Author: Alexander Fawn

The voice was wonderful, it told her everything she needed to know.

When her mother needed help in the kitchen, despite her being only eleven, she would very quickly slice the carrots to just the right thickness. This sort of thing had always impressed her mother. The voice told her how to do it. At school, her teacher was amazed at her ability to solve maths problems almost instantly. The voice, of course. Then there was the time her father was working under the bonnet of the car trying to figure out what was wrong with the fan heater’s wiring. She hopped in and rerouted several wires and got it going. He said she was a natural. The voice, again.

Although she was probably far too young to understand the full potential of what was happening to her, or what this incredible gift was enabling her to do so perfectly, she only knew that it was extremely useful.

After all, that’s how she made the annoying boy across the road disappear… forever!

She knew she had a shapeshifter in the house.

She first came across it when she found an ornately framed oil painting of Renoir’s ‘Roses in a Vase’ hanging in her living room. When she approached it to take a closer look, the painting instantly shapeshifted to become a fly and took off. However, it became apparent to her over the following days that not all shapeshifters are particularly good at what they do. The following day she found a vacuum cleaner lying on the sun lounge, beside the pool in the back garden. On drawing closer, it became a dead leaf, which was instantly whipped up by a breeze and blown into the flower bed somewhere, among a great many other such leaves.

Before these events, she had only the vaguest notion regarding the phenomenon of shapeshifting. She was to learn more and more as time went on. One website said that you could trap them, but you had to be quick. Then there were the events, the more practical experiences, like the day she found an egg whisk in the bath tub, which turned to water and drained away as she peered in at it. Then there was the elaborate Queen Anne chair in the corner of the laundry, a full-size casino roulette wheel sitting precariously on top of the microwave oven in the kitchen, a leaf rake propped up behind the television, a pair of binoculars hanging in the closet, the hedge clippers she found lying on the settee, not to mention the roller skates sitting in the kitchen sink.

Most of these unexpected items changed by morphing into flies; this being the creature’s favourite mode of transformation. It was this fact that gave her the idea of having a can of fly spray handy at all times. In doing this, and giving the matter some serious thought, the horrible woman across the road that had once made a derogatory comment about the condition of her front fence, had become her primary focus.

Her lucky break came late one evening.

She was watching television when she noticed that a pencil sharpener had suddenly appeared on the coffee table in front of her. She carefully picked up the can from beside her chair and zapped it. The thing had barely gone through the process of changing when it received a direct hit.

It was not dead, but stunned.

She slipped the fly, little legs still twitching, into a prepared envelope that was addressed to ‘The House Owner’.

Quietly, with the envelope held to her ear, listening with satisfaction to the buzzing, she crept across the road in the dark.

She pushed the envelope silently through the woman’s letter box.

It had projected itself down to the surface of a nearby planet.

Its disabled craft having been left silently hovering somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. Its own natural invisibility allowed it to seek sustenance without detection. Quite unseen by the occupants of the planet, it went in search of food. It swiftly moved around the globe. Seeds and nuts, plants and animals of all kinds, were tried. All to no avail. It knew help would come eventually. This would be from some distant place it called home. The search went on. In due course, it found that a number of small parts found in the human form were acceptable, and of greater importance, nourishing. Its feeding habit became simple. First, cloak the subject in invisibility, then sustain itself, unseen.

The strangeness of the species, the peculiar activities that played out in the form of reproduction, global economics and wars, it found fascinating. It became apparent that this was the perfect opportunity to learn about them. These observations meant that it would have many strange and interesting stories to tell when it returned home.

In the fullness of time, it would receive the long-awaited signal from its rescuers. In the meantime, it was not sure whether to study them or eat them?

Until then… it would do both.

He had no idea that this day would be his last: priorities can be a funny thing.

In the office he kept thinking about the TV show the night before and how it ended. What a cliff-hanger! He’d been told there was a bit of a birthday bash for one of the girls after work. He’d hang around for that. Someone usually gets a box of hot party pies for these occasions. He was very fond of these. He could never get enough of them, but he should only be seen to eat one, two at the most. When the time came he stayed chatting for a few minutes, just long enough to eat a couple; they are only small. Then, as luck would have it, someone knocked a full in-basket off the corner of a desk and papers were scattered around the floor and were getting under peoples’ feet. The commotion was enough for him to grab three pies and wrap them in a serviette with nobody the wiser.

He was in his car about to drive home with his wrapped pies on the passenger seat. They smelt wonderful. Before moving off, he sat for a few moments tempted to eat them now and find something else for tea. No, he thought, I’ll save them and have them with baked beans while I watch the next episode. Yes, that would be something to look forward to. He took off. The roads were wet, it was still raining and visibility was poor.

He was driving carefully because of the weather. He glanced down momentarily at the bulging napkin and smiled. When he looked up he was confronted by an extremely large truck that appeared to be heading straight at him. It came out of nowhere. It was squirming around on the wrong side of the road.

He glanced down and up again.

What he saw coming and what was about to happen was something completely unavoidable.

However, not many people would understand that in that fleeting moment he came to terms with the fact that not eating them when he had the chance was nothing short of regrettable…

It turned out to be a very bad time to run out of petrol.

She had been on a lonely stretch of road and it had been getting dark. She had been visiting a friend and had stayed much longer than she’d planned. She cursed herself for not noticing the petrol gage. She was about to make a call for roadside assistance when the figure appeared. It seemed to be a man, dressed in dark clothes that were old and tattered. She froze as the stranger walked towards the car. He seemed to have difficulty walking. Was he hurt? She wondered what he was doing there, in the middle of nowhere. Should she be calling for an ambulance instead? Wanting to be polite, she wound down the window and asked if he was OK. He stopped for a moment. She called out again, with an attempt at laughter, saying she wasn’t much help because she had run out of petrol.

Hearing this, the man, or whatever it was, hurried to the side of the vehicle. This was the first time she got a proper look at him. His face was horribly distorted and there was blood around his mouth. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing; then, after a moment she giggled.

“Oh! I get it, man-eating zombie, right?”

The man looked surprised.

She frowned. “You’re a bit early, Halloween isn’t for several weeks, you know that, right?”

The thing mumbled, “Halloween?”

She nodded. “Yep. But, hey! A great disguise, had me going, I can tell you!”

“Disguise?”

A man and a duck and a dwarf and a penguin and a grasshopper walked into a bar.

The dwarf had the duck tucked under his arm. The man cradled the penguin in his arms as though he was holding a baby. The grasshopper was having fun jumping from the man’s shoulder to the dwarf’s shoulder and back again.

The duck had recently escaped from a farm where it was about to be purchased by a local restaurant, where it’s Cordon Bleu chef was preparing to create his famous Duck A L’orange dish, to be served to the town’s Lord Mayor and his lady, who were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Being now something of a fugitive on the run, he was grateful for the dwarf’s protection and friendship.

The dwarf was a permanent part of a circus crew that travelled extensively with a highly prestigious show. As a result of being blessed with such regular employment he was never short of money, and as a result felt sure that he was going to be called upon to pay for the drinks.

The man, having been a reluctant eye witness at a major crime scene, was now part of a witness protection program that had gone horribly wrong the day he found out that the woman he was dating turned out to be the sister of the only member of the crime syndicate that didn’t receive a custodial sentence at the trial’s conclusion.

The penguin was only along for the ride, as he had been visiting a great variety of establishments for some considerable time looking for his long lost male twin. He was finding it difficult on account of the negative responses he was continually receiving when giving his brother’s description.

The grasshopper, whose name just happens to be George, was not fond of entering these places because of the peculiar and wholly inaccurate comments he heard from those employed to serve behind their counters. He was mystified by their strange insistence, repeatedly telling him that they had a drink named after him, although he had never heard of a drink named George.

They were a curious bunch to be sure.

They all went up to the bar.

Somewhat relieved, the barman said, “Sorry, I called time five minutes ago, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

They left.

They found a grave in the woods today.

A mound, mossy with time.

What lies beneath is anyone’s guess.

Had there been a crime?

–

They asked the hag who lived in the shack,

Familiar with what she knows.

While her cat rubbed against her leg,

She tapped the side of her nose.

 

The curate looked into the church before locking up for the night.

He could see a light coming from the back of the building. He went through to the sacristy, where he found the priest sobbing gently.

The young curate was shocked and concerned. “Are you alright?” he asked the old priest.

“No. Not alright. Not at all!” he replied, lifting the goblet to his lips. After taking a sip he ruminated on the idea that at the end of the day he liked to think that he was being thanked for all his trouble and his unwavering devotion to his holy duties. He licked his lips.

The curate frowned and asked, “Father, please tell me, what has happened?”

The old holy man dabbed at his eyes, and said, “The funeral was this afternoon. There was nobody there to pay their respects. He was homeless, a man who had lost his way.”

The curate frowned. “But I’m sure you did what you could to give him a decent burial.”

The priest shook his head. “I failed him. He came here just a few days ago, but I couldn’t save him, he wouldn’t allow me to give him absolution. He died out there in one of the pews, cradled in my arms. Today he leaves us along with all his sins. I tried so hard to get him to denounce the devil and all his evil works. He simply refused. It was very upsetting.”

“Why did he do that?”

After a great sigh, the priest replied, “With his dying breath he whispered that he couldn’t be sure where he was going to end up, and until he knew, he didn’t want to upset anybody. It was very upsetting,” he repeated.

“Yes, I’m sure it was,” said the curate, “but I’m surprised to find you back here drinking wine.”

“Oh! No. It’s only water. I just wanted to sit quietly for a while and sip a little water.”

The other lifted the goblet and sniffed. “If I’m not mistaken… that’s a Sauvignon Blanc.”

“Praise the Lord!” exclaimed the priest. He looked up. “He’s done it again!”

It was all in the binary nature of things…

His world could come crashing down. Either issue could see things go badly for him. Either one could bring about such major changes in his life. Either one would determine how his future would pan out. As a student in his final year a great deal depended on how well he had gone with the final exams. He was about to get the results. As a young man having recently experienced severe indigestion and heartburn, with his doctor saying it was either stomach cancer or an ulcer, and having had an upper endoscopy to check for cancer. He was about to get the results.

The binary was in play.

The binary nature of it was crucial. It was all about the two alternatives. The on and the off, the yes and the no, the positive and the negative.

They are not necessarily apposed.

The young man considered the upcoming events. On the following day, he would undergo both events within the same hour.

He would be looking at the university’s notice board, where the exam results are displayed.

He would be praying for a positive result.

Soon after…

He would be sitting in the surgery, waiting to see the doctor to get the test results.

He prayed for a negative result.

He woke to a strange noise vibrating through his bedroom.

He was fast asleep when it started and he really didn’t like it when anything interrupted his night’s sleep. It was something he felt more than most. He scowled when he saw the clock said three. It sounded like a low flying airplane, very low. Not something normally heard where he lived. It was getting gradually louder. Was he safe in the house? He got up and put on a dressing gown. It was forecast to be a cold night. On his way down stairs, the sound seemed to lessen. It was now more like a lawnmower. Surely, nobody would be cutting grass in the early hours of the morning! By the time he opened the back door the noise had quietened down even more. Now it was something like an electric razor humming away.

He strolled out into the middle of the back lawn where he stood still and listened. It was still going, but softer somehow. He had the impression that it was the trees he could hear. They were all making a whistling noise, despite the fact that there was barely any wind. Yet, there it was, it was like somebody was talking in whispers. He thought he could make out some of the words. There was something about ‘landing’. He looked up into a clear night sky with a great spread of stars. He thought one of them moved… He was getting cold and he was sick of the whole thing. On his way back inside he thought about the new pills he started yesterday. When he got in he went straight to the bathroom. He picked up the bottle and checked the label.

He knew that taking certain medications can cause problems for some people. He looked at the ingredients. He read through them carefully. He knew that some of these could have side effects. These rotten pills had made him delusional. Sometimes, a change in some medications can do that. He would ring for an appointment first thing in the morning. Looking at the clock he saw that wasn’t far away.

He had just settled back into bed, when coloured flashes began to light up his bedroom. Reluctantly, he got up and went to the window. What he saw was a small flying saucer sitting in the centre of the back lawn. It was no bigger than a family car, with lights alternating around its rim. Next to it stood a tiny figure. It was waving!

He chuckled, waved back, closed the curtains really tight and went back to bed.