Author: Alexander Fawn

The Captain looked at the little green planet on the big screen.

He said “Do we look at this one?”

The First Officer said “Can’t.”

“Can’t, why not?”

He looked at his hand-held instrument. “We’re being jammed. Well, not jammed exactly. They have some sort of cabling system that‘s playing havoc with our instruments. Our tech boys say Earthlings have named it the National Broadband Network. It’s some sort of primitive technology they’re rolling out.”

“Can we wait it out?”

“Oh! No sir. They’ve been at it for years.”

The Captain frowned. “We have to come up with something. Some sort of record for Command.”

“What we’re getting is very scrappy.”

“What do you mean scrappy?”

“As far as we can tell, we are getting short wave signals on everything from average teeth cleaning times to the diameter of something called a football.”

“OK. Keep trying. Keep me informed. I’ll be glad when we move on from here. Nasty little system this one. Messy place.”

“Yes sir.”

The First Officer crossed the deck to the consuls, all buzzing away trying hard to gather information on the planet below. After a while he returned to the Captain.

“It’s pretty bad sir. I don’t think it’s going to be enough to make out a report.”

“What have you got?”

The Officer look down at his hand-held device again.

”OK. History seems to be a complete washout, although the planet’s habitation period seems to be quite short.” He shrugged an apology. “There is a very limited capability regarding the study of objects in space, and their units of measurement seem to vary for just about every land mass, no apparent attempt to standardise.”

“They need soft things for sleeping, most of them don’t like walking with bare feet, they use pronged forks for eating, they all have to clip their nails regularly, they grow grass so they can cut it down again, they draw pictures of flowers to put in their houses that have flowers just outside of them, many of them submit themselves to regular intoxication, their shops have tattered and torn clothes that they sell as new, they eat animals and sometimes each other, they seem to be very secretive about how they mate, there seems to be a general sense that most of them are trying really hard to be happy and nearly all of them use body coverings.”

He peered closely at his screen. “We don’t seem to be able to get a precise fix on how many wars are going on down there, but there are a lot of them.”

He looked up. “I’m afraid it just goes on and on like this sir. Completely useless really, I can’t see that we can use any of it. I mean, there’s just nothing substantial enough to provide a proper picture.”

The Captain shook his head and blew out a long breath.

The Officer shrugged and said “Like I said sir… scrappy.”

“Damn! OK. My quarters, now.” The Captain vacated his chair and waved the Second Officer over.

In the Captain’s room they sat looking at the printout.

“Have to do what we did for Rigor 39… fudge it. We have no choice. There’ll be a hell of a stink if we don’t tick all the boxes.” He dropped his head into his hands and said “I’ve got one of my really bad migraines coming on.” He looked up with bloodshot eyes and said “Let’s just give it a B11 rating and move on.”

The First Officer stood up, saluted and said “Yes Captain.”

He left the room, closing the door very gently behind him.

 

Mum and Dad and Auntie Betty all wanted a boy.

Boys were all the thing, the flavour of the month, the best thing since sliced bread, the bee’s knees, the be-all and end-all, the best of the best, etcetera.

So, baby got called Alex, got dressed in blue and grew up playing rugby and hanging out with the boys, which made sense because they were all the thing, the flavour of the month, the best thing since sliced bread, the bee’s knees, the be-all and end-all, the best of the best, etcetera.

Alex came home from school one day scarred and bloody from a playground fight. The family all cheered and gave Alex an extra scoop of ice-cream.

Alex had nothing pink, no bows and no frills.

Alex went on to drag racing in the town’s car park late at night, doing all-night pub crawls and lifting weights.

Inside Alex there lives a girl… and she’s very angry.

Rimember was a strange month.

It was added to the twelve that had been used on planet Earth when it was still inhabited. This was prior to the system becoming defunct on the basis that other planets had very different heavenly motions.

All this was around the time when Earth became the first Holiday Resort of its kind. By its origins, Riminy was the name given to a small hopping creature called a cricket. Riminy Cricket was a character that featured in something that was referred to much later as the Disney Time, but this was all so long ago!

The entity, had spent a lot of time researching the period. It had always found it amazing that beings actually used physical bodies in order to survive. That whole era when the male and female system was in place had always fascinated it. However, so few decent records of the time were accurately converted to thought-banks during the Great Gathering that took place in the thirty-fifth millennia, and as a consequence a great deal of interpolation took place. Because these old cultures go back so far, it was difficult to determine how valid any of the records really are.

During that time the monthly cycles had been either named after Roman rulers, the Gods they worshiped, or the numerical sequence of each month. Tradition was broken quite unexpectedly by naming the thirteenth month after this one specific insect. Ever since the entity had learnt about this, while undergoing its second Schooling Period in the Fifteenth Galactic Era, it had become consumed with a desire to know more. It felt that it was such a pity that there are no pictures left, and would love to know what Riminy Cricket looked like.

Although Riminy was known to be green, wore a blue hat and had large eyes, no images remained. The creature had been famous for a peculiar song about the strange activity of wishing on a star. Records showed that the word wish was a verb in that era’s language that meant request.

However, it was not until more than three millennia later that the planet Urgonis5 was discovered. This was the first of many such planets, sometimes referred to as wish-stars, where the atmosphere allowed entities to both deposit and withdraw thoughts, in what would eventually become a vast network of thought-banks. These events finally culminated in the creation of the Intergalactic Knowledge Fund.

The question raised was could wishing on a star be a direct reference to these planets? If so, was Disney a prophet not recognised at the time? Speculation about this was strife but didn’t help. Sadly, it became apparent to the entity that without sufficiently preserved records of the events that took place during that ancient period… the truth of it would never be known.

 

So many nameless strangers,

Uncounted as they flow.

Filling out the city;

Each knowing where to go.

–

They come by car or bike.

They come by bus or train.

They come as local workers,

Or visitors by plane.

–

Individual workers

Heading for their place.

Weaving through the city streets

At their chosen pace.

–

They flood the streets and alleys,

Like a never ending stream,

Until they enter glass-clad towers.

Roomed; no longer seen.

–

With the flowing human torrent gone,

It’s quieter on the street.

Just a few, with appointments due,

Go out to meet and greet.

–

Others now walk easier paths;

Still strangers on the go.

Not in town to work a day,

But moving to and fro.

–

A hobo and his dog,

With a park bench for their bed.

A giggling couple, arm in arm.

Window cleaners overhead.

–

Bikies in their leathers.

Tourists with cameras and maps.

Police patrolling up and down,

In uniforms and caps.

–

All now in the city

With some purpose they each came.

All part of this living heart,

But strangers all the same.

–

And within this disconnected mass,

On all of which depends.

The saving grace within this place;

That some will make new friends.

The bar was tucked away down a side alley and known to be a haunt for the criminal fraternity.

The man in the suede jacket was what you might call a petty criminal. He was pretty low in the pecking order of things, but knew that some of the top crime bosses used the bar. It could do no harm to mix with them. He was certainly nervous as he entered. He ordered a drink and found a table tucked away in a corner. The place was full of men drinking and smoking. He looked around surreptitiously. Several of them he recognised as being kingpins in the underworld. He saw one man dressed in a particularly expensive looking suit that he recognised as being someone he had met, but only once. He wondered if the man would remember him. He was sitting on his own at a table tapping into a mobile phone. It could be his opportunity to get a foot in the door.

After several minutes of hesitation he plucked up the courage and walked over, smiling and saying “You may not remember me, we met briefly at the racecourse, last year.” The man in the suit looked up with a questioning expression, then seemed to relax. He pointed, saying “I can’t say I do but take a seat. ‘Suede’ pulled out a chair and sat. He felt that this could well be an opening for him. They sat chatting casually for a time, then quite out of the blue, and in a loud voice, the man says “No! There’s no way I’m going to help you rob the jewellery store!”

‘Suede’, being totally shocked by the unprovoked and completely nonsensical outburst, got up and made his way back to his table. He tried not to let the patrons staring at him see how much he was trembling as he sat back down. He just couldn’t believe what the ’suit’ had said. He was thinking about which jewellery shop the other had been referring to when he looked across and found the ‘suit’ was grinning and waving him back. After a few moments of indecision he got up and slowly walked back. The man, still smiling as though nothing had happened, waved him to the chair.

“You have to forgive me.” He said “It’s a bit of a weakness with me. I just can’t resist pulling stunts like that. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I’m often told I have a sick sense of humour. No hard feelings I hope? Let me get you a drink. I think you need one.” He chuckled to himself as he made his way to the counter.

He returned, and as before they sat making polite conversation for a while before ‘suede’ suddenly jumped up, knocking over his chair. “You swine!” He shouted. This brought the attention of everyone in the room. “I wasn’t here to offer you a job.” He went on with real fury. “I was sent here to test you and now we know. It was you that tipped the police off about last month’s bank job.” With that, he kicked his fallen chair to one side and stormed out of the bar.

Outside, he started to walk slowly back up the alley smiling to himself.

Just as he reached the street he heard the shot.

The two men were bent over their screens writing blurbs for the advertising agency.

Without warning, a great clap of thunder shook the building and made the office widows rattle as though they might shatter and fall apart. They both got up and went to a window.

“Crikey!” said Brian, the younger man. “There was nothing on the forecast about this was there?”

“Not that I saw,” said Tom, the senior writer for the company. “Look at that front coming in. We are in for some rough weather by the look of it. How strange! I bet nobody in this building brought an umbrella today.” They both smiled at the thought and sat back at their desks as the rain started to pound the building.

“Of course, you weren’t in yesterday,” said Tom, “I bet you can’t guess who turned up here out of the blue.”

“Go on.”

“Archie.”

“Archie?”

“The very man. Came rushing in here, as though he’d been invited! Sat right there and went on about his latest creation.”

“Glad I missed that,” said Brian.

“I know, he was very excited about the preface he had written for the Editing Manual that he’s been working on. You know, the one he’s been putting together for… well, for goodness knows how long! I can only think that the people he’s working for must be extremely patient.”

Brian shook his head. “Did you find out what this masterpiece was?”

“Oh! More than that, he brought a thick folder full of typed A4 pages with him. He sat reading it for a while, then handed me a copy of it; as though I would actually ever want to read it!”

“Really?”

“Really, do you want to hear his preface?”

“Sure.”

Tom opened his desk and drew out the heavy buff folder, packed with sheets of paper. He sorted through then held one up to read.

“This is what he wrote,” said Tom with a condescending grin on his face.

‘Just about any person who finds themselves confronted by the task of editing another person’s written material will undoubtedly have considerations about its quality, and at times, its relevance. However, it stands to reason, albeit a self-serving one, that someone actually wants the work done and is therefore prepared to pay for it. It could be construed as something of a moral dilemma for an editor, when viewing such tendered material, material that may very well leave such an editor with an unwavering sense of professional disdain.’

Brian sat wide-eyed for a while then asked, “Did he really write that?”

The other nodded. “He certainly did.”

Brian gazed out the office window into the darkening sky and pelting rain. “That,” he said “as a preface to a manual, is just about as surprising as this storm. Why would he dwell on anything that negative at the beginning of the manual?”

“Beats me; because I hadn’t seen it coming, I had a job keeping a straight face. He seemed so enthusiastic about the whole thing; so I was being careful not to upset him; but he pushed.”

“Pushed?”

“Yes, you know. What did I think of it? …and how he would appreciate my professional opinion.”

“Oh! No! What did you say?”

“Well, it was all rather awkward, as you may well imagine. I figured that I should be honest in the nicest possible way… not to hurt his feelings, you understand.”

“Sure, what did you say?”

“I said that because I was unprepared for what he had read, I found it to be somewhat unexpected.”

“Right. What did he say?”

“He said he thought that was an unusual word to use. He looked pretty upset, and his face started to go red. But to be honest, I was getting tired of the whole business; you know, his unannounced visit, his weird preface, now him quizzing me because he didn’t like my answer.”

“What happened?”

“Well, he asked me what my understanding of the word unexpected was.” Tom pulled a face. “I probably shouldn’t have…” he paused.

Brian said “Go on.”

“OK. I said that for me the unexpected was getting a puncture, or having a bird swoop past my face, or getting to the end of a puzzle and finding a piece missing, or having an ambulance start up its siren right behind me, or finding money in one of my old trouser pockets. I added that the last one would probably be my favourite. I probably shouldn’t have said that; but hey! I was really fed up with the guy.”

Brian raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Wow! I bet he was mad.”

“That’s the funny thing. He wasn’t! He just sat staring at his folder. He finally looked up at me. Ï started to apologise, or at least I think that’s what I was doing, when he suddenly got all excited and started to rabbit on about how important a glossary was and that he was sure he had got that one covered. I asked him what he meant, but he just kept telling me to hang on while he sorted through his paperwork.”

Tom went back to the folder now lying on his desk.

“Do you want to know what he read out to me?”

“Of course,” replied Brian, leaning forward with obvious interest.

Tom lifted out a page. “Here it is; part of the glossary for Archie’s manual. I quote.”

‘The Unexpected – The unexpected, albeit a common enough occurrence in the life of an Editor, is not generally predicted because if it was it wouldn’t be unexpected. This goes a long way to explaining why people don’t usually look out for or anticipate the unexpected. The unscheduled nature of the unexpected may well result in either a pleasant or an unpleasant surprise. Since the prospect of an unexpected event is most unlikely, this author is of the opinion that this sort of thing should remain the subject of random chance.’

Brian sat with his mouth open, coming to terms with what he had heard, but for the moment quite unable to comment.

Tom said, “Well? What do you think?”

The other wiggled his shoulders and rolled his head, as if trying to wake up. He said “Crikey, I don’t know what to think! Tell me; what did you say?”

Tom smiled and said, “I just told him it was unexpected!”

Alice climbed out of bed and made ready for her morning run.

This was her weekday ritual. Before catching her bus to work she would get into her running gear, do a little warm up to the end of the street, cross over the main road, run through the park and out onto the sealed path that ran parallel to the coast. She would do five kilometres, ending at the Surf Club, take a short break, and then make her way back. She loved these runs and the weather today was just perfect. Once she was on the coastal track she would use earplugs to listen to music.

As she felt around in her small back-pack she had strapped behind her, she found her music player but was annoyed to find she had forgotten her mobile phone! She could see it now on the dresser; how dumb was that? Things went from bad to worse when she found the player’s batteries were flat. No music, no phone, she was tempted to go back but that didn’t make sense, and it would certainly make her late for work. So, she decided to carry on with her run. After all, that was the main point of it, wasn’t it? Wasn’t this the whole reason for getting up that little bit earlier in the mornings? Yes; the run was the main thing; the thing she really enjoyed doing.

As Alice ran along beside the sea, she could hear the rhythm of the waves washing in below. It was a soothing sound and she felt tempted to run down to the beach. She made her turn around point and rested a while to catch her breath. As she started back she found the desire to spend just a minute or two, watching and listening to the waves that she could only hear from the path. She finally relented, stopped and rested for a moment before climbing down through sand and rocks to get a view of the coast. She settled down just short of the beach in a cranny of rocks. She was virtually unseen here and it was shady, out of the wind and giving her a perfect view.

Alice sat very still, taking in the beauty of the scene spread out before her; she listened to the soothing sounds of the waves breaking on the beach and breathed in the smell of the salty sea air. She closed her eyes. This was heaven! It was peace. It was… a kind of tranquillity that swept over her with nothing else happening or pushing its way into her life. She felt a sense of freedom. No phone, no music… but right now, no clocks, no TV, no home computer, no intrusions, no people. She was disconnected. It was a wonderful feeling and it brought about a sense that her life should be looked at, analysed even. Had she the time? Of course she had the time. She would phone in sick when she got back. She liked her work at the office and had always done well in her job; there would be no problem taking a day off.

Bit by bit she looked at her current life. She had been feeling a kind of information overload for several months now without stopping to think about it. In her private life she was finding it more and more difficult to make decisions while being bombarded with too much information. Her phone was a classic example. It was loaded with so many apps, and she no longer looked at most of them. She would definitely thin that right down… or better still, strip the apps out and take it right back to simply being a phone again! Wow! She could do that. At the same time go through her enormous list of contacts and reduce it to those few people important in her life.

She thought about Colin. They had been dating for months but it wasn’t going anywhere and she knew it. They were supposed to go to a nightclub in the city tomorrow night; she would cancel. It would be a start. Let him down gently. The more she thought about it all, the more things she thought of that she needed to change.

After a couple more hours of soul-searching her head was full of stuff. She climbed back up, ran home, phoned in sick, got hold of a common or garden pencil and a piece of paper and started a to-do list.

He was watching television when he heard the thud.

It came from the back. He nearly dropped his glass. He got up and staggered to the window. It was probably those horrible kids again. The little buggers should be tucked up in bed this time of night. He couldn’t see anything but decided to check anyway. He grabbed his torch on the way out. It was a black night and getting cold. He panned his torch around. There was something in the middle of his back lawn; it looked like a ball. These little sods where forever throwing things into his garden.

He had gone round to have a word with the woman just once. Very polite he was. Asked if she could have a word with her children about throwing stuff over. She was belligerent. Said kids would be kids and there was nothing she could do about it. She all but told him to get lost. Miserable cow!

He went forward and shone his torch on it. It was a rock! He couldn’t believe it. They were chucking rocks over the fence now. He shook his head. “I wish these bloody neighbours would pack up and leave” he said, in a voice loud enough for anyone about to hear. He stood and listened; all about him was complete silence. He shivered. No one would be outside in this cold weather, he thought.

He stooped down to get a closer look. For a rock, it was very round. It seemed to be covered with a greyish mist. He blew on it. The surface was clearer now; it was a strange colour. He put his torch down and went to pick it up, but it wouldn’t budge, it was half buried in the lawn. He kicked it a few times and it loosened up; enough for him to get his hands under it and lift it out. He struggled to his feet with it. It was very heavy. He tried wiping the soil off with one hand when something started sparkling just above his head. It startled him and he dropped the rock.

“Hello” said a tiny voice. “Don’t be afraid, no harm will come to you, on the contrary.” There was a tiny giggle.

“What…?” He was dumbfounded and could only repeat, “What?”

“It’s all right. You are very lucky; you have found a star.”

“A star?” He blurted.

“Yes. Well, sort of. It is extremely rare that they fall to Earth.”

“A star?” He repeated, staring blindly into the twinkling mass that now hovered in front of him. He thought he could make out a shape of some sort; like a tiny girl-like creature with fluttering wings. “This is a star?”

“Yes. I can explain if you like. It’s the mass of a white dwarf, the remnants of a dead star. It’s very dense, but cooled off in the night air now, as I’m sure you know.”

“This is a dead star?”

The shimmering began to fade. “Remember, you only have one wish.” With that, the image turned to black.

He stood dazed and thoroughly shaken. Crikey! How much had he drunk, two beers, three maybe? He would have to watch himself in future. He gave the rock another kick, then picked it up and carried it over to the rockery. He went back for his torch and swung the light over it. Hey! It didn’t look bad, not bad at all.

Inside, he saw five empty bottles and shook his head. Yes, he would have to cut down. He switched the telly off, locked up and went to bed.

In the morning, he stood staring at the sphere of rock nestled among the others and smiled at the thought of what his drunken stupor had conjured up.

As he turned to go in, he heard the big removal van pull up next door.

 

Sitting quietly alone, shuffling words,

In a clandestine way is exciting.

I get great joy from such solitary exile;

Being a lover of private writing.

–

It’s hard to escape the poetical bent,

Or a story that starts in your head;

And the race to capture the thoughts as they swirl,

Before you lose the thread.

–

There is no word strong enough,

Nor gentle enough to convey,

How precious it is for a writer to pen

In their own particular way.

There is no formula complex enough

To prescribe what a writer requires.

Each individual has their own working code

That helps, supports and inspires.

–

For me it’s a case of leaving

The real world far behind.

To immerse myself in the imaginary,

With no time restraints in mind.

–

With an addiction to narrative and rhyme,

The challenge is always exciting.

I get great joy from such solitary exile;

Being a lover of private writing.

Samantha was such a wag, always making people in the office laugh.

Her jokes were always corny, but her colleagues still laughed. She had the knack of making the day go faster with her crazy humour.

The day ended, and as usual Samantha was the first to leave. She liked to get a run in before she got dinner. As she went through the door she said “Well guys, if I don’t get mauled to death by a leopard while jogging around the park, I should see you guys tomorrow.” They all laughed and called out good night.

The next morning, the news about the trouble at the zoo and the death of a young woman in the park had spread like wildfire. The whole town was abuzz with the story of how a leopard had got out of its cage. It took several hours to track it down, capture and return it to the local zoo. It was even longer before Samantha’s body was discovered in a clump of bushes at the edge of the park.

“That makes no sense. I mean, how could this happen?” Said one of the office workers. “I mean, for heaven’s sake, it just doesn’t make sense,” she repeated, blowing her nose. “What are the odds?”

“Well…”

She turned to the man at the end of the room, who had been following the conversation, the company’s Statistical Analyst.

“Well what?”

He pointed at his screen “The odds do add up you know.”

“They do?”

“Oh! Yes. Knowing what we know about the circumstances…” He tapped a key dramatically and looked up.” To be as precise as one can be, the odds are 385.7 million to one!”

He sat back smiling at the screen.

“Thank goodness the math remains reliable.” He said “You can always rely on finding sanity in numbers.”