Author: Alexander Fawn

The Chief Inspector had asked all members of the household to join him in the study.

This included the estate’s ground staff and several family members and guests that had been present at the time of the murder. Before long, more than twenty people had entered the room and found somewhere to sit. Apparently, he had cracked the case and was going to explain how the murder of the lord of the manor had been committed and by what extremely cunning means it had been carried out. As a result of the corpse’s blueish skin colour it was established that it was a case of nitrate poisoning.

However, the perpetrator would never have been suspected and found out if the inspector had not been called in on the case to bring to bear his many years of experience. The carrying out of the crime was so unbelievably devious that only a full explanation of how it was done would put all innocent parties at ease.

Unfortunately, he had hardly opened his notebook when his face turned blue.

The young man on the bus was reading his lecture notes.

He was currently studying for a master’s degree in philosophy with an emphasis on what the great philosophers thought. He was shaking his head. He felt that they had never really got to the nub of the thing. The thing being life, and the way we live it. The entire system is based on structure; it is built on levels of status. Everything, from beggars to kings. We even have celebrities! Get it? Celebrities, I ask you. He thought this as though he was telling somebody about it. He knew that his disillusionment was giving way to bitterness. He went back to considering his options with regards to moving to another area of study, when he saw the flash.

Suddenly, there was a man sitting next to him on the bus. The student jumped. The visitor had the window seat, and he certainly wasn’t there before!

“Sorry about that,” said the man. “It comes with the job, I’m afraid.”

The student blinked a few times, in a daze, he said, “Yeah. OK.”

The visitor, just another quite ordinary looking passenger, said, “We gave ‘fading-in’ a go for a while, but we got even worse reactions.”

“I can imagine,” said the student.

The visitor looked out of the window. “How does it all work?” he asked. “How do they make it all work out there? You know, the people, what they do, how they manage?”

The student recovered quickly. “Oh that! It’s not complicated.” He shrugged slowly. “It’s all about conformity really,” he went on, voicing his previous thoughts. “I’m sure that around ninety-eight percent of the world’s population are in a comatose state, but they wouldn’t know it.”

“That many?”

“Oh! Yes, and all of the right conditioning is in place, for the life cycle.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, again, it’s pretty straight forward.”

The visitor showed his interest by nodding.

The student said, “Look out there; what do you see? Young people like me going into workplaces, well, most of them, anyway. They work right through their lives, then they get too old to do whatever they were doing and get put into homes… where they die. It’s a cycle, you see?”

He heard the visitor whisper, “Yes, fascinating.”

The student let out a long sigh.

When he turned, the visitor had gone.

And like so many other things in his life, he had missed his stop.

She was still feeling groggy when she parked the car.

She’d been working overtime and the rest of the family were already there when she got home. Because of her obvious injuries; bruised arms and neck, swollen eye and a couple of sticky plasters on her face, they all gathered around while she slumped into the nearest chair. She was still dazed and couldn’t tell them much, only that she’d called in at the supermarket on the way home from work. She remembers waking up in the manager’s office. They were very nice to her, giving her a cup of tea and a biscuit. They let her sit for a while before she was able to stand up. Although she kept being asked what had happened, she was too traumatised to recall anything clearly.

“If it’s alright,” she said, “I think I should just go up and lay down.”

They all agreed.

As her husband was helping her out of the chair, it suddenly dawned on him to ask, “This was at the local supermarket, was it?”

“Yes,” she replied weakly.

“What did you go in for?”

“Toilet rolls.”

He never really wanted to study social science.

His parents did; he didn’t. It had started within a couple of years of leaving school. He should start taking small yet positive steps, they said. Steps that would have him eventually climb the ladder of success. It was impressed upon him never to look down, always up; constantly up to a higher goal. You can rise above it all and reach lofty heights, they kept saying.

When the time came, he found himself at the local university, studying the social sciences whether he liked it or not. Generally speaking, man and society was of no interest. Man’s interaction with others didn’t score much better. The way man decides how to govern sections of the populace was nothing short of boring, and he couldn’t care less about the way past events are recorded. On that basis, economics, sociology, social science and history were all out. When it came right down to it, he couldn’t give a fig for any of it.

The only subject of any interest at all was demography; mainly dealing with the statistical study of human populations, their sizes, their distribution and density. To some degree it analysed the grouping of dense populations in blocks of flats and housing estates. The high populations found in tall office blocks was of particular interest. With this in mind, very gradually, his awareness concerning his own lack of independent thought began to take hold.

When this newfound self-confidence had fully emerged, he quit university and got a job as a crane driver.

Tips for when you’re in the city and people are handing out leaflets.

The most important thing to remember is not to expect that anybody is going to hand you a personal cheque for five thousand dollars, because the chances of that are really slim. It is far more likely that they will be leaflets. You need to realise that these people that are thrusting pieces of paper at you are just doing their job, like anybody else. No need to be rude. Of course, there are the shakers. It’s all about cans being shaken to get your attention. These guys are not giving, they’re taking. They just want your money. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. In fact, you could say that the tin-shakers’ motives are more noble than the guys handing out bits of paper. Who’s to say? Anyway, back to the paper pushers. The fact is you could end up with just about anything in your hand.

Some of the fancier ones have graphic designs. The general idea is to provide information in a small space. The flyers can range in quality a great deal, from the inexpensively photocopied stuff right through to the glossy, full-colour circulars. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what they are advertising, but remember, don’t expect to be offered a personal cheque for five thousand dollars. Most of them are just out and out marketing. Simple text messages telling you what’s on offer. Sometimes they come with a discount, some with an expiry date. Not often, but sometimes people go to that bit of extra trouble by cutting their handout into a particular shape, such as a dog for a dog-washing service. Sometimes you get things that are more card than paper.

You’d have to say that these leaflets are a pretty passive form of marketing, unlike the aggressive types who scowl as they hand you some handbill for a protest, or the guy dressed in a sausage roll costume outside of the bakery. But, at the end of the day, there’s not a lot of harm in it. I guess they’ll always be leaflets.

Anyway, don’t forget, you shouldn’t be too surprised if no one hands over a personal cheque for five thousand dollars, but, just to be safe, it’s always smart to at least glance at it before you drop it in the bin.

Fifty seven,

It might have been heaven.

It provides an ambiance as sweet as honey,

With a location so often sunny,

And as think-tanks go, it’s good for the money,

But an unkind soul may well find it funny,

When smirking at the joys of an outdoor dunny.

But such ignobility was never the case,

As the stay in question never took place!

–

The booking itself had to move.

The state of affairs didn’t improve.

–

You’d say that number five,

Is a bit of a dive.

Modernity is something

The place is not at all rich in.

You wash from a tin,

And put out the bin,

And it’s always ten to four in the kitchen!

She had always been the same.

Ever since they first met, she’d been a complainer. He really loved her, but she never seemed to be satisfied with anything he tried to do for her. When it wasn’t him she was grumbling about, it was something else. She was always dissatisfied about something. Like the cost of bus fares or the noisy trucks passing along their street, or the local shop forever running out of bread, or the house across the road with its front garden that had nothing but weeds. Some of the children in the street weren’t very respectful towards her. As for the newcomer who had just moved into 14b with all the tattoos and an obvious drinking problem and what he said to her… well she couldn’t stop talking about that!

He really wanted to do something extra special for her birthday. The box of chocolates seemed to go down well, but their trip down to the cellar was something else. He switched the light on and led the way.

When she reached the bottom… that’s when she began to scream.

He we go again, he thought. You would think that she’d be absolutely delighted to find the corpse of the rude man from 14b, lying on their cellar floor.

At the time, she couldn’t understand why he didn’t turn up.

They had been dating for several months. She’d met him in the Christian book shop. They seemed to have so much in common. He had struck her as being a very caring and decent guy. They had even discussed marriage briefly on occasion. He was definitely reliable. If he was running a few minutes late, he would text her. He was thoughtful like that. He was probably delayed at work, or he may have had problems finding somewhere to park. Of course, there was always car trouble. There was bound to be a good reason. Anyway, she had arrived at the cinema’s foyer early. The main feature wouldn’t start for another ten minutes, but he was cutting it fine. Then, with only a couple of minutes to go, she went back out onto the street and looked up and down. Checking the time once more, she could see that they weren’t going to make it. No big deal, really. He would text her later. She just hoped he was all right.

Resigned to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen, she made her way to the bus stop. She was crossing the street when she came face to face with his image. A head and shoulders close-up, right there on the large TV screen in the shop window. She stood gaping when the caption came up, ‘Man arrested for murdering his wife. Brutal slaying shocks neighbours’.

She carried on along the street, Oh! Dear, what a shame, she thought.

She was British.

They had always enjoyed their special morning ritual.

The house is just not the same without her, but this morning would be different. He wakes to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Downstairs he finds two slices of buttered fruit loaf sitting on a pre-warmed plate. The morning paper has been brought in and placed next to the plate. He opens it and sits for a while eating, drinking and reading. He then wanders into the lounge with his paper and settles down in his usual armchair. A short time later he walks back through the kitchen and goes out into the garden, where he looks for her, happily pottering around. Naturally enough, she isn’t there.

The house is just not the same without her.

He wakes with a jolt.

It was all there, intact, everything that could possibly be known, was known.

It was all there for me. All that any human had ever wanted to know about life within the universe and beyond. A great amassing of all information about everything. A vast aggregation of knowledge. The meaning of life. The beginnings of life on Earth detailed. An explanation of consciousness. The cures for all diseases. Knowledge of all life forms in the universe. All forms of matter understood. Black holes and dark energy fully described. Full knowledge of superconductivity. Quantum computing made clear. Quarks laid bare. The cosmological constant fully explained. The origin of particle masses made clear. A complete analysis of the fundamental grand unified theory of forces. A complete breakdown of all astrophysical objects. A thorough understanding of the level of stability in the universe. The answers to the multiverse. The origin of the universe given in detail, and a comprehensive knowledge of all new particles that are yet to be discovered…

Now?

Nothing!

It all went as I was wrapped in a towel and handed to my next mother.