Author: Alexander Fawn

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…

He had missed his bus out of the city and had half an hour to kill.

The nearby café was still open. It was a cold night. At least he’d have somewhere warm to wait. He went in, bought a coffee and sat down with it, taking his time. He looked around. Only two other customers. He supposed that the place was winding down for the day. A television hung from the ceiling. It silently showed a tennis game in progress. Suddenly, the game broke off for an item of breaking news. A full head and shoulders photograph of a man appeared, filling the screen. No sound, just a mugshot with a caption saying wanted for murder. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

It was a picture of him!

It certainly looked like him. Same hair colour and style. Same facial features, even the mole on his chin and the other by the side of his nose. Even he would have to say that it was him!

He instinctively looked around. He surmised that he was the only one looking at it. Then, the caption banner beneath rolled to say that the public should not approach him, as he is armed and dangerous. This picture was replaced by the newsreader, again, with only subtitles. He was saying that a woman had been attacked earlier in the evening. She had left the theatre and was walking to a taxi rank when she was dragged into an unlit doorway. She was robbed of her diamond necklace, stabbed and left for dead. When medics arrived at the scene, resuscitation was not possible. The newscaster went on, but the man had stopped reading.

How was this possible? This had definitely been his picture being broadcast on live TV. Was this some identical twin that he was never told about? Could it be a clone of himself or some kind of doppelganger? Another me, coming from some alternate universe, some parallel existence? So many possibilities. He knew that all of this was perfectly ridiculous, but he didn’t know what else to think. Was he being set up? If so, why him? He was a nobody!

Just then the television screen went black and the lights flicked off and on again. The man at the counter smiled and nodded, indicating that he was about to close.

He stood up and walked slowly to the door. He had no choice but to show himself in public. Outside he buttoned his jacket up and thrust his hands deep into his side pockets. It was at this point that he was confronted with yet another possibility; this one far more horrifying than anything he’d thought of so far.

This came about as his fingertips came to rest on what felt like a necklace!

The pastoral scene that adorned the wall of the alley was vibrant with colour.

The beauty of it would go largely unnoticed, located in a dead-end service lane well off the beaten track of shoppers and city folk. The artist, a girl in her early twenties, had always been talented. She had shunned the prospect of Art College, preferring to work her pictorial magic on any wall that presented itself, regardless of where she found it and without conscious care for who found it. She had always know that the lifestyle that came with her activities was not one that promoted good health. It had been a chosen life. Handouts and food scraps were all that fuelled her passion, and this winter in the city had been particularly hard. Survival was not at its best…

The truth of this could be seen by the bundle of rags at the foot of the fresco. The discarded takeaway food container and the empty choc milk carton that lay beside the bundle were the last. Although the morning sun crept along the wall, it heralded no life.

The bundle did not move.

It may be unkind to say that the lad wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it would be true.

He was standing on the railway platform in the city reading the notice. It told customers to speak up if they are aware of anything they regarded as strange. If it seemed in anyway unusual, they should say something. In large, bold letters it read, ‘Reporting anything unusual won’t hurt you’.

The lady standing nearby looked nice. He went over to her and in a low voice said, “Birds don’t urinate”.

She was startled and said, “I beg your pardon.”

A little louder, he said, “I’m letting you know that birds don’t urinate.”

Her face turned red.

He shrugged. “I’m just letting you know… I’m… reporting it.”

Although the poster had clearly stated that it wouldn’t hurt, the woman walloped him on the side of his head with her handbag!

It had been yet another hectic day in the despatch office.

She had stayed back to clear the paperwork after a late delivery came in. It was one that was due to go out on the following day. This is why she was riding on the late bus, feeling exhausted. It was going to be a late night. She would make sure she got a good night’s sleep tonight. Suddenly, as she considered this, a gentle smile flickered across her face as she thought about her small but homely flat that waited for her; waited to provide her with the sanctuary and comfort she needed. She had only moved in a few months back, but had made it her own special place very quickly. It had been more than a year since the divorce and apart from staying with her fairly stressful job, she hadn’t looked back. Life was good.

It was dark by the time she swiped her card to open the gate. As she approached her block, she was surprised to see that a light came from one of her windows. She stopped for a moment, confirming that it was coming from her living room. She had always been careful about switching everything off when she left in the mornings. Was this a home invasion? She doubted that she would leave that particular light on by mistake. Did she have the right window? She briefly considered reporting it to the police, it would only take a call on her mobile. Then, she imagined how embarrassing it would be if it turned out that she had simply forgotten to switch the light off.

Riding up in the elevator, she went over her morning movements trying to remember whether anything unusual had happened. She couldn’t come up with anything. At her door, she hesitated a moment, then let herself in. In the tiny entrance hall she could see a glimmer of light coming from the direction of the living room. She pushed the door open slowly and stood gawping. There, on her lounge, casually reading the latest copy of her Tiffany Magazine, was none other than Richard Gere!

She couldn’t speak; she just stood gaping. He lowered the magazine and looked up. He could see that she was in a state of shock. No doubt, it was because he felt bad about giving her such a unexpected jolt and wanted to make her feel more at ease with his being there, he held up the magazine, saying, “Tiffany, my middle name.”

At that moment, she was thrown forward when the bus came to an abrupt halt. She squinted through the window at dark and unfamiliar surroundings. As the conductor made his way to her she knew he was going to inform her that this was the end of the line.

She looked at the time.

Her late night just got later.