Author: Alexander Fawn

He was looking forward to checking his emails when he got home.

As soon as he got in he went straight to his laptop and opened it. He was impressed with the fast response. He had logged into the dating agency a few days ago and provided his personal details together with his preferences. He was happy to read that five of the women who had seen his agency posting where happy to arrange a date. To maintain confidentiality, the woman there referred to them as Two, Six, Eleven, Twelve, and Fifteen.

Nominating a particular bar in town, along with the preferred weekday dates and times he had listed, she arranged the meetings for the following week. On Monday the 8^th, he would meet Six at 09:00pm, on the 9^th, Twelve at 7:30pm, on the 10^th, Two at 8:00pm, on the 11^th, Fifteen at 08:30pm, and on the 12^th, Eleven at 8:00pm. He confirmed the dates with the agency, then, considering the complexity of it, and to avoid any possible embarrassment, he decided to sit and carefully draw up a calendar. After checking it over several times, he relaxed, feeling that everything would work out just fine.

However, on the Saturday before, he received an urgent email from the agency explaining that the times had to be adjusted. He was asked to swap Fifteen at 08:30pm with Six at 09:00pm, and would he mind if Two made it 8:30 and not 8:00. Also, as Twelve had requested that she moved to the end of the week, how did he feel about Twelve changing places with Eleven? His head was spinning.

As it happened, the girl next door was a secretary, well versed in scheduling. He asked her for help. He went round with his calendar, now showing a number of coloured additions. They sat for a long time trying to work it all out. They both agreed that the whole thing was simply too complicated. He went online, withdrew his requests, and cancelled his membership. He thanked her for her help and they agreed to meet in the bar on Monday night at 08:00pm.

They hide among the twigs and leaves,

Never seen by human kind.

Through untraveled parts of woods they go,

Leaving not a trace behind.

–

On unknown whiles come festive days,

Great gatherings found from near and far.

In common rings they merrily dance,

Each group knowing what they are.

–

Pixies, gnomes and leprechauns,

Spinning in delirious trance.

Fairies, goblins, elves and sprites,

All giddy in their silent dance.

–

With soundless laughter, around they go,

Tiny hearts that beat, without a care.

Discovery is never of concern,

For no one knows that they are there.

Myth and legend point the way,

But no one knows that they are there.

The cloud seeding project on Venus was never going to be easy.

It being the hottest planet in the solar system with no clouds as such, only a dense, yellow layer of sulfuric acid that shrouds the planet permanently. This heavy layer is so thick that it traps the heat, which on average is around 464 degree Celsius. Yet scientists were convinced that a special form of cloud seeding could be used to cause enough high level cloud cover and associated rainfall to dilute the acid slowly over a long period to the point where only rain would fall. This would be an amazing breakthrough for future plans involving food production and colonisation. Whereas most within Earth’s international scientific community postulated that it would be a disastrous failure, the professor leading the team was quite adamant that it could be done.

To say that the mission was a failure is open to debate. The day that everything had been prepared on the second planet to begin the process of pellet scattering above the acidic layer, it was unanimously agreed that back on Earth it should be the professor who presses the button. This would send the first of many laser beams that would trigger the airborne distribution apparatus, setting the whole thing in motion.

With some fanfare, the button was pressed and dozens of technicians, supervisors and managers sat watching giant screens for some minor signs of change in the planet’s atmosphere.

Nothing happened for three days, then it snowed nonstop for a year!

It all started when she was coming home late from work and saw the fire.

Having done a couple of hour’s overtime, the woman who lived at number eleven was later than usual and it was quite dark when she got off the bus. She could see the glow as she started to walk. Turning the corner into her street she was horrified to witness a blazing house fire at number four. The owner, an elderly gentleman was standing in his front garden watching his house burn to the ground. There were lots of people in the street milling around, looking on. The word was that because the old boy didn’t have a phone someone offered to call the fire brigade for him. Nobody knows for sure why, but they turned up well over an hour later, too late to do any good.

However, that may not be when it all actually started, it’s hard to say. Around three months before the fire, the woman who lives at number eleven received a call from the old man at number four. It was early in the evening around her tea time. She wasn’t expecting the call. He rang to say he had seen her in town during the week and waved. Apparently, she hadn’t waved back. After a couple of questions and answers it was established that it must have been her he saw. She was where he said he saw her at that time. As it happened, she was delivering documents to another business. She explained that she was probably thinking about the errand she was on. She apologised and said she would look out for him in future. He seemed to accept her apology, but she wasn’t sure.

The following morning, knowing that she had seen him pottering in his front garden a couple of times, she had it in mind to look out for him. As she approached, she saw him standing in his garden. As she came up to him she gave him a merry wave. He stood there glaring at her. He didn’t wave back. This obviously upset her and she told one of her neighbours about the incident, who wasn’t surprised. She said that he was generally regarded by those who lived in the street as being an old misery.

Later, after the fire, when spoken to by the police, the homeowner was told that he was lucky to be out of the house when the gas leak in the kitchen ignited, blowing out two of the internal walls. Apparently, he was in the front garden at that moment seeing off two young boys who were making a racket by hitting his metal mail box with sticks. These boys were never properly identified. There was some interest shown, regarding the timing of these events, but nothing came of it. Soon after, the site was cleared and the land put up for sale. To the satisfaction of the people who live in the street, the old man was never seen again.

It has to be said, just how much bearing the waving incident had with regards to the whole affair, remains a matter of speculation.

The new man was being shown the ropes.

He was being trained as a conveyer belt operator at the mine site. The belt carried fine, fairly loose material to where it was tipped onto a pile. His manager was running through the safety procedures. He said that sensors along the belt may occasionally get a reading of some foreign object. This would set off an alarm and the belt would stop automatically. He explained that this was usually caused by an oversized object on the belt or some article causing a snag. He said that it didn’t happen very often, but when it did the operator would have to walk the length of the belt and remove the problem.

He went on to explain that on very rare occasions there could be an Amber warning. When this happened several red lights would start flashing. He said that this would only happen if the sensors detected biological material. He went on to say that the need for this warning came about after an incident. It was decided that programing the sensors to detect animal tissue was important as it may well be that one of the workers could have fallen onto the conveyer and lay there unconscious. The trainee looked puzzled.

The manager said, “Is there something you don’t understand?”

The trainee didn’t want to get into trouble on his first day, but felt he had to ask. “No. It’s OK. I just wondered why it’s call an amber warning.”

The manager laughed. “Ah! Yes, I see why you ask. No, the amber refers to our Amber, she writes up all of our safety procedures. Because of the serious nature of the problem and the potential risk to human safety, she was asked by the General Manager to write a very full and comprehensive safety procedure to cover it. He was so pleased with what she produced he said she could give it the title Amber Warning.”

The trainee shrugged, still looking perplexed. “And the incident that set this whole thing off, was it someone on the belt?”

The manager shook his head. “Nah! It turned out to be a dead possum.”

The trainee looked relieved, but couldn’t help mumbling, “Sorry, still seems a bit strange with all those red lights going off.”

The manager sighed. “I know but it could have been worse.”

“It could?”

“Oh! Yes. Her boss was away that day. If she’d been here, she would have written it!”

“So?”

“Her name’s Gertrude.”

Dukkha, the first of the four noble truths,

In itself may be hard to define.

Could it be, though hard to see,

Where dissatisfaction and suffering combine?

For me it’s a feeling, before quite unjudged,

First noticed, it’s hard to recall.

But it brings on the sense that there’s something

Not quite right with it all!

He sat staring at the screen.

He’d been there, scrolling up and down for some time, reading his snippets, small drafts; a collection of ideas. They were all workable, forming a basis for a short story. Every fragment listed had been given a temporary title. Each had its merits. A value already dictated by the virtue of recording them. Some pieces contain only a dozen words, others, the best part of a hundred. He scrolled again. This time noting the number of items. There seemed to be so many. The list he’d created to capture these thoughts was one that never stopped growing, with more being added while fewer were taken and written up, formatted and stored in a folder ready for publication on his website.

Using his well-practiced culling system throughout the many pages, he’d highlighted those of particular interest. Ones that could most easily be fleshed out to create a story that contained between 150 and 300 words. Although sometimes more and sometimes less, this was his goal. He had based his objective on the idea that clear English can be read at a rate of around 160 words per minute, thus providing something that can be digested in a couple of minutes.

Reducing the images to show 10 pages across the screen, he scanned for those that were highlighted and made a pencilled note of their titles. He had done this so many times as part of what he called his writing for pleasure; never tiring of the cyclic nature of the process. He had seven items on his notepad. Where would he go?

There was the case of the magic item being bought at a jumble sale, a detective’s reputation that was enhanced by deceit, a puppet in a stage performance that used a magic gesture to cast a spell, a backup plan of poisoning by soup, the blind and the mute that confronted an ugly gorgon, a fairy godmother being rebuffed or the strange fate of a man who loved taking selfies…

He stretched before ticking the soup.

He just loved fiction!

The writer was moved by the story behind Leda and the swan.

He reread the saga. There seemed to be so much in it… this ancient myth from a foreign land. He pondered over both the violence and the sensuality of the thing. He was amazed at the duplicity of what took place in such imagined events. He was tempted to write a short piece, a short story, if you like, to bring these happenings into modern day life. Was he dealing with politics or economics or some other area of human endeavour that lends itself to any lack of scruples? As was so often the case, his choice of setting was hampered by the multiplicity of it all. Could a modern version of something so fantastical and captivating, yet quite lascivious, do justice to the original. He had to ask himself whether this topic should be treated with any degree of respect.

As for the swan itself, such a beautiful and gracious bird, what had made the fantasist choose this to be symbolic of those dominant powers that sway such social actions, and come to bear so heavily on the lives of people? The writer asked himself, what is this lovely creature being made to actually represent here? Does this old story from a time where myth and legend played such a prominent role in men’s affairs need to be dealt with, after all this time? He thought for a while about the relative importance of dealing with such things.

Should his simple style of writing about events that are based on common day-to-day matters that influence the lives of everyday people be given preference? Does this approach in fact take on a relevance and significance that in itself is more in keeping with everyday life?

He thought about the swan.

Was he prepared to go there?

His answer. No.

He had come out of the train station and was waiting for a cab when the incident occurred.

He was about to go forward as the taxi pulled up, when he saw the woman struggling to walk. She was on crutches, with her arm in a sling. He stood back and held the door open for her. She was very grateful for the gesture and thanked him as she clumsily climbed in. Before heading off into the heavy traffic, the driver also made a comment about him being a proper gentleman. He had to admit, he felt rather good about the whole thing. The next one came almost immediately. He quickly settled down and watched, as was usually the case, how the traffic became so much lighter as they made their way out of the city.

Meanwhile, as the cab made its way across the city the woman in the taxi, being an MI5 agent, divested herself of the disguise, putting the sling and crutches on the seat beside her as she franticly pulled out her phone. She had followed the terrorists to the train station and had seen their faces and where they had hidden the bomb, but they had slipped away. She needed to report. Her part of the assignment was done. Now it was up to her to phone in the location so that they could send in the bomb squad.

She needed to get back to headquarters, where she could identify the criminals from mug shots, enabling the police to be on the lookout for them. As fate would have it, she had only just managed to dial her boss when the taxi collided with an oncoming vehicle. Her head hit the cab’s side window frame and she fell back on the seat, unconscious.

Meanwhile, her boss heard what he thought was the bomb exploding. Getting no response from his agent, he had his people triangulate her phone’s signal to get a fix on the explosion. He informed the police of the bombing and sent teams of agents out to the site to search for her and to assist where possible.

Several police and emergency vehicles turned up at the already busy crash site, only to find the woman agent, still unconscious, being transferred to a waiting ambulance, along with a badly injured taxi driver. Time passed and there was no sign of it being any kind of bomb site, but police and ambulances remained as a precaution, and several streets were cordoned off. It was when they were putting up the last of the barricade tape that they heard the massive explosion some distance away across the city.

When he watched the news item later that evening, the man who gave up his seat in the taxi, had no idea that it would have been much better for everybody concerned, if he hadn’t.