Author: Alexander Fawn

Nobody knew what he did or why he did it.

It was a ritual he carried out once a week. Always the same day and time. The house he lived in was nothing special, on the outside. It was set apart in its own grounds, much like others along the lane. It had two stories and a basement. As for him, just an elderly gentleman who lived on his own. He’d been there for years; decades even. Always polite to his neighbours. He rarely went out. Just an occasional walk through the local park. He always had his food delivered. Generally speaking, his reclusive lifestyle had never bothered anybody. The truth was, nobody, absolutely nobody, knew anything about him. He was a hermit in suburbia.

When the time came, once a week, he would make his way down to the cellar, where he would carefully spin the dials on a small safe. It was mounted at eye level and when opened it contained a small socket with a display window above it. This week, similar to most weeks, it showed the number seventeen in glowing orange numbers. He pulled up his jumper and felt for the tiny plastic cover below his right armpit. Flipping it open, he pulled out the miniature plug. Stretching out the retractable spring-loaded wire, he plugged it in. He stood, patiently waiting, while the numbers flashed and changed. Finally, they came to rest at one hundred.

Then came the unplugging, the winding back of the plug and lead, snapping the lid closed, closing the door and giving the dial a final spin.

All done for another week.

Nobody knew that he did this… or why he did it.

He was in the car coming back from somewhere, when he felt it.

It was a tingling feeling up his arms. The boy just scratched himself at first, but when it got worse he pulled his sleeves up. There seemed to be lots of pimples on both arms. He’d probably rubbed up against some plant. He knew that they could do that. He’d tell his mum about it when they got home. He didn’t want to talk about it now, after they had such a nice day out. It was funny that he couldn’t remember where they’d been. There were almost home when the itching grew worse. When he checked again he could see tiny bits of fluff growing along each arm. It must be some kind of medical condition that he’d never heard of, he thought. He would sit down and show them both when they got in.

As they went in doors, he remembered that they’d been to the botanical gardens. He remembers watching the ducks take off and fly to the other side of the pond, where they skimmed to a stop when they landed. It was all coming back to him, how he’d been given a coin to toss into the wishing well and told to make a wish. In the living room he sat on the settee and pulled off his top. As he did, two great wings fanned out! His mother just stood and screamed.

It was the scream that woke him.

Frantic now, in the pitch black of his bedroom, he clicked his nightlight on and checked his arms…

She lay on the couch, not moving.

The room was quiet at this point and she was alone. Her period dress was not hers. She only wore it in order to play her part. The surrounding furnishings were in keeping with the time. A time long past. She would need to tell her story. Later, when the others arrive, she could help enact a series of events that explain her circumstance. In fact, the others would tell their own stories.

Meanwhile, with her head propped sideways on a cushion, her eyes where set looking upward. She saw nothing; neither did she breathe.

Somewhere up there in the black void, above the shimmering strands, something would foretell her every move.

The two young men used their torches to make their way through the wood.

The younger of the two lead the way. He was obviously excited about what he was about to show his friend. They came to a halt in a low lying clearing. He showed his friend what he had done by shining his light onto a freshly dug grave. His best friend and fellow player on the school rugby team was both amazed and impressed.

He scratched his head and said, “Wow!”

“It’s for the ratbag,” said the other.

“I don’t understand.”

“You know, for him.” He waved his torch across the opening. “We can put him down there. Nobody’s going to find him out here.”

“But he’s not dead!”

“He isn’t?”

“No.”

“But, your text. You said that you did the right thing and he’s no longer with us.”

“So?”

“Well, you know, no longer with us, dead!”

“Ah! Got you.” His friend smiled. “You thought I’d actually bumped him off.”

“Well, yes. You’re always saying you’d like to kill him. I thought you’d done it!”

The other snorted. “Nah! I reported him to the coach for selling drugs and he’s cut him from the team. That’s what I meant by no longer with us.” He sniffed. “Didn’t get much in the way of thanks from the coach. He all but called me a snitch. Said he was forced to report it to the authorities. Never did like him. Anyway, I’m thinking of leaving the team.”

He looked down into the hole. “Wow! I must say you went to a lot of trouble. I really appreciate it, you know.” He walked around it, sizing it up. “You look as though you even have the dimensions right. He’s a tall bugger.” He shrugged. “It seems a waste.”

He turned back to his friend. “How tall’s the coach?”

He was sitting in one of the best restaurants in the city.

The duck à l’orange was cooked to perfection and the oaked chardonnay was an excellent year. He was waiting for the man who would bring him the news in person; his accountant. The money he had made by taking an outside chance on the stock exchange would set him up for life. It had been a risky investment, but the results were truly staggering. He started writing figures on his napkin. He could well afford to be generous, a million here and a million there. For himself, quite apart from the new house, he had always wanted a Lamborghini Gallardo. Now, nothing could be simpler…

As the ideas for his latest story faded, he came out of his reverie chilled. Yes, this was good, he thought; I’ll type it up now before it goes. He pushed the skimpy bedding to one side and sat on the edge of his bed. He looked around at his tiny attic room. It was a hovel. He sat shivering. Then, he thought about the small electric fan heater he’d seen on sale. If I saved up for a couple of weeks, he thought, I could buy one!

It’s a great panacea, we call it the Net,

But it has to be said with a note of regret

That it really isn’t a flawless asset.

–

It seems that it is with dangers beset,

Like children playing with a chemistry set,

Or the unseen underworld-crimes onset,

With some of it being too hard to reset.

–

As for the developers, we are in their debt,

Sadly it’s something we tend to forget,

But an issue-free system is thus far unmet.

–

Was it something not seen at the Web’s outset?

The chance of corruption, always a sure bet,

And although a great many dreams have been met,

With users taking on a different mindset.

–

Some of it’s like a game of roulette,

With parts of it seen as a positive threat,

And so many sites being so hard to vet,

It’s used to stir up trouble, no sweat,

With scandals and lies causing upset,

No remedy for this has been found, as yet.

All this, since we were connected to the Internet.

But… despite these flaws, we worry and fret

When the bloody thing is hard to get!

His visitor never really understood why his friend gave so much time to his chosen hobby.

On this occasion, he found him agonising over a muon. In his past chats, he’d been told that his ideas for stories came from news items, newspapers, internet articles, personal experiences, memories, dreams, conversations, people he’d known, and sometimes relying mostly on imagination. He was continually typing up such items in the form of brief drafts. These, he regularly goes back to and converts them to short stories, he then posts these on his weekly blog. He says they are brief snatches from life, with the occasional items of science fiction and fantasy thrown in. On this occasion however, he was struggling with a muon.

The visitor was saying, “OK. What’s a muon, anyway?”

“It’s like an electron, but it’s unstable.”

His visitor smiled. “OK. Go on.”

“It is something similar to an electron, but like I say, it’s unstable. It may be positively charged, but with a mass over two-hundred times greater.”

With a shrug, the other said, “Is that anything special?”

“It certainly is, because it gives rise to the Muon Paradox.”

The other smiled again. “You don’t say.”

“I do.”

“Go on then. What’s the paradox.”

“Alright. This may not be the textbook answer to your question, but the muon is a fundamental subatomic particle. It has an extremely short lifespan of just a couple of microseconds. They travel to our planet over long distances at speeds that come close to the speed of light.”

“So?”

The writer gazed around the room. “Well, when you consider how brief their existence is, you’d expect them in their allotted time to merely travel from one side of this room to the other! That’s the paradox, right there, d’you see?”

“To be honest, no, not exactly. I take it it’s your intention to get this into one of your short stories?’

“Well, in the case of the muon, as interesting as it is, I have my doubts. Not all ideas get written into stories. I must say, this one probably falls into that category. I did think I would have some young school boy come up with a solution to the paradox and amaze his science teacher, but I gave that away.”

His visitor actually felt sorry for him, and said, “Never mind, I’m sure you have many other ideas that are far simpler and easier to understand, that you can convert to blog items.

“Simple. Yes, you’re right there. I do try hard to keep them that way.” With a grin, he said, “I’m sure there are those who would say that so much of what I write is absurd and quite foolish, and they could be right. However, I have readers from all around the world that leave comments of appreciation. Needless to say, I put my stories on my blog for them.”

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve known me long enough to have figured out that basically, I write these silly little stories for my own amusement.”

The visitor said, “Yes, I suppose I do.”

The writer said, “Shall I put the kettle on?”

In this garden, where time stands still, and the monstrous machine that is Istanbul hides further down the valley.

In this small, green paradise a person may become lost in thoughts of things other than…bustle, noise, confusion, haste, pollution, clamour and stress.

In this place soft, green, beauty pervades the air and the scent of nature’s perfume relaxes the senses and lulls and eases the busy brain.

Here, behind the fortress, above the mighty Bosporus one can listen to the sounds of peace and contentment.

 In such a place; in such a garden, the love and grace of God himself may settle quietly in the human heart.

Even as a child she had admired the coffer that sat on her uncle’s mantelpiece.

It didn’t look particularly expensive but her uncle had said it was an heirloom that had been passed on down through many generations. Even as a small child the thing didn’t look that old. However, he always insisted that it was really precious. As a youngster she loved looking at the delicate floral designs. She had never been able to open it. When she was older she asked about it. He had said that it contained something that was priceless and that is why it was always locked. As the years went on and visits to his house grew less and less, she had later been informed that the key for it was hidden somewhere in the house and would be found when the right time came. Then, at a time later still, she was told that the coffer would be left to her in his will, along with the key.

If nothing else, being told this had left her with a feeling of intrigue, but she had forgotten all about it until she heard that he had died. As a young woman now she attended the funeral with her parents. Sometime later, after the will was read, she received word that, as promised, the coffer was with his solicitor at his office and could be collected when convenient.

She certainly felt a sense of excitement the day she called in. Sure enough, the item was there in an old cotton bag. Before she left, the solicitor opened a safe and handed over the key separately.

When she got home she went to her room and opened it.

It was empty.

The truth of the matter was, she had never liked him.

He sent her a text saying that he was sorry and that he wanted them to make up.

The text she sent back read; I’d like you to think about yourself as a disease that people should stay away from. I want you to see yourself as being a bucket with a large hole in it. I’d like you to consider yourself to be an inoperable cancer. I think you should regard yourself as an old connection that is now disconnected. Like a broken link in a chain. Like a visitor who is forbidden entry. Like an unregistered vehicle. Like a spare tyre that’s flat. Like an outdated piece of electrical equipment with a blown fuse that are no longer manufactured. Like being a piece of failing apparatus with no reset button. Like spam that clutters up a messaging service. Like a webpage that can no longer be found. Like a program that should be uninstalled. Like a virus that has entered a system. Like a corrupt file, that is best deleted. Like the blue screen of death. I would like you to see yourself like this. Does that answer your question? Please don’t respond to this.

He replied immediately.

You’re still upset then?