Author: Alexander Fawn

He was sitting down, lost in thought.

He was thinking about the years that have passed and how they were inevitably rolling on to what was the end, the end for everybody. The nurse enters the room and notes the worried look on the man’s face.

She approached him. “How are you doing?”

Snapping out of it, he looks up. “Just thinking,” he said, “as I get older, I know that my memories of all that I have experience, the good and the bad, will slowly fade. All those things I have seen and done will be harder to recall. Some of the recollections will take on a vagueness that leave me wondering whether they are truly real or just imagined.” His grey eyes smiled.

She went to speak.

“As for my physical state,” he went on, “well, I know that it is perfectly normal for my body functions to slow down and become less effective. Parts of me will wear out gradually and any aches and pains will take longer to subside…”

“OK.” she said. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

Back at the desk, she asked, “What’s he in for?”

The other nurse checks her screen. “Flu jab.”

“Goes on a bit, doesn’t he? For a seventeen year old, I mean. What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh! Nothing, he’s just getting old.”

The man from the technical department was a creature of habit.

It was his custom to walk from the office to the park, find himself a bench and have a quiet smoke in the middle of the afternoon. He would have to say this was one of his favourite smoking times. With only a couple of working hours to go in the office, it gave him a chance to sum the day up. He considered his work to be fairly complex and exacting; at least, compared with most jobs, it was. Another reason was to make a complete break and reflect on it. He had only just found an empty bench and settled down, taking out his cigarettes, when a man seemed to come out of nowhere. The stranger sat down beside him.

He had him pegged as a stranger. He knew just about everybody from his workplace. Out of politeness, he held up the cigarette packet.

“Do you mind if…?”

“No. carry on.”

He lit up, puffed and blew smoke.

A couple of minutes passed before the stranger said, “You’re enjoying that, eh?”

The other was taken by surprise with the question, but was happy enough to give his thoughts. He pulled a face. “I’ve been told that one can’t actually enjoy an addiction.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been able to get my head around that.”

The stranger said, “They do say those things can kill you.”

The other thought for a moment, then said, “Personally, I think that’s right. I think there’s a lot of evidence to support that.” He waved his cigarette. “You don’t mind then?”

“Not at all. I guess I’m one of those rare people who actually enjoy the smell of other people’s smoke.”

The smoker went on. “I guess, at the end of the day, I’ve come to terms with the whole thing. Somewhere along the way I must have decided that I was prepared to pay whatever the price was, for smoking.”

At this, the stranger produced his own packet of cigarettes and lit one.

Surprised at this, the other asked, “You smoke?”

“I certainly do,” came the reply.

After a long pause, he turned to face the stranger full on, and looking puzzled, asked, “So… our previous conversation?”

The stranger smiled and said, “Ah!”…

He was nervous about giving the speech.

As a local politician, it had been decided that he should officially open the new shopping precinct. It would be a short opening ceremony, but it may well draw a fair-sized crowd. If it wasn’t for his wife’s insistence he would have had someone else make the speech. However, she convinced him that with her moral support he could do it. He knew it would be good for his prestige on the local council. So, after a great deal of thought, he agreed that it was his place to say a few words. He needed to learn them. So, he began to regularly rehearse his lines by shuffling bits of paper and mumbling to himself.

When the morning of the opening came, he arrived to find a large, noisy crowd gathered outside the centre’s main entrance. Supressing his growing anxiety, he mounted the podium and looked for his wife among all the faces. Then he spotted her, she was giving him an encouraging wave. He smiled and nodded back, feeling some of the stress fade away. As his hand went into his jacket pocket for his notes he looked for her again; she blew him a kiss. This surprised him, because it was something she never did. Along with his notes he found a card. When he looked down he saw it was a small head and shoulders photograph of a typist who works at the council. In fact, the woman he’d been seeing.

He froze, staring down at it, with his nerves jangling. It took only a few seconds for the emotions of bewilderment, understanding, guilt, fear, and finally sheer panic, to race through his brain.

During those same moments, somewhere in a building across the street, a professional assassin’s finger gently comes to rest on a trigger…

The boys often played in these woods; today they went further.

They had planned for it. Today they took the overgrown path out towards the old buildings that people said were haunted. They both agreed that it was just a cover story for something else. Probably a drug lab, thought one, or maybe an illegal arms cache, supposed the other. Whatever it was, it was all very hush-hush once the place had been closed down by the authorities. They had never ventured that far until now. Today they had time on their hands. One of the boys, older by a year, had checked it out with Google maps and reckoned it would take them just over an hour to get there.

The route they had chosen proved to be a lot harder to negotiate than they thought, but neither was willing to give up on their quest. At long last, now growing dark, and after more than two hours of struggling through dense vegetation, they arrived at what would have been the front of the main building.

“Great!” said the younger one, “at least we made it.”

“Yes,” agreed the other, “but look at the time. It’ll take even longer to get back in the dark.”

“Maybe we could sleep in the building and go back in the morning.”

The other nodded. “It would be an adventure, wouldn’t it? We’re in trouble anyway.” He looked around, “I don’t know what this place was, when it got closed down. I only know there was a hell of a stink about it,” he whispered.

There was a sign on the ground, obviously fallen and covered with leaves. The older boy crept forward. It was then that they heard a soft buzzing sound coming from the building. He brushed at it until they could make it out.

It read:

‘Body Parts Inc.

This week’s special.

Three arms for the price of two!’

They decided to go home.

It was all a bit complicated.

On the face of it, it was a bad situation for both parties. Little did the driver of the vehicle know that he’d been sold a dud. It had failed the roadworthy test and was not legal to drive. While at the same time, she would discover that he had paid for the car by giving her a phony cashier’s cheque. Although this was the case, neither of them was destined to become aware of the facts. It turned out that in both cases things were about to get worse. For him, an unmarked police car pulled him over and a plain-clothes undercover detective got out and approached the car. For her, cashing in the cheque was suddenly interrupted when masked bank robbers had all of the customers lay face down on the floor while they made the cashiers fill their bags.

At this point, both individuals were fully aware that their predicaments had got worse, but they had no way of knowing that the worst was yet to come. For him, there was no way he could have suspected that the plain clothes officer was a serial killer. For her, there was little chance of her anticipating that one of the robbers would panic and shoot her.

It was all a bit complicated, and any moral that could be derived from the relaying of these events would properly rest with…

A large envelope went around the company with employees making donations.

It was for the upcoming Christmas party. The factory manager did the rounds, going to each staff member, asking them to put in what they could afford. Some only came up with a handful of coins, but most gave notes. It was the day after the collection that the theft was discovered. The envelope had been emptied of all banknotes, leaving only the loose change. There was a lot of heated discussion about who would do such a rotten thing. It was made worse by the fact that it was most likely that someone who worked there had done it. The factory boss had his suspicions, as he had seen one of the young workers hovering around the office area, looking shifty, early that morning.

He was convinced that the boy had stolen the money. He decided to take him to the general manager’s office, where he would shame him into admitting what he had done. At the arranged time, the manager had called the boy off the factory floor, telling him they had an appointment in the boss’s office. They entered and pulled chairs up to the desk facing the general manager, who sat frowning at the boy.

Coming straight out with it, the factory manager said, “Isn’t it a fact that you stole money from the company’s Christmas party collection?”

The boy didn’t answer. He just sat looking around the room.

Raising his voice, he repeated, “Isn’t it a fact that you stole money from the company’s Christmas party collection?”

As the boy still made no response, the general manager intervened by saying angrily, “Come on, boy. Answer the question!”

The boy, looking surprised, said, “I’m sorry. I thought he was talking to you.”

The elderly woman was crossing the road when she tripped and fell.

Fortunately, she had almost made it to the other side when it happened. A passer-by managed to get her up onto the pavement, but she was still lying down. She was obviously shaken. The incident occurred during a busy time on the main street through town and it could have been a lot worse. By the time the policeman arrived at the scene, several people were crowding around the old lady.

With a commanding voice, the officer cried, “Everybody step back, please.”

Instantly, they all stood, then moving away, they lined up obediently with their backs against the wall of the building; three men and two women, all standing to attention.

The officer was amazed at this level of compliance. He boomed, “Sit!”

Again, without hesitation, they all slid down the wall and took up positions sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk.

It was then that the senior officer appeared and took the policeman to one side. He grinned and said, “Before you get them all to roll over… I’ll take it from here.”

The first officer nodded and went on with his patrol.

He had recently been transferred from the police dog training unit.

He saw it as he was turning into the driveway.

It was out there on public display. It was his favourite paisley waist coat. Well, he only ever had the one, but it was still his favourite. He’d had it forever. Back in the day, when they went out dancing, it was his signature, everyone loved it. It took the brunt of many a joke, but it was a thing his friends used to identify him with, as a good sort, always good for a laugh. It was always packed whenever they went away. It was a big hit in Ibiza, the locals there loved it. He even wore it when he went skydiving once.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Plenty of ups and downs; lots of downs lately; with her. He felt it all going pear-shaped when he came home drunk again. She knew how much the thing meant to him. Yes, he got the message. He got out of the car and walked back out to the recycle bin. There it was, half hanging out… deliberately! He took it out, shook it off and laid it carefully on the passenger seat.

As he drove away, he thought he’d have it dry-cleaned.

She rounded the corner, only to see her ride home pull away.

If she had been just thirty seconds earlier she would have caught the bus and accidentally kicked the man’s briefcase over, spilling his papers. Between them they would have gathered them up, smiling at each other. She would have said how sorry she was and he would have suggested she make up for it by buying him a cup of coffee the following evening. They would have gone steady for a little over a year before marrying.

Two days into their honeymoon in Rome, he would have left the hotel to buy a newspaper and would have been hit by a truck. He would have died at the scene. As a result of this, the grief, together with the strain and frustration of working with the local authorities to get all of the required paperwork sorted so that she could arrange to have his body sent back home, it was all too much. This would have taken a heavy toll on her health. For several days she would have suffered from what she thought at the time was a bout of influenza. However, when it was eventually diagnosed it would have turned out to be Meningococcal disease. As a result of the late diagnosis without treatment, she would have died the following day.

All this… if she had caught the bus. But she didn’t. She went home on the late bus and found her flat was in the middle of an extensive power cut. This meant that she couldn’t prepare her usual mug of hot cocoa before going to bed.

She was extremely annoyed about it.

The old man was sitting on a seat watching people go by.

It was one of those handy benches, scattered down the main aisle that ran the length of the shopping centre, for shoppers who need to take a break. He’d been there a while. He was sitting with his eyes closed. Not sleepy, just trying to shut the world out. Although he’d been homeless for some time, this was just one of those days when his troubles seemed to get on top of him. His life had gone downhill from the time he’d been fired from his job and his wife said she wanted something better. She left and eventually he lost the house. He was surrounded by the noise of the centre, the constant music, people chattering as they hurried passed; he was finding it hard to think.

He wished it would all just stop!

At that moment everything went silent, no noise at all. He opened his eyes. He tried to look around, but he couldn’t move. Only his eyes shifted from side to side. Everything and everybody was still there, but motionless. Like him, all of the shoppers were stopped in their tracks. He was looking at a frozen scene. It was a terrifying sight!

Inside his cluttered mind it came back to him slowly. His wish. His desire to have everything stop… and it had! He started to panic. What had he done? How could he undo it?

Then, there was the sudden sting; more like a prod, to his shoulder. He blinked and looked up. The security guy had noticed the top of a bottle protruding from under the old man’s jacket.

He ignored it. Instead, he said, “Move along ‘Pop’. Store closes in five.”