Author: Alexander Fawn

He was just taking a turn around the garden.

There was always so much to do, he reflected. As he moved around he didn’t notice his recently potted Angelonia was beginning to wilt through lack of water. He stood admiring a Bougainvillea blossom when a giant thorn pierced his arm. He walked off rubbing it. Next, he was just passing when a spindly branch from a Hydrangea bush whipped him round the side of the neck. He was getting annoyed. Then, just moments later, a branch with a great cluster of gumnuts came down, hitting him on the head. The shock of it caused him to stumble and fall. He lay there for a moment while a flash of his wilting Angelonia came to him. He sat up slowly.

“OK!” he said, loudly. “I’ll water the Angelonia, OK? I will.”

“No doubt about these buggers,” he grumbled under his breath, as he went for the watering can. “Word soon gets around in Mother Nature!”

He paused momentarily at the window, watching the man across the street.

The man, who was dressed in an expensive suit, was obviously agitated. He had rushed to come to the address and was now standing with his back against a shop window, catching his breath. He was checking the time and looking up at the detective agency. It was evident that he considered it important to arrive at the office on time. The man seemed to be twitching, continually looking around nervously from time to time. Together, all of these things pointed to a person who was in serious trouble. He was living on his nerves. Beneath this there was a reluctance to turn to a stranger. The observer noticed these things in his line of work.

After a couple more minutes and checking the time again, the man carefully crossed the street, straitening his tie as he came forward to the entrance. The man at the window nodded with satisfaction seeing that the visitor was intent on giving a good impression. He could tell. He could also determine that it was a very personal and possibly embarrassing mission that had brought him here.

Minutes passed, before the elevator squealed behind him. The doors slid open and the gentleman in question emerged at the end of the long hall, looking around.

He said, “The Investigations Agency?”

The man at the window said, “Along the hall, second door on the left.”

As he watched him go he smiled knowingly.

He dropped his chamois leather into the bucket, squeezed it out and went back to cleaning the window.

When he left work he made a bee line for the clothes shop before catching the train.

On the train home, sitting with his new jumper in a bag on his lap, he thought about his mother. He was really pleased with it. It was just what he wanted. She knew he was going to buy one and he’d show it to her as soon as he got home. Staring out of the window, his mind meandered back in time, to another jumper. It was one that he had really hated. He remembered how coarse the wool was and how it scratched him whenever he wore it, and how it made him itch. He remembered how it became so bad that he complained about it. He said that he didn’t want to wear it any more. She had got really annoyed. Told him how much it had cost. He was sent to his room early that night.

That night… how he had laid in bed feeling so angry. How he had waited until it was well past midnight, before climbing out of his window, making his way across to the nearby woods, building a small fire and dropping his jumper into the flames. That night, he had seen it as such an adventure! He can remember getting back into bed, laying there, wondering how long it would take before she missed it? He remembered… it didn’t take long.

He thought about it now. It was so wrong and wilful. He wasn’t proud of it. Would she remember? Of course she would! She’s his mother. Thank goodness for a mother’s love.

The poet and the scientist sat together, one reading, one writing.

The elderly men, now retired, had been meeting up in the least busy end of the club room weekly for more years that either of them would have been able to easily remember. The scientist smiled as he watched his old friend scribbling away with passion.

He lowered his paper and said, “You can’t just fix a thing up by writing a poem about it.”

“Yes you can.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, I do; although it depends very much on what the ‘it’ is.”

The other grunted.

The poet continued. “After all there are so many its to contend with. This world of ours is full of them. Surely, you know that?”

“Example?”

“Ehm, I suppose one that stands out would be the verses written to woo some young girl that had rejected the attentions of the said writer.”

The man of science said, “I don’t suppose there would be any chance of anything being fixed there, since the girl had obviously made up her mind. When a girl makes up her mind…”

“No you’re right of course… bad example.” Without any prompting, his eyes glazed over and he went on. “You know, talking of girls, whenever I find kitty sitting on my favourite chair and I give her a gentle nudge for her to jump off, I get this strange little squeak. I like to think she is saying “Yes, of course, there you are, I’ve warmed it up for you.” He shook his head. “However, it may well be that what she’s really saying is, “Oh! No! I was so comfortable.”

His companion sat nodding slowly. He was used to his friend drifting off into his harmless dream world from time to time.

After this, they sat for some time discussing various examples of things that needed to be put right, both with and without the use of poetry.

Finally, the man of science, albeit a long time since this had been his work, leant over and tapped the pad with his friend’s verses. “May I see what you’ve come up with?”

“Of course, not finished yet, but I’m making progress.”

The other read.

“To be honest, I can’t see this fixing the well-publicised issue of the lack of veracity applied to the running of the 2016 presidential election campaign.”

Life comes in a box,

With no image on the lid.

Fragments that fit together,

With an overview partly hid.

–

Shapes with peripheral structures,

Each doubtless designed to fit.

Their allocated placements

Emerging bit by bit.

–

Much of it invisible,

No matter how keen the eye.

Gaps emerge that we cannot fill,

Appearing by-and-by.

–

Are all the pieces present?

Could one be on the floor?

Or slipped between the cushions?

Or has it gone forevermore?

–

Like some occluded mosaic,

Unseen, it may change its form.

Bits fading to transparency,

Some straying from the norm.

–

We know so little about the box,

With fragments that make the whole.

Odd shapes of a random nature,

Leading to an unknown goal.

–

Is there something here to solve,

That brings both grief and mirth?

Leaving only what is known…

The lid comes off at birth!

She wasn’t thumbing a lift, she was just standing there.

He pulled up because of what he saw. She was only young, maybe thirteen or fourteen. It was night time and pitch black. That particular road into town had no street lights. It wasn’t much more than a lane. It was a cold night. Apart from all that, she only had a white slip on and bare feet! He wound down his window.

She looked very pale.

He asked if she needed any help. She said no but a lift would be good and next moment she was in the back seat looking at him in the rear vision mirror.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Seventeen Bancroft Avenue,” was all she said.

He knew where that was and moved off. He knew that part of town and it wasn’t much out of his way. He glanced at her reflection from time to time. She didn’t speak again.

As he entered the avenue, he began looking at numbers. He pulled up at seventeen. Letting her know they had arrived, he turned to look. The back seat was empty.

He couldn’t help but notice the cemetery on the other side of the street.

It seems that sometimes even these… whatever they are, need a lift.

He was excited about going with his father for a visit.

It had been planned for some time, but now it was going to happen. His father went into great detail about what to expect. Although he was very young when the train had derailed that day, he did have some memory of it. His father had filled in the gaps, the head on collision, the crumpled carriages and the rescue workers crawling around in the dark calling out for any responses. That’s when they had lost her. That was the dreadful night they got separated, the boy from his mother and his father from his wife. But now, they were going to meet up again!

The boy’s excitement grew stronger as the time grew close. It was a very special day for them both. They hadn’t talked to her since the night of the crash. The night they died, and she survived.

He was continually getting into trouble.

As boys go, he was a lot more unruly than most. He never seemed to do things properly. It was often the case that he didn’t seem to understand what his mother had told him. Either that, or he just didn’t remember what he’d been told. Either way, she was running out of patience with him. The boy was acting like a dimwit. She’d talked about it with her husband and they decided that it may help if one of them had a heart-to-heart talk with him; maybe hit him with a few hard facts about himself. They felt it was worth a try. It was also agreed that if his behaviour didn’t improve after that, they would have to take him to a specialist.

This particular morning she had asked him to help with folding clothes. She showed him how to do it, asked him to put them in a pile and left him to it. When she returned she found a stack of scrunched clothes. It was as though he was being deliberately carefree in the way he did things. She had lost her temper and said how disappointed she was. He hung his head. He honestly felt he was really trying. He was trying so hard to please her. He was doing his best, but she just got really aggressive and shouted at him, all because he had folded them wrong.

“Look mum, I’m only human!” he shouted.

At this point she produced a small remote control from her handbag. She selected the ‘listen only’ mode and pressed a button. The boy’s body went stiff.

She gave a great sigh. “Yes. Well. I’m glad you brought that up…”

The morning his mother dropped him off at his grandma’s he could hardly wait to show her.

He always looked forward to these days, but more so today. He had his new mobile phone with him and he was looking forward to showing her all the things it could do. He’d only had it a couple of weeks but soon found some really great games. He made himself comfortable in the big armchair, as usual, while she went back to the oven to remove the tray of Anzac biscuits she’d made. They had been her daughter’s favourites when she had been her grandson’s age. As soon as she was gone he slipped the phone out of his pocket. He switched it on; nothing happened. The screen was black! He began franticly pressing buttons. He pressed the power button, the home button, the mute and volume buttons. He pressed them all several times. The screen stayed black. He knew it was charged because he was there when his mother plugged it in and there again this morning when she unplugged it.

His grandma came back with a tray. A plate of biscuits and drinks. As she set it down she was surprised to find he had tears forming.

“Oh! Dear! Whatever’s the matter?”

“It’s my phone. I wanted to show you my phone, but it’s dead!”

“Oh! That’s a shame, dear, let me look at it.”

Wiping tears away, he handed it to her.

She sat looking at the dead screen. “Are you sure it’s charged?”

“Yes. I saw mum do it.” He sniffed. “I’ve pressed all the buttons?”

A faint smile crossed her face, unnoticed. “Let me see if grandma can fix it, eh?”

While she held the home and lock keys down at the same time for a few seconds, she thought back to a time when her daughter would show her so many things about computers, laptops and mobile phones. She remembered how her ignorance had showed and how she’d been teased about it. Of course, her daughter was a little older then than he is now. Nevertheless, something was being turned around. On the screen, the logo appeared and shortly after that the home screen sprang to life.

She revelled in the look of awe and amazement she received, as she handed it back.

It was her big day.

She had only known him for a few months, but they knew they were meant for each other. It had all happened so fast. The casual meeting in the local library where she worked. The dinner dates. The passion he had brought into her otherwise dull life. She recalled all this as she sat in front of her bedroom mirror touching up her makeup. The ladies downstairs were gracious enough to give her a few minutes to herself to quietly reflect on what the new life she was about to embark on would bring. The speed of their courtship had taken most of her friends by surprise, but they all wished her the happiness that she herself felt was meant to be.

When she had finished, she sat gazing into her reflection, remembering the day he had walked towards her counter in the library, book in hand. She thought about his winning smile and his softly spoken comments about other books by the same author.

Her reverie was broken with the shock of seeing a figure behind her in the room. She was sure the door hadn’t opened and closed. The fear that ran through her was like nothing she had ever experienced. Apart from her body shaking, she didn’t move. She was transfixed, waiting. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but knew something was coming. It did, when the figure raised his hands, put his palms together in the way of prayer and stepped forward.

The figure spoke. “I beg you not to marry him.”

She spun around. “Pardon?”

He moved a little closer. “For pity’s sake, don’t do it.”

She was still trembling with fear when she asked, “Sorry, I don’t recognise you. Who are you?”

“I’m your grandson,” he whispered… and vanished.