Author: Alexander Fawn

The detective sat looking over the crime scene photos when he noticed the balls.
It was his case, and the pressure had really been piled on by the head of CID after the fifth man had been found dead in his home. They had all been struck down from behind; all single, in their early to mid-twenties and all with professional, well-paid jobs. This choice of victim was obviously the common factor. There was nothing else to indicate why these particular men had been targeted. The young detective felt a natural bond with the victims, as he himself fell into a similar category of society. Noticing that in two of the photos a small, Multi-coloured ball could be seen near the body. He remembered picking one up at the most recent scene. It was a soft, squeegee ball that people commonly use to relieve stress. He felt sure this would be an important break in the case.

After revisiting the crime scenes, he established that the same ball could be found elsewhere in each of the victims’ homes. He was soon on the phone to local shops and discovered that only one toy shop sold them. At the store, the owner said that he’d received a consignment of boxes, each containing six. He said it had seemed strange at the time, that a tall, heavy-set woman had come in, insisting on buying a full box.
Seeing that the address on the invoice was only a short distance away, on the edge of town, he made his way there. It turned out to be a vacated shop with a notice in the window that directed customers to new premises. Trying the door, he found it unlocked.
Inside, it was almost bare of fittings, with only the original counter left. A small cardboard box sat on the countertop. Looking inside, he found yet another ball, along with a note, saying, ‘I’ve been waiting for you. You complete the set!’
He was reading the note when, from somewhere behind him, he heard a noise…

He looked around the garden, shaking his head.
He had strong feelings about people coming onto the property, without permission, and making a mess of the place. The lawn was a complete disaster. He went around looking for traces of what had been there before. The people who did this obviously had no idea how much work it was going to take to put it all to rights. He could only put it down to ignorance. He was doing this when a head appeared. It was his friend, who had come out to console him. In truth, this self-same thing had happened before, and on a surprisingly regular basis. He knew his friend would need some degree of comforting.
As he approached, he said, “They seemed to have worked quite hard to make the changes, whoever they are. Heavy machinery, I’d say.”

“I know, I heard them,” the other scowled, “we all heard them! There’s no excuse for what they did. They probably know there is very little we can do about it.”
He took one last look around, shaking his head again.
Then, using the only entrance still useable, the two ants went back down to deliver the bad news to others in their colony.

The school had been suffering from an ever increasing rate of dropouts.
This state of affairs was reflected in the marked increase of crime within the local community. The authorities knew that something had to be done. Various strategies had been tried and failed. It was only after a great deal of debate that it was decided they would implement the Purgatory Program. This was a scheme whereby pupils whose behaviour was so bad and virtually uncontrollable and were regularly producing poor test results and were therefor most likely to drop out, were chosen for the program. The selected pupils were then sent straight to hell.

A room at the school was set up for the purpose, and a specialised medical practitioner was engaged to perform the complex medical process, where death is induced for a period of several minutes, followed by a return to life. Those familiar with the procedure regard it as a particularly powerful wakeup treatment. The idea being that what the pupil experiences while down there is so ghastly that on their return they immediately mend their ways.
This program was fully instigated and ran for several days. The results were excellent, with those returning having a completely different attitude regarding their place in the community, and for that matter, the world!
It has to be said that despite the very high success rate, around five percent didn’t return. Seemingly, this small number were quite obediently resigned to remain there.
Furthermore, this in itself was not seen as a problem as it was generally agreed these particular participants were going to end up there anyway.

The bard was intent on capturing the tale he had running through his head.
He had characters racing around franticly in a dream, with the scribe scribbling as fast as he could, to keep up. Dictating the activities of the players in this midsummer’s night story certainly sped up the process of getting it all down on paper. The bard had never been a fast writer. This way, there would be a professionally written play sheet that could be sold at the door for those aficionados that he was sure would be willing to pay at least a halfpenny for each hand-written copy.
Unbeknownst to the pair, the final manuscript contained a major error. Looking back, he could well understand how such a mistake was made. It had been in the early hours when the entire script had been finished. Although the writer had found it hard to understand how the scribe didn’t question why the weaver’s head should be replaced by that of Cassius, it all got missed at the time. The fact that the play made no mention of anybody by that name was something that seemed to have slipped past without notice.
It was not until after the first performance that the error became evident to the two men. As it turned out, the ridiculous notion of the artisan receiving an ass’s head didn’t seem to bother the audience at all. In fact, this surprising twist to the tale definitely increased the comedic nature of the piece.
The pennies kept rolling in.
No changes were ever made.

It had been a terrible morning.
It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives. Many months had been spent planning the wedding. On the morning of the big day a number of events had unexpectedly taken place. It started with the violent storm that raged through the whole district from first light. The power outage meant that the organ couldn’t be played and candles were set up around the church’s interior. It was as though some unseen force was trying to prevent their marrying.

Meanwhile, all three hired cars broke down, the photographer showed up drunk, her dress got ripped as she got off of her brother-in-law’s motorbike and she was poked in the eye by the umbrella, held for her while getting into the church in the downpour. The best man lost the ring when he fell and broke his leg while jumping off the bus and was replaced by his cousin. In the church, babies started crying and unhappy children started fighting. A candle went over and started a fire in the vestry and a wasp nest was disturbed near the church entrance; several people were stung.
The unlucky couple finally stood together in front of the priest, who was in the process of asking the couple if they wanted to postpone when he had a sudden heart attack.
They had been nodding
Some people just don’t see omens.

What is meant by everything?
A thing that’s never seen,
That no one can claim full knowledge of.
What does it really mean?

Is the concept meaningless?
Do we say it just for fun?
What is it that this word encompasses,
When all is said and done?

Is it true that everything changes,
Through the fullness of time?
Taking into consideration,
These are assumptions in a paradigm.

Every single molecule,
Every single breath,
Every single birth,
Every single death.

Everything ever created,
Everything ever destroyed,
Everything ever hated,
Everything ever enjoyed.

Is it everything ever done,
Or everything ever said?
All things living.
All things dead.

Feeble attempts to make it known,
To give the word a life,
When no one really knows,
With a lack of understanding rife.

So many questions hanging there.
No answers to the quiz.
It’s just a convenient way of summing up,
While nobody knows what it is!

The elderly man took his usual evening walk after tea.

He’d been doing it for years. In fact, so often that his way through the trees using the narrow well-trodden paths was hardly noticed anymore. Before she passed away, they had always done it together. It had been a ritual. He knew that his decision to carry on with it was in memory of her. As a couple, they’d been bonded since childhood. The illness had taken her slowly and they had often talked about whether there was an afterlife. If there was, he promised he’d find her. Now, like her, nature was allowing many of its trees to slowly shed its leaves and on this particular evening, he was walking over a carpet of fallen maple leaves. Being such large leaves, they tended to overlap when they hit the ground, covering and partly hiding the path.

He was suddenly aware of a large leaf drifting down so close by that he was able to easily put out a hand and catch it. It was a beautiful example of its kind, despite the fact that it was dying. He moved off the track to a fallen tree trunk and sat down with it. After a while he let it drop. It would lay there and rot, he thought.

It would break down and disintegrate slowly. It would become one with the soil and the compost, along with all the other leaves, would enrich the earth and allow other things to begin anew as the season changes.

He thought of her again and smiled.

After all, wasn’t rebirth just an ongoing cycle?

This is a story about a poem, a painting, a statue and a concerto.

…and it came to pass that in England a playwright writes a love poem, in Amsterdam an artist paints a baroque portrait, in Italy a sculptor crafts a marble figure, and in Austria a composer writes a music score.

An Australian schoolgirl is in France on a student exchange program. It is day’s end and she is in her room lying on her bed, reading. She has been given a homework assignment to choose a poem from the schoolbook she’s been given. The book contains a variety of classical works. She has to give an assessment and critique of the piece she has chosen. She has discovered a beautiful poem that she has not read before. She is so taken by it that she begins to read it a second time…

A Canadian art student is on a backpacking tour through Spain. Although he is taking a break from his studies, he intends to visit as many art galleries as he can. He has entered a room and finds an oil painting that shows a portrait of an elderly man sitting in a chair. The student is not sure whether he has come across it in any of his books, but is taken by it and after walking around the remainder of the gallery he returns to it. He settles on a seat opposite and spends time enjoying what he sees.

A Japanese family is on holiday in New York. During their stay they take a pre-booked day trip to Buffalo. The coach parks and the passengers are given time to visit Delaware Park, with its lakes and gardens. The daughter is a keen photographer. She is excited to find a bronze replica of her favourite statue. It is of a biblical figure. She takes several photos and can’t wait to show her friends back home. She stands back looking at it, dreaming of the day that she intends to visit the original.

A Swedish businessman pays a short visit to Finland. He takes a morning flight to Helsinki, where he has a number of business meetings scheduled for most of the day. He intends to speak with several companies that he has been dealing with, then stay the night at a hotel and return the following morning. On arrival, he settles in and confirms his booking for a rental car for getting around the city. He goes over the details of what he intends to discuss with each of the company representatives and the times that have been arranged. On his way to his first meeting he listens to a music program on the car’s radio. As a lover of classical music, he is captivated by what he hears. It is a beautiful piece, a concerto that he doesn’t think he has heard before. He arrives at his destination and parks. Quite regardless of his schedule, he stays in his car to listen to the rest of it.

Back in the day… in England, William Shakespeare wrote ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ This being the eighteenth of his one hundred and fifty four sonnets. A piece that describes the consistent attributes and beauty of a beloved.

In Amsterdam, Rembrandt painted the ‘Portrait of an Old Man in Red’, a self-portrait showing him to be sitting calmly, yet showing a lifetime of wear.

In Italy, Michelangelo created a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, this being a larger-than-life marble statue of the Biblical figure David.

In Austria, Mozart composed the Clarinet Concerto consisting of three movements, shortly before his death. It was the last major instrumental composition he composed.

Meanwhile, eons of varying length drift away toward the now.

Could any of them fully conceive the legacy that they would leave behind?

There was so much talk about the planet dying and how to save it.

The young man, not long out of school and into work, was particularly worried about the newspaper reports and scientific articles on the subject. Then, he came across a piece about the Doomsday Vault. He read that it was a huge depository in Norway, where all of the world’s seeds were kept safe. It was with a great deal of excitement that he began to think a lot about the upcoming doomsday. He realised that this predicted scenario could be used to make otherwise impossible improvements for mankind and the world to come. He formed a plan, and with it, he saw himself as a futurist. He knew you could get just about anything on the black market. So, after a great deal of Internet research he managed to order a visitors pass for the vault. This came in the post a few days later. He booked a flight and took time off from work.

The day he entered the vault, he only carried a bag full of seeds along with a second, empty one. He made his way down into the main storage area and began searching for the thing he had come for. After a long time spent working through the systematically organised sections with their printed labels, he came to the container that held seeds for spinach. After emptying the seeds into his spare bag, he replaced them with similar looking lettuce seeds.

Mission accomplished, he knew he had sown the seeds for a better world!

On the surface he was a decent sort with sober habits.

He had always been kind to children and dumb animals, and had often been actively involved in a variety of volunteering projects for charitable groups. His past would give no guide as to what he had become. He grew up in a happy home and was always treated with kindness. In short, he could only be seen to be a really nice bloke. However, the fact is, he liked to, well… bump people off.

It started when he was a kid. His closest friend had told him he had spooky eyes. It meant very little to him, when a couple of days later, out on a picnic, he sent the boy over a cliff. He watched him tumble over and over before reaching the bottom. The sense of euphoria that swept over him as he watched, delayed his next move for several long moments. Eventually, he began running around shouting the boy’s name and getting the attention of the adults.

These activities carried through to adulthood, where he would regularly give an unseen nudge, push or trip. He always made sure that he was screened by plenty of people; crowds were his favourite. It was most often a fall in front of a car or train. He had never even been suspected. He knew that he had honed his skills to such a high level that he could probably rank himself with the likes of a professional assassin, although he would never do it for money. It would remain a hobby. Falls from high places were his favourite, but more difficult to set up.

On the domestic front, his own personal troubles concerned his current girlfriend. Their relationship had been going down the gurgler for some time. The truth of it being that he had grown really bored with her.

Happily, all this came to a head recently, when she told him that she wanted to go skydiving…