Author: Alexander Fawn

She was in two minds about showing up.

She wasn’t at all sure about her date. She’d been told that he was nice, but a bit odd. Anyway, he was right on time when they met. He was very polite. The restaurant he chose was quite classy and the food was great.

They were finishing with coffees when he unexpectedly blurted it out. “What do you know about what happened in Istanbul last night.”

She was intrigued. She said, “Nothing! Why? What happened?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” he said, taking another sip of his coffee.

“You don’t?”

He shrugged. “No. That’s why I asked. You might have known something.”

She finished her coffee and looked forward to leaving. It seemed an age before she was waving goodbye getting on the bus.

She can’t say she wasn’t warned.

He sat looking at his glass.

With a trembling hand, he managed to drain the remains of the second bottle of twelve-year-old scotch whiskey into it. With difficulty, he brought the tumbler to his lips. He sipped shakily as he pushed through his inebriated state to reflect upon the incident that brought him to his present malaise.

He considered that it would take a defrocked Jesuit priest with a predilection for sky-diving, who was an avid fan of reality tv, hated Mexican food, had a sister that he never talked to, had ongoing issues with a fungal infection of his toenails, who was born by Caesarean section under the sign of Capricorn, on a Wednesday morning during a violent storm, and whose dog got run over outside a pawnbrokers shop, that later closed down on account of the owner being arrested and jailed for a series of local burglaries…

…only someone like that could even come close to properly understanding the way he felt when the girl in the laundromat told him to get lost.

The old man in his rocker reached for the bottle.

He poured a measure of single malt whisky into his glass. He thought about the one that had passed away. God rest his soul, he thought, as he put the glass to his lips. Naturally, there were other passings. Yes, and him, he thought, may he also rest in peace. He poured another to commemorate the sad event. There were so many of them. Ah! Yes, he’s another, God bless. He poured again.

This went on for a further half-hour. So many gone, he thought. So many sombre moments. I wonder why I talk about all of them as hims, he mused, I’m sure there must have been a few ladies among them. He looked at the half empty bottle. The porch was getting chilly. I’m going in now, he decided, and there’s no point in wasting electricity.

Before going in, he got up and switched off the electric mosquito zapper.

It really couldn’t get any worse.

It was a case of one damned thing after another. He sat on the floor of the cave, watching his torch grow dimmer by the minute. He’d been fossicking around in the cave for less than an hour when the cave-in happened. The sound of the rocks crashing down at the entrance and the resulting thunder that roared back through the tunnel had left his ears ringing. He knew that the fading torch meant that his only source of light would soon be gone. Before any of this, the handle came off his little trowel and the strap on his multi-pocketed sample bag had snapped.

He wistfully thought about what might have been. What, he now felt, should have been. He’d been offered a job in his uncle’s company. Nothing more than dull paperwork, nine to five, but steady work. Then, he’d seen the poster, pasted up outside the local Space Research recruitment centre. ‘Work among the stars’ it said. The money was pretty good and the work was in no way arduous. He’d get to fly his own spaceship and take exciting trips in his personal shuttle craft. He’d be happily gathering soil samples from some of the less-visited planets around the outer edge of the galaxy. That wasn’t too bad, was it? At least he was very much his own boss most of the time.

But now, here he was, on this Godforsaken planet, trapped in a cave, in a stuffy space suit, watching his torch flicker. It finally went out!

He sat for a long time, reflecting miserably on his misfortune. As these minutes passed, he became aware of the fact that it wasn’t really dark at all, well, not completely. A faint glimmer was coming from back at the entrance. He carefully crept through the tunnel and discovered a wall of shattered rocks with a fist-sized hole, deep within the pile. It let enough light through for him to survey the area. There was only one option. He needed to start pulling it all apart.

It was obvious that to safely remove sufficient debris to allow him to crawl through was going to take a long time. But, he had heaps of that, he thought. So, he set to, carefully taking out one piece at a time and stacking them back along the wall of the passageway. Hours later, and he had no idea how many, the light failed. It was obviously night outside. Now it really was pitch black. He searched around for a piece of ground that felt as though it was fairly flat, put his head down, and went to sleep.

Naturally, the light woke him. He began the gruelling task again, although he was feeling tired and hungry. This fact seemed to slow him down a lot throughout the second day. But he had no choice about what he was doing, and when the light coming through began to diminish he could see that there was a good chance that one more daytime of work was all that was needed to give him freedom. He worked on until he could no longer see. He settled down to sleep again. He lay thinking about removing the last of the boulders and crawling outside. As he drifted off to sleep, he began to dream about climbing into his comfy chair in the shuttle and setting the controls on the console, with its tiny red light, using the navigation screen to take him back up to a ship that had food, and all the usual creature comforts.

Again, he woke to see the amount of work to be done and began with renewed enthusiasm. He’d only been shifting material for a short time when his dream came back to him. Walking back and forth with his loads he remembered it in more detail; sitting back into the soft, ergonomic seat with the red light showing… wait… showing?

He gently put down the rock he was carrying and stood thinking for a while. Why would he dream about the glowing indicator? After a few minutes he realised that it was because it was real. The light was on! At least, it had been. It was coming back to him now. As he left his seat in front of the console he had seen it. Yes, there was no doubt about it. He had seen the main power indicator glowing with a little red dot, telling him that he hadn’t powered the shuttle down when he left, and that was… he counted… three days ago! His head started to spin. He was giggling to himself when he found his sleeping area. There was no need to rush anymore. He would have a nice lay down.

After all, the only thing waiting for him outside was a one-man scout craft with a flat battery…

He was certainly a nasty piece of work, but an absolute whizz on the banjo.

He was always happy to play for any visitors who came through his front door, this being the primary reason he had so many come and go, but there was always the strict rule that nobody touched his precious banjo! This had always been respected on account of the fact that it was quite evident that in all other respects he was not a nice person. Many felt truly saddened when these jolly musical events came to an abrupt end. It wasn’t made clear just how he’d come to meet his maker, but newspaper reports had indicated that it involved a shootout in a nightclub. It had always been suspected that he was a major player in the local drug trade.

Despite the bad publicity, and in memory of so many delightful evenings spent listening to him play, the wake that was held for him attracted a great many followers.

On the day, several eulogies were given and a number of people had brought drink, along with several plates of nicely prepared finger food. For a while, the party atmosphere filled the room with noisy chatter, fond memories and laughter.

This changed unexpectedly, when one of the man’s greatest admirers took the instrument down from the peg on the wall and began to strum a slow tribute to the dead musician.

The first thing they noticed was the heat building up in the room, accompanied by a sulphurous odour. That was when the flames started to appear. These quickly grew and leapt up, skirting the room. That’s when the screaming started. Luckily, somebody managed to get the back door open and amid the chaos of shouting and shrieking, they all managed to get out into the back garden.

This was followed by a great deal of pointless complaining.

After all, it wasn’t as though any of them hadn’t been told…

He was standing at the kitchen counter reading the instructions on seed packets.

The forecast said that Sunday was going to be sunny and dry; perfect weather for gardening. According to the descriptions, there were several colours. He wasn’t sure whether he’d sow them in a random fashion or create some sort of colour design. Maybe he could do a little of both, a mix of colours with an emphasis on one. It was quite a large patch of soil. He’d know when the time came. He was squinting at the annoyingly small print on the back of one of them when he felt the tremor.

A figure appeared, just like that!

“I must say, you’ve been busy,” the stranger said, nodding with approval.

Visibly shaken, the man looked at the figure, whoever he was. “What?”

“You know, tomorrow in the garden,” said the other, pointing at the seed packets and smiling.

His fear turning to anger, the man said, “Yes, but I haven’t done it yet! Who the hell are you, anyway? How did you get in here?”

“I know, this is where I have to explain.” He moved closer to the counter and leant on it. “I come from a different world and sometimes these worlds, yours and mine, kind of overlap. I’m sure that must sound pretty weird to you, but time runs backwards in our world. Of course, this seems quite natural from our point of view. Our world… well, it’s very interesting, most of the time, that is. There are other major differences, apart from time running in different directions. One of them is the fact that we know about you, but you don’t know about us. That just happens to be the case, and we don’t know why. Not your problem… ours.

Amazed at his own calmness, the man said, “OK, but what are you doing here?”

“Eh? Nothing really. This thing, this crossover, it just happens. Like I said, we don’t know why.” He moved a couple of packets around. “When it does,” he went on, “we only seem to be able to talk to someone who’s, how can I put it… vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?”

“Ah! Maybe not vulnerable, more like being open to suggestion. For instance, you seem calm enough, have you been smoking at all?

“I don’t smoke very often, only socially, but I have the feeling you don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t, most of our contacts are smoking pot or taking illicit drugs or something. If you haven’t, it means you’re a natural.”

“Is that good?”

“Definitely! It means that for the time we have, we can hold a relatively normal conversation. This is good, I’ll be talking about this for weeks; in reverse of course.”

“In reverse?”

“Yes, your future is our past. It’s actually very simple, but I wouldn’t try to work it out, if you know what I mean; considering your situation, you wouldn’t stand a chance!”

The man sighed. “Look, I’m getting really lost here, but I can’t help wondering if any of us visit you during one of these… these crossover things.”

“Oh! Yes, quite often, more often than we are able to visit your world.” The visitor frowned. “That’s another thing we don’t understand.”

At that moment, the room began to vibrate softly and the visitor pulled a sad face as his form started to quiver. His voice began to trail off, as he said, “By the way, I shouldn’t really say this, but the patch of blue in the middle looked really nice.”

With that, he was gone.

She knew it was always a critical event.

Preparing for that very significant moment for mum and dad was uppermost in her mind. She knew that looks were everything. When it came to makeup, she was really talented. She warmed her hands under the hot tap and dried them off. Just a small blob of face lotion was enough. She carefully applied an even coating, then with a soft tissue she removed any excess. This was followed by the flesh-coloured foundation cream. Again, this was applied with practiced care and skill. Finally, a last-minute touch up with the hairbrush and she was finished. She would be happy with the viewing now.

She stood back from the coffin.

Voilà! The bullet hole in the centre of the corpse’s forehead was barely noticeable.

It paused, for a moment, the briefest of all possible moments…

It had all been done, yet again. All squared away. Taking a global view, financial institutions across the planet running smoothly, accounts adjusted, salaries paid, commissions calculated, foreign exchanges updated. Internet humming happily; sites, blogs, weather updates, and all manner of multimedia going gang-busters, air traffic controls all in hand, and traffic lights across the continents flashing away.

All social media sites sending and receiving, countless pieces of music, songs, poems, plays, scripts, programmes, movies, emails, news reports and weather warnings. Everything just ticking away; with networks networking, processors processing, repeaters repeating, inputs inputting, output outputting, printers printing, scanners scanning, connecters connecting, collectors collecting, providers providing, savers saving, selectors selecting, assigners assigning, filters filtering, firewalls firewalling, cables cabling, signals signalling and waves waving. A great multitude of digital activities.

A billion of this and a trillion of that.

It really was time for a break…

It switched itself off!

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.