Author: Alexander Fawn

He dreamt about taking out the cup.

With the Snail Racing World Championships due to take place in his village only a few days away, the excitement was building. The race takes place annually. The cup itself, being the prize that goes to the winner, is actually a tankard of lettuce. Whereas, many may see the whole thing in a totally frivolous light, there were those who took it all quite seriously. The young boy in question was one of them. Trials had been running for several weeks, with temporary tracks set up. Many human contenders felt sure that they had the winner.

The race track itself consists of a damp cloth laid on a flat tabletop. On this, there’s a circular perimeter with a radius of thirteen inches. The snails, two or more, with numbers on their shells, start from the central point. Regardless of which direction they take, it is a case of which contestant reaches the perimeter first.

As for the boy; he knew that his chances of taking out the top prize were remote.

His biggest drawback being that he didn’t have a snail…

He returned late from a night out in town.

He had really enjoyed the evening with his friends, but by the time he got home he realized just how exhausted he was. He could hardly wait to climb into bed. He was getting undressed when it happened. Something fell out of his pocket. Picking it up, he saw that it was a fortune cookie. He couldn’t understand it. It was more than a year since he last visited a Chinese restaurant. This couldn’t have been in his trouser pocket all that time! That made no sense at all; it just wasn’t possible. He sat on the edge of the bed and snapped it open. He found the little paper message inside and opened it up. In large, red letters, it said, THE BELL BRINGS DANGER.

He sat, trying to figure out what this might mean.

He jumped, when his doorbell rang…

It was late afternoon and she was preparing to cook something special for tea that night.

It was her habit to layout each measured ingredient in pots across the kitchen counter. The truth of it was that she was enjoying herself. She was in the process of grating cheese when the doorbell chimes sounded. She sighed. She really didn’t want to stop what she was doing. She certainly wasn’t expecting anybody. Maybe they’ll go away if I ignore it, she thought, and carried on. Moments later, it chimed again. This time it was a double chime. They must have pressed the button twice! She had to admit; it could be important. She washed her hands and walked to the door deliberately making a show of drying them on the towel as she went. She moved quietly to the peephole. The face she saw looked slightly familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

She opened the door to find a man wearing a scruffy suit, holding a clipboard and waving a leaflet. She didn’t get a chance to say anything before he launched off with his prepared spiel about how he could show her how to change her life for the better by heeding the words coming from the scriptures. This was followed immediately by one quotation after another from the good book.

It was during one of these that she interrupted him. “Excuse me, but haven’t you called here before?”

He looked sheepish and said, “No. I don’t think so.”

She paused for a moment to wonder. He took advantage of this to keep going. As he went on about the benefits that can be gained, and so on, she was sure he had been round before. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d found him standing on her doorstep, but he’d certainly been standing there before. She was thinking how he was easily the most annoying God-botherer she’d ever come across. Her annoyance was growing, but she hid it when she interrupted him again.

“Please, I just have to see to something in the kitchen.”

He looked quite put out as she pushed the door to.

She considered the fact that as a religious person, he really shouldn’t lie. She hadn’t been gone long when she returned, and before he could speak, she asked, “Are you sure you haven’t been here before?”

He pouted, nodding his head. He said, “It’ll only take a moment to explain the statistics that are provided at the bottom of the leaflet.”

At that point she raised both her eyebrow and right arm at the same time.

The effect was surprisingly effective. He turned instantly and hurried out into the street.

Back in the house, closing the drawer, she thought about how powerful a simple gesture could be.

There again, on the other hand, it was probably the gun that did it!

He had been home from school awhile and was engrossed in a large illustrated book.

He was in his room, lying on his bed, immersed in a world atlas. He had a geography class tomorrow. It was one of his favourite subjects. His mother was in the kitchen getting tea. His father would be home from work shortly. His grandfather, now living with them, was in the living room reading the paper. Feeling bored, he threw down the paper and clambered up out of the armchair. Moments later, he unexpectedly went into the boy’s room, where he found his grandson looking through the book. The old man sat down on the edge of the bed. Peering at the open page, he pointed to a shipping canal.

“We three brothers dug that out for them,” he said, with a great deal of pride.

“Really?”

“Yes. Me, your uncle Tim and uncle Rob; a joint effort that was.”

“Is that right?”

“Oh yes. A major project that was, I can tell you. Took the best part of a year, that did.”

The old man stood up abruptly, nodded seriously and left the room. Returning to his chair, he picked the paper up and went back to his reading.

The boy sighed and went through to the kitchen.

“Mum,” he started, “Grandad’s telling lies again.”

“I know, dear. I wouldn’t worry about it.” She smiled. “It’s just a foible.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a sort of flaw in his nature.”

“Still, he shouldn’t lie like that, should he?”

“No. You’re right, he shouldn’t.”

“I’ll ask dad what he thinks, when he gets home.”

“Probably not a good idea, pet.”

“Why not?”

“He suffers from the same thing!”

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!”