Author: Alexander Fawn

He sat looking at the medical report while the kettle boiled.

He’d been back at the doctor’s that morning to get his test results. It had been a shock. Now, perched at the kitchen table, he went over the information and thought about what he’d been told. He had been given a month, maybe five weeks at the most. Now, he had to think about what he would do with the remaining time that was allotted to him. He thought about the life he’d lived. What had he achieved? He made himself a cup of tea and took it into the lounge. He sat down in his favourite armchair and continued to think about his future. A future that would only span a few weeks.

He thought about his brother and how they had fallen out. They had not spoken for such a long time. He could make amends by getting in touch. He could apologise for his part in the disagreement. Then, there were others. People he had wronged in one way or another. If he were honest, they would be hard to count.

He thought about the life he’d lived. He wondered if he had really achieved anything. Could he have been a better person?

After a while, positive thoughts began to swirl around his head.

His brain began to clear.

Five weeks at the most wasn’t long, but…

If he was careful with his planning, he could rob another bank!

It was late and she’d been walking home when it happened.

She had just finished another overtime shift at the cannery and was feeling really tired. She wondered whether this kind of work was really suitable for a middle-aged woman to be doing. But then, she had often questioned this, and never got an answer. She had just turned into her street when she caught sight of a young woman standing with her back against a hedge, wiping her face with a tissue. She had obviously been sobbing. She didn’t recognise her, but slowed a little to make sure she was all right. The woman came forward a step.

In a shaky voice, she said, “I’m sorry, I must look pretty silly standing here like this, I’ve just had what was easily the worst day of my life and just needed to… you know, get out and just wander around for a while.” She shook her head with a nervous grin. “It’s OK, I don’t expect you to understand.”

The older woman smiled. “I do understand, dear. Don’t you worry about that. Is there anything I can do for you?”

The woman stepped forward a few paces. With tears still running down her face, she asked, with a sheepish voice, “A hug would be nice.”

So, in a quite unforeseen gesture on both their parts, for a few long moments, the two women stood there in a mutual embrace. For that brief time, neither gave any thought to what brought about what was an obvious cognizance.

The young woman stood back, and with a soft laugh she said, “Thank you.”

She turned and walked slowly back towards the town.

At times life becomes busy,

Requiring a retreat from humanity,

With a need for time out to reset

To an appropriate level of sanity.

–

Chaos is all very well.

It can bring a much needed churning,

And bring into relief,

Albeit quite brief,

A level of shrewd discerning.

–

By freely giving the time,

Gives results that easily exceed.

It’s not about when,

Or the prompts now and then,

But recognising the need.

The woman in the expensive ball gown was found lying at the edge of the field.

She had been dead for several hours, undetected, until a farm worker taking a short-cut to work in the early hours spotted her. Local police attended and made their reports, followed by a call to a detective working in homicide. Although he attended the scene promptly, his investigation had been very slow and drawn out. So much so that the chief constable called him in for a debriefing.

The investigator began. “It’s a complex case sir, not just a simple murder. I’ve been working on it for several weeks now. Anyway, this is what I’ve got so far.”

He opened his notebook.

“It was a local man who found the body. His name’s Jack and being a nimble fellow quickly ran to the farm and called the police. I’ve ruled him out. The farm itself is managed by old MacDonald, but it’s actually owned by the grand old Duke of York.”

Turning pages, he went on.

“Anyway, the day before the crime was committed, up at the farm, Polly, the owner’s daughter, was putting the kettle on when she heard little Boy Blue blowing his horn. When she went to the window and looked out she saw Jack and Jill climbing the hill. When I interviewed these two they said that a rumour was going around that Mr King, a wealthy man who lives just outside the village, who apparently spends most of his time in his counting house counting out his money, had given his son permission to look for the girl he had danced with at a recent ball.”

More page turning.

“Making further enquiries, I found out that the son, nick-named ‘prince’, had a slipper, and using a significant amount of his father’s generous allowance, was going around trying to find a foot that it would fit.” He looked up from his notes and shrugged. “Meanwhile,” he went on, “we had an informer come into the station. His name was Jack Horner, the young apprentice to the village cobbler. It seems he was sitting in the corner unnoticed, when a woman came in and made arrangements for his employer to make a slipper, like the one that the so-called ‘prince’ was taking around, but one that would comfortably fit her own foot.”

At this point he let out a sigh and said, “It just so happens that Jack is good friends with a boy called Peter, often referred to as the pumpkin eater, who is this woman’s younger brother. It followed that the story about the boy’s scheming sister and her apparent attempt to falsely claim the shoe as her own, spread quickly. Well, eventually, word of all this reached the ears of Miss Muffet, the close friend of a scullery maid, named Cinderella, who also worked at the farm. As soon as she finished eating her cereal, she confided in the one person she could trust, Mary, a close school friend that had a pet lamb. As far as we can make out, these two, the Muffet girl and the scullery maid, definitely had a strong motive to stop the pumpkin eater’s older sister, Cruella, from taking the scullery maid’s place. As a result, we do know that Cruella hired the ball gown to strengthen her claim, and that it was, in fact, her body that was found in the field.”

He closed his notebook.

“The problem is that both Cinderella and Miss Muffet have strong alibis for the time of the murder.”

The chief constable asked, “Any other suspects?”

The detective flipped through his notes again.

“There was a little girl…”

“Go on.”

“Well, she had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. I mean, she was really cute. Anyway, we found out that she’d had a crush on this ‘prince’ lad for some time.”

“So, could there be some jealousy angle here?”

“Maybe. I mean, to look at her you would say she was the picture of innocence, but…”

“But?”

“I know that listening to gossip is not the best way to run an investigation, but a number of people questioned came up with the same comments about her.”

“Which were?”

“Well, the general consensus was that when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.”

The senior policeman slapped his knee and said, “Bring her in!”

The boy had not been sleeping well.

He’d outgrown his soft toys, and was well into attending preschool, but regardless of this, his parents decided to get him something that would be of comfort to him at night. It was a large, softly stuffed chimpanzee. He was pleased enough when they gave it to him. There suggestion that he could cuddle up with it at night was appealing. However this only lasted for a couple of nights before his mother noticed bags under his eyes the next morning. It was her view that he was looking even more tired than before. Anyway, he seemed to go off to school without any real drama. It was later that morning that she found the monkey under his bed with sticky tape across its mouth.

When they were all back home together his parents questioned him about it. He explained that he wasn’t able to get off to sleep because from the very start the monkey had done nothing but go on about Darwin’s theory of evolution. He told them that it said it has issues with it. He said that it kept going on about how natural selection is grossly overrated as a means of survival. He thought it was quite interesting at first, but after half an hour he just couldn’t shut him up!

Some issues just never seem to go away…

At five minutes past ten on that Wednesday morning five things occurred, all at the same time.

The woman from Ambrose Street picked up the dog lead that she needed to take her Yorkshire terrier for a walk, while the boy with the bad tooth got out of the chair at the Best Smile dental surgery. Not far away, and at that very same moment, the van driver from Westlake Delivery Services climbed back into his cab; while quite unseen, the flea hopped from the carpet onto the dog’s back, and at the same time as all this, the girl left the school yard to post a letter.

The woman made her way to the top of the street, crossed the road and entered the park, while back in the car, the boy’s mother gave him a couple of painkillers before returning him to school. The van driver always suffered from hay fever around this time of year. Meanwhile, the flea made its way to the underbelly of the dog, while the girl was playing hooky for a few minutes because her busy mother needed the letter to be posted without delay.

In the park, the woman took the lead off her dog to let it run free. Arriving at the school, the mother dropped her son off at the front gate. As soon as the van driver got settled he felt an enormous sneeze coming on. The flea huddled deeper into the warm hair of the dog. At the post-box, after posting the letter, the girl stopped to check the collection times posted below the slot.

The dog chased around while the woman walked to the far side of the park. Before entering the school, the boy stood and watched as his mother’s car disappeared up the street. The man in the van sneezed, and the flea hung on tight while the dog bounded around in circles. The girl made her way back to school.

At the main road, the woman put the lead back on. Nearby, the boy saw the girl walking back from the post-box and the man in the van went to move off, then remembered how his mother had always told him to blow his nose after a sneeze. The flea made itself comfortable again when the dog stopped moving, and the girl spotted the boy and waved.

The woman waited for a break in the traffic before crossing to the shops, while the boy wondered where the girl had been, and although the driver was never really sure whether this was good advice or not, he stopped to blow his nose. At the same time, the flea settled down in the warmth of the dog’s hair, while the girl wondered why the schoolboy was standing there.

At a gap in the passing vehicles the woman started to cross with her dog, while the boy decided to wait to find out where the girl had been, and the van driver took off. The flea came very close to the dog’s flesh, while the girl walked faster, as she was curious about why the boy was standing there.

The woman felt the dog tugging at the lead, the boy watched the dog, trying to remember its breed, the man in the van stepped on the accelerator, the flea bit the dog’s belly, while the girl glanced over at the woman crossing the road.

The woman shortened the lead and held the dog tighter, while the boy, who had always wanted a dog, was admiring its colours. Meanwhile, the van turned onto the main road, the dog dropped to the ground and rolled around, and the girl stopped when she heard the dog yelp.

The woman looked around frantically to see if any traffic was coming, while the boy gasped, and the van driver, thinking that he might be getting behind with the morning’s deliveries, sped up. The flea was swallowed by the dog while the girl held her breath.

The woman made it safely to the shop, the boy was pleased that the dog was OK, in the distance, the van-driver approached the spot, seeing nothing, the flea was being digested, and the girl looked relieved as she and the boy returned to school chatting about what they each had been doing.

A couple of minutes later, the delivery van passed safely down the street because the driver did what his mother had always told him what to do. The day was saved, and all because he took his mother’s advice and stopped to blow his nose.

She was nervous about the upcoming appointment.

After many months of working on her idea, it was obvious that she would need help with putting it all into place. There were so many aspects to what she had in mind. Some of it, she realised, she could not do herself. It would require professional people to set it up. There would need to be a great deal of negotiating between parties. Apart from all this, it would need financial backing to get it started. Put simply, she had the idea but not the money. That was the only reason she would be visiting the offices of the firm that specialised in making money available for innovative projects, such as hers. After considerable research, she had come up with the most prestigious company in the city.

On the day, she was ushered into the plush office of the venture capitalist. He was the businesses top professional, with many years of experience of assessing projects for both their merit and their potential for growth. He was going over her proposal when she entered. He asked her to take a seat while he went over some of her submitted paperwork.

She sat patiently for a few minutes, before he spoke.

He looked up with raised eyebrows. “Let me just clarify, if you don’t mind?”

She shook her head, smiling. “No. Not at all.”

“What you seem to be proposing is to radically change the way customers make purchases. Is that correct?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I see. The idea being that a prospective shopper uses their home computer to locate a seller of some sort, say a store or a supermarket, that has a website that sells the kind of product the shopper is interested in. Is that right?”

Nodding, she goes to say something

He holds up his hand, saying, “Please bear with me.” He continues. “These companies that provide products, or even services, would need to have the facility built into their website to allow a search of what they are able to offer.”

He glances up. She only nods.

“If the person finds the thing they want, they then identify it, pay for it with some form of bank card and arrange for it to be collected or delivered.” At this point he gathered up all of the paperwork and returned it to the folder. “Have I summed all this up correctly?”

“You have, thank you.”

He sat back in his chair with an apologetic expression on his face. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “I just can’t see a thing like this getting off the ground.”

She was in her early twenties when they appeared.

It happened behind the chemist shop in the high street. This being one of several places for the homeless to bed down for the night. It was her favourite spot where six large skips were lined up on one side of the alley, providing five sleeping places, gaps between the containers. This was a preferred spot as it allowed a degree of privacy as well as giving some protection from the wind that often coursed down through the passage. Only one other nook was taken, meaning that it would be a relatively quiet night. She had been sleeping rough for as long as she could remember. On this particular night, like so many others, she was high on dope. Nothing unusual about that. In fact, she been doing drugs for most of her adult life.

She had run away from home when she was not much more than a girl. She didn’t finish her schooling. Street life was appealing at first. She certainly made lots of friends very quickly. There seemed to be a common bond among them. However, the attraction of her newly chosen lifestyle gradually wore off and a sense of resignation took over. Of course, the lack of proper hygiene together with a shortage of decent food had taken its toll. She had long given up any notions about getting clean or returning to any kind of meaningful life.

She was preparing to settle down for the night, when it happened. Wrapped in her blanket, she was sitting up, leaning forward to take a last minute look around. Although it was difficult to see, some distant movement caught her eye. The passageway was now quite dark, with only the streetlamps from the main road giving off a slight glow. She watched for a moment or two before she could make out three people walking slowly towards her. Well, not just people; a family. How strange, she thought. What appeared to be a couple and a child were gradually coming closer. They seemed to be talking to each other, but they made no sound. Likewise, their footsteps were silent.

When they reached her sleeping spot, they stopped. The parents stood looking around at the surroundings. In what light there was available and with them now being so close, she was gobsmacked to see that they were her own parents! They seemed to be quite young, but they definitely were her mother and father. The young girl, however… she wasn’t sure.

Then, quite suddenly, the mother crouched down beside her daughter and seemed to be explaining something to her. After this, she raised her arm and pointed to the woman between the bins. The child followed her mother’s directions and peered in at the down-and-out, who was now sitting up and staring out from the space in disbelief. At first, it was just a frown as she peered in, then the tears began to flow.

As she peered in, the other stared out.

They cried together.

They had never hit it off with their new neighbours.

It was quite common to hear them shouting at each other during the evening. They seemed to be all smiles when she met them in the street, but she knew it was just a front. In the main, she and her husband had as little as possible to do with them. That all changed, especially for her, the day the husband from next door came ringing her doorbell. It came about because she had put in an online order for an item she hadn’t managed to buy locally. She had been out on the morning the parcel was delivered. When she got back she found it sitting by the front door. She was quite excited because the item in question was a particular hair shampoo and conditioner that she liked. It always left a wonderful fragrance. For some strange reason local shops had none in stock.

If this was her order, it had been thoroughly padded. It was larger than she was expecting, but she took it inside with the intention of using the shampoo right there and then. She would make a cup of tea first, then take it into the shower, thoroughly wash out the old product and use the one she liked.

Once she was settled with her tea, she tore off the outer wrappings. It was a cardboard box, she opened it and there were a number of items, tightly packed with bubble wrap. There was nothing that looked like a bottle of shampoo. She had always leaned heavily towards curiosity and today would be no different. She began unwrapping things. She found a small box containing a hypodermic needle, a very small bottle that had no label, probably poison, she thought, a large roll of extra wide masking tape, and a square package containing a large folded plastic drop sheet.

Although she had her suspicions, she went looking for the address label. There it was, it was hard to read but it said number nineteen, not seventeen. This had been meant for their noisy neighbour. It had never been part of her relationship with her husband to keep things from him, but this time it would be different. At least, this would be the case for the time being. She went out again and returned having safely disposed of all items.

As expected, on the following morning, soon after her husband had left for work, the doorbell rang. She opened it to find him standing there smiling nicely.

“Ah! Good morning,” he started, “I was wondering if my package was delivered to you by mistake.”

She stepped forward and glanced at both sides of the front mat.

She said, “No. Sorry,” and closed the door.

Their son had always liked drawing.

His parents had encouraged this by continually providing sheets of A4 paper and as many coloured crayons as his heart desired. For a ten-year-old he was surprisingly talented. He was particularly fond of sketching buildings, mainly houses. On this occasion he was depicting what was obviously his home. The distinctive bay windows were recognisable features. He’d been working on it for some time when his father came into his room and looked over his shoulder, a thing he often did. This was partly through curiosity, but mainly because it gave him the opportunity to provide encouragement. Smiling, he recognised the house immediately. The boy, suddenly aware that his father was watching him draw, looked up.

“Do you like it?” the boy asked.

“Yes, I do. It’s great!” replied the father.

“Do you recognise it?”

“Of course, it’s our home.”

The boy nodded.

“The house is really good, and I can see you standing in the front garden,” said the father with a praising tone. He hesitated before asking, “Who are the people standing by the front door, they don’t look like mummy and daddy?”

“No. They’re not.”

“Oh! Who are they then?”

“Lodgers.”

“Lodgers?”

“Yes. I’m renting out the back room.”