Author: Alexander Fawn

He knew that timing was everything.
The small figurine sat where he had positioned it. It rested there, unmoving. The timing had to be perfectly accurate. The dark powers that waited to do his bidding would only enter into his world momentarily at exactly midnight. He watched as the minute hand jumped towards the twelve, minute by minute. As it approached the point with only a minute to go, he positioned himself. He raised his arm, and with his newly acquired ring on his finger, while holding his breath, he pointed at the thing.

The moment the minute hand became vertical, in the softest whisper, he spoke the incantation that he alone was privy to.
It didn’t move.
The figurine remained motionless.
With a sigh of disappointment, the youngster switched off the bedside light and was soon fast asleep.

He really couldn’t complain.
All those years of study. All that specialised training. He had enjoyed it all. Now, floating here in this black void with the craft getting smaller as it drifts away, with the now barely visible tether-cord trailing behind. This would have to be… no, this is… just another part of it. He heard the hiss the moment the tether snapped. The gas was being slowly released inside his suit. He could smell it, bringing relief. He was recalling the jokes about it during training. One of the recruits called it euthanasia in a spray can. He smiled to himself. Pretty good description, he thought. Back then, it was regarded as just one more aspect to learn about in the field of space pioneering. He could just let it all go now, allow this to be the inevitable end to his career. He would probably feel no pain. He knew the oxygen was running out. He could feel it growing harder to breathe. He was growing a touch heady. Was that a lack of oxygen or the tranquillity spray?

He had no idea how long he had. Not that it mattered. The senses don’t seem to keep track of time when you’re gliding out of control in space; a space that is so unimaginably vast that there seems little need to record its passing. It felt like only seconds ago that the umbilical snagged and parted, but it was probably hours.
Suddenly, he heard a second, louder hiss and a stronger more immediate smell. It was a lovely fragrance. He couldn’t remember any mention of this. He felt a wave of tiredness come over him. This must be some additional feature, he thought. Designed to provide a… a what? Some measure of kindness, no doubt.
He would sleep now…

When he came out of the shop his car was gone.
He had only been in the shop a few, short minutes buying a box of candles. It was in no way an expensive car, there was nothing fancy about it at all. However, the thought that it was this particular car that had been stolen troubled him greatly. He decided to make no mention of the incident to the shopkeeper, and being only a short distance from his home, he decided to walk there and consider what he should do about it as he went. By the time he arrived, he had reluctantly made up his mind to report the matter to the police in the morning. For a man in his position, this was going to be a hard thing to do.
Meanwhile, the two boys that had taken the car and spent an hour joyriding around the outskirts of the town, finally tired of it. They were in the process of dumping the vehicle somewhere, just a short distance from the road, so that it could be found easily. They decided to leave the keys in the ignition, where they found them. Thinking about fingerprints they were wiping things down when the older boy, the one that had done all the driving, noticed something white in the foot well in the back. When he picked it up, he swore. He went to the glove box and found the car papers. His friend asked him what he was doing. He held up the collar.

“What’s that?” asked the other.
“A priest’s collar, of course; and these,” he waved them, “are the car papers. Look at the name.”
“That’s…”
“Yes. That’s the priest, that’s our priest, from the church we both go to.”
The younger one’s eyes began to tear up. With a tremble in his voice, he said, “What are we going to do?”
“Fix it!”
They both fell silent. The older boy said, “I can’t help thinking about those recent lessons.”
“What lessens?”
“Bible lessons. The one about God pouring out his wrath with fiery anger and bringing it down on their heads!”
After calming the youngster, the older boy explained what he had to do. He drove to a nearby town where he drew out money from his savings account, went to a petrol station and filled the tank, put the vehicle through a car wash and drove back. They sat waiting until it was almost dark, then, as silently as possible they parked it a few doors from the vicar’s house.
It had a simple note under the wiper. It read: ‘Sorry! Car cleaned with full tank.’

I just love my coffee mug.
It just sits there waiting for me, as regular as clockwork, in the mornings. It takes the granules of coffee and sugar so nicely. Then, it’s ready for the hot water and just sits there, steaming. The milk stirs and swirls beautifully when the spoon is applied. It accepts it all so well. My mug is decorated with a sketch of a bird. It has a smooth flared lip and a handle just the right size. I’m glad it has lots of siblings because I have broken it twice. Each time, I have found one in shops where its brothers and sisters are sold. Even when I am not drinking from it, it is my companion.
I just love my coffee mug.
Is it so wrong to have special feelings about an inanimate object?
I think not!

The two elderly ladies sat in the back garden enjoying the warm weather.
There was something special about them. Although getting on in years and not related to each other, they had grown up together. They could easily be sisters, but they aren’t. Despite looking very much alike, one had grey hair, the other’s was white. So much had happened in their lifetimes. Today seemed to be a good time for reminiscing.
“Do you remember what we were doing ten years ago, to this very day?” Said grey.
“Go on.” Said white.
“You must remember!” said the other.
“Oh! You know, the old brain box isn’t what it used to be. Ten years you say?”
“Yes, to the day.”
White shook her head and stretched. “There were a lot of people dying, I know that. The virus went global that year, of course.”
“Yes, but what were we doing?” asked grey. After a pause, she went on. “I’ll tell you. It was the day of the move.”
“Oh! Yes. The day we came here to be closer to the factory,” said the other.
“That’s right,” said grey. “We moved here and things changed big-time for the boss. I remember all he used to talk about was how he had shut down all his production lines… except for facemasks, of course.”

“I suppose he became rich, doing that,” said white.
“I think he did. Just think about how our lifestyles improved around that time.”
“Yes. Weren’t we lucky?”
Grey thought for a bit. “We were… not like some.”
“Ah! Memories… yes. Weren’t we young!”
Grey yawned. “We certainly were, we were only kittens then.”

He lifted the receiver, punched in several numbers, and waited.
Utilities Commission, how can I help you?
“Hello.”
“Hello. How can I help you?”
“Hello. I’m only seven, but I know how to use the phone.”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I’ve watched mummy.”
“Say again, please.”
“Mummy, I’ve watched her.”
“Sorry, are you reporting something?”
“Yes, I am saying I have watched mummy… to be able to use the phone to… to report something.”
“OK. What would you like to report?”
“Yesterday I was on my bike in the park when a dog ran up to me barking. It was barking very loud. I was very frightened. My mum was very angry. The man was very rude to my mum. They argued for a very long time. I was getting very tired. My mum explained it was because it was getting very late. It was getting very dark. We went home very fast. My feet were getting very sore. When we got home…”
“Sorry to interrupt you, but did you say you are seven years old?”
“Yes, but I am six and very nearly seven.”
“Alright, and does your mother know you are using the phone?”
“No. I think she would get very cross with me if…”
“Yes, OK. I think you should put the phone down now, and only use it when your mum says you can.”
“OK. Thank you very much.”
“You’re VERY welcome.”
Click.

When his uncle passed away it fell to him to settle the old man’s affairs.
He knew it was coming; knew that he was the only remaining close relative. This was despite the fact that he hardly knew the man. He knew that his wife had left him, apparently for another man. It had been quite sudden and completely unexpected. After this, the old man had kept pretty much to himself. Anyway, duty called and he did what had to be done regarding the legal side of things. Finally, he took a trip out to the now vacant house to look through any personal belongings that had to be removed before the place was put on the market. It was during this gathering up that he came across the list.
It was in a drawer, along with old receipts, private letters and a few scraps of paper. He was clearing it all out when he found the brown envelope marked ‘To Do’. Inside was a folded sheet of paper. Opening it up, he saw it was a list of a dozen items. It was obviously some kind of bucket list. The heading read ‘Things to Do before I Die’.
He sat down to read through the items. He noted that more than half of them had been given a tick. He smiled. He knew the old boy had been something of a dark horse, living on his own for the last several years after his wife left. He’d heard that he’d travelled abroad a few times, so he wasn’t surprised to see items like ‘Visit the Parthenon’ and ‘Cruise the Danube’ given a tick.

However, the tick next to ‘Make her disappear’ shook him up something shocking…

He was running out of things or people to blame whenever something goes wrong.

The hole in the ozone layer was a good one, but people don’t seem to talk about it anymore. Blaming the bomb use to be really great, he was very fond of that one, but things have changed so much that most folks wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Politicians were always a great target, but that was back in the day when there was just one that really stood out as an incompetent fool. There seem to be so many of them around today that this has lost its punch. Of late, he’s been using the weather as a reason that this unfortunate situation has come about or to explain why that thing just isn’t working anymore.
He finds it depressing that he can’t come up with a readymade person or thing to blame and doesn’t know who or what to blame for that!

The old man strolled into the town square to feed the birds each day.
He was a bit of a mystery. He always had a bag of bread crumbs. The birds seem to know him by sight, gathering around his feet before he opened it. He was friendly enough, always happy to chat with people about his former life. His affable nature meant that if any of the town’s folk found themselves with a few minutes to spare they would think nothing of joining him on the bench for an idle chat. Somehow, the stories he told got intermingled with stories about him told by others. Nobody knew his nationality.
Some say he used to work for the national intelligence agency of Israel, Mossad. Others said he was a man servant in the Indian palace of a Maharaja. Some believed he was a skipper on a Scandinavian fishing trawler. Nobody knew for sure.

Nobody, that is, until the day his sister showed up. She had walked there from a nearby town to find out how he was going. Despite their true past, and the actual circumstances of their lives, they had always been close.
She was only too keen to tell people how their parents had abandoned them to live on the streets decades ago.
She told her own stories.

The whole thing came about as a result of a casual conversation in the school library.
It turned out to be their first date, after a fashion. They were both in the same year but in different classes. Around the table the chat was about spelling. She had said how much she enjoyed playing scrabble and he chimed in, agreeing, saying how great the game was and making the point that it was a good teaching tool for spelling. Before the day was out, she had invited him around after school. On the following night he turned up, obviously raring to go. He said hello to her parents, then went through to a back room where the board was already set up.

In next to no time they were both fully engrossed. It went slowly, each not being rushed, but carefully maximizing the points they were accumulating. The game got to a point where he seemed to be taking a very long time before taking his turn.
Then, suddenly, after looking intently at his letter tiles once more, he blurted out, “Wow! Just you watch this!” He began putting tiles down, mumbling at the same time. “On the star, triple there, up there to a double… look at that! OK Here we go.” He pointed at the board. “That covers that, and I get extra points there, that links to that and that links to that.” He began adding up points. “This is going to be one huge score, let me see… that’s a total of… wow! I guess that wraps up the game.” He sat back looking satisfied.
She stared at the board. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That.” She pointed to the word ‘trocoline’. “That’s not a word.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No, that’s trocoline; its full name is trocedioetholine.”
She smiled and looked over at the dictionary.
“Oh! Come on,” she said, smiling and picking up the dictionary, “I’ll challenge that.”
“Go for it,” he said, full of confidence.
She began turning pages. “Did you mean tricoline, spelt with an ‘i’?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“You sure? I can only find ‘tricoline’. It’s the Portuguese word for cotton.”
“No, trocoline. It’s a chemical raising agent; when added to baking mixtures it reacts chemically to release carbon dioxide; like I said, its full name is trocedioetholine.”
She shut the dictionary. “Well, it’s not in the book, that’s all I can say.”
He frowned. “How old’s your dictionary?”
Opening it, she said, “OK. Let me see. Yes, here it is, 2012.”
“Well, there’s your answer. Your dictionary’s out of date!”
“Yes, but only by a few years.”
With raised eyebrows, he said, “You should update it really. Anyway, trocoline was only discovered in 2018, so it wouldn’t be in there, would it?”
She thought about it. “I suppose not.” She stared at him for a moment, then asked, “Are you making all of this up?”
“What, about trocoline, you mean?” He looked amazed. “No, not at all,” he said.
They cleared the game away and he thanked her parents. They made their way to the front door. As he left he said, “Same time next week, then?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
She went in… and went straight to her laptop.