Author: Alexander Fawn

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.

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!