Author: Alexander Fawn

Everybody has fantasies about it at one time or another.

Not many would like to admit it, but there would be very few people that could honestly say they had never wished someone dead. Despite the fact that in most cases this comes about in a moment of anger that fades away soon after. It could be brought on by an annoying spouse, a critical boss, a rude neighbour or a dangerous motorist. Should these feelings of retribution hang around a little longer, the imagination may well turn to considering the method of dispatch. These ‘get even’ scenarios can vary in intensity from a quick tap on the back of a head, all the way through to being dropped from a helicopter directly into the mouth of a live volcano!

It is a matter of serious debate as to whether imagining such evil acts of revenge is actually a whole lot better for a person, psychologically, than denying that they ever have them.

Just saying…

For the writer, there were far too many words.

He was miserably considering the unalterable fact that there were times when reducing something down to the smallest possible amount, by means of minimization, just doesn’t work. There had been other occasions when this had been a problem. He would have the story in his mind, but as it was being captured on the screen of his computer he would soon realise that it was going to need a lot of words for the telling of it. It was at times like these, the writer knew that he was in for a long slog. He could see that he wasn’t going to get the usual enjoyment and satisfaction from writing it. Right now, he was confronted with the worst of these situations. It was for this reason that he had called his friend.

They were both in armchairs, in the living room for comfort, when his friend said, “On the phone, you said you had a problem.”

The writer said, “I do.”

“The old imagination drying up is it?”

“No, the opposite.”

“Go on.”

“Thanks, you always were a good sounding board.”

His friend smiled and nodded for him to go on.

The writer relaxed a little. “I thought I had a great idea for a story, but it’s just too big! I’ve tried drafting it out, but its running into thousands of words already and I haven’t told the half of it yet!”

“Really… thousands?”

“Yes, really. You know I don’t do thousands, I do hundreds. Preferably around three hundred or so.”

His friend folded his arms and settled back in the chair. “Better tell me,” he said.

The writer sighed. “OK. The story goes like this… this exploration company is trialling a ground-breaking method of taking core samples. These are far deeper than anything the industry had done before. Then, when this one time the hollow drill is brought back up they find that the end of it is gold plated! You can imagine, the excitement this discovery generates. Because of the vastly increased depth, and the greater temperature, they have hit, not a seam of gold, but a liquid pool of the stuff. Well, the company sets to and builds a plant at the site and starts pumping the precious metal up. You realise of course that this is radically new technology being developed here. When the molten metal reaches the surface, inside the plant that is, it’s poured directly into moulds and left to cool as gold ingots.”

“You see, instead of all that other messing about?”

His friend sat thinking for a while. “Wow! Interesting idea.”

“That’s as maybe, but it’s taken several thousand words to describe that much properly. As for the baddies…”

“Ah! Of course, you haven’t come to them yet.”

“No. You can see how much of a threat this whole thing is. I mean, apart from how it impacts on the gold standard, there are some many other factions that want to get in on the action, both legally and illegally. The mind boggles. Well, no, my mind boggles. Just consider, the repercussions of using this new method of producing gold is going to have such a huge impact on the bullion market. Even the legal ramifications could impinge dramatically on world order, as we know it!”

The writer suddenly stopped speaking. “Do you realise that if I were to write down an account of this conversation, I mean… just me sitting here telling you about it, I would have to write at least six-hundred words to describe it?”

His friend grinned. “No doubt.”

The writer pointed his thumb at the ceiling. “Well then, thanks, I’ll do that…”

He had been sitting in the waiting area for a long time.

His doctor was usually pretty punctual. Although he could remember an occasion a couple of years back when he’d had to wait for more than half an hour. The reasons for the delay were described at the time and it was obvious that his GP had little control over the situation. After all, it was all in the nature of what a medical professional had to contend with. Today was not the same thing. Today he had been squirming on his chair for nearly two hours! He had considered concocting a story about having another appointment to go to and making a new appointment date at the front counter. On second thoughts, that might not go down really well.

Finally, he was called.

Sitting down in the practitioner’s room, he could see that the man looked quite harried. After a polite cough, the doctor said, “Sorry to have kept you waiting…”

He looked conflicted for a few long moments, then went on, “There are two versions for that. Either the one that says that I ate a large curry last night and have been suffering from diarrhea all day or there’s the one that says that I’ve had a couple of emergencies to deal with. Which one would you like?”

The patient, clearly shocked at the statement, thought for a moment, then said, “If it’s OK with you, I’d like to think about it…”

He had always been blessed with the personal attribute of looking on the bright side.

Regardless of this, his life was pretty dull. His work was boring, he lived alone, his apartment was uncomfortably small, the owners never did any kind of repairs, the wallpaper was peeling and the toilet never did flush properly. He had no partner and very few friends to speak of, it had been raining a lot recently and he really hated the rain, and on top of it all the neighbours that lived on either side of him were extremely noisy. On this occasion their din was worse than usual; there was a lot of shouting and a banging of doors. He had figured that it was a case of both sides holding rowdy parties at the same time.

He was sitting in his lumpy armchair, looking through to the kitchen at the huge pile of dirty dishes, when he first heard it. It sounded like some kind of police siren. He got up and opened the curtains. Looking down from his twenty-second floor, he saw a dozen vehicles and lots of flashing lights. A stream of people where running out of the building, directed by the police. They were being herded away. He could make out a huge crowd gathering in the park across the road.

One officer was holding a megaphone and making some kind of announcement. He could barely make out what he was saying, but it sounded like a warning to anyone left in the building. He definitely heard the word ‘bomb’!

He opened the window to hear what was being said. Over the loudspeaker the man was saying that the bomb squad were unable to defuse the device in the basement and were convinced that it would bring the whole building down. He was saying that the lifts were not working and residents should use the stairwell.

After a short spell of silence, the voice said that the bomb squad estimated that detonation would take place in less than a minute.

He walked back into the kitchen. He stood for a moment pondering. No matter how hard he ran, he’d only make three or four floors in less than a minute.

There was always a bright side to these things, he thought.

He wouldn’t have to do the dishes!

He noticed that his daughter had been sitting on the lounge room floor for some time, drawing.

She was using a set of coloured crayons to cover the page of a large colouring book. He took a quick peek every time he went passed. She seemed to be completely engrossed in what she was doing. As far as he could tell, it was a complicated drawing with what might be stick figures and lots of different coloured shapes. When his curiosity had finally got the better of him he went to have a closer look.

Crouching down next to her, he stared at a mass of coloured marks. He said, “So, what have we got here, sweetheart?”

She stopped scribbling and looked up. She giggled and pointed at the picture. “Can you see you?”

He squinted at it. “No,” he said, as though he was really trying.

“That’s you and that’s mummy and that’s me.”

“And the dots?”

“They’re flowers down by the lake. You know, the one near the shops. Mummy lets me play on the swings, sometimes.”

“Oh! I see them now. I don’t know what those are,” he said pointing to a cluster of tiny shapes.

“Ducks, and some other birds that I don’t know about.”

“And these?” He pointed at several brown boxes.

“They are the seats for people to sit on.” She poked at the paper. “See that there? That’s Tiddles, the cat from a cross the road.”

Pulling a funny face, he said, “Wow! How did it get there?”

She giggled again. “She walked, silly.”

As he stood up, he nodded sagely and said, “I think that’s a wonderful picture, honey.”

“Thanks,” she said, and picked up a crayon.

Minutes later, in the kitchen, he was telling his wife about the conversation.

“I know,” she said, “I could hear you.”

He looked really impressed. “I can tell you one thing, the kid’s got vision…”

The man in the bed at the end of the ward pressed the call button again.

The ward was full and the nurses were all busy. The long-term patient in room 17B waited for a response to his call. He didn’t expect to receive any special treatment, but that was the fourth time he had called, all with no response. It had been going on for days. He didn’t know who was in charge out there, but he had his suspicions. Meanwhile, one of the young nurses decided to have a word with the charge nurse about him at the first opportunity.

“He hasn’t had any visitors for weeks,” she began. “He seems to be perfectly articulate. I’m sure he feels isolated and alone in there.”

The charge nurse nodded.

“He certainly rings the call bell a lot,” the nurse added.

The charge nurse, knowing what a demanding and spiteful old misery the man actually was, shook her head. “You’re right; he’s not a happy case, I’m afraid.”

She didn’t care to explain that it would be best for everybody if her husband was best left with his own miserable company…

The man was what you’d call a political consultant.

He was sitting at his desk at the back of the house, taking one last look at the photographs. Although primarily involved in giving advice regarding the running of political campaigns, his speciality was opposition research. Quite apart from being very good at it, he always derived a great deal of pleasure from stitching people up. This had been a magnificent victory for his client and a lucrative one for himself. He checked the time. His visitor would arrive soon. Minutes later the front doorbell chimed. He let the man in, while sporting a beaming smile. They went through to the consultant’s room and sat across the desk from one another.

The consultant said, “You’ve heard, I take it?”

“I certainly have, papers and TV are full of it. It went exactly the way you said it would. Everyone else is in a state of shock.”

The consultant looked down at the half-dozen prints lying on his desk, face down between them.

His visitor said, “How’d you pull it off, that’s what I want to know?”

“Leverage.”

“How’s that?”

“Leverage. It’s what it’s all about, you know.”

His visitor started to say, “I’m not sure I….”

The consultant cut him off. “It’s incredibly simple really. It’s an action brought about when a rigid bar or pole is used to pivot at point A, to move a given object at point B, while applying pressure or force at point C.” While saying this he drew an imaginary illustration in the air with his finger. “Didn’t someone say, give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world?”

“Archimedes.”

“That’s him!”

The other repeated, “I just don’t believe it. I mean, how does one really swing an election?”

The other looked lovingly at his photographs as he slid them back into the envelope. “Wonderful pictures! Blew them up, you know. Amazing what detail you can see when you blow them up. Did it here on my own equipment, of course. Nobody sees these. This afternoon they go into hiding.” He sealed the A4 envelope and held it to his chest.

Realising what the other had done, the visitor said, “You’ll find some clever secret place for them, I suppose.”

“Oh! Yes, I’ll bury them, you can be sure of that.”

His visitor looked worried. “Not at all sure why you are telling me all this.”

“Ah! I always saw you as an astute fellow; astute but not big on the prediction of human behaviour in your fellow man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s about complicity, isn’t it?”

The other looked shocked. “Complicity?”

“Yes, you know the sort of thing; in collusion with, conniving in some scheme or other. In a case like this, he tapped the envelope, who can say how extensive the penalties could become. It’s not a gamble I’d like to take.” He opened a drawer, dropped the envelope in and pulled out a form. The application was fully made out. He pushed it across the desk. “It only requires a signature,” he said, with a smile.

The other picked it up. “What’s this?”

“Oh! A minor matter. For some reason, the golf club is being unreasonable about giving me membership. Something about a long waiting list, but you being the treasurer, well, your sponsorship should fix it, don’t you think?”

After thinking about it for a moment, his visitor took a pen from his pocket. “Leverage,” he mumbled under his breath, as he signed.

He only really wanted a moment.

If only he had a moment. He thought about all the things he could do, if he had a moment. Just a brief moment. If he could have that single moment, he could stand for that moment with his eyes closed and remember and hear the sound of water as it laps against his neighbour’s boat, as they fish. He could feel the swing beneath him, as it moves him to and fro, in the park he played in as a child, taste the rhubarb tart his granny serves every time he visits with his parents, see the carpet of bluebells that wound its way beneath the trees where he walked as a boy, smell the aroma as it spills out into the street while coffee beans are ground in the shop he used to pass, hear his mother’s voice calling him to tea.

If he had such a moment as this, he could watch the gulls as they circle out over the sea at summer camp, feel the cool evening breeze as it sweeps through the garden in summer, taste the salt water, while bobbing in the sea, see the orange sky of sunset, smell the smoky wind from his neighbour’s fire, feel the fur of his cat rubbing against his bare skin, hear the crackle of lightning while he lays in his bed, taste the homemade minestrone soup his auntie makes, see the crystals forming on his bedroom window, smell the roses in his friend’s garden, feel the gentle sway of his friend’s hammock, he could hear the sound of the train’s wheels as he peers out of the window, he could look on as the dolphins jump and play in the lagoon… how they love to play.

If only he had a moment.

Through the great stretch of time from atoms to life;

Measurements made for the control,

For the bringing about of required order.

Each elementary particle given assembly,

Given shape, given meaning.

–

As time washes up against some unknown shore.

All within the strata of boundless space.

Elements take on the sequences and patterns of atomic structures.

–

Matter being formed in so many ways.

Beyond the substance and material of it all,

Running through never-ending dimensions,

Atoms colliding and massing,

Twirling in their appointed designs.

–

Such things invisibly coming together.

A regimentation of electrons,

Both lost and found,

Bonding and moving away,

Attaching and letting loose,

Each to either clasp or repel.

–

What detours did these atoms take,

From the sub-atomic, building through to the cosmos,

Moving as they did, towards life?

Talks had broken down, again.

It had been building up for some time and it was obvious that something had to give. There was a great deal of animosity on both sides. This particular battle had been played out before with neither party willing to give an inch. There was a sense of deliberate warmongering on both sides. Why this situation was destined to come to a head time and time again was a complete mystery. The idea of sitting down at a peace table never seemed to be an option. The whole situation was, once again, about to get really ugly.

Finally, out comes the coin.

Let’s face it, somebody has to do the washing up!