Author: Alexander Fawn

Most of the time he was able to cope with his condition.

In fact, his obsessive-compulsive disorder gave him a sense of everything being right. His insistence on things, mainly objects around the house, in the bathroom, the bedroom, the lounge, the kitchen, in fact, all over the house, being properly set out and each in their correct place gave him enormous comfort. For him, the symmetry and order that this created provided him with a constant sense of harmony. When objects were in there predetermined and proper place they brought about a desperately needed structure in his life.

On the subject of things being in their proper place, he was most disappointed when he went to the fridge and found that he had no milk! No milk meant no wake-me-up coffee first thing in the morning. No wake-me-up coffee meant that he would have very little chance of fully waking up. Knowing that unless he went out and bought milk, he’d spend the rest of the day wandering around like a zombie.

He got dressed, grabbed his keys and wallet and went to leave. It was part of his going-out ritual to count the variety of sea shells, arranged in a specific alignment, that sat along a set of seven narrow shelves by the front door. He stopped and started counting. At the same time he noted each one’s relative position. The shells went from small to large, but were not laid out as such. In fact, their sequence with regards to both size, shape and colour was deliberately random.

He counted eighty-four. No, he thought, that’s not right, and counted them again. This time they came to eighty-five. Still not convinced, he began again, very slowly. As he did, he felt beads of sweat building up on his forehead and at the back of his neck. He mopped himself with his handkerchief. This time he made it eighty two! Had any of them fallen? He checked the floor; nothing. He stood blinking at the rows of shells, feeling a faintness coming on. He decided to take a shower.

When he returned, feeling a lot better, he counted them again. Eighty-six! He stood for a while thinking. The shops… it was too far to walk, and he didn’t feel safe driving.

He sighed. He’d shop tomorrow.

He’d drink his coffee black.

His cheeks reddened as he read his latest bank statement.

He’d write them an email. He would make it formal, like a letter. He began to write.

–

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for your due diligence in recently bouncing my relatively small cheque with which I endeavored to pay my paper bill last month. Of course, I am no expert, but by my calculations, three ‘nanoseconds’ must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival into my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer here, of course, to the automatic and monthly deposit of my modest pension, an arrangement which, I might point out, has been in place with your bank for a number of years. You are to be commended for seizing that extremely brief window of opportunity, and also for quickly debiting my account by way of a penalty for the inconvenience this must have caused to your bank. My commendation and thankfulness spring directly from the manner in which this incident has gratifyingly caused me to take time to fully rethink my general attitude when organizing my personal finances.

Firstly, I have noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, re-recorded and faceless entity, which is presented to me as my bank. Owing to my recent rethinking, following on from the transaction I have described above, from now on, like yourselves, I choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood real live person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter, no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank, who I advise you to nominate.

Please find attached the form, titled Application for the Submission of a Nominated Contact for your chosen employee to complete. I would indicate the necessity of it running to several pages is brought about by my needing to know as much about the nominated contact as your bank knows about me. In order to bring this situation about you will note that all copies of the contact’s medical history, bank statements, income, assets, liabilities and debts must be countersigned by the bank, along with all supporting documentation.

In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number that must be entered before all future dealings can take place. This being modeled on the number of key strokes needed to access my account made it necessary that it be no shorter than thirty-two digits.

I have installed a simple menu system for those occasions you wish to contact me, shown as follows.

1. To make an appointment with me.
2. To query an item.
3. To leave a message.
4. To return to the main menu, to hear options 1 through to 3.

Although his arrangement may, on some occasions, initiate a lengthy wait, I have selected a number of calming melodies that will play throughout this time.

I assure you that it is genuinely regrettable, but again, following your own business model, necessary for me to charge an establishment fee to cover the cost of preparing this new arrangement for all future bank transactions…

–

He was about to write something like ‘Your humble client’, but sat thinking for a moment; another rethink. It was a David and Goliath situation. It really wasn’t his thing.

“Money grabbers!” he whispered and clicked on ‘Delete’.

He saw her coming out of the underground station.

She was making her way along the busy street in the same direction, but on the other side. He was sure she hadn’t recognised him. She was probably in town doing a bit of shopping. She was a lot older, of course, but it was definitely her. He remembered her from his school days. His old music teacher. She was a really nasty piece of work. She had given him a horrible time back then. He had never been musically minded and didn’t do well with any of the instruments that the class all took turns playing, in the school’s music room. He thought back to how it had all been made worse by his parents insisting on him receiving piano lessens from her after school hours, twice a week. He could do nothing right. It was sheer hell!

Further ahead he was watching something being hoisted off a truck. Of all things, it was a piano. It was being lifted to the roof of a hotel. He’d heard that they planned to open a rooftop restaurant and bar up there. It was being winched up by ropes that didn’t look too safe. When he drew along side of the activity, he stopped to watch the progress. It was several stories up when he was sure he could see at least one of the ropes slipping sideways. It was then that he realised that the woman had also stopped to answer her phone. She was standing right underneath it when he saw the first rope snap, causing the whole thing to move sideways. He wondered whether he was the only one to witness what was happening. Should he call out? Under any other circumstances…

He entered the closest shop and stood looking along a rack of men’s shoes. He was examining one when the calamity out in the street could be heard through the doorway. First, came the shouting. This was followed by a woman’s scream, then the crash and a cacophony of discordant piano notes.

As it happened, in his case, it wasn’t much of a struggle for him to convince himself that he was completely oblivious to the significance of the whole thing.

The writer made a beeline for his study.

His wife watched him rush by. She wondered what the emergency was. Moments later, she followed him in. He sat scribbling frantically, mumbling something about not losing something. Half aware of her presence, he held up a finger. She looked on until he had almost filled the page with writing. When he had finished, he looked up with a sigh. She approached and took in what he’d been up to. She shook her head slowly.

“Why on Earth didn’t you use the computer?” She asked.

With a weary shake of the head, he said. “Have you any idea how long it takes to fire up the computer and open a new Word document?”

Nobody ever found out what happened to the woman at number fourteen.

One day she was there and the next she was gone. It was as though her existence had been thoroughly wiped from the face of the earth. She had simply disappeared, along with all of her possessions. The house was left with just a few sticks of furniture, with nothing to show that she had ever owned any of them. The rumour-mill said it was some obscure government department, but that was just gossip. Naturally, her parents and her boyfriend made lots of enquiries and got nowhere. They even tried to get something put in the newspapers about it, but they didn’t seem interested. After a while people stopped looking for her and eventually no one even asked questions. No one, that is, except her boyfriend. He was convinced he could get to the bottom of it. He had found an ally in the old man who was a night cleaner at the local council offices.

The old man had gone through a similar experience when his cousin had vanished into thin air the year before. Between them they began digging. After gathering information from various sources, including staff members at the council offices, they felt they were getting close to the truth. Then… the questions stopped abruptly.

Nobody ever found out what happened to the cleaner and the boyfriend.

She looked down at the creature, struggling pathetically beneath her claws.

She had seen this mouse often enough, skittering around the back yard. Never walking, only ever running. It would however, occasionally stop dead, lift its ugly little nose and sniff. This, before scampering away again at great speed. However, this loathsome creature, loathsome but no doubt tasty, had made the mistake of coming around the corner of the house at such a rate of knots that coming face to face with she who was waiting, could do nothing but career strait into the soft fluff of her belly. She had simply been lazing, the way cats do, but on this particular morning, in the right place at the right time. Just because she could… she tightened her grip.

The mouse squeaked. “Oh! Not so hard. Please!”

“Hah! You’re in no…” whispered the cat.

“Position?” the mouse broke in.

“Yes. Position.” Said the cat. “You’re in no position to tell me what to do.”

“Yes, I am!” Came the indignant reply.

The cat moved its head from side to side. “You can believe that if you like, but you’re not.”

The mouse looked up into the cat‘s eyes with a resolute determination, and went on. “On the contrary, I would say that considering the circumstances in which I find myself at this very moment, my request is a perfectly reasonable one. Besides, I was not telling you what to do at all… I was only asking. Nothing more.

The cat relaxed its hold, just a little. “Well,” she purred, “aren’t we the feisty one.”

“I have to be, don’t I?”

“Oh! Really? Why is that?”

The mouse wriggled herself into a more comfortable position. “I have to be,” she repeated, “I’m a mother.”

“Ooh!” Said the cat. “How many?”

“Two.”

“Yuck! Two more horrible little creatures.”

The mouse’s eyes widened. “They’re not horrible, they’re both quite beautiful.”

The cat thought about that and asked, “Boys or girls?”

“One of each.”

“Husband?”

“Dead.”

“Traffic accident… cat?”

“Dog.”

The cat relaxed a little, but couldn’t think why. “No husband, now. It doesn’t work that way with us.” Her eyes clouded over. “Kittens; three. All gone. Given away.”

The mouse said, “Sorry.”

They both just lay there for a while. Neither fully understanding the thoughts that were running through the other’s mind.

Slowly, the cat lifted its paw.

The mouse rose up without hurry and shook itself off. It made its way along the wall of the house until it came to the crevice. It glanced back, then disappeared.

The cat went back to sleep.

On the face of it, they were just another homeless couple.

The sun was setting as they trudged through the town’s streets. He felt sure he could find a haven, regardless of how rough; somewhere they could doss down for the night. He was more than a little concerned about her condition. Nobody would have any idea how much he is in love with the woman who finally lays down to rest. In truth, as a couple, they would not be known by many in this place. He sits beside her, watching her sleep. It was as though he was on a mission. One that he didn’t understand himself. To the best of his ability he’s been looking after her. He only knows that it falls to him to protect her and the unborn child. The child is not his, but he will do his best to keep them both safe.

The open door catches the chill of the evening breeze. He pulls her blanket a little higher. She looks so peaceful, despite their wandering the streets for so long. He steps out of their temporary shelter and gazes up into a darkening sky with stars slowly appearing.

He peers into the grey distance at the dimming town of Bethlehem.

There once was a guy who liked writing,

With his blog-followers he was uniting,

He didn’t chat much,

Not a pen pal, as such,

But the silent connection was exciting!

It was kind of magical that it happened on that very day.

It all began innocently enough. Just a smile across the counter. Nothing more. Just a smile… but what a smile! She must have looked really dumb, just standing there ogling him. It was when he asked her if everything was alright, that the pounding in her chest started. Anyway, that’s when she surprised herself by licking her lips and apologising, saying how much she was looking forward to her break when she could go up to the café and get a coffee. He smiled again, saying what a good idea. She had watched him go, weaving his way through the shoppers. It was a busy day in the department store. She had quickly pulled herself together and moved along to serve her next customer.

When her mid-morning break came, she was relieved by another lady assistant and she made her way to the café. The moment she entered; she saw him. He gave a polite wave along with the smile, of course. Her heart had begun thumping again as she approached. He immediately began apologising for taking the liberty of waiting for her to appear. She had just smiled back, shaking her head. Next thing; she had sat, while he ordered their coffees…

The rest of it was a whirlwind.

They talked for the best part of an hour, making her late back to her department. Her fellow worker was very understanding when told why she was late. Then came the meeting after work, in the Italian restaurant they had decided on. Finally, he had driven her home. With a brief kiss, she had gone in. Behind net curtains she had watched him drive away.

Now, she was lying in bed thinking about it all, for an age.

It had been all she could do, not to invite him in. That might have put him off; giving him the wrong impression or something.

…and to top it all; all this, on her forty-fifth birthday!

When they arrive, he never asks, but he gets told anyway.

The shocking weather and the exorbitant price of fuel, as icebreakers. He gives a friendly grunt. Then comes the heavy stuff. They talk about the neighbour’s dog that continually barks in the evening or the boy bullying their daughter at school or how their son-in-law lost yet another job because of his drinking. The listener just pulls a face, grunts and nods. Then there’s their sister’s marriage break up. He’s always pleased to see you and understands better than most why you’re there. Of course, he has stories of his own, like how his brother-in-law won a small sum on the lottery, just enough to take the family out to dine at a swanky restaurant and how well behaved his two kids were and how much they all enjoyed it. But, you’ll never hear about that.

No, the one-sided chatter continues while he’s busy with his scissors, they just keep on snipping.

He never asks, he just grunts. But he always listens.