bar. She was a real looker, no doubt about that. She ordered something and sat peering around. That’s when she spotted him. Sliding off her stool she approached him with a big smile and perched herself down next to him.

“Hi!” She said, just like that.

Not sure what was happening he returned the smile, saying “HI!”

She looked him over. “You’re the guy from the garage who fixed my puncture last week.”

He was confused. “Puncture?”

“Yep. You did a good job. No trouble since.” She casually looked around.

He pulled a face. “I hate to tell you, but that wasn’t me.”

She laughed. “Of course, it was.”

“No, really,” I’ve never worked in a garage.”

She laughed again. “Of course, it was you, silly. I’m not making it up, am I?”

Her drink came and she sipped at some kind of elaborate cocktail. Putting her drink down, she frowned at him. “Don’t be shy,” she went on, “I hope you don’t mind me coming over like this. Perhaps you want to be alone. If that’s the case, I apologise.”

He looked into her gorgeous eyes, seeing that she was quite serious.

“Look,” he began, “no, not at all. No need to apologise. It’s just that you have me muddled up with someone else. I work in a nearby office, have never met you before and I certainly never fixed your puncture, or anybody’s puncture for that matter.”

“OK.” She whispers, finishing her drink. “I get it. I’ll leave you in peace with your drink.”

Looking disappointed, she gets up and leaves.