Author: Alexander Fawn

He was strolling through the small pop-up market, killing time.

His bus wouldn’t be there for another twenty minutes. He liked perusing the various bits and pieces these temporary markets had to offer. He stopped at the second-hand stall, it had mainly electrical goods on display. The laptop caught his eye. He picked it up and turned it over. The vendor spotted him showing an interest. He moved closer.

“Nice one, eh? Good model, that,” he said, looking hopeful.

The man nodded.

“Top quality piece of kit,” he said, “comes with a full-sized keyboard, Windows 10 in S mode, dual-core Intel Celeron processor, 64 GB storage, high-definition display, SuperSpeed USB Type-A at 5Gbps.”

He cocked his head looking pleased with himself.

“It’s MU-MIMO supported,” he went on, “with dual front-facing speakers and drop box cloud storage, SD and Micro SD card reader, Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2.”

The man shook his head, saying, “I couldn’t possibly buy it.”

The seller looked perplexed. ”Why not?”

“Well, to put it simply, receiving stolen property is a crime.”

The man behind the stall looked edgy, he said, “What do you mean?”

“Mind you,” the man continued, “the far greater crime of selling it knowing that it’s stolen, carries a much greater penalty, along with a prison sentence, of course.” He turned it over, pointing to the smiley face with one curly strand of hair standing up. He smiled. “Scratches that on everything, my son does. Cute eh? It was stolen from his school bag only a couple of days ago.”

The seller looked around. “Take it!” he said.

The man grinned. “Can’t do that,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, here’s the thing. If I were to take that, knowing, as I do, that it is stolen goods, I would be putting myself on the wrong side of the law.”

The other stood speechless.

“Unless…” said the man, with raised eyebrows.

“Yes? Unless what.”

“Unless there were some sort of incentive, regarding the risk I’d be taking, that is.”

The seller nodded his head slowly. “What sort of incentive?” he asked.

“Oh! Fifty should do it.”

The seller scowled and dipped into his tin. He held out a fifty note.

Pocketing the money, he picked up the laptop.

“Have you got a bag?” he asked, with a perfectly straight face.

She had always been a crazy, risk-taking, kind of a kid.

Her young playmates had always loved her for it. It was nothing to see her walking across the roof of their house, or in the nearby playground, at the top of the tallest tree, swaying around on the thinnest of branches.

Her mother said that Wagner had a lot to do with her aggressive, carefree nature. The girl had been taken to an opera when she was young. Without understanding much of it, she loved the idea of these heroic female warriors being given special treatment when they were taken to the afterlife. Her father was only too keen to pass on all of the lurid details. From that time on, her expensive poster hung on her bedroom wall. The warring figure waving a mighty sword, sitting astride a great white horse, its wings spread wide, carrying the warrior into battle.

At night, she would dream of entering the hall of the fallen, taken their by Odin’s attending maidens, to be honoured as a chosen warrior. These fantasies became more and more real and it was around this time that the drugs really took hold.

As she grew into her late teenage years she bragged openly about being able to cheat the grim reaper. Her friends listened wide-eyed to her boasting, always giving the impression that they shared her feelings. However, it was that delicious mixture of absolute dread and the elation of pure ecstasy coming together as one that drove her on. Only she could properly understand it.

Then came the scooter; not powerful, but pretty nippy. She refused to wear the helmet her parents had bought her. Nordic riders didn’t wear them, and that was that!

On that wet Saturday evening when both wheels slid sideways at the same time, she fell so heavily that she barely saw the truck.

Valhalla wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting.

He had no idea why or how it had happened to him.

He hadn’t asked for it; not any of it. The day it started he was tilling soil in his back garden. A fairly insignificant activity, you would suppose. He was doing the final rake over, just to leave it looking nice while giving himself time to think about what he would plant there, when he felt the vibration. At first, he had the nonsensical thought that he’d hit something electrical, despite the fact that the rakes handle was made of wood. He dropped it anyway. It was then that he realised that it was the ground beneath his feet that was shuddering. It only lasted a minute or two before stopping abruptly. This incident left him feeling a little strange, so he gathered up his garden tools, put them back in the shed, then went back in to make himself a cup of tea.

That’s how it started. What followed was undeniably astonishing, but not necessarily a good thing. In a way he was glad he lived on his own and didn’t have to share the events that occurred over the following days. To put it simply, he found that he was suddenly in possession of a couple of super human powers. After a brief period of denial, he slowly allowed himself to put these newly acquired abilities to the test. He did this by going out of his way to pay attention to the news and weather forecasts, together with getting out and talking to people. In this way he confirmed for himself that he was, in fact, both a seer and a telepathist.

A seer or fortune teller because he had woken up with the strong feeling that he knew the name of the previous evening’s unlikely winner of the World Championships Snooker final. This was despite the fact that he had never followed the sport and knew very little about the game. He only had a name in his head. A trip to the newsagents had settled that. A telepathist or mind reader because while buying the newspaper he had disturbed the shop owner’s peace of mind by asking him whether he had decided to plant Nasturtiums or Sweet Alyssums along the border in his back garden. He never received an answer owing to the fact that he had left the man in a state of shock.

As it turns out he was a quiet person, a widower and retired botanist, and all he ever wanted was a quiet life. He also had the good sense to know what a ghastly burden these new powers could easily become. He quickly made plans.

The first thing was to purchase the winning ticket in the giant super lottery, then to put his house on the market, to have his winnings transferred to a Swiss bank, to book a flight to Martinique, sometimes referred to as ‘the island of flowers’, to book into a hotel and look for a suitable property, an finally… to keep quiet about it.

Anybody who knew her would tell you what a truly nice person she was.

However, there was this singularly persistent weakness; this one fault, like a flaw in a diamond. She was, and always had been, truly naïve. This propensity to believe everything she was told or read had so often caused a problem. However, her personable nature together with her natural charm had always lessened the impact of it. This being the case, her tendency towards gullibility, had always been offset by those who knew her showing their understanding, and so the abnormal quirkiness was mostly allowed to pass with little comment.

On the day that it happened, she was sitting in her dentist’s waiting room, along with several others; they were obviously running behind. She was giving up part of her lunch break to get her regular check-up. Her boss was strict about timekeeping and she had to keep an eye on the clock. It was then that she read it. She had picked up a current copy of the local newspaper from the magazine table and to her great astonishment, found herself reading her obituary. There it was, as large as life in black and white, all correctly spelt, with the obligatory ‘untimely taken from us’, at the end, in a light script text. At first she simply sat in a daze.

After a spell of deep contemplation, she got up quietly, still clutching the paper, and left. Outside, she crossed over to the park and found that her favourite bench was unoccupied. She sat reading it again. At first glance, there was no mention of how she had died. She read through several entries before finding a second, lengthier description. According to this she had been hit and run down by a car in this very town. It took a long time and a lot of deliberation and logical analysis of the situation to make a decision; breaking with this habit of a lifetime, this hindering tendency of believing everything regardless.

She wasn’t dead. She obviously wasn’t dead. What the paper said was plain wrong. She said this softly to herself. In fact, she felt that the paper should be held accountable for printing these things without checking. Their office was only a block away. If she hurried, she could go there straight away and confront them with their mistake, and still return to the office in good time.

Naturally, it goes without saying, that she never saw the car coming…

The physician sat thinking about the incident.

What the neighbour had done was truly horrible. It had been dark on the evening he’d stepped out into the back garden to call his cat in. He hadn’t even began to call when he heard loud feline swearing coming from the garden next door. This was followed by a mixture of a cat’s squealing and a man’s mumbling. He had trouble believing what he saw next. His neighbour approached the low dividing fence and swinging the cat by one of its hind legs, he tossed it over! Frozen to the spot, the whole affair had left him so dumbstruck that he heard his neighbour’s door slam shut well before he was able to move. Remarkably, his precious cat seemed agitated and spooked by the ordeal, but otherwise unharmed.

Weeks passed before his neighbour came into the surgery. He’d treated him for years. He’d always come across as somewhat sullen, but had never given the impression that he could be capable of such wickedness. He came in complaining about chest pains. There was barely any hesitation on the doctor’s part. A simple injection would do the trick.

 After a couple of days, it did. The contents of the syringe would never be identified. He had signed the death certificate and the case was closed.

He squirmed on his seat a little at the thought of it. He well knew there was a morality issue that had to be faced. There was an inevitable scale to be considered. A weighing up between his taking the Hippocratic Oath and his lifelong membership of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

There was guilt on one side and celebration on the other.

He smiled up at the barman and ordered another Martini!

When he was a kid he’d visit his grandpa a lot.

He was a funny old man who was always playing the old six inch vinyls on his equally old machine. He was a great fan of Buddy Holly & The Crickets. Buddy was a popular rock and roll singer from the fifties. His favourite song was ‘That’ll Be The Day’. Unfortunately, because it had been played so often it ended up getting scratched. Every time it got to the part where he sings, ‘Cause that’ll be the day, when I die’, the needle started jumping, and the phrase, ‘when I die’, just keeps repeating over and over. Whenever this happened, the old man would pretend to jump, as though he wasn’t expecting it. He’d say, “Oh! No!” and go over to it and give the needle a tap. The boy would laugh at this performance and the old man would laugh with him.

That was a good while ago now, and his grandpa has long since passed away.

As for the whole phrase, it just doesn’t bring happiness any more.

She woke from a horrible dream, sweaty and tangled in bedding.

She lay there breathing heavily. She looked at the clock. The alarm wouldn’t go off for over half-an-hour, so she could lay there, clawing it all back. It was vivid in her mind. It was all about falling, but never quite hitting the ground; and it was repetitive, very much so. She knew where she was in the dream. It was a picnic spot she would go to with the family before she moved out. It was a great, grassy area near the sea. Part of the grounds had been fenced off because the cliff edge was deemed to be unsafe. Somehow, she was there, passed the fencing, walking along the edge when it collapsed under her feet. She was falling down the cliff face. Falling, that is until she managed to wildly lash out and grab a flimsy tree root coming through the rock face.

She sighed heavily as she lay there having a clear picture of that moment in the dream. The feeling of relief. The terror she had felt slowly subsiding. The feeling of hope, of rescue, of climbing back up. Then, the first of the repeated events. The root began to come away from the crevice and she was losing her grip at the same time. It was that ghastly moment that would be repeated throughout the nightmare. Would the root come loose or would it slip through her fingers? Each time she actually lost her grip. Each time she began falling again. Each time she would grab hold of a root to stop her fall, but every time this happened, it was the same root! The very same root, over and over…

She was slowly coming out of it all. Gradually coming back to the real world and feeling a lot better. In fact, she must have dozed off for a while, because the alarm woke her. She lay there again, thinking about the dreadful night she’d had. This time she was able to let it all go a lot quicker. Her mind turned to the things that she had to do today; the bit of shopping that she must remember to do when she leaves work later. This was going through her mind as she pushed the covers away and swung her legs out. She sat on the edge of the bed massaging her face for a while. She was still shaking the nasty incident off when she became aware of something odd under her feet. She looked down and saw the root!

She began to scream.

The old woman picked up the phone, mainly to stop it ringing; she didn’t like phones.

A pleasant male voice at the other end was saying, “Good morning madam, I’m calling from Worldwide Charity. How are you today?”

“Sorry, my hearing is not so good, would you say that again?”

“I was asking how you are today.”

“Is that you, Rodney?”

“No. My name is Clive.”

“Number five? Did you say five? You have the wrong number, I live at twenty-seven.”

“No madam, I’m Clive, and I’m phoning to let you know that our charity is currently running a special lottery.”

“Oh! I’m sure I haven’t placed an order for pottery.”

“No, madam it’s a lottery. We have found that in the past these lotteries have been especially popular amongst women.”

“But they don’t, do they?”

“Sorry, don’t what?”

“Swim.”

“Who doesn’t swim?”

“Monks, I’m sure they don’t swim.”

“Oh! I see. No madam, I said amongst women. Anyway, this year‘s grand prize is a new Toyota.”

“Oh! I’m much too old for a new toy Yoda. Although my grandson may be interested. How much did you say it was?”

“Ah! I’m glad you asked me that. We have greatly reduced the price of tickets, as we are aware that many people are trying to make ends meet.”

“Hen’s meat? Do you mean chicken?”

“Madam, any contribution you care to make will support our current drive, we have programmes in place to support youth in Asia.”

“No! I’m sorry, Colin. I don’t support euthanasia!”

The phone went down with a thud.

The man with the grubby clothes and woolly beanie stood looking down at the dead man and smiled.

He considered this was a good night’s work. It was late and the streets were empty. The lowlife had it coming. He was a suspect in at least two murder cases. He’d never been charged, for a lack of evidense. He was with the dead man in the club, earlier that evening. He and his cronies were gathered in the private room at the back. He had been very drunk, bragging about how dumb the cops were and how he’d run rings around them. He had reckoned that the lack of evidence had them beat every time.

The man glanced around, the place was still deserted. He walked back to his car and climbed in. He sat thinking for a while before moving off. He drove a short distance to a public telephone and made a call. He then drove to the other side of town where he pulled to the curb, leant across and cracked opened the passenger door. He dropped the switch blade through the grid of the drain cover. He then made his way, slowly back to the scene of the crime. When he arrived, he pulled the old, battered car over. He sat for a moment watching the blue lights flashing.

He got out of the car and strolled across to the scene. Seeing a detective he knew, the undercover detective in the grubby clothes and woolly beanie asked what was going on.

Peering through a tiny pinhole into the world of pollies,

Why do we tend to laugh?

In the pragmatic world of business

These celebrities are only staff.

–

Are these people equipped and trained to deal with

Offshore accounts and religious fanatics,

Media moguls and freedom of speech,

Mourning widows, the everyday folk,

And the common good for each.

–

Paupers and princes alike are there,

With the bailing out of the banks.

The ballot boxes are never far from mind,

When the pollies are given thanks.

–

How do those with untamed egos

Really deal with the common strife?

How do they handle the seeds of revolution,

Or the makers of arms, or the loss of life?

All struggling actors playing their parts,

With so many weighty responsibilities,

All marching to beats of different drums.

How did they ever become celebrities?

–

Although the TV images linger,

They strut, they swagger, they thump and they shout.

So many are left with only a picture or two,

And a vague notion of what it’s about.

–

The Roman Senate played its part,

Changes ranging both far and near.

Are we not able to review the whole thing,

And come up with a better idea?