Author: Alexander Fawn

She had always felt that the Internet had an answer for everything.

There seemed to be no end of handy tips and tricks. There’s using bicarb soda as a carpet deodorant, storing skeins of yarn, using a toothbrush to clean tiles, drawing chalk lines to prevent ants entering the house, removing stubborn stickers, using a brush in your drill, freshening smelly trainers, removing marks from white plates, having a bunch of mint in a room to deter flies, cleaning a sink, using white vinegar as a disinfectant, soaking white socks in salted water before washing them, making a sink tap extender, using vinegar to remove rust, following a safe way of drying wet shoes, putting a crushed aspirin in water to remove sweat stains, storing spools of ribbon, using a blow dryer to remove labels, chopping onions under an exhaust fan, preventing rust stains on can bottoms, organising measuring cups, freshening vacuum flasks, using a shoe storage hanger for odds and ends, all pretty clever stuff!

There’s using hair conditioner to shave legs, cleaning Ugg boots, filling piping bags when frosting, washing plastic toys, sharpening blunt scissors, preventing a zipper from slipping down, keeping avocados fresh, cleaning dull glassware, microwaving dried food with a glass of water, using turpentine to deter cockroaches, quickly chilling wine, removing crayon marks from walls, using foil to preserve bananas, and if that wasn’t enough, there’s even advice on burglar-proofing doors and windows with wooden wedges!

There were disposal solutions, but none of them very good, she thought. There were different methods… acid, rowboat and something heavy, garden interment.

She looked down at the body wrapped up in an old carpet and tied with string.

Frustrated, she muttered, “Who’d have thought disposal would have been such a problem?”

The one thing that a police station doesn’t need is nuisance calls.

The Desk Sergeant finally got off the phone. Being one of the largest stations in the capital city, it received more than its fair share of these types of callers. The gentleman that he had just spoken with was a regular caller. He, and other conspiracy-theorists like him, were forever calling up to let the authorities know what was really going on. They would get calls ranging from princess Diana’s death, faked moon landings, population control by COVID-19, the 9/11 cover-up, JFK’s assassination, the holocaust that didn’t happen, secret societies that were controlling the world, right through to the Earth being flat. The officer duly made a brief note of the call and the time.

He was shaking his head as the Superintendent walked past.

“What now?” Asked the Super.

“Oh! Nothing to bother yourself with, sir. That was Mr Nuisance calling up with another of his crackpot ideas.”

Grinning, the other said, “Go on.”

Tapping his notes with his pen, the Sergeant said, “Something about a group of flying saucers buzzing the city, sir.”

At that moment, they heard screaming coming from outside and a great buzzing sound that was growing louder.

The story never made it to the newspapers.

Only a few knew something about what went on that Saturday morning. What actually followed the incident was never made clear. Nobody saw him arrive. Apparently, he was a scruffy looking man wearing nothing but a loincloth, who was suddenly standing in the middle of the crowd. It was only minutes before the start of the major end-of-season sale at the store. One moment he wasn’t there and the next, he was! Those immediately around him were visibly shocked, and despite their being part of the crush, they slowly backed away. He was soon standing alone in the centre of the shoppers, with all eyes on him. The doorman, who had been responsible for giving the signal for the department store to open, made his way through to the stranger. That’s how it began.

A short time after he found himself sitting in an interview room at the local police station. Someone had found an old lab coat for him and given him a cup of tea. The officer interviewing him had struggled to get any sense out of the man at first, it was as though he was finding it hard to express himself. The policeman persisted with his questioning.

“You say your name is Adam and you can’t give me your address. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you come from, when you appeared I mean, out there in the crowd this morning?”

The man sat more upright, as though he was remembering something. “I come from the garden,” he said. “I have returned because I am responsible.”

The policeman nodded. “Responsible for what?”

“For all this!” He wave his hand around. “I am responsible for the way things are. You have so many troubles here. I was disobedient and this is the result.”

The interviewer made more notes. “By all this, what do you mean?”

“The world, your world now, cluttered with wars and famine and disease.” He wiped tears away with his sleeve. “I disobeyed and brought all this about.”

The policeman got up and left the room.

He would need to make a report…

Quite naturally, he was apprehensive about working with the new coordinator at head office.

The lady that left to start a family was really great. She seemed to have a knack for making things run smoothly. Anyway, all seven trucks were sitting in the yard, with drivers waiting to load. All things being equal they’d be away on time. Today’s assignments of boxes and packages were all stacked in groups along the loading bay. He quickly went through the paperwork once again; just to make sure. He was about to leave his office to hand out the day’s schedules when the phone rang. It seemed very early for a call. He hesitated. He’d really like to get all the vehicles on the road by nine, but it could be important. He answered it.

A timid voice said, “Sorry…” It was a man’s voice, this would have to be the new guy.

“Yes, how can I help?”

“Sorry,” he repeated, “we have to make a couple of changes.”

The Despatch Manager winced. He looked out at the men, who had begun milling around his door. “I was about to give the drivers their schedules,’ he said, “Is it important?”

“Important? Well, I suppose it is.” The new man sounded anxious. “As you know, I’m new on the job, but I wouldn’t be making any last minute changes like this, unless I thought they were necessary.”

The other softened. “OK. Fair enough. What have we got? You said a couple of changes, what are they?”

“Not a couple, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“How many then?”

“Several, actually.”

“Several?”

“Yes, would you like me to read them out for you?”

After a long pause, he said, “Go on.”

After a lot of mumbling and a shuffling of papers, he began. “OK. Assignment 10448 would be better loaded onto truck 3, not 6, and it should take route 37 instead of 12. Assignment 10526 needs to be swapped with 10492. That would mean that trucks 2 and 6 can now both take route 24. Trucks 1, 5 and 7 have no changes to their allotted assignments and can all use route 9, as scheduled.”

The Despatch Manager was silent.

He ended the call.

It was only twenty past nine.

He went home early.

He loved visiting the old woman, in her tiny cottage, in the woods, with her cat.

She was strange. The boy knew that. Everyone said she was strange. They said she was probably a witch who could cast spells and make things happen. Things that were beyond the understanding of common folk. Things that were magical. But he would visit and listen to her talk. He liked the way she talked and the things she would tell him. She said he was special because he wasn’t afraid to listen. She said that he listened because he possessed a wisdom not held by many. This would grow as the years go by, she said. In time, he would come to an understanding of it and he would have to choose what path he would take, she said.

Now, on a summer morning, they sit.

“This world aches with problems,” she says, stroking her cat, as it makes itself comfortable on her lap. “It groans beneath the weight of it all. Folk crave magical solutions, yet they refuse to believe in magic.” She chuckles. “How do you explain that?”

He shakes his head.

“People don’t believe in the power of incantations, for example,” she goes on, “yet how do they explain the enchantment brought about by the words of a poet, for instance. How do they explain how such feelings mesmerize and leave the reader spellbound when, if only momentarily, they allow a brief glimpse into a world filled with magic? Why is it that these fleeting moments of brilliant beauty and true magic do not leave their mark?”

Her head drops to one side in a silent question.

He smiles and shrugs.

She nods. “Is it the case that in full innocence they deny magic, but are themselves truly magicians… unknowing magicians. They won’t be told, they cannot be told.” She sighed. “And they cannot listen.”

The old woman looks out through her tiny window.

“Dwell on this,” she says, “for those who maintain steadfast that magic does not exist, let them explain love!”

She grins at him. “I think I’ll sleep for a while,” she says, closing her eyes.

The cat’s purring grows louder.

He leaves, quietly.

Every visit brings something new, he ponders. Always, there are ideas that he would need to think about.

In his youth, he only knows for certain that he loves visiting the old woman, in her tiny cottage, in the woods, with her cat.

That is all he needs to know.

She had always regarded herself as a patient and considerate person.

This view of herself was held in place with only one exception; this being other people’s lateness. As far as she could tell, this peccadillo was something that could so easily be avoided on all occasions, with a minor effort with regards to forward planning. There could never be reasonable grounds for its occurrence. It was with this thought in mind that she now stood frowning at the time. Her relatively new boyfriend had agreed whole-heartedly with her unwavering opinion on the subject of such tardiness. For this reason, he had been particularly careful to allow enough time to drive the relatively short distance across town to pick her up. This, of course, would avoid the possibility of her bus turning up late. She certainly appreciated his efforts in this regard.

Meanwhile, although leaving early, his modest little town car had been struck violently at an intersection, where he had had right of way, with such force that he’d been ejected from the vehicle and had rolled to a halt in the middle of the road, unconscious.

She was beginning to feel the cold of the late afternoon wind, as she once again saw how late he was. Despite the fact that her anger was beginning to grow and burn within, she took stock. He was nice. In the few weeks that they’d been dating he was nothing but courteous. In short, she had been convinced that he’d be what you would call a good catch!

He opened his eyes slowly as he became aware of people talking and hovering over him. He could see, just beyond his stretched out arm, his mobile phone. It had obviously tumbled loose from his pocket. If he could reach it, he could send a brief text explaining. He was attempting to do this when he was lifted onto a stretcher causing the degree of pain to escalate. He passed out again.

It was a particularly horrible sense of irony that swept over her, while standing in the cold watching her regular bus come and go. He was so terribly behind time that it was going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to keep her waiting this long. However, she decided to see the whole thing out, regardless of the consequences that the incident may bring about.

In the emergency ward at the local hospital, after several urgent tests and procedures that he was only vaguely aware of had ended, he once again caught sight of his phone. It was on the bed-side table, and looked as though it was just within reach. Despite the many attached wires and tubes, it was while extending his grasp in this direction that he fell out of the bed, causing several alarms to start up simultaneously.

Later that evening she caught a bus home.

Before dawn the doctor shook his head.

Sometime later, she stood, dressed mainly in black, at the appointed spot in the cemetery, along with others. The gathering, mostly strangers, were all watching the main gate for the hearse. She was more agitated than mournful. She checked the time again.

It goes without saying, he was late.

There was one thing he knew about the two people who lived on the ground floor at number three.

They were never at home when he knocked. He tried to contact them four times over the last five days without success. He was at sixes and sevens about the parcel left at his door by mistake. His friend at number eight reckoned that nine times out of ten they don’t get home until after eleven. At this point he decided to ask around. The woman who lives above him, in apartment twelve, said they run a karaoke club. She’s been to some of their family nights, where children as young as thirteen and fourteen take the microphone and enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame. On the same floor, the man in apartment sixteen said he’d been told about them. They were a surprisingly young pair of music entrepreneurs. One was seventeen and the other was eighteen.

Up on the top floor, in apartment nineteen, there was a twenty-something woman who kept very much to herself. Apparently, she was in the music industry and said to be as odd as a twenty-one-dollar bill. However, seeing that it seemed to be something of a catch twenty-two situation, she suggested, quite sensibly, that he leave the parcel outside their door.

While speaking to her, further along the hallway, the couple from twenty-three came out. He nodded and smiled as they passed. Little did they know that he had applied for that apartment when the place was first built, but they had beaten him to it.

Pity… it was his favourite number.

He entered the foreboding building, dreading what was to come.

He stood around for a while in the foyer. He knew he needed to clear his head. The image of the girl lying in the bed was hard to shake. He been doing this for a very long time. Too long! She looked pale, but otherwise… she might have made it. Sudden full recoveries were not unheard of. She was so young, and pretty. Taking a deep breath, he nodded towards the front desk and made his way to the manager’s office.

After dropping the bombshell that left his senior speechless, then angry, he repeated his decision. This time with a somewhat apologetic tone in his voice, he said, “I…I just couldn’t do it. It didn’t seem right.”

His senior said, “Yes. That’s all very well, but it’s not our place to decide these things. You should know that; you’ve been doing the job long enough. We just follow orders.”

The subordinate shrugged.

“Are you really sure?” the manager went on.

The other pulled his hood back and nodded.

The manager shook his head. “Have you any idea just how long it’ll take to train someone up to replace you?” He picked up a large print out of the current schedule. “I can only guess how long it’s going to take to get up to speed again.”

The other said nothing.

Finally, the manager blew out air in exasperation. Still shaking his head, he said, “OK. Don’t forget to hand your scythe in at the front desk.”

The girls often spent time together in the evenings, after school.

On this occasion they decided to have another go on the Ouija board. Previous attempts to call up people from the other side had been a waste of time. They only played with it this time because they were at a loose end. They set it up on the bedroom floor with each of them sitting cross-legged at either end. They each placed their fingertips lightly on the heart-shaped planchette and sat asking each other what they should search for when the thing began to move. It made its way gradually across the board and stopped at the letter B. They just sat staring at one another for a while, not quite believing what had happened.

“Did you do that?” said the girl.

“No, I swear, “said her friend.

“Thought not, shall we keep going?”

The moment her friend nodded they both felt the thing tugging at their fingers. It moved the short distance and came to rest on the E.

“B, E”, her friend whispered. “Be something or someone, maybe?”

It began moving again, this time it made its way to the V.

Her friend again, “Be valuable?’ Don’t think so.”

The other girl giggled nervously. “Probably not. Let’s just keep going, OK?”

“OK,” came the reply, and once more the planchette quivered then moved back to the A. It began to move immediately this time and the girl trying to scribble the letters down each time said, “Can we just pause at the next letter, I’m noting these down?”

“Sure, if it’ll let us. Look! It stopped at the L. It could be, Be valuable or something like it.”

“OK,” said the other, “I’ve made a note so far. That’s B, E, V, A, L. Beval? No, that’s the wrong spelling. Anyway, I’ve noticed something else.”

“What?”

“This thing stops when you take your fingers off.”

“Really? Good to know. Let’s keep going. I’ve seen the time. I have to go soon.”

“Right,” said the other and watched as four more letters were indicated, then, to their surprise, the thing sped quickly to the bottom of the board where it said, GOOD BYE.

They both sat back, feeling exhausted.

“Wow!” said the girl holding the paper. Reading it, she said, “B, E, V, A, L, D, E, R and S. That’s bevalders, and that doesn’t make sense.”

They both shrugged.

Her friend said, “I really must go,” and stood up, saying, “That was fun. Spooky, but fun.”

As they left the room the front doorbell sounded. The girl called to her mother, “My friend’s leaving now, mum. I’ll get it.”

A faint, “OK, dear,” came from the sitting room.

When they opened the door they found a young woman standing there. She was pale and terribly thin and wearing some sort of old fashioned pinafore.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Beverly Alders, I believe you summoned me.”

The two men sat playing scrabble.

They had been neighbours for several years, although they had never really got on. The night the man at number 29 invited the man from 34 to come round for a drink, he knew that his wife, visiting her sister in a nearby town, wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. They would have the place to themselves. It was as well that the visitor called when the owner’s wife was away. There had been an unfortunate incident when the visitor, severely drunk, had insulted the homeowner’s wife. She had never got over it, but the husband had decided, man to man, to put it behind them and spend time relaxing and catching up. He remembered two things about him, namely, he liked playing scrabble and was an avid tea drinker. To that end he had the board set up ready and the kettle boiling when the man arrived.

When he arrived he was instantly shown the board on the table, which obviously pleased him, and he was offered a cup of very special herbal tea. His neighbour could see that he was willing to let bygones be bygones. Before long they were sitting at the board, sipping their teas and placing tiles down, making words. They were somewhere in the middle of the game when the homeowner exclaimed.

“Wow! Just look at that! A seven-letter word, ‘toxicor’. I get a triple and a double score with that!” Chuckling to himself, he picked up a pen and began adding up his score.

His visitor said, “Hang on a minute. Toxi what? Doesn’t sound like a proper word; are you sure?”

“Toxicor,” he repeats. “It’s a highly poisonous plant, a cousin of Wolfsbane. As a matter of fact, I have a small patch of it in the back garden.” He handed him the dictionary “Go ahead. Look it up.”

The other takes it and looks it up. He shrugs and says, “OK. Your right.”

“Yes, it’s an interesting plant. Apparently, if ingested, it causes heart arrhythmia, and after a few hours complete failure. As a poison it’s virtually undetectable, I’m told.”

“You don’t say,” said his visitor, obviously tiring of the conversation. “Shall we play on? Despite your big score, I would say that the odds are in my favour.” He was right. He won the game and soon after left in a happy frame of mind.

When he had gone, his host looked up at the clock. He calculated that his neighbour should pass away in his sleep at around two in the morning.

After what he had said to his wife that night, he regarded this as a kindness.