Author: Alexander Fawn

As hobbies go, it was harmless enough, until he hit on the formula that is.

For more than two decades he’d been mixing up and enjoying his own jars of relish. He’d always loved the stuff, using it to perk up some of the plainer foods like bread and butter, water biscuits and his favourite, rice cakes. Over the years his list of ingredients grew from half a dozen to more than two dozen items, some of which he bought while others came from his small garden. He was always experimenting with different quantities, ratios and combinations, so that any batch he produced was different from any other.

On the occasion in question he had been in the kitchen for more than an hour, stirring a bowl of thick sauce made up of tomatoes, spring onions, capsicum, apricot and pomegranate, all being mixed with lime juice, apple cider vinegar and olive oil. This was added to with sultanas, orange pieces, corn kernels and dates. The coriander, chilli powder, curry powder and dry mustard came next. Finally, like every other ingredient used, carefully measured amounts of brown sugar, ground black pepper and sea salt were sprinkled in. During this time, the stirring had not stopped and he was glad to finally pull up a chair and just sit staring into his creation. He was sure he would get three jars out of this batch.

Then, walking across to the cupboard, he did something quite unexpected. He opened up, and after gazing along the several rows of herbs and spices, took out three at random and added them willy-nilly to the mix. So haphazard was this last minute addition, that he didn’t even add the items to his current recipe. Had he realised at the time that he had created the strongest loved potion known to mortal man, he would have updated his notes.

The full awareness of what this spread was capable of bringing about, didn’t come to his attention until the young couple that rented the house across the road stopped by for a cuppa and some of his famous relish. Within minutes they were holding hands under the table and simply couldn’t stop smiling at one another. The fact that they got married on the following weekend seemed to clinch it. However, it took a visit from his spinster aunt a few days later to remove all doubt. After helping herself to liberal portions of his topping she left with a spring in her step and called two days later to say that she and her widowed neighbour were flying to Paris and would probably marry there.

When he received an email saying that his girlfriend would be back from her exploration company’s three-week field trip late the following afternoon, he set about tidying the house and preparing an evening meal. Naturally, he put out a plate of her favourite crackers, with a small tureen of relish next to it. He was really looking forward to seeing her; it had been a long time for them to be apart.

When the time came, he heard her opening the front door. He jumped up and crossed to the cupboard. He put the container of unique garnish back in the cupboard and took down an earlier batch.

He just couldn’t do it…

It was their regular haunt, they had always caught up there after work.

It was so handy, less than five minutes for both of them coming from their offices, just a couple of blocks apart. It was a nice, family-owned café that had been there for years. It would be a fifteen minute break before catching their bus at the stand across the street. It was always the quiet end of the day and they had always managed to find their regular table. Outsiders, seeing her there now, would probably find her behaviour strange, but the ritual had history. They had first met there. It had been a lunchtime during the midday rush. They met in the queue, talked about coffee and ended up sitting together.

That’s how it started. They were both in their first jobs, both keen to talk about their work and what they wanted to do with their lives. She remembered the day he’d suggested that they maintain that time and place as a sort of custom, and thought back to how readily she had agreed. There was a mutual understanding that the original encounter was such an important turning point in their lives, it should be respected, commemorated.

Nobody would have thought twice about it when he’d taken a day off with the flu, but it wasn’t the flu. Meningococcal disease took him in less than twenty four hours!

Now, it’s only the people behind the counter that know why she occasionally dabs at her eyes with a napkin.

 

He sat down with his son’s manuscript; the first chapter of his long-awaited book.

As a father, he was very proud, of course. He was delighted that his boy, a schoolboy, should embark on such a project, and one that was completely outside of the school curriculum. He began to read…

Chapter One

The Discovery

The man in the heavy blue duffle coat; blue because ‘Harry’s Smartware Emporium’ on the corner of Tudor Road and Plantagenet Street had run out of black, got out of the midnight blue, two-door hire car, rented from the ‘Self-drive Corporation’ at the end of Lancaster Street during the early hours of the morning as a result of his own silver-grey four-door saloon car being in for repairs, resulting from a road accident that wasn’t his fault.

Straightening, he carelessly crushed the paper cup that had held his Long Macchiato with his usual double hit of espresso, purchased only minutes ago from the ‘Happy Butterfly Café’ next door to “Mister Chin’s Chinese Takeaway’, and tossed it into the gutter.

He knew the man he was here to see was damaged goods and decidedly dodgy. Not damaged in the way some common kitchen utensil might get damaged if the owner used it inappropriately to prise the lid off a container of instant coffee, not the sort of damage that left the thing bent a little, no, more like the kind of damage the would be brought about if a twelve-ton steamroller went straight over something made of a very brittle plastic, like a small measuring cup; that kind of damage.

Despite this, he…

The father stopped reading and looked up.

Shrugging, the boy said, “Of course, it’s not quite finished yet.”

“Erm…”

The boy goes on, “There’s an interesting piece coming up where he tries to walk across a roundabout.”

“Yes, well, on the subject of roundabouts, I see in this… traffic lights, junctions, crossroads, detours, roadworks, and all manner of things slowing you down.”

The boy brightens. “As a matter of fact, there is an incident involving a detour.”

As he continues to read his father whispers, “I’m sure there is.”

The invitation card called for suit and tie.

This sort of clothing wasn’t at all fashionable in his world. His ambiance was more like tracksuit and slippers while manipulating things on a keyboard. The fact that he was a hacker was not widely known, not even among his friends. With his day job paying for all his necessities, he only regarded his evening pastime as a hobby. Over a number of years, he had become very good at what he did. In fact, he often surprised himself with what he could do. He had been to places within the internet that people simply couldn’t go. On occasion, he had felt that others were somehow aware of his presence. Naturally, it had occurred to him that the gentleman who had approached him in the shopping centre with the plain envelope may have knowledge concerning what he thought were his clandestine evening activities.

He had been given two days to present himself at the address provided on the card; sufficient time to rediscover his best suit, tie and shoes. It was also time enough for him to come to terms with the fact that he was perfectly willing to go along with whatever was about to transpire.

At the appointed time and place, outside the main entrance of one of the cities most prestigious buildings, the man that had given him the invitation smiled as he approached. With his finger to his lips the man shook his hand and guided him silently, through to the elevators. They entered one, and after a long ride up, came out onto a long hallway. He was led to a side door. His chaperon entered and announced their arrival.

It was a large boardroom with a central table. A number of professional looking people, both men and women of multicultural appearance, were seated.

On entering, they all rose.

It was obvious that his world was about to change. Whoever they were, and whatever he was about to become part of, he was very comfortable with the fact that he was the newbie.

When his cat died in November he had no one to talk to.

He stands, cup in hand, looking out at a spot near the back fence. He had never been much of a gregarious person, but shooting the breeze with his little mate had kept him going somehow. Was it him, or his sense of belonging? He wasn’t sure. There were others, of course; other people that were there in his life, available for conversation. Those that would happily ask how he was doing, or did he need something, kind neighbours. Even the friendly postman that delivered twice a week would stop and talk about the weather and how well his moped was running. He knows people mean well, but none of them can replace the friendly chats that he had enjoyed with Arnold. Although it had never been anything other than a one way kind of thing, he felt that his loving friend had understood him, had known what he was thinking or how he felt. Most of the time they would just sit together, just sit, saying nothing.

He had gone quietly, in his sleep. That’s how he found him all those empty months ago, curled up in his basket, not moving. Wrapping him up and burying him in the garden had been such a hard thing to do. He recalled how he’d spent an age in the shed looking for the longest piece of bamboo to use as a marker.

It is easily seen from the kitchen window. In the mornings, sipping on his first cup of tea, he looks out at it and nods. He pays his respects to a friend that he misses. A companion that was always there for him… after she, his loving partner, had been taken from him a few years back.

He likes to watch as the stick slowly lights up with the morning sun… and he gives thanks.

He had only met up with his companion recently.

Apparently he had come way down country, just for a spell. He seemed to be a bit strange, but they’d shared the room for a couple of days and the company was good. As for himself, he sat on the window ledge looking down into the street. He was anxiously waiting for the woman to appear. She had been out doing her regular morning shopping for food and he was getting hungry. The newcomer was still fast asleep on the couch. Finally, he saw her crossing the road and entering the building. She was a large woman and obviously struggling with two full shopping bags. Just the site of it made him even more ravenous. Here comes our elevenses, he thought.

He went over to his roommate and gave him a prod. He just twitched a little and went back to sleep. He heard the drone of the elevator, the jangle of her keys, he heard her coming in and putting the bags down in the kitchen. Any moment now, she’d be coming into the room. He was now quite heady with excitement. Surely, the newcomer could smell that!

He poked him again; still nothing. He didn’t seem interested in a midmorning snack.

Maybe, he thought, that’s just the way mosquitos are from up north.

His ten-year-old son had been missing for almost a year.

He was a widower and the boy obviously meant a lot to him. The youngster had been playing in the front garden on the day. Only one witness, a woman who lived on the same street, saw him wandering off towards the end of the road. The father could have no complaints about the massive effort put in by the police. Now, registered officially as a missing person and all activity on the case faded away, he turned to the internet for some sort of agency that dealt with this kind of thing. Some company that took on the job of searching beyond where the police had left off.

He had never been good at searching on the computer and had inadvertently ended up with a site that looked positively gothic. Even to his untrained eye, the area of the internet he was looking at seemed somewhat irregular. It claimed that it had a track record second to none for finding lost children. It wasn’t cheap, but the testimonials were impressive. Reading through the introduction he learnt that it guaranteed to locate and return the missing child within twenty-four hours from the time payment was received. With little hesitation, he sat down that evening and began the registration process. It involved filling out an extremely detailed application form that went on for several pages. At the end of a gruelling hour and a half, he paid the fee using the account details provided.

It was early evening on the following day that he was startled by a knock at the front door. Opening it, he found he was looking at a young girl.

She said, “My name is Rosy, I have been returned to you. Where’s my mummy?”

He had also never been good at filling out forms.

The neighbour had just popped in to visit his friend.

He had only just sat down when a bell sounded somewhere and he was left sipping his coffee while the man went to answer the phone. A minute or two later his friend’s daughter wandered into the room clutching a soft toy.

She seemed to be rather precocious as she came up to him holding it out to show him what it was.

“It’s a penguin,” he blurted.

She hugged it, saying, “Yes, he’s only a baby.”

He was feeling awkward. Now that his wife was gone and his children were living overseas, he had lost touch with the earlier generation. Nevertheless, he took a leap of faith.

“There’s a funny thing,” he began, “you’ll never guess what happened to me the other day when I was driving home.”

She cuddled her toy, saying, “What happened?

“Well now, just standing there in the middle of the road was a baby penguin!”

The girl’s eyes widened. “A real one?”

“Yes, a real one?”

“What did you do?”

“Ah! That’s the interesting thing, you see. The next day I took him to the zoo.”

The girl sat enthralled. He sat waiting for her to break the silence. She did. “What happened then, was everything alright?”

“Oh yes,” he replied, “it certainly was. He enjoyed it so much I’m taking him to the cinema next week!” He chuckled. She wasn’t laughing. “What do you think of that, eh?”

The girl looked perplexed. She said, “What about its mummy and daddy?”

He frowned, “What do you mean?”

“Where’s its mummy and daddy?” Her eyes began to water. “If it was only a baby and all alone, someone has to find its mummy and daddy.”

Just then he heard his friend hanging up.

“Yes, OK,” said the story-teller quickly. “I’ll do my best to find them.”

“That would be nice,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It must have its mummy and daddy,” she repeated softly as she wandered off.

The father came back, shaking his head. “Sorry about that. It’s supposed to be my day off! Trouble in the office; turns out it was only a misunderstanding. They can creep up on you, can’t they?”

The neighbour said under his breath, “They certainly can.”

She had settled down nicely in the new town, albeit in a foreign country.

She soon picked the language up and had made several new friends. The house she had rented was adequate for her immediate purposes and the town had all of the services and shops that you would expect. It was while on one of these regular shopping trips that the incident occurred… yet again. She’d been through the checkout and was loaded up with two full bags. As she came out of the shop, she heard somebody call out.

It was a tourist. He came rushing up to her with a broad smile.

“Well! Look at you,” he said, “it must be fifteen years, at least! Our mystery, disappearing neighbour.”

She frowned heavily. “I have no idea who you are,” she said, in a foreign tongue.

He stood gaping.

She shrugged and hurried off with her shopping. No bus today, two blocks away she hailed a taxi. She got dropped off several streets before her destination. Walking the rest of the way she removed the card from her phone and dropped it down a roadside drain. A short distance further on she found a bin and tossed the phone in. Once she was in the house, she knew the routine. She dumped the shopping bags on the kitchen table, packed a suitcase, opened the metal combination case, removed the leather pouch, selected a passport along with matching currency, used the backup prepaid phone to book a flight and called a taxi.

She would have to vanish again…

Stand in awe, staring into a thousand trunks.

A clamour of magnificent pillars, riotous in their cavalcade.

Each one different to the very last;

By their girth, their height, their colour, their texture.

All with branches disappearing into the upper green of the forest.

On these pillars, a disorder is found through a myriad of patterns.

And through this medley of shapes, this disorder, comes a variety;

Seemingly unplanned within its diversity.

A wooded scene that combines how nature expresses its propensity for individuality

And its innate ability to show what beauty can be found in such a random scene.

Pillars; magnificent pillars!