Author: Alexander Fawn

They came out of the cinema and stood for a moment, deciding on which café to head for.

A few minutes later they sat nursing cups of coffee, pulling the movie apart. They didn’t do this very often and they both enjoyed the catch up. Ellie and Naomi had been at school together a decade earlier. Ellie was now at University, while Naomi was studying hairdressing. Although it was rare that they got together, it was always good when they did. After discussing the merits or otherwise of the film, they settled down to personal chit-chat.

Naomi said “Somebody told me your Dad writes stories, is that right? He should publish.”

Ellie smiled.

Naomi said “What?”

“He doesn’t write to sell them, he writes them, well… because he likes to write them, I guess.”

“Does he make any money at it?”

Ellie nearly chokes on her coffee, “Sorry, No, not really. If you knew my Dad, you’d understand. It’s not what he wants to do. He’s not interested in making money out of them, he’s only interested in writing them.” She leant forward. “He published a book once you know.”

“Did he?”

“Yes; but he doesn’t like to publicise the fact.”

“Did he sell many books?”

“Well, he doesn’t really know. He’s got access to a website where he can see whose buying things. He never looks at it. You’ve got to sell quite a lot of books before you get any royalties coming through. He’s never had any of those as far as I know.”

Naomi frowned. “Why did he publish it?”

“I think he was under quite a bit of pressure. You know, people kept telling him he should publish. I think in the end he did it to shut them up. He told me once that from that point of view it worked. He also said that over a number of months there was a lot of work involved in actually getting a book published… said he wouldn’t do it again.”

“So, he just writes for writings sake?”

“Yeh, much like me and my jewellery I suppose. I don’t make the stuff to sell. I just like making it. When I think of it, I am really enjoying my studies and seem to be getting good grades, I think the two things go hand in hand. You like the work you do, don’t you.”

“Oh! Yes.” Came the instant reply.

Ellie looked pleased with herself. “Well, there you go then.” she said. “I think we’ve established a pretty firm principle there don’t you? You can never make a good job of something if you are under duress.”

Naomi nodded.

She never found out what it was she was meant to look at.

She was tired; they both were. It had been a long day. The birthday party had been a lot of fun; great for the kids. Her seven year old had swelled with pride when he handed over his school-friend’s present. He had saved up for months to buy it. He was slumped in the passenger’s seat now, staring sleepily at the road ahead.

It had rained earlier, leaving the roads shiny. It was getting dark and she switched on the lights.

Out of the blue, he shouted “Mum, look at that!” pointing through his side window. When she glanced across she saw nothing of interest, just shops.

Before she could focus on anything the whole world stopped with a deafening explosion.

The car was still. Somewhere there was a hissing sound and the lights of another vehicle were blinking orange, lighting up the car’s interior. She saw what had been done to her son. She had never been firm enough with him about wearing his seat belt properly.

She sat back with her eyes closed, aware of the warm trickle running down her face.

Just before she let out one slow and final breath, she murmured softly.

“Look at what dear?”

Innocence and purity dress in white.

Although, a bright white light, can give quite a fright.

Both power and submission are clothed in black;

Or the colour of an eye, with a large ice pack.

–

Passion and excitement are clothed in red,

Like the colour of cheeks, when something rude is said.

Loyalty and calmness appear in blue.

So does a tradesman’s language, when a screw goes askew.

–

Timelessness comes all wrapped in grey,

But it’s the colour of the sky, on judgment day.

Reliability and Sadness show through in brown,

Just like the oil on a driveway, when a gasket breaks down.

–

Nature and jealousy both wear green,

Like the scunge the builds up in a washing machine.

Romance and happiness come in pink,

Although old pink socks can really stink.

–

Emotions are evoked by colour, we know;

With emotional responses running to and fro.

Positive and negative impressions abound,

With lots of tests and studies going around.

–

They can test for colour deficiency,

Study receptors in the eyes,

Examine the chromatic plates

Wherein a problem lies.

–

But, when it comes right down to it,

With ten thousand different hues.

Despite sound colour psychology,

Do we see just what we choose?

Whether it’s trying to find socks that match

Or a ripe orange by its rind.

Too much intense looking

Can send you colour blind!

Jeremy sat with his head in his hands, putting it simply, he had been very rude to his friend. His old friend.

“Listen.” He had said. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than e-mail a bunch of maladjusted morons, who find it easier to talk to a screen than a human being.”

He had flapped his hand, saying “just… just close the door behind you.” His friend left the office without speaking.

This was it. This was the breaking point. He had known Tom most of his life, and he didn’t deserve to be treated like that. He needed help.

The surgery could get him in for a late appointment Friday. He took it. He hadn’t seen Doctor Doherty for several years, despite being on his books since he was a kid. It was a pity really. He had always liked him. He enjoyed the old man’s friendly and steady paternalism, his deep-seated kindliness.

He was politely asked to sit and state his business.

Jeremy felt a sudden jolt at the idea that he would have to put things into words. He mumbled a little then blurted out “I just want to cry all the time, I… I think I need help.”

“Good. Good” said the old doctor, as he started shuffling paper work, eventually producing a bulging manila envelope. “It’s Mr. Ross, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Ross”

“Just relax for a moment while I…” He trailed off while continuing to examine a number of papers.

From where he sat, Jeremy could see out of the window, across the car park, to a row of large yellow bins. He wondered what was in them. Not just stacks of paper, he thought. No, probably bloodied and bent hypodermic needles, soiled dressings, incontinence pads, the odd scabby… something or other. He shook his head. Bins nowadays put him in mind of his own inevitable decay; his inexorable slide into old age and senility. God! He needed help.

“Let’s have a look at you then, shall we?”

The doctor looked Jeremy up and down as if he could divine the root of his problems by a cursory appraisal of his general state of being.

“Just slip off your jacket.”

As Jeremy slid out of his jacket, Doctor Doherty watched him closely, his brows knitted slightly, his head a little set to one side. Jeremy waited as Doherty continued to stare.

“You’re thirty…six?” Doherty stood by Jeremy’s envelope on the desk and read long-sightedly from it.

“Yes.”

“Do you drink?”

“Of course.”

“How much do you drink?”

“Oh… two or three beers, twice a week maybe.”

“Smoke?”

“No, I’ve given up.”

Doherty smiled wearily. “Drugs?”

“A bit.”

“Cannabis, heroin… cocaine?”

“Cannabis.”

”Roll up your sleeve.”

Jeremy revealed his forearm. Doherty leaned forward and slipped a black cuff up his arm.

“How long have you felt this…depression?” Doherty inflated the sleeve and watched the pressure gauge.

“I don’t think it is depression.”

“No?”

Air hissed from the machine.

“That seems fine. You say you’re not depressed?”

“No. It’s sadness. I know there’s a distinction; probably sounds a bit…”

“Undo your shirt.”

Jeremy obliged. “… a bit unusual. But I think it’s more of a general world-weariness than depression.”

“I see.”

“Yes, it’s…”

“Quiet please.” Doherty listened to Jeremy’s heart. “Thank you.”

“More a sort of existential…”

“Yes, well I can hardly treat you for…”

“Oh! No, of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Jeremy rested his elbow on the desk and leaned his chin on his hand. “Listen, can I tell you about a dream I had last night?”

“Please do.” Doherty sat back and began tapping his fingertips together.

“It was, I don’t know, evening I suppose. And I was walking along the top of a sea wall, on my own. It was very narrow and I was having a job keeping my balance. Anyway, suddenly I was confronted by a tower; well, more like a mountain really. It seemed to be made of paper; well not paper as in paper Mache, but stacks of paper.”

Jeremy sighed. “It was huge, like a mountain. I knew what it was because I had seen it before. No, not seen it; dreamt it. The truth is I’ve been having this dream a lot lately …always the same. As I get closer to it, it starts to move, just trembling at first, as if some awesome power was waking it in some way.”

Jeremy’s glazed eyes refocused across the desk. Doherty was nodding softly. He waved for him to go on.

“Well, the next thing is it teeters and comes crashing down on me… and I pass out.”

“Yes.” Doherty said, slipping Jeremy’s envelope back into his pile. “So, sadness you say; strange dreams and a propensity towards tears?”

“Are you married? Remind me.”

“Christ, no. I mean I was. But I’m not now.”

“Separated?”

“Divorced.”

“And your job. You’re working are you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s right. I remember. Some sort of Office Manager, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well that may explain it then.”

“Might it?”

Doherty leaned forward. “Have any trouble with emails do you?”

Jeremy’s eyes started to fill with tears. “Oh! God! Yes… emails…” he whispered.

Doherty smiled. “It’s all about change, do you see. It’s about the invisible revolution… the arrival of the market economy. It’s no different I imagine, from what’s happened to those of us working in the Health Industry. Free-floating anxiety, that sort of thing, is it?”

“Absolutely, but I never imagined that natural progress could have anything to do with it. I mean you get used to change, don’t you?”

Doherty chuckled. He glanced at the clock and opened a large desk diary and rocked backwards and forwards until he fixed the focal length of his eyesight on the page.

“I’d like to see you again Jeremy, now we seem to have hit on the nub of it. Just to see how you are getting on. I’m afraid we have something of a waiting list. You’re not intending suicide are you?” He didn’t look up.

“Not immediately, no.” Jeremy grinned.

The doctor sat back and smiled. “This is not uncommon you know. Sadness is not necessarily a bad thing to feel. Believe me. Sadness, if you identify it correctly, is not going to do you any harm. It may even help, if you can identify just what it is that makes you sad. Sounds rather simple doesn’t it? But it really is as simple as that.”

“Emails”, Jeremy muttered again, and started crying. “That’s it! Bloody emails.”

He sat sobbing for a minute or so, then finally looked up at the old doctor with an expression of serine admiration. Jeremy wanted to take him home, put him in an armchair by a raging fire, make him a milky drink and fetch his slippers…

It was eight o’clock.

Another moment or two and the phone would ring.

The last time he was in this position he was not at all sure whether the phone would ring.

That was the time when the third battalion had messed up the fortnightly exercise and not only lost their bearings, but failed to find a telephone box before the motor pool had shut down for the night.

It had been a bad business. The Colonel had said so; therefore it was so.

The phone continued to not ring.

The TV show was over and they were relaxing on the sofa.

He didn’t know her very well. They had only been dating a few days. He kissed her, saying “You’re the best.”

She looked surprised. “What, better than a movie?”

He had to think. He really liked movies. He said “Yep.”

She snuggled up closer and said “Better than the invention of the printing press?”

He said “Sure.”

She said “Better than the discovery of penicillin?”

This one really stumped him. Well, no, obviously not. When you looked at it, penicillin had to be one hell of a lot better than she was. After all, it had greatly diminished the amount of suffering around the world, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t.

He smiled and said “Sure honey.”

“Better than the development of human language?”

“Sure.”

“The internal combustion engine?”

“Much better.”

“The invention of the wheel?”

He was tiring of it. He said “Of course.”

“The moon landing?”

“Absolutely.”

“The Compass?”

He looked at the time. “No doubt about it.”

“The Internet?”

He broke the cycle by grabbing hold of her hand. He looked into her eyes and said “You’re the best.”

Although, at this point, he knew without doubt… she wasn’t.

Several years after the robbery the safe was accidently recovered.

The enormous, impenetrable safe was recovered from the bottom of a lagoon, situated off a rarely visited island in the Caribbean. When brought to the surface it was still locked… and completely empty. It had been the subject of a great deal of media interest at the time of the robbery. It had been removed from one of London’s major banks, leaving detectives, security experts, safe designers and mystics, scratching their heads.

When the bank was built, the safe was installed first, anchored to the building’s foundations, then the bank was constructed around it. Engineers agreed that to remove such a thing it would have required the demolition of at least half of the bank’s structure. However, after the robbery, forensic teams combed the scene thoroughly finding that nothing had been disturbed.

The fact that such a thing could vanish, was in itself a great mystery, but to have it spotted from a scenic tour operator’s light aircraft in the Caribbean brought the whole thing back onto the front pages. The feedback from the public at large had thrown up the most bizarre and improbable solutions; all of which served to keep the whole thing on the boil. No doubt partly out of shear frustration, the bank’s original reward for information received was doubled.

Meanwhile, in a small café in Venice, Italy, Clive Bloomfield, now Anthony Beddington-Smythe, paid for his afternoon cappuccino, as always, leaving a nice tip. This being a convenient spot when not travelling the world.

On the stroll back to his apartment he reflected on the two most rewarding aspects of his recent enterprise. Firstly there was the commission of the act itself, and secondly that the contents of the safe were now, and would go on being, spent in plain sight.

In order that poetica go not astray

The first sms can very well say,

‘Life on the edge can be very hard

Waiting for the said postcard’.

After waiting a while without affirmation

A second can go with sad realisation.

“A sender is truly left alone

When mobile phones are left at home”.

The lesson one learns and needs to adhere to.

Don’t waste your breath unless they can hear you!

 

 

She tried to put the fact that it was Friday the thirteenth out of her mind.

She sat at the table, nervously looking at her watch, she had arrived very early.

Meanwhile, he was running along the street, avoiding the rain. As he entered the restaurant, a quick glance at his watch told him he had cut it very fine.

She wondered whether she was doing the right thing. She had never done this before. Her friend in the office had told her about the dating site and she had thought about it for several months before logging on with her details. Now she was having doubts about what she was doing. She was wondering if there was a back way out when she saw him.

He felt it was rude to turn up right on the dot. It would look as though he wasn’t really bothered about what impression he gave. He should have left work earlier, instead of stopping and talking to his friend on the way out. He peered around looking for the woman in the photo he’d been carrying for several days. He saw her.

She gave a little wave. She felt silly doing it. She felt silly sitting here waiting for him, it should be the other way around. She wondered whether he would see that as being too forward. She was aware of how uncomfortable she was.

He smiled back and made his way between the tables. It was a busy night and he wondered if he should have made enquiries about what were the quiet nights, before making the booking. She would probably think he was not a good planner; and she would be right. She seemed really nice and he wanted to make a good impression.

She stood up as he approached. She thought, should she be doing that? Isn’t that what a man is meant to do?

He approached, saying “Right on time. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long. I didn’t estimate how long it would take to get here very well.” He thought, shut up, you’re rambling. For goodness sake just say hello. She had dressed up for the occasion and looked very attractive. “Well, anyway, hello.” They shook hands. “It’s good to meet up with you in person, after all our messages going back and forth through the site.”

“Hello. No. I haven’t been waiting long.” She lied.

They chatted for a few minutes, until the waiter brought the menus. Her date seemed to be very nice, but…

They were looking them over when noises could be heard somewhere in the corner of the room. They grimaced at each other before returning to consider their choice of food. She jumped, along with many of the diners, when she heard a great clattering coming from what she presumed to be the kitchen. She had known… She should have known.

Moments later two of the kitchen staff burst through the kitchen door followed by a great plume of black smoke. This was followed by an orange glow lighting up the corner of the room as flames ran along the carpet.

The manager was shouting “Please, would you all leave the restaurant. We have a fire. Please don’t panic, just make your way out through the front entrance. Thank you.”

Outside it was still raining and customers were huddling under the small awning. Some were phoning for taxis, while others ran off to their cars. They had got separated in the general rush to get out and he was walking to and fro searching for her. As the crowd dispersed, it soon became evident that she was gone.

In the days that followed he discovered that she had removed herself from the dating website, and after leaving a number of phone messages realised she wasn’t going to return any of his calls.

She was a pragmatist.

Sally was a rude little girl and not really popular with anybody.

Nobody at school liked her. She was a precocious child and her parents had been plagued with her behavioural problems from the word go. She had been talked to by the local police on a number of occasions regarding damage to property and theft. In short, she was a bad lot.

She stood in her neighbour’s shed, peering around. It wasn’t much to look at; a few cupboards against the wall and a bench covered with bric-a-brac. The last time she was here the grumpy old guy had caught her and had dragged her back home. Her parents were livid… and embarrassed. She had been grounded for a week; virtually becoming a prisoner in her bedroom. He would pay for that!

He wouldn’t trouble her this time because his rotten old caravan was missing and she knew he and his miserable wife were away. She had the place to herself, although there was hardly anything worth pinching. It was all junk. If there was nothing she wanted she could always set the place on fire. That would teach him! Nobody could say that she had started it, not if she was careful.

Meanwhile, she worked her way along the rickety old bench top. It was covered with worthless, dusty items that nobody in their right mind would want to steal. There were several empty beer and soft drink cans, some old paper plates, a cracked hand mirror with a carved wooden handle, and an empty picture frame. There was a small stuffed bear with one eye, a framed photograph of a young couple holding hands, an open padlock, with no sign of a key, an empty oil can, a collection of rusty cutlery, and a pile of old and dirty clothes at the end with some that had tumbled to the floor. She picked a few items up; mainly shirts and vests, they smelt pretty bad.

What a shame! She really wanted to take something, but preferably something of value. The only thing that looked as though it would make a nice ornament if cleaned up was the oil can. She picked it up again and shook it harder this time. It was empty. She took the lid off and sniffed. It didn’t smell like oil; in fact there was quite a pleasant odour, some sort of perfume she thought. She put the lid back on and picked up one of the shirts and gave it a rub to see how well it would clean up.

A small puff of blue smoke drifted up from the spout and a strange face appeared on its surface. It was saying “You have but one wish. Use it wisely.”

Any other girl her age would have been horrified at this, but not her; she was precocious. She stood thinking really hard for a few moments. Then she hit on it. The old guy was in for a big shock when he got back. “I wish that ever thing in his shed would disappear.”

Everything in the shed did indeed shake violently for the briefest of moments, and then… there were no cupboards, no bench… and no precocious little girl.