Author: Alexander Fawn

It was regarded as an unsavoury part of town.

Although the coffee shop he’d taken refuge in, after his heavy stint of shopping, was pleasant enough. Happy to put down his two large bags, he sat comfortably sipping his coffee and relaxing for the first time since leaving home several hours earlier. It had been hectic out there. The shops were crowded and he’d had to try a number of stores to get what he wanted. As a result of his nonstop day, he realised that he needed a toilet. Looking around, he saw the sign. Then he stared down at the huge bags at his feet. He couldn’t see himself lugging those in there with him. To say the least, it would be awkward.

He looked around. The man facing him at the next table was eating a large scone with his drink. He felt sure he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. He studied him for a moment. He looked kind; that was the only way he could describe him.

Looking straight at him. He began tapping his chest and pointing to the toilet sign. This was followed by a gesture that indicated his large bags. He raised his eyebrows.

The man smiled and slowly nodded.

When he returned just a few minutes later, he was horrified to find that his bags were gone!

He felt the anger burning away at him as he approached the man, still sitting there, happily nibbling at his pastry. The man who was supposed to watch his bags.

It was only then that he noticed the white cane.

They were getting dressed to go out.

It was something they had done far more often when they were young. He was just about ready, but she was still sitting in front of the mirror. She had come back from the hairdresser’s that afternoon with the latest hair style, obviously pleased with it as she thought it made her look younger. She was applying lipstick as he came up behind her resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

He smiled at her reflection. “I like the bracelet.”

Her faced brightened and she nodded. “Yes, it’s lovely isn’t it? It’s almost fifty years old now. I don’t wear it very often, it’s too special. I would hate to lose it.” She held up her wrist. “It’s quite fragile. You bought this for me just a week before you proposed. We found it in that little second-hand shop near the hotel in Barcelona. It was such a hot day. I remember we had time to kill before they served lunch and we went in partly to get out of the heat. I wasn’t sure at first, but you said that it might get sold if we left it a day to think about it. Ah! You were so right, my love.”

She looked up at him with eyes full of love. “You remember, don’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “Of course I do,” he said, knowing that to say anything else would spoil the evening.

It was meant to be a secret.

Lucas told James who told Emma who told Noah who told him. He couldn’t believe that the thing had got out. It was supposed to be hush-hush. He went to tell Amelia about it, but she already knew. Apparently William had told Ethan who had told Evelyn who heard it from Charlotte who told Amelia. She asked him if Oliver knew. He said he didn’t know, but he’d find out. Oliver said that he’d been told by Ava. It turned out that Mia had told Isabella who had told Benjamin who told Oliver. He turned in his seat and looked around. There were just fifteen kids in his class. So much for secrets.

They all knew!

Most that knew him regarded him as perfectly normal, despite his being a genius.

When the time came for him to go away for a while, it seemed reasonable enough. He just needed a bit of space, a bit of peace and quiet. He said he’d be gone less than a week. The university regarded his contribution to the Theology Project, put simply, the study of God, so great that they approved a short impromptu break without hesitation. None of the project’s team members were surprised that he had taken time off. Several of them had been concerned that he was pushing himself too hard. They felt he was heading for a burnout, and a break from it all would be good for him.

Beyond saying that he needed to resolve one or two issues, nobody actually knew where he was going or what he was planning to do. Being single with no pets to look after, his colleagues figured he would just lock up and leave.

It was when one of them happened to drive passed his house a couple of nights later, seeing his car still in the drive with some house lights on, that they began to wonder. That’s how one thing led to another. When the police called around they found him in the lounge room, slumped in an armchair, still holding the gun.

There was a note on the table.

It read, ‘I am making a short visit to heaven to speak with God. I feel sure He’ll clear up a couple of sticking points for me. I will provide the university with a full report on my return.’

He lay in bed, wondering.

For some reason he felt it necessary to think back over his life. He thought about his losses. First, his wife to pancreatic cancer, then his boy, running after a ball that had rolled out into the busy road. Losses and gains. He considered the company he had built and the solid reputation it had gained over the years. Losses and gains. Everybody has them, but each person sets the balance, and to some degree controls the unravelling of events, determines the balance of losses and gains. He remembers the early beginnings. In a way, like most people he’d started with nothing. He guessed that you’d have to say he made slow progress with his business at first. He had borrowings and a lot of hard work. Slowly and little by little he built it up. Over time, the business became solid with regular orders and a staff of five.

He was weighing it all up. He remembered the opening of the second store. That was a busy time. Taking on more people and buying the vehicle. He thought about how much more time he had to spend with the bank and his accountant. Keeping track of finances took up more and more of his time as the firm expanded. It took careful planning when the warehouse and further store became part of the operation. There were so many commercial decisions to make and so many more on the payroll. But, he had managed it all. Had succeeded in monitoring and controlling the growth of it in the marketplace. He was weighing it all up. Losses and gains.

He looked up from the bed. It was a good hospital, he knew that. All of his ailments came down to old age, he knew that too. He closed his eyes; he had weighed enough.

As a new recruit in the force, his job was simple enough.

He was tasked with receiving complaints from those members of the public calling in. It should have been simple. He would take complaint calls and make out a report. This was forwarded to an investigating officer, who would follow up with a call back, and sometimes with a visit to the complaining party. The phone call in question came in mid-afternoon and lasted until his knocking off time. It came from an angry woman who basically complained about her lodger, who was constantly annoying and confusing her. She felt that the advice she had received on a recent visit to her ridiculously expensive psychiatrist, about holding her breath and counting slowly to ten, just wasn’t going to cut the mustard.

The lady in question rented out her back room to a lodger who was an elderly gentleman recently retired. He had spent many years producing cryptic crosswords for a major newspaper. This constant activity of coming up with cryptic clues had spilled over into his everyday life. It was his constant habit to use such language while carrying out what would otherwise be normal, run-of-the-mill discourse with people. Of course, this included his landlady. She was a single woman in her early fifties who had never been fond of crosswords and certainly didn’t have the temperament for conversations based on obscure phraseology. In fact, anyone who knew her would tell you that she had little patience and a filthy temper.

It was a long call, with her doing most of the talking, together with a fair amount of crying, shouting and swearing. His report on the call was equally lengthy and he left the station late. Unhappily, his keenness to excel in his duties wasn’t reflected in the aftermath. His report failed to convey any hint regarding the fact that the lodger lay in a pool of his own blood the following morning, and quite naturally this particular case ended up as a murder enquiry. Although, once his report was finally read, it was not a difficult case to solve. Although he meant well, the report writer was far too fond of the inner mysteries of the English dictionary.

The case would have gone down a lot better and would have received proper attention had he not given it the heading ‘Discombobulation by an Erudite Septuagenarian’.

The old man heard the gentle knock at his door.

He knew what it meant. He had fallen asleep in his chair. He glanced at the clock; nearly two in the morning. He would be happy to receive the reaper into his tiny flat. Happy to shuffle off his mortal coil. His last relapse had been the worst yet, and it told him that his time was short. He would welcome the man with the scythe. No more hospital stays. No more weeping visitors. For him, death would be a blessing.

He struggled up and made his way slowly and painfully to the front door.

Opening it, he found no redeemer, no liberator.

It was the batty woman from number seven, clutching an empty sugar bowl.

The international gathering of scientists were thorough in their deliberations.

The final report on Global Climate Change had been forwarded to the leaders of every nation on Earth. Their findings were, as expected, most worrying. The trapping of the sun’s warmth in the planet’s lower atmosphere, played a major role in what had become known as the Greenhouse Effect. It was shown that the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, along with the resulting air pollution in the form of greenhouse gases, was responsible for a number of far-ranging and quite catastrophic environmental issues and a frighteningly long list of worsening health effects. The world-wide instance of people suffering from respiratory diseases being the most common.

All in all, the amount of statistical evidence gathered proved conclusively that apart from peoples’ health, the growing occurrences of extreme weather, the world-wide disruptions to the supply of food and the ever-growing number of wildfires were all the result of climate change, caused by greenhouse gases.

Looking back, the immediate response to the report’s release at the time was subdued, particularly in the case of the world’s major powers. The report clearly identified these as being by far the largest polluters. That was a number of years ago now; long before the use of full face respirator masks became mandatory.

It is hard to say why more wasn’t done at the time. Those world leaders were, by default, governments of one kind or another. They each had their individual considerations about what it would mean to their economies. With this in mind, along with the fact that most had considerable control over the media, it is probably not surprising that the crucial nature of the reports and its findings were downplayed.

After all, business is business!

He had always suffered from the same problem.

The thing had got him into trouble a number of times. It was a weakness, he supposed. The bottom line was, he could never tell whether a person was being serious or not. He had shown how easily he could be taken in time after time. On this particular occasion, he was on his break. He went to the nearby shopping centre, where the pretty girl in the kiosk brewed a really good coffee. It was a small kiosk that sat in the middle of the main shopping centre walkway. It sold coffee mainly, with a small selection of takeaway food. The girl inside the circular counter worked alone as barista, pie warmer, snack seller, everything.

She is conscious of the man across the aisle, where he sits reading a newspaper, eyeing her constantly. Just looking at him makes her shudder. She has been there for several weeks. She cheers up when she sees one of her regulars approaching. He is really nice, always polite. She knows his regular order and begins to prepare a cappuccino with two sugars to take away. As she does this, she thinks of something…

With a few friendly words between them, she hands him his coffee. With his change she slips a small note into his hand and winks. She then briefly puts a fingertip to her lips. He nods, realising that she can’t say more. He thanks her and walks away. The man with the newspaper watches him go.

Once outside on the street, he unfolds the piece of paper, it reads, ‘Help! I was abducted from my home. They won’t let me out of here. Call the police.’

The dozen or so soldiers stood and saluted as the commander entered.

The second in command introduced his superior officer as he came in, saying this would be a tactical lesson, being an important part of their military training programme. Then he told them to sit and took his own seat at the front. The senior army officer took up a marker and approached the large whiteboard. He carefully drew a line across the centre of the board halfway down. Above the line he wrote ‘Enemy Territory’, and below, ‘Our Forces’. He then drew a circle in the lower half.

He turned to his audience and said, “This represents higher ground, an obvious advantage point.” He stood looking around the room, as if he was assuring himself that they all understood what he was saying. After a long pause, he returned to his diagram and began with his marker again.

Below the circle he spent several minutes drawing two little stick figures sitting at a table. The men in the room were growing restless. When they caught occasional glimpses of what was being drawn, furtive looks darted around the room.

He turned to the men, pointing at one of the figures. “This chap,” he announced, “is a vegetarian.” More sly looks and one or two muffled sniggers went around.

The second-in-command coughed and the room fell silent.

At this point, the officer drew a large smiley face in the top right hand corner of the board and, staggering slightly, left the room.

As the door closed the red faced second-in-command rose and turned to face the men, he shrugged, saying, “It’s his meds. Dismissed!”