Author: Alexander Fawn

Every evening the old lady settles down in front of the television.

She knows it won’t be long before Misty jumps up onto her lap. The ageing cat seems to give her owner time to settle down and make herself completely comfortable quite deliberately, before appearing at the side of her chair. The old woman loves the way her companion waits patiently for her to pat her leg, signalling that she is ready for the sweet animal to join her for the evening. Soon, the soft vibration of her steady purring is felt on her legs. It is a wonderful ritual.

It is only on very rare occasions that the old woman allows the thought, no, the question, to come into her mind.

Does this really still happen or is she simply reminiscing?

He was in his local bookshop looking for his next book.

He’d been working his way along the section where the paperback fiction was displayed. He was reading titles and occasionally taking one out. He’d been doing this for several minutes when he saw a slim volume that for some reason made him curious. He pulled it out. It was a dull looking thing with very few pages. He turned it over to read the back.

It read: To be really honest, there is not much chance of you enjoying this story. I’ve never been much of a writer and wouldn’t argue with anybody who thought the plot was a bit thin. It’s hard to follow sometimes. The story (if you can really call it a story) has a main character who’s pretty boring. He doesn’t do much. When he does try to do something he usually stuffs it up. This lack of a proper main character is so pathetic that you can’t even look on his failures as humorous. To say that nothing much happens in this book probably sums it up nicely. If you manage to read through the whole thing, which I very much doubt, you are likely to wish that you hadn’t bought it in the first place. But, there again, if you should decide to take a punt on the basis that it sounds intriguing, go ahead. After all, theirs’s one born every minute, but I think you’ll regret it.

He put it back.

He often went passed the old weirdo’s magic shop without thinking.

On this occasion he spotted an old Box Brownie camera in the window. Of course, these were completely outdated, but he’d always wanted to own one and try it out. He went in. The old guy seemed to be glad to get rid of it. It was cheap enough and the shop owner threw in a role of old film. It was a real bargain. The film had a few days left before the expiry date. It looked as though it had enough left on it to take a few of his own before getting it developed. At home he took a couple of pictures in the garden, a couple indoors, and the final one of himself. He did this by rather cleverly standing in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom. Naturally, he couldn’t wait to see the results, so he took the film to the chemist shop the same day.

When it had been developed, he collected it and was pleased to see that they all came out. At home he sat down and took the photographs out one at a time. The first ones he looked at, being the originals that were left on the roll, were rather dark, but were mainly of people dressed in black, with hoods, dancing around a fire. The next two, taken in the garden, were disappointing. Apart from being blurred, his flowers looked wilted. The two he took inside were also fuzzy and made the room look as though it needed decorating. The final picture was of a skeleton standing in front of a full-length mirror!

He had a really bad feeling about what he was looking at. Something told him to panic.

He began frantically looking for the ‘use by’ date.

The man in the Emporio Armani slim-fit wool suit ($980.00) sat at his private table, having finished his Black Lip Abalone with hen’s egg yolk and fumet blanc ($275 a plate). He was now sipping the last of his Armand de Brignac Brut Gold Champagne ($599 a bottle). Satisfied, he rose, smiling at the Maître D’, and tipping as he left (two $50 notes). Outside, in the growing dark, he climbed into his arancio Argos orange, Lamborghini Aventador Super Veloce Jota ($726,000) and drove up into the hills to his three-story mansion in manicured grounds ($3.2 million). He entered and went immediately to his study where he settled behind his Victorian Mahogany Antique Pedestal Desk ($24,278). He opened a drawer and brought out a Beretta 92 FS Burnt Bronze 9mm handgun ($619.00).

He felt the metal against his temple, just before he pulled the trigger.

Back down in the darkening city, with his stint of greatly needed overtime finished, another man, of similar age, dressed in Skinny Blackened Blue Jeans ($47.99) and a grey, Raglan T-shirt ($24.95), finished his Quarter Pounder burger ($6.00) and the last of his Chocolate Shake, medium ($4.05). Out in the carpark he got into his aging Volkswagen Golf 90TSI ($17,490), drove to an outer suburb and parked behind the block containing his small, unfurnished rented apartment ($220 per week). Sitting on the edge of his single, put-together, metal-frame bed ($69.95) he kicked off his lace up sneakers ($20). Then, in the meagre bathroom he sprayed from a tiny bottle of cologne ($8.78). He had promised someone, his girlfriend in fact, that he would let her know when he got home. So, moments later he sat in the main room at his tiny, second-hand coffee table ($35) picking up his Internet-purchased preowned mobile phone ($62.95).

After tapping the screen, he made the phone comfortable against his ear.

It wasn’t generally known that the elderly gentleman in apartment 18B was helping people.

Not that he was a volunteer or anything, far from it. He charged people for his services. In fact, he made a very good living out of it. He sometimes had as many as six or seven customers come and go from his flat during the day. The taxation authorities knew nothing about it. This coming and going would have been more easily noticed if there had not been a carefully placed flower trellis on the corner of the building. Only those with a particular need would be told how to find him. Most who went there were looking for answers.

He was an oracle, or at least that’s what people called him. He would have said he was a fortune teller, plain and simple. However, owing to his remarkable success rate at giving people the correct answers, the title had stuck. There was no mumbo jumbo about him. No turban, although it may have suited because of his Indian appearance, no crystal ball or cards, no trappings. His customers would sit with him, either side of the kitchen table. He would tell them to take their time and to word there request as clearly as possible.

Most of the time these requests would fall into one, common category. Would her husband pull through his operation, would she get the job, should he marry her, should she marry him. Then, there would be a different, perhaps more complex question, even ones that dealt with the customer’s mortality. This was the case with the man who was coming straight from his office. When he arrived he thanked the oracle for taking him at such short notice.

When they were seated, the old man said, “Let us just sit quietly for a time while you think about why you came here, and to think about how you are going to tell me about it. I’m going to close my eyes, but you don’t have to.”

After a minute or two, the man said, “The reason I came, well, it feels as though I’m on the edge of something. Something is coming up I mean. I’ve felt it for some time, but the feeling, whatever it is, was very strong when I woke up this morning.”

There were a few opening questions about how the man felt, was he worried, did he feel safe? Then came a long period of silence. Finally, the oracle opened his eyes and said, “Yes, I feel it.” He went quiet for a while longer. Then he said, “There’s something about a mirror. Not afraid of mirrors are you?”

“No.”

“Or perhaps you’ve broken one lately?”

He thought for a moment. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Strange,” said the old man with the sight. “No matter, it may become clear.”

“Are you thinking of taking your children to the zoo, perchance?”

“No. I don’t have children and I’m not married.”

“A trip overseas, perhaps? Like Australia, for instance?”

“No. Nothing planned like that.”

“This may sound strange, but do you know anyone who keeps wild creatures as pets, like, crocodiles, let’s say.”

He sat thinking for a long time. “As you say, a strange question, but no, I can’t think of anything of that sort.”

The questions went on for some time before the old man grew tired. He knew there was something, something imminent, but all he could do was tell the man to take care. He always said that on such occasions as this, knowing full well that it wouldn’t do any good. It would make no difference.

The session ended and the man left for home. He would normally go home by train, but there had been a derailment on the news. Despite what he’d been told, he wanted to improve his chances. It wasn’t that far, he’d get a taxi, he could afford it.

It was only moments before the oncoming truck veered across the road into the wrong lane, that he noticed the little, plastic crocodile, happily swinging from the rear vision mirror.

 

He had been her chauffer for over a year.

Driving the Rolls Royce had always given him great pleasure. Coming as he did, from a third-world country where cars were scarce, to a large degree he regarded his life as blessed. He enjoyed maintaining it, washing it, polishing it, and to some degree taking the elderly widow out on long trips. Longer journeys were best because the old lady would spend little time talking. He could relax and enjoy the experience, without the continual grumbling, that usually didn’t stop. She was full of complaints, most of them directed at him. She didn’t pay him much, although the small bed in the loft over the stable was sufficient for his needs.

She seemed to be even more miserable than usual as he held the door open for her. He felt that on this occasion her incessant carping would put him in the right frame of mind and strengthen his resolve, in order to say what he had to say. She wasn’t going to like hearing it, but he had something that he desperately wanted to tell her. She struggled in and finally made herself comfortable. It was just a short trip along the coast road into town. As expected the nagging and griping soon started. She began in her usual haughty tone, talking down to him. He hadn’t done a good enough job cleaning the windows, he was driving too slow, his chauffer’s cap was dusty; didn’t he ever clean it? It may have been acceptable where he came from, but not here, she said. And for the thousandth time she told him how grateful he should be that she had been generous enough to hire him.

She wouldn’t have seen his smile as the vehicle swerved off the road and raced down towards the edge of the cliff.

Quite naturally, his response time was far better than any sudden motion or activity she was capable of. Now was the chance to finally say what had been burning away in his mind for so long.  In that final moment he shouted, “Goodbye madam,” then leapt deftly from the racing car. He swivelled and watched as it disappeared over the edge. He lay very still and strained to hear the screams. They grew quieter as the car dropped the great distance to the rocks below. Then, he heard the crash, followed by the explosion.

He remained there at the cliff’s edge for some time, both revelling in a state of euphoria and going over his story.

He had been such a successful burglar, he could afford to have himself cloned.

Although this was extremely expensive, having a double made was considered to be a really good move at the time, as this would help enormously when it came to having an alibi. Although his clone looked remarkably like him, naturally, it had no previous experience in burglary. As a result, it was used solely for proving that he was somewhere other than the scene of the crime at the time the robbery was committed. He usually kept the clone under the bed and it was practically maintenance free.

When the time came, the clone would be sent out to some chosen location where he could be seen and remembered when the police went out looking for witnesses.

As a result of this new mode of operation his crimes brought in a lot more money. So much money, that he planned to leave his modest apartment and move into a mansion with extensive grounds that would increase his level of privacy. By way of a small celebration to commemorate his much improved future outlook, he decided to sit down with the drone and explain the upcoming move. It was during this unusual activity of bringing the clone out from under the bed and having him sit chatting to the man who had commissioned him, that there came a knock at the door.

It transpired that there had been trouble in his apartment complex that he knew nothing about. The knock came from a policeman who was looking for any possible witnesses to what had been a particularly bad case of graffiti damage to the front of the building the night before.

Thinking that the knock was probably the old lady from two doors along wanting to borrow more sugar, he got up and opened the door. Seeing the policeman, he kept his cool and listened to what the enquirer had to say. Looking over the man’s shoulder, the officer made a mental note of what he saw and was soon back at the station enthusiastically telling the detectives what he had discovered.

As a result of this quick response on the part of the policeman, only a few minutes passed before a squad car returned and took both the burglar and his accomplice in for questioning. The interrogation that followed was a most complex affair with both the man and the clone lying, a lot. Despite the fact that the police were not completely sure which one of them was the actual criminal, they did manage to lay charges concerning the most recent burglaries.

As it turned out, it was sheer dumb luck on the part of the police that the actual criminal was the one that ended up serving time.

When they married, he was in the police force.

He obviously liked the job and he looked really good in his uniform. She had no trouble being patient about some of the hours he kept. He often had to work longer days when there was something major going on in town. She saw him as being fully dedicated to the work he did and she was proud of him. Little did she know that on some of those late nights he was mixing with the wrong sort. They had been married about a year when the trouble started. At first, he was stood down while the internal affairs officers moved in to investigate corruption. When it was shown that he’d been passing on information to a prominent crime syndicate, allowing them to efficiently plan and carry out a series of robberies, charges were laid. When it went to court, she was there every day for him. She dutifully sat, giving silent support without fail, while the trial went on.

There was a lot of evidence against him and he was found guilty. He was sentenced to serve five years in prison. She took it all very hard at first and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with regards to her own future. She wasn’t looking forward to her first visit, but she knew that whatever she decided, this was the right thing to do. She felt it was her duty to maintain her support.

On the day, she was taken to a large room full of individual tables and chairs spaced out. She was told to wait there while they brought him in. She sat looking around for a few minutes watching other prisoners and their visitors. After a while she became nervous and wondered whether this had been a good idea.

Then, she saw him enter from across the room in his prison jumpsuit. He looked very smart and she saw how happy he was to see her. Their meeting went very well. They chatted away as though they had met in a café and were just catching up. Much of their allotted time was spent expressing their love for each other.

When their visiting time was up she left in good spirits. On the way home she started to work out how and when she could visit him again.

It wasn’t that she actually forgave him for his fall from grace; she just really loves a man in a uniform.

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.”