Author: Alexander Fawn

He was a small boy when the priest had taken him to one side.

For him, this was an earthshattering experience. A private heart-to-heart talk that had followed the choirboy’s dishonesty, when asked whether he had taken a hymnbook home. This was forbidden, of course. The clergyman had seen him take the small book from his pocket and return it to the pile. The fact that the boy’s intentions were that he study the words to improve his performance as a chorister, wasn’t the problem. It was his lying about taking it home that had prompted such a powerful lecture. It had frightened him, and it was as a result of this incident that he had promised himself that he would never ever tell another lie. After committing this principal to his ongoing life, and by that, to his overall developing lifestyle, the die had been cast.

At first, this newly adopted mantra was comparatively easy to maintain. This was partly down to the fact that he had from the beginning decided to keep this self-imposed rule to himself. However, as time passed and he moved through his teen age years into early adulthood, marriage and fatherhood, his vow of honesty gradually began to take its toll. Over so many years of preserving this level of moral rectitude, little by little, a negative aspect became more and more apparent. It had always been obvious to him that telling the truth had often hurt the feelings of others. In a way, he had thought that recipients of these truths would eventually come to the conclusion that he just couldn’t help himself when it came down to telling it like it was, regardless of how it was taken. In general terms, with most of his immediate friends and family, this was the case.

However, a growing number of embarrassing incidents gave him cause to reflect on his future intentions. On reflection, he realised that none of the past decades of strict honesty could be unravelled. He knew that to refer back to any single time when he had used a truth that had caused displeasure or even worse, and to attempt in some way to correct it, would inevitably start some kind of domino effect. He found himself in an inextricable trap, and the notion that he could in no way release himself from such an ongoing and unending entanglement made his head swim. He wanted to disengage, to somehow free himself.

As a result of these emerging desires, in the main he had taken on a fairly antisocial attitude during his later years. This had successfully reduced the risk of offending others with what he would quite naturally regard as the truth. It is now, in his late nineties and feeling his life slipping away gradually, he looked back. Back to that time spent with the priest. A time when he had put in place a moral code that had bound him throughout his life.

Now, finally, he considered that he was close enough to the end of his days to allow himself to freely reflect on the notion that what had started all that time ago was, in fact, a curse!

It was a thoughtful suggestion; he should get away for a while.

His neighbour, a man that he had never really got on with, surprised him with what was a very practical suggestion. He guessed it was a man-to-man thing. He’d been telling him about the pressures of work when the other came up with the idea. He said that the place he suggested, buried in the countryside, was ideal for what he needed. It was a place called Peaceful Grove. It sounded wonderful. He had a week’s holiday owing, so he decided to take the advice.

It was several hours away, so he left early. The directions were a bit vague, but he would ask in town when he got there. The woman in the shop was very helpful. Apparently, it was located on the outskirts of a nearby village.

Following her directions, he found the sign at the turn off. Then drove the short distance on an unmade road, and there it was. A much larger sign hung across the entrance, ‘Peaceful Grove’.

It was a cemetery!

It just drifted there while the selection committee deliberated.

It seemed to have come down to a choice between the fifty-something woman who works in the school’s canteen kitchen, the young man who works in a factory and wants to learn how to operate the forklift, and the contract bricklayer who’s thinking about retirement. It didn’t much care for any of them. The idea that they could take over human bodies one by one until there were enough of them down there to take full control of the planet was a sound one, but as invasions go it was an extremely slow business. This particular floating spirit, belonging to what may well be described as part of the group of lesser immortals, never really got a crack at anything big, anything of substance, anything really important, like a king or a president. However, there was no way it could complain.

It, along with all others of its kind, were constantly aware of what happened to Olly. That being a nickname, of course, used to add a touch of comedic relief to what was actually a most ghastly affair. The being in question had the temerity to balk against the system by demanding to know why it was always being made to host the bodies of people who didn’t really matter. It had point blank refused to take over the physical form of a second-hand car salesman. The reaction to this unheard-of audaciousness was both swift and permanent.

It was made to instantly host the body of a stuffed and extremely rare bird, the New Caledonian Owlet-Nightjar, hence the epithet, that, along with many other strange and mainly useless odds and bods, was crammed into a locked, steel trunk and held in a bank’s high security vault, in Zurich, Switzerland. The chest itself is currently unclaimed and will forever remain so, on account of the fact that the owner, a most eccentric and mysteriously wealthy taxidermist, who was found dead, alone in his bed, in his hovel, in a tiny hillside village that boasted a population of seven, in the Locarno district of that same country, who lived alone, had no living relatives and not made a will.

Meanwhile the committee, having decided, pressed the metaphysical button and the drifting being was immediately sitting in a forklift being given training by a fellow worker.

The invasion goes on.

The old priest was taking time out.

He often did this after giving one of his more poignant sermons. It was a quiet place, not far from the church and his humble dwellings. Nobody ever came here. The old gnarled tree stump he sat on in the corner of the abandoned meadow had been there a long time. Far longer than any in the village could remember, he felt sure of that. Perhaps that’s why he found it a comforting thing to sit on. It had been there before him and would be there long after. He thought back to the morning’s service. He wasn’t happy with the way the world was going. That had been the main thrust of his little talk to the gathered parishioners.

The day was clear and his view of the fields that stretched away was, as always, a peaceful vision of Mother Nature. The air was warm and still. The line of trees that crested the farthest hill was the extent of the panorama. He loved the place. For him, it summed up all that was good in the world.

This morning, despite there being no breeze, the distant trees were swaying. It could be that his old eyes were deceiving him, he thought, but as he watched they seemed to separate; with four trees moving. They were moving and growing gradually larger. As the moments passed they appeared to be coming down the distant hill and gathering pace.

The old man grunted as he realised he was seeing horses. Not so unusual, considering the number of farms in the district. They may well have got loose, he thought. Still watching, he was again jolted out of his morning reverie when he made out that each was being ridden. Four riders, still cantering through the fields and hedges. They seemed to be passing through the hedges, not jumping them! He stood to get a better view. At the copse, near the next ridge he saw them merge through trees without hindrance. Four horses with riders, each animal a different colour.

As they wafted through the hedgerow into his field, his sight of them became clearer. He heard the heavy pounding of their hooves and saw the riders and what they were.

Horses; red, grey, black and the last… the last was a pale horse.

As they thundered passed, the old priest climbed onto the stump to watch them go. To watch as they hastened towards the city.

The place where they would herald the final judgement.

He knows that he can do as he pleases.

Despite being as old as he is, he has only come to realise this in recent months. He thinks about the time this newfound peace came into his home. He focuses on the moment it began. The very instant that he pressed the button. He doesn’t watch the world news anymore. Nightly, when the program is being beamed into millions of homes, he plays music. He listens to tracks from what is actually a vast collection of CDs, gathered over many years. It plays now. One of Bach’s many cantatas, played on an organ. He sits listening, alone in the house, the way it has been for many years.

He doesn’t think about what he is missing. He did at first; for those first few weeks, but not anymore. He no longer sees the footage of wars that rage across the planet. He doesn’t watch as buildings tumble, or when blooded people are recovered from the ruins, or when stretchers are rushed to waiting ambulances, or when orphaned children cry. No, he doesn’t need to watch any of that. He no longer spends time wondering why man is so stupid and unkind and angry with man. He has his head in the sand? Yes. He has abandoned all that. He has left it all behind.

He closes his eyes as Bach plays on.

Everybody said what a nice chap he was.

When the accident occurred, his efforts to put things right on his return were much appreciated. After all, it would be an expensive venture; not that he couldn’t afford it. The girl’s parents were especially grateful. The truth of the matter was that as soon as they had arrived in the holiday apartment she started bitching. This wasn’t right and she wanted more of this and why couldn’t he have done better with that? The whining went on and on. The accident itself was very simple.

They’d been swimming the day it happened. Quite unexpectedly, from the beach there was a shout. A young boy stood, waving his arms. He wondered whether the lad was trying to tell them something. Apparently not. Moments later a man who was closer to the boy, floating in the shallows, stood up and waved back. The man started to wade his way back to shore. With this distraction over, he looked back, and she was gone!

Naturally, life guards were called out and the search went on all day, but the sudden rip in the tide had taken her. It had pulled her out to sea with a sudden power that even she couldn’t fight. Somebody had brought him a comfortable beach chair, where he sat watching the search teams do their work. He couldn’t have asked for more. Her body was found washed up further down the coast on the following day.

When he got back, the main problem was not finding what he wanted on the internet. What he did find was the Time Jump Corporation. This would allow him to go back in time. It was new technology and the company hadn’t been operating very long. They could not guarantee the exact time a person could be returned to. In discussions with her parents, he explained that he wanted to go back there, to the holiday apartment where they stayed. More precisely, back to that moment when they ran down the beach holding hands and went crashing into the waves. Maybe he could change what happened. It being so new, nobody could say whether or not this was possible. He explained that the exact time of return wasn’t accurate. He was told it would be plus or minus a few minutes, and his total jump window would be around half an hour. Anyway, he wanted to try it and using the services of the corporation was the only way he could do it.

On the day of the time jump he was instantly transported back. When he opened his eyes he was sitting in the chair, watching the search teams do their work. He was constantly checking the time. Then, his moment came. Convinced that no one was paying any attention to him, he stood up and looked for a label. He found it and settled back in the chair. It was wonderfully comfortable. Probably the most luxurious chair he had ever sat in. It was no wonder he hadn’t been able to track down the manufacturer on the net. It was a small, local family business. They were virtually hand made in a small workshop in the village. He had what he came for.

Everybody said what a nice chap he was; in truth, he was a bit of a rotter.

The one thing that they each had no doubts about was that she was in a hurry.

She was a thirteen-year-old and the youngest sister of the three. She wanted to be twenty. The fact was, for her, life was moving much too slowly. She was sick of being the youngest, always being treated like a little kid. He was the boy next door and a genius. He said he could help her by using his time advancement machine. They were neighbours. So, at the appointed time, in the early hours, she leaves by the back door. She silently makes her way to his house and is let in. They quietly creep up to his room, where the machine and the headgear are ready. Everything was set up, plugged in and ready to go.

He sat her in the chair and fitted the special headgear. The box on the table was humming softly. He stood over the machine and started to rotate the time advancer. It turned with a jerk, then jammed.

“No!” he shouted. “It’s running too fast!” He tried to close it down. “Oh! No!” he yelled again, “the on-off switch is jammed!” He ran to the wall and yanked out the plug. When he looked back, the chair was empty.

Meanwhile, far away across the country, a nurse entered a patient’s room. The old lady was lying in bed. The nurse approached and smiled down at her. In a comforting voice, she said, “I’m here to let you know that all of the papers have been signed and all conditions for euthanasia to be performed have been met.” She sat with her, stroking her arm, and added, “The attending physician administering the medication will be here shortly.”

What treasures are found through silliness?

What precious things hide within?

Could their values be based on false considerations,

About what lies under the skin?

–

Who is to judge that these feelings are rare?

Who wants to believe the stories they tell?

Who is willing to go off topic,

To peer down the full depth of the well?

Does silliness do more than make a circus of life,

Despite putting heaven and hell in the same place?

Can it drum up sheer chaos in seconds,

Or can it a hidden truth embrace?

–

Can the viscosity of imagination be measured?

Does the world within also keep spinning?

Is it the trivial, the trifling and the petty,

That combine to stop silliness winning?

–

Do solemn words and high spirits

Waver from the beautiful to the grotesque?

Do such voices take on distant echoes,

With idiosyncrasies that border the burlesque?

–

In pulling apart notions deemed silly,

There may well be truths to glean.

Are such undecipherable feelings

Only hiding these riches;

Gems that lie unseen?

The university professor sat marking a paper.

He dropped his pen and gazed around his room. During the previous several months he had found himself pausing like this. He acknowledged to himself that it was happening more and more. He was summing it all up. Wondering how he had allowed his life to unfold the way it did. He had achieved a position that bestowed the highest level of notable prestige within the community, great respect within academia, and the salary and worldly possessions that many would envy. Only he knew that none of this was enough. Only he knew that he would walk away from it all at the drop of a hat.

Now, in his late years, with his wife’s passing and his children scattered to live their own chosen lives elsewhere, from time to time he allows himself these brief moments to dwell on what might have been. These thoughts were not shared with any other living soul and the only clue to any of this was the fact that he had never owned a car. Of course, it had been questioned occasionally, with him simply stating that he preferred ordering a cab. He looked back over all the twists and turns of his life, weighing all of the individual decisions he had taken. All of which culminated in him sitting now, ruminating privately that he had always wanted to be a taxi driver.

Although he agreed to keep his situation from his son, he had to make contact.

It was important to the family, and its reputation, that the son not learn the truth. However, the man felt that he couldn’t leave without at least leaving some well-meant advice to the boy he had let down.

He tapped the keys:

My boy

This comes from your father.

Sorry I haven’t written before. During the recent chaos that has driven events in my life, I lost, then recently found your email address. I’m aware of the rumours that have surrounded my absence. Everything from carrying out a secret mission for the government to camping out in the jungle collecting insect samples as part of some important research project. I know that others were trying to protect you from learning my fate.

The truth is, capital punishment is now imminent. I’ve been given this laptop. My time comes within the hour.

Do not walk in my steps.

Dad