Author: Alexander Fawn

He was trawling the dark web one evening when he found the site.

After the divorce, his evenings had dragged. Coming out of an unhappy childless marriage, spending this time at the screen seemed to bring him some small measure of joy. This particular site was intriguing. It seemed to be some sort of multiple choice survey of twenty questions, all about happiness. It said those who got nineteen out of twenty correct, could go on to the next stage. He sat thinking for a while, then took the survey. When he’d answered the final question, his screen went black for several seconds, then a large message box appeared on the screen. It read: The Crystal of Happiness. Underneath this, in much smaller text was a footnote, this said: This is only available to a true seeker of happiness. This was followed by a small ‘Enter’ button. He hit it.

The next screen carried an explanation that the location of the crystal is revealed on the following screen and went on to describe the power of the crystal by saying that if it is held in the hand for one full minute, happiness is bestowed on the bearer for the rest of their days. This was followed by another small ‘Enter’ button. So, he hit that one too.

The instructions that followed were strange to say the least. He read through them several times. He read that to fulfil the requirements of the quest, he had to make his way to a Greek island situated in the Aegean Sea named Chios. He would need to visit the Maritime Museum where, beneath a curved staircase, he would find a village map. In the upper right corner of it he would see a village square, and this would be his destination.

The instructions went on to say that the square sits in the centre of a crossroad of alleys. It stated that this must be approached from the east, saying that care must be taken to approach the square, not only from the east, but to progress along it no further than half way; no further than the line of blue, flat, rectangular stones that run across the alleyway from one side to the other. It was stated emphatically that this must not be crossed, until the time was right. Although not visible from there, a distant bell would toll at exactly two in the afternoon. It was indicated that there would be no need for haste, as time itself would stop while still in the alley. This mysterious piece of information was how it ended.

When he’d finished reading through the instructions once more, he considered the overall nature of what he had read. Despite the strange nature of it, he realised just how extremely detailed and precise the whole thing had been laid out. It all seemed to be too exact to be anything other than a clear set of directions. He sat thinking for a while. On reflection, he had the resources, he had the will, and he certainly regarded himself as being a true seeker of happiness. So, within a few short days, having made the necessary arrangements, he was on a plane to Athens. From there he took the ferry from the port of Piraeus to the island of Chios.

Once there, he visited the museum as instructed and found the map. Looking for landmarks, he saw the best way to enter the alley. At the entrance of it, he made doubly sure of his orientation and direction by using the compass on his phone. He proceeded to enter the alley from the east. He gaged it to be some one hundred metres long and about three metres wide, with buildings on either side. He walked slowly forward until he came to the blue line, as described. He used his phone again to check the time; it was comfortable. He stood waiting, for what seemed an age, for the distant bell to sound. Remarkably, he was looking down at the World Clock site on his phone when at exactly two o’clock the ancient bell rang out. He slowly raised his foot and stepped across.

In that instant, the alley he was standing in had changed completely. His vision seemed to be temporarily blurred, but he could see that he was no longer alone. There were thirty, or even forty people, all wandering up and down the alley. His eyesight gradually improved as he made out men and women who were obviously in a variety of ethnic dress. They had on clothing that seemed to represent a cross-section of cultures from around the world. Some seemed to be meandering about aimlessly while others were stooping or crouched. It was then, after squeezing his eyes shut really hard a couple of times, that he became aware of the fact that the floor of the entire alley was covered with crystals, each one being no larger than a thumbnail.

He crouched down and picked one up.

He’s still there!

To analyse the state of peace,

For some, quite out of reach.

Others need to seek it out,

A different thing for each.

–

It may be found in a church,

Where people pray and sing.

For some it can only be

What the king of kings can bring.

For others, with dreams unfulfilled,

Do their searching at a cost.

Bare the labour of seeking serenity,

And retrieving something lost.

–

Looking into nature’s green,

Or the rolling of a tranquil sea,

Are things that stir a wonder,

That untroubled eyes might see.

–

The trickle of a tumbling stream.

The crackle of a burning log.

The brightening of a rainbow,

Or a slowly fading fog.

–

Is it fear that brings about discord?

Is it wounds that need caressing?

These things that stay and block the way.

Do they require some kind of blessing?

–

How far should it be from normal,

To leave behind all stress?

To seek and find,

Peace, and nothing less.

She was sitting in the café, treating herself to a large pot of chocolate mousse.

He was sitting several tables away. She couldn’t help feeling that he was occasionally watching her. He was certainly nice looking and his dress sense had him pinned as some sort of professional. She was doing her best not to blush. After a while, summoning up her nerve, she took a deep breath and looked straight at him with a smile on her face. She was rewarded with a grin and a slight nod of his head. At this point he began searching through his pockets and came up with a small notepad. He took out his pen and wrote something on one of the pages. He ripped it out and carefully folded it in half. He got up slowly, holding the paper.

Her heart was now beating wildly. Was he coming over? Yes, he was!

He approached smiling. As he passed, he slowly slid the note across the table towards her, before making his way to the escalator. Was this his name, or his phone number? She watched him leave, with her pulse still pounding in her ears. She waited until he was completely out of sight before opening it.

It said that she had a large blob of mousse sliding down the lapel of her blouse.

It was early in the evening when he sat down to check his emails.

It wasn’t a task that he was fond of, because of the amount of junk email that managed to bypass his spam filter. Looking down the list that sat in his inbox, he was surprised to see one that didn’t make sense. It had nothing under From, Date or Size and the subject matter comprised of the single word; Augury. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t open an email that had no sender, or address. There was a lot of malware around and the golden rule is to not open it. With all this in mind, for some unaccountable reason, he did anyway.

A single paragraph came up on the screen.

‘I am your distant ancestor. I have been here for a long time and was made up to angel status recently. I have followed you and admire your charitable work. I am not permitted to interfere. I am allowed to hint. Beneath the stairs, a frayed wire above paper. You have no more than twenty four hours to remedy this. Keep up the good work. This message will delete after thirty seconds. No response possible.’

He sat in a state of shock for a few seconds before scribbling down a quick note referring to the stairs, the wire and the paper. The remaining allotted moments were spent looking at the screen until the item disappeared.

After a few more minutes of sitting in a frozen state of inactivity, he got up slowly and in a daze he wandered through the house. He opened the cupboard door below the stairs and switched the light on. After taking a good look around, he found it. Not easy to see, but it was there nonetheless. He dragged the box containing old magazines out of the way and pulled the plug out of the socket. He had no idea what it was connected to, but disconnecting it was the only thing that mattered. An electrician would no doubt sort it out. He would get one in tomorrow.

Back at the computer, he sat for a long time going over all that had happened.

At the end of the day it’s the same old story… who’s he going to tell?

The girls behind the supermarket’s service desk were chatting.

One of them was telling the other two about how she had dumped her boyfriend. She was saying how she had put up with him for far too long. She knows it’s one of the best things she has ever done. She described how hopeless he was and how she realised that she was continually solving all of his problems for him. She was ranting so much that none of them noticed a woman standing a short way off. She looked teary and was blowing her nose. She had obviously overheard the conversation, but was uncomfortable about interrupting. Finally, she came forward slowly and timidly raised her hand.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping off tears, “perhaps you can help me…”

“Yes, love, of course I can,” said the talkative girl, “my advice to you is to get tough. Don’t put up with anything you don’t have to. You should probably change your phone number…”

The woman waved her hand. “No, you don’t understand.” She wiped her eyes. “Sorry, I have a dreadful cold. Can you tell me where to look for Mulligatawny soup?”

 

He was sure it had been there this morning, when he dressed.

It was an old British coin, a George the sixth penny, dated 1945. His birth date. His grandfather gave it to him when he was twelve, telling him that it was magic, and it had been with him ever since. That’s why he considered it to be lucky, more than actually magic. The old man had been a strange sort, spending a lifetime researching the mystic arts. He knew such a notion was silly, really, but he always had it in his pocket. He thought it should always be with him. Obviously, otherwise, what’s the point?

He sat down at the kitchen table looking at his notes. One was a diagram of the house and its rooms. The other, a detailed description of the events, along with his movements, over the past two days. He had spent a lot of time clawing all these details back. Not that he felt going back that far was actually necessary, since he felt sure he had it yesterday. In fact, it would have been placed on the bedside table when he went to bed last night. Wouldn’t he have noticed, had it not been there this morning? Convinced of this, he got up and started going through the house again.

After yet another thorough search he returned to the table, exhausted. He sat for a while contemplating the situation. He considered that it might be lost, and at the same time not lost. Not lost because it had to be somewhere. Since it still exists, it is not lost, it’s absent. His grandfather had warned him that it may move away from our physical world, but it would always come back. That’s what he said, away from our physical world, and it would always come back.

Perhaps, as the old man had told him, all those years ago, this was just something that he needn’t concern himself with.

Did this thing simply need to be somewhere else for a while, was it merely absent?

After asking himself this question out loud, the penny not only appeared in front of him, but seemed to move slightly.

He looked on in a state of fascination as the coin slowly raised itself to stand upright on its edge. Then it began to spin, gently at first, then building up speed. After watching it for a couple of mesmerising minutes, he was brought out of his reverie by the rattle of the coin coming to a flat halt on the table.

“Ah!” He nodded. “Confirmation. There’s the answer… merely absent.”

This was one of the old country’s worst cases of a serial killer that seemed to be unstoppable.

The Essex police were receiving really bad press about the serial killer’s ability to avoid their attempts to get hold of even one witness, let alone capture him. The papers had labelled him the Epping Butcher. After the third female victim, the local community was on edge, with women not venturing out at all at night, unless it was absolutely essential. With a further woman falling prey to the killer, more and more newspapers around the country were giving headlines to the case of the Epping Butcher. They all used the title, and unbeknownst to them, and anybody else as it happened, this was something that enraged the killer to the point where he felt that he had to do something about it. He thought long and hard about it. He knew it would be the end of his career, his killing spree, but enough was enough!

He walked into the nearest police station, both to complain and to put matters right. He explained that he wasn’t an Epping butcher at all, that he was, in fact, a Waltham Abbey Roof Tiler.

Unhappily, they didn’t believe him and threw him out for wasting police time.

He was just an amateur writer, but he was always on the lookout for a story.

He’d been sitting in the carriage hardly noticing his fellow passengers for some time. It was a long journey and through boredom he began looking around at the others. The carriage was full. From his window seat he could see them all quite well.

He noticed for the first time that the man opposite had the word ‘Vacant’ tattooed on his large forehead. He looked slowly along the seats at the other four. The next was an elderly lady with a bone through her nose. Next, a man in a suit with a parrot on his shoulder. Then came a young man in white tennis clothes holding a wet fish across his knees. At the end a man sat staring into half a coconut.

The boy next to him was trying hard to hide the fact that he had a tail. Further along sat a man holding a briefcase and wearing muddy wellington boots. He could see the woman beside him had snails in her hair, and by leaning forward a little could just see a girl wearing goggles and holding a snorkel.

He stared out of the window, wondering.

Surely, there had to be a story here somewhere…

The agonising pain that throbbed inside him was being managed with drugs.

He should call for more painkillers, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want any more care, any more kindness, he only wanted it to end. His head was full of images; beautiful images, of his lifelong partner who had passed away, leaving him desolate, without any desire to carry on. As he drifted off, he found himself standing, looking across a great brightly lit void at his recently departed wife. She looked so lovely. She was smiling. Then she lifted her arm and beckoned to him. He looked on with a different kind of pain. Soon, he thought; soon my love. The vision faded. He was jolted back by both an excruciating pain and the sound of alarms and monitors shrieking.

He thought now that the time had come, at last. The weeks of lying here, just waiting to pass on. Biding his time, until he could join her. Finally being with her again. This was…

His thoughts were cut off by a woman shouting. She was right next to him. Then came the urgent calls and instructions. The bed was moving. People were running around. Then came the shocks; electric paddles sending a pulse of current through him, although he was only just aware of it. This was followed by a period of silence. Then, the sounds started again, and he was gradually becoming part awake. He listened to the noises of happy relief from those that were huddled around him. The murmurs of them congratulating and thanking one another.

He knew what they had done.

He also knew that he would have to wait a little longer…

He was really into codes and he was good at breaking them.

His friends would often come up with encrypted messages, all in a code devised by them, for him to solve. So, that’s what he did. Some took longer than others, but they always got solved in the end. He’d been on his computer for most of the evening and he was getting tired. His eyes kept glazing over, but he pressed on. Finally he slumped gently over the keyboard. As he dozed, the side of his head occasionally rolled around on the keyboard creating, what to most people would be, gobbledegook. He’d only nodded off for a minute or two, but in that time a couple of dozen black symbols had been typed on the blank screen.

As he woke up, he was thrilled to see what was there. He stared at the screen… it had to be a code. He slid his notebook closer and picked up his pen.

If it is, he thought, this is a real doozy, but I can crack it!