Author: Alexander Fawn

It took place on a Thursday at two in the afternoon and took around seven minutes.

Their son was out with friends, so he missed the entire thing. The couple were looking at brochures and discussing their holiday plans when a ram was used to break in the front door. The first two invaders were men dressed from head to toe in black. They carried short submachine guns and stood pointing their weapons at each of them. The two that followed were a man and a woman, each wearing white lab coats, looking like medical personnel, possibly doctors. The man went forward and lifted the husband’s chin, while the woman with a clipboard studied it, then the man’s face, then nodded. At that point, one of the soldiers came forward, pulled the husband out of his chair and held him face down on the floor while he cuffed him.

The two in white stood aside while the soldiers, taking an arm each, lifted him to his feet and marched him out into the street where he was bundled into the back of a waiting unmarked ambulance.

The whole thing was more or less carried out in silence. The wife wanted desperately to scream, but was too petrified and passed out halfway through the operation.

Once all four people were in the vehicle, it took off at high speed.

During the days and weeks and years that followed, no explanation was ever forthcoming.

So, be warned!

They stood looking through the large one-way window into the room.

The man and woman stood in silence for several minutes, while inside, an elderly patient was bent over a small table. He was squinting at a large number of multi-coloured pieces, picking each one up slowly, and then placing it back down with great care. His movements gave any random observer the sense that they were watching activities being carried out in slow motion. Alongside of this scattering of pieces he had a pair of scissors and several varying scraps of sandpaper, all laid out for his use.

The man in the white jacket was saying, “He’s been with us for a couple of months now. It’s heartening to see him making such steady progress.”

The newly appointed carer asked, “What’s he doing?”

The doctor said, “A jig-saw puzzle.”

She frowned. “No. I mean, with the scissors.”

“Reshaping.”

“What?”

Smiling, he nodded at the man, saying, “That’s what he calls it; reshaping. He’s cutting the pieces so they fit.”

“And you let him?”

“Oh! Definitely. We all do that.” The man grinned. “In life, I mean. We all tailor our perceptions to marry up with the world we want.” He looked back at the old man and smiled contentedly. “It’s rather an advanced way of looking at things, don’t you think?”

She shrugged. “Not really. I would see it quite simply as a denial of reality.” With that, she immediately felt that she had spoken out of turn. “Sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t…”

“Not at all,” he interrupted, shaking his head.

Relieved at this, she went back to gazing through the window. She watched as the man took up a sliver of sandpaper and smoothed off the newly cut edges.

“Ah! Reality, yes,” he went on, “your reality, no doubt. But for the people we look after here, they need to find their own. In most cases, they’re quite desperate for it.”

He went quiet for a while. She waited.

“There are so many you see. So many realities.” He nodded at her. “There’s yours, there’s mine, and of course…” he turned back to the window, “there’s his. Philosophers throughout the ages have argued back and forth about what reality is. We’re not trying to define that, of course. We are simply assisting our patients to find theirs.” He then added, “We use this rehabilitation technique quite commonly here, with most of our inmates.”

The woman sighed deeply and said, “I suppose this sort of treatment requires a great deal of patience.”

He shook his head. “Not really, but we do have other issues.”

“Other issues?”

“Yes. We really must get into town and pay another visit to the second hand book shop.”

Confused, she asked, “You do?”

“Yes, we are running out of puzzles.”

The inspector wasn’t looking forward to attending the crime scene.

He wasn’t surprised by his own lack of enthusiasm. He read the notes made by the duty sergeant, details taken down when the call came in. He went over them as soon as he arrived at the station. It seemed to him that there were far too many cases like this one. Large manor house, big, sweeping driveway, lord and lady, two children, two guests invited for dinner, a butler, a cook; someone gets murdered, probably the lord, nobody really liked him…anyone standing close to him when he read it would have heard him moan, “Oh! No! Please, not this old chestnut,” but nobody did.

When he arrived at the property, it had a big sweeping driveway, of course, he thought. His knock was answered by the butler, who said, “Good evening, inspector. I’m the butler.” It was all the inspector could do to stop himself saying, “of course you are.” He was ushered into the main hall, where the family and guests were waiting.

He questions everybody. Usual thing; their all at dinner, the lord of the manor leaves the table and goes to his study, a fuse blows and the lights go out, a shot is heard. The lights come back on. In the study, the lord is dead, gun lying on the desk. Everyone is devastated by the events of the evening.

Here we go again, he thought. Eight people in the house, one dead, seven suspects. After questioning them all again, separately, it was evident that they all had motives to bump the old guy off. There wasn’t one decent alibi between the lot of them. It was pretty obvious that they all hated him, except for the butler, who seemed to be quite fond of his master. In that case, it was most likely the butler who did it, the inspector thought.

When he had finished, he wished them all goodnight and returned to the station. Nasty old sod, he thought, probably had it coming.

He wrote the thing up as a suicide.

Is the notion of an idea really so dependent on understanding information?

Does it go far beyond?

Ideas being juxtaposed with reality,

When even the filters put in place begin to fade.

–

So often, there are no red flags to warn the unwary,

With the ill-informed, allowing distortions to take the centre,

With an introverted perspective gaining ground,

Applying particle accelerators to an old idea, pushing it past its best before date.

–

Better to welcome the fragments of random knowledge.

Better to entice impressions that are on the very edge of becoming.

Crafting shapes from thoughts and seeing the best of it.

Paying heed to all viable means, where nothing is unalterable.

–

To allow the brightness of a thought’s shimmering colours.

To enable the freedom of expression and poetic truth to go hand in hand.

To collaborate with a permutation of notions, fully capable of touching the heart.

To let slip small persuasions, and to draw a curtain on it all.

–

Unthreading such a tapestry of moments taken for granted.

Unpicking without losing the thread.

Leaving ideas uncovered, exposed to the light,

And all resurrected from the jangle of a larger weave.

He was kicking the ball around in the park when it happened. It hit the tree and careered away sideways, jumping the flowerbeds and heading for the road. It didn’t stop. It was a good kick, probably his best ever. It rolled slowly out over the curb. He ran behind it, but stopped at the footpath. He watched it go. He stood teary-eyed as it came to rest.

What is it that a child thinks, when he sees his ball bounce out into the road? Does he remember the good advice that his parents gave about never running after it? How real are the warnings about being hit by a car?

He needed to get it back!

A month later, it was his tenth birthday.

He was there…

During their final year at school they dated.

They got on really well. During the week they often spent time drinking chocolate milkshakes in the café between school and their bus stop. It was sad for both of them when his family moved to another town. She began as a trainee hairdresser while he started studying chemistry in his home town. They kept in touch by email from time to time, but this gradually dropped off.

Five years later, he was back in his old town, where he’d been visiting an old school friend. He was on his way back to the carpark when he saw her coming out of a shop. She looked really surprised to see him. They stood in the street chatting for a while, then checking the time, he said, “I see the café’s still there. Do you fancy a milk shake?”

Her face lit up with a lovely smile. “That would be wonderful,” she said.

He was on the club committee.

He was attending one of the football club’s regular meetings when proceedings gave him a hint that something was not quite right. Some of the figures being read out left him wondering. Over the following weeks he delved into the club’s finances. The further he went with it, the more obvious it became that the club’s manager was systematically moving club funds into his own private account. He had never liked the manager, always had a bad feeling about him. These were not large amounts but they were regular. Because it had being going on for more than two years, he realised that the amount being stolen would be building up. He loved his club and knew that he needed to speak up.

It was the first time he had ever considered being a whistle-blower. He gave it a lot of thought. He knew from news reports that people often ended up in strife when they were just trying to do the right thing. As a result of thinking it through, he decided to take a friend into his confidence. He knew that his friend had the skills he needed.

At the end of their meeting, the committee member asked, “You can do this without leaving a trace?”

“Yep. Sure can.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Not a problem. I’ll use a cheap prepaid phone, then throw it away.”

“OK we’ll save it for the big game.”

When the big day came the stadium was filled to capacity. Everything went as usual, with the huge crowd enjoying the game.

It happened at the half-time break. The large screens at either end of the field suddenly blacked out. Moments later the message came up in large letters.

‘Club funds are being syphoned off into the manager’s private account!’

A great murmur went through the crowd.

She felt that things were changing, or maybe about to change.

On the short walk to the café for her morning starter, the sense of something unseeable was gnawing away at her. It was hard to describe the feeling, even to herself. Maybe it was just the way her landlord looked at her… again. Or the girls in the despatch office, with their nasty little minds. Of course, the fact that her boyfriend came home very late again didn’t help. She could have done a lot better for herself in that department. As she rounded the corner, the coffee shop came into sight. There was that feeling again, growing stronger. Would she order the same old latte again? She went in feeling strangely nervous.

It was busy, as always. The three people in front of her gave her a chance to check out the list of drinks on offer. She stood in a daze, reading the board. She thought, it’s all about change, isn’t it? She spent so long thinking about this that the queue had gone and the guy leaning on the counter next to the machine said, “Hello.”

She snapped out of it. “Yes, sorry, can I get a long macchiato please… to go.”

The barista just nodded.

“Eh! I get two shots in that, right?”

He gave a small smile. “Sure do.”

To go, she thought. I just ordered coffee to go. I don’t do that. I sit by the window keeping track of time, looking out at the people gathering at the bus stop, waiting for the same bus I catch. She became aware of the man saying something.

“Sorry?”

He smiled again, bigger this time. He was holding a takeaway cup and felt-tip pen. “I said, name.”

“Oh! Sorry. Ethel.”

The man shook his head, looking over at a distant table. “No, we have one of them; middle name?”

“I… I don’t have one.”

He almost giggled. “Never mind, anything’ll do.”

She thought hard for a moment. “Autumn. Yes, Autumn will do.”

He wrote and she waited.

After standing by the door thinking about her new name for a while, she heard it called out. She left the shop, crossed the road and made straight for the ATM.

It was as though she was running on automatic. She couldn’t remember ever taking out this amount of cash. She only just managed to catch her regular bus. After a few minutes the bus pulled up at her stop. She didn’t move.

Autumn would never look back.

Incantations to order, was her motto.

Her shop was rather old, but she kept it nice and clean. For the best part of a decade the old sorceress had been selling custom-made on-the-spot incantations to her customers. It was a unique service and very popular. When they came, her guests could always rely on being offered a cup of tea or a coffee and given a seat while they explained their situation and told her what they wanted. She had done very well out of it, until recently. Her customers had been dwindling for several weeks. It took a while before she found out that she had competition. The word was that a woman was peddling incantations from her home. From what she could find out, the woman’s spells were nowhere near as good or as powerful as hers, but she was selling them at much cheaper prices.

She decided to fight fire with fire. She went into her back room and opened the cupboard. The shelves were crammed with books. She selected a dozen or so that she felt might contain what she was looking for. She would be breaking new ground. This had never been attempted before. She was a long time going back through all of her many volumes of magic spells. Finally, she found what she was looking for. It was a complex incantation and she would have to spend some time practising it. That evening, after dark, and holding the selected book, she carefully climbed up through the hatch onto the roof.

She stood looking out at the town’s lights while she gathered her thoughts. She knew the words, but held the book open at the relevant page, to add power to the spell. It would be a special incantation for a large group. She would need to cast for at least five of the town’s blocks. She felt sure that once this was done, word of mouth would do the rest. She took a deep breath and began…

It took only a couple of days for business to pick up nicely.

The day was bright and sunny, but the couple in the park hardly noticed.

After hearing her news he said, “You know for sure, do you?”

She said, “Of course I do.”

He was surprised by her irritation. “Well, OK then. We’ll have to make, I don’t know… arrangements.”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m not sure that I want to go through with it.”

“Not sure?”

She was more adamant now. “No.”

He moved closer. “You say you’re not sure? Why?”

“My figure.”

“What?”

“My figure. If I let it go full term… you know. I’ll get fat.”

His head began to spin. “What kind of crazy consideration is that?”

She looked into his eyes. “I don’t know. It all feels such a mess at the moment.”

With exasperation in his voice, he said, “Look, I’m having a great deal of trouble understanding any of this. Are you saying you don’t want it?”

“I have a right to decide.”

“A right?”

“Yes. After all it’s my body.”

His head wobbled. “OK. I can’t argue with that.” He looked up into the sky. Before he had a chance to say more, she went on.

“What will others think?

“Others?”

“You know, our friends.”

He shook his head slowly. The wind softly stirred the branch. He raised his voice. “Hey! Wait a minute. What the hell are we talking about here?”

She fell silent.

“None of this makes any sense.”

Her head wagged a little.

After a few moments of silence, suddenly, he said, “Oh! No! I don’t believe it. You’ve been so good for so long. I thought all this was behind us. You’ve been at it again. You have, haven’t you?”

Her head dipped, then nodded.

A stronger gust made the branch bob harder; claws gripped and wings flapped.

“We talked about it didn’t we… and you promised?”

She stayed quiet.

He sighed. “You’ve been sitting on the old woman’s window ledge again? You have, haven’t you?”

She whispered, “Yes.”

He was almost shouting now.

“You’ve been watching soap operas through her window again!”