Author: Alexander Fawn

The old man is looking out of the window with his book resting on his lap.

Obviously in a pensive mood, he says, “Short stories have always been a passion with me.” He looks back at his visitor. “They keep me going somehow. Just can’t get enough of ‘em.”

“I know,” the younger man says, sipping his coffee and going back to tinkering with his phone.

Still staring out into his back yard, and in a wistful voice the older man goes on, “I often do this. I read something that only takes a couple of minutes, then I gaze out into the world and think on it. There is often so much said in them, between the lines. A slice of life. A brief look at a single moment in other people’s lives.”

The visitor smiles.

“So many great writers,” he says. He nods slowly as he continues to murmur. “Doyle, Dickens, O. Henry, Maupassant, Poe, Chekhov, Thurber, Wells, Saki, Wilde, Kipling, Twain…,” he looks across and raises his eyebrows, “the list just goes on and on. All those writers, opening up tiny windows for us to peek in.”

The other looks up and nods momentarily.

“Some of their stories go beyond short. I’ve always favoured the really short kind. Some call them flash fiction. No page after page of endless descriptions, no drawn out character building, no sub plots cluttering the scene. Just a few hundred words is all it takes. Just enough time to take it in, no more. A minimum of time reading and all the time in the world to reflect on it…” He sighs deeply. “Yes; the sort you can read in less than five minutes, then put your book down and just think about it,”

The other smiles again.

The old man looks over at his visitor, who is now showing signs of getting up.

“Thanks for calling in. I do appreciate it, you know.”

“I know you do. Anyway, I better get going. Sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”

The old man waves him off. “No. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m always happy when you look in.”

Going back to his window, he repeats in a whisper, “Not at all… anyway… short is good.”

All he ever wanted to do was write.

His work in the city was always busy. Although he would be seen by others as successful, deep down he knew that a great void was opening and growing larger as time went by. There was never time to sit and write; write for himself. In fact, so many of his evenings were taken up with work brought home from the office. There seemed to be a constant manilla folder or two in his case when he got home. He was responsible for several of the company’s client accounts and there was never enough time to keep up with them during the day.

The realisation grew that if he wanted to change the way he lived, he was the only one that could make it happen.

Finally, after months of planning, he prepared himself for what was to come. His bank account was extremely healthy and he had no qualms about resigning from his professional role. He sold his car and bought a campervan. The national park, with its vast forest and its river that flowed through it from end to end was only a twenty-minute drive from his apartment. No more bus and train in, train and bus out. He would enter the park and choose one of the quiet spots along the water’s edge. There, with a fully charged laptop and a head full of things he had always wanted to write about, he began his new life.

Whether or not he could sell anything that he produced was of little concern as the new world opened up for him.

Now, in the silence of the forest, he has found his voice.

He arrived home late from work.

There had been a lot of overtime over the previous month, and although his girlfriend wasn’t all that keen on spending the early part of the evening on her own, he hoped she would understand. When he got in, there was only one light on in the lounge. There was no smell of food being cooked, which was unusual. One of the things he appreciated most about her was that she liked cooking and just about always had a hot meal waiting for him whatever time he got home. Although he called out a couple of times, he felt sure she’d gone out for some reason. He wandered into the kitchen and switched the light on. That’s when he found the note.

He picked it up and read: ‘I’ve left a couple of chores for you. Be a sweetie, I was in a hurry and felt I had to leave the washing up for you. While you’re at it, could you empty the washing machine and hang the things up on the back line. It looks as though it’s going to be a nice day tomorrow. The kitchen rubbish bin is beginning to smell. You could empty that into the outside bin. It is the night for putting the bin out, anyway. If you could vacuum through the lounge that would be good. The carpet looks as though it could do with it. In the basket by the sink you’ll find a load of dry clothes. These need to be ironed, folded and put away where you keep them.

Oh! Yes; about the wash. I didn’t do the shirt. You could clean the collar with the bottle of stain remover you’ll find at the back of the sink. Leave it for about fifteen minutes, then give it a good wash in hot soapy water. It’s very good at removing lipstick stains, and it will probably get rid of that strong perfume that I didn’t recognise, at the same time.’

Her life had always been mapped out for her.

She was an only child. Her father’s vast wealth, coming mainly from the global resources industry, made it all possible. Her expensive education, clothes, car and credit cards were all a given. The jet was always on standby. Trips between capital cities with brief stays in owned apartments was the norm. In the main, her mother would organise the where and the when, according to the climate, the current weather, the time of year and global events. Her father spent what time with his family he could whenever business affairs allowed it. The mansion on the Caribbean island was home base. He would spend most of his family time there. She knew how lucky she was to have such loving parents.

However, beyond all this, she would take time out annually. It was a small village, an isolated cottage, a three day retreat, a panacea.

He was something of a computer whiz, or at least he had been.

Having been retired for a number of years and living alone, he spent much of his time in the evenings tinkering with anything outside of emails and bank accounts. Now, with his working life behind him, his dear wife having passed on and his only son living overseas, his newly acquired lifestyle is precious to him. For several weeks now he has been surfing around the dark web. He would just open up his computer and browse. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just looking to see what was out there. He was certainly surprised to find an unofficial version of the SETI site. Although it seemed to be set up in order to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, it wasn’t the institute’s normal front page. He found it interesting enough to stop and read what it had to say. It appeared to be some amateur group’s project designed to make contact.

There was a form for sending messages. Looking at the site’s history; he found that multiple copies of Leonardo-da-Vinci’s Vitruvian-man had been sent, using a common email platform. He wondered what an alien identity might think about these. It just so happened that he had a jpg file at hand, it contained his recent passport photograph. He was sure that any recipient would find this far more interesting than Vitruvian-man. Rather amused with the idea, he sent it. To his amazement, he received a reply within seconds. The response was a series of queer little characters he’d never seen before. They formed groupings that would indicate that they may be words of some sort. He sat staring at the screen for a while, but could make nothing of it. So, out of nothing more than sheer frustration, he replied with a single question mark.

It happened a couple of evenings later. He was playing a card game on the screen when, despite the late hour, a ping sounded, indicating an incoming email. It was a message… from them out there! It read; ‘We now have your language. We wish to talk with you.’ Although he couldn’t explain why at the time, he immediately shut down the computer and retired for the night; this would be the first of a number of sleepless nights.

He began to think about the consequences of starting up a conversation of that sort. If indeed there really were beings out there somewhere that wanted to make contact with him, make contact with planet Earth, for the first time… and if he replied and began a conversation, where would it all end? At the very least his quiet life would cease abruptly. He considered the personal ramifications of all this very carefully over several days, finally coming to a decision. So, a week after the night he received the ghastly message, he sat down and opened up his computer once again.

He typed, ‘Sorry, not interested.’

He peers at the night sky, so many stars to look at as he sails toward them.

He owns the sky, the atmosphere and beyond. He is now moving away from the planet and drifting silently out into the darkness. He will glide and weave his way through the stars. He considers snapping on the great beam, mounted above, spraying light out into the blackness of space and illuminating floating debris. He asks himself, are asteroids an issue here? He knows the perils of colliding with these great orbiting pieces made mostly of metal and rock. He’d heard stories of ships being torn apart.

He stares into the void, moving faster and faster…

His torch flickers slightly, bringing him back to reality and the annoying business of getting the cat in.

She sits, holding a cup with floral patterns in her old fingers.

They tremble slightly. She sips slowly at the early morning tea, looking out at the back garden. A place where he used to dig. He was no gardener, but he loved digging; he was good at that. She held out the cup and squinted at the flowers and the fancy handle, once part of a set of six. Now, three cups and two saucers left after decades of use. She handled them with great care now. Their early morning teas together never varied. It was something that was theirs, just a few minutes at a time. Their daily moments, private, undisturbed, precious. She has kept this ritual, now silent. Nobody shares these minutes. No one is told that they ever happened or that they go on.

She knows that she is not alone in this. Knows that there are so many more out there, just like her; on their own and left with bittersweet memories. There was never any real sadness in this special time. Only fond memories of a happy life.

She went to the sink and washed the cup, and with a sigh… she returned to loneliness.

The results came back from the DNA test.

Traces had been left at the scene. It seemed to have been a senseless act with no apparent motivation. The victim was an elderly woman, retired, serving the community in the role of a ‘lollypop lady.’

She had been liked and respected. Trace evidence was all the detectives had to go on. They stared at the screen. It was exactly what they had been hoping for; an exact match. Now, they had a name and address. Their records showed that the male offender was not known to the police, but that no longer mattered. These cases could often be long, drawn out investigations, but not in this case. They could wrap up the murder enquiry inside of a week. There would be congratulations all round if they could make an arrest and charge the killer in such short order.

They were feeling elated about this turn of events until one of them spotted something unexpected when the offender’s full particulars came up. The date of birth showed that the DNA’s owner was only five years old!

Over the following days the tests were repeated, thoroughly, but the results came back the same. It had to be some kind of mistake. Somehow the sample had been contaminated, yet no one could figure out how it had happened. Dejected and more than a little embarrassed, the detectives went back to square one.

Meanwhile, not far away, in the quiet corner of a kindergarten playground, a young boy was perched on a plastic stool, watching the teacher supervise children on play equipment. She had also been rude to him. He was quietly planning. His plans were well advanced.

She was next.

It sat on the dining room table, its wrapping pretty and colourful.

He would spot it when he got home. He would probably guess what it was. His birthdays had always been fairly predictable. His collection of tiny porcelain figures almost filled the shelf in the glass cabinet. He was late again. He’d be tired when he got home. His work was exhausting. Not only that, it was dangerous. Roof tiling was a hazardous trade. She knew about the statistics. She couldn’t remember the number of times they had talked about it; the number of times they had discussed the possibility of him doing something safer. But he never wanted to do that, he liked his job.
It was late in the evening, when the old woman carefully picked the gift up.
She walked down the hall with it and opened the cupboard. She placed it safely in the middle of the empty shelf that was reserved for it and closed the door.
With a shake of her head, she thought, maybe next year.

He used to enjoy really pleasant dreams… that was before the chickens.

He used to be able to rely on particularly nice dreams, the sort that you’d remember with fondness the following day. Like being somewhere really nice, like on the beach, just lying there catching the sun or strolling through some pretty forest, looking at all the different coloured flowers, smelling their fragrances, listening to the birds chirping in the trees, feeling the breeze on your face making you feel so alive! Such night-time reveries were wonderful. Then, gradually, night after night, the chickens would appear. At first it would be just the odd one spoiling the scene. But as the nights went on, those demonic things would grow in numbers. It always started the same way.

First he’d hear their horrible clucking, next thing you know they’d be round his feet. He’d be tripping over them. They would start to panic; running around bumping into each other. There’d be feathers flying everywhere, getting stuck to his clothes, up his nostrils… it was awful. He would wake up spluttering and choking, brushing imaginary feathers away from his face.

It was as though all of his lovely dreams had been turned into nightmares!

He couldn’t help wondering whether it had anything to do with chicken nuggets…