Freedom Fiction Journal

Pulp to grind your senses!!! An eclectic mix of all flavours of genre fiction

The Primordial God

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You

Question everything.
Accept what is Right.
There is an Art of creation.
There is a Science of creation.

Ask and be sceptic. Ask and learn. Ask and share experiences. Ask and know thyself.

Science goes where Science can do good.
Art goes where Art can do good.

Fear nothing but the fear of not going ahead with the life you are blessed with.

God is in your heart. God gives what is needed, not what is wanted.

Worship anything, stone, moulded stone, you are your own guide, your own Guru. No one can teach you what you already know – so all life on Earth knows right from wrong, and doesn’t need to be taught that by anyone.

Find the balance and praise your own Soul, the fraction of the Super Soul – where you go, the rest of the planet follows.

Be thyself, know thyself, do good and show how to be good.

The Universe heals itself and time only moves forward – look ahead, regret nothing, all is what you are. You are what all are.

OM

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Checkmate

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Checkmate
by Ujjwal Dey

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” – Joseph Priestley

“Mercenary they label me”, the captain growled, “soon they will be begging me to negotiate. I will know where their nukes are, where their bullion are, where their President hides and I will know where they look for me. Soon all the information required for a 21st century war will be sold only by me. And they will pay a price for killing each of my heroes.” The captain sat in his chair and popped open a chilled beer. “The cold war has just been initiated.”

The radar scanned the skies with precise measured matrix drawn on its automated processing board. The eight towers of the facility had two guards each keeping vigil in the twilight. The moon carved the cloudless sky with its curve. The watch dogs – alert, able and still as the silent dusk. The glass walls of the research facility revealed lab technicians working mechanically under fluorescent lights.

I watched my screen as it searched data on the newly found solar flare and its effects on computers and every electronic device under the sun. The CPU hummed as the program reached its conclusion. All the facility equipments were functioning appropriately. No sign of data loss or error. Yet the Project Manager was frantically pacing in his cabin. I was to find out what was causing a two second delay in our transmission to Space Station Delta 1. If all the equipment was fine then there shouldn’t be even a fraction of a second’s delay in our organised execution of Project SkyTech.

Assignment 74A – for me this project made it possible to scan the earth’s surface and I mean any angle, any longitude or latitude on this planet in a matter of minutes. If you were on a plane or in a submarine, we could tell you where on earth you were with reference to any city or constellation. The algorithm was prepared by students of various universities in parts without knowing that their thesis was actually a grand scale defence project.

The solar flare would last 3 days but the disruption would be lasting longer than that. I studied the forecast for the sudden burst of energy in the atmosphere and pinpointed the exact time when the flare coincided with the first transmission delay. The WAN that connected all the branch facilities of the organisation had been online the whole time with its firewalls receiving the usual amount of bandwidth load. So if there is a hack in place it was done so professionally that it would require the services of supercomputers that few nations and fewer organisations possessed.

I informed the Project Manager about the EXE that had managed to provide outsiders access to our data. “Exactly how much they know, we would discover only after extensive investigation.” He fell silent, as if pondering on the tragedy about to unfold within the next 17 hours. If they knew our transmissions they could have enough data to decrypt the program that controlled the project we had built over 21 months.

“Chinese? Russians? Some crazy breakaway group? WHO?” demanded our Project Manager at the meeting called within minutes of the discovery of a hack.

“We need to take our Mainframes Offline” I said aloud. “The hackers don’t have any supercomputers, they are using our own to decode Project SkyTech. They need to stay in contact with the mainframe whereas the Delta 4 can wait another 12 hours without any coordinates. Their auto-pilot will guide them to stay in orbit.”

“What are you waiting for, get those lumps of metal disconnected” yelled the manager at the members in the room.

The computers were from reliable suppliers but there was no information regarding who installed the OS or the applications on them. The date of taking delivery was exactly three days prior to the solar flare. The drives were clean but the memory was less than what was quoted. It said 1024MB but exactly 6MB were unaccounted for. I checked the system processes. One executable program with nothing to prove its existence but the scant memory it was absorbing.

Far away in a remote lab near the New York City harbour:
“When was the last interception made?” asked the tall white man in captain’s fatigues.

“We are in synchronization with every activity on their Delta 1 transmitter. We receive every bit of data traveling both ways. The sky is ours to rob,” replied the officer in mufti.

“We have 17 hours to take control. This is when we take our lead, even if it is by deceit”, the ill-tempered and brooding captain clenched his fist as he heard the officer’s confident statement.

The yacht with the skeletal crew of three was stealing more than information. Their heist would tilt the global power scale towards any militant nation who bought the rogue agent’s services.

At the other end, a group of California students studied the system to decipher who was who, and what was how:
“Hey Tim, do you know any new installations made during this month prior to the flare?” I asked the floor infrastructure in-charge.

“Well we had new desktop PCs for the online library. Why?” he answered with a question.

“Get me the IP addresses and their drive access now.” I said.

The 3 lone researchers delved deeply into the minutest details of the graphs, the maps, the extensive list of categories – they worked in unison and prepared another taxonomy from the latest results.

“GIGO”

“What?”

“GIGO. The ancient thumb rule of all computer programming.”

“We are losing our entire civilization, our history and geography, our concept of known and unknown; and you sit here talking of elementary shite such as GIGO?”

“Ask yourself.”

“Just say it and quit being such an arsehole!”

“Garbage In Garbage Out,” I sighed and told him the obvious, “Now do you understand? What you give is what you get. WYSIWYG. What you sow is what it reaps.”

“Okay, so we are feeding some wrong information. But why do we not see what is that is wrong?”

“Every living thing knows right from wrong. This system has realized the same. Nature is taking over our prized possessions, showing us that without our natural national treasure, we are nothing; out of our control.”

The man finally sat down. He heard what he didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear nonetheless. The balance of power comes not through sharing the wrongs but knowing the rights of self and others.

“What does this mean for us,” he asked.

“It means that we do the right thing and repair the defunct, the defective, then we can rest assured.”

The entire facility without systems to work on gathered on the roof and smoked and drank stale machine coffee. They couldn’t process nor feed the data if they didn’t know what was the keyword to resolve these intolerances of Mother Nature. The radar looked up into the distant sky without any life inside it to see anything. The solar wave waning, we will have total control of Assignment 74A in 39 minutes. “Saving the world? All in a day’s work.”

“Reason is good, common sense – better.”

“So it is; the 1 that initiates is the one to be asked, to see and wonder again.”

The man looked at the heaven above and understood, “Your move, champ.”

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Death

Preaching To The Damned

By Ujjwal Dey

“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same.”
- John Milton’s Paradise Lost

“Lord, make us turn to You.” Pastor Dumitru Skender muttered a prayer as reflex, as he sat down at his dining table, his wooden chair creaking under him. The dog coiled himself at a distance, moaning at his scarce feeding bowl. In a line of warriors, the pastor was a man bringing peace through the death of the dead. His family name derived from the Greek ‘Alexandros’, the defender of mankind. And he walked the scorched earth and he cast away the demons and he rescued souls that had given up upon themselves. Eternal peace, an eternal struggle, an eternal passion. A part of him wished he could retire. But even as a pastor, he was a sworn warrior first, and he would die only in battle. He could die only in battle. For though among mortals, he aged and was weaker, he was blessed with life and his spirit forever raged to rid his realm of all that is damned.

One more time now, one more, once more we go and see and fetch and they catch and we reel them in. He spoke to himself and the dog never knew what he said but it went wherever he was taken. The dog was bored with the daily long walks into the dark night. This time it brought his own leash to take his pastor where others couldn’t take him. The pastor reached down and put the weak leash on the strong mute dog. The seeing dog, he was the only companion in the worst time. He agreed to see what the pastor couldn’t through his aged cataract eyes. So they went into the unknown.

The right turn and the leash would pull the pastor ahead and into the unknown. The depths of darkness and horror; the pastor feared not what he didn’t see. The dog seemed unimpressed. He did enjoy their fortnightly games – the hunt, especially the whining, screaming Barabao – the bogeymen which were as abundant as was dust in this creaking cottage in the outskirts of the village, just beyond the farmlands, but not completely in the woods. So the dog dragged and the pastor kept pace. The dog sniffed the air and walked along. The pastor knew he would need more than a blessed piece of cotton in the salvage tonight. The cloth that he had found upon his dead mother many years ago, it held the glory of her penance and the virtues of her sacrifice. She had been a strong-willed woman, educated and devout. She died without a struggle, refusing to fight the criminal who struck her to rob the orphanage of all its savings. Skender knew only her as mother – the one who raised him, taught him and blessed him. Her death could have been the end for grieving Skender at his tender age of 12, but the shroud revealed itself to him by providence of fate. At the village, when they stoned the criminal for his misdeeds, Skender was wearing the shroud as if it was a shawl draped over his shoulders.

So it goes. So it shall be. Thy will be done. The dog wasn’t listening anymore. He knew the danger ahead and chased it. Skender stumbled upon the quickening pace and fell on his knees. The leash was free from his grip and the dog, he ran ahead into the thickest forest, to save his master. The dog wouldn’t have it any other way. As pastor Skender yelled out to his only true companion, the dog had already vanished into the depths of the wild preserve of the beasts. Barabao saw the opportunity and stood face to face toward the blind weak pastor.

“To the heart the devil goes, in his mist we bathe below. To the reeking misery of sows, we feed the vile echo.” The pastor’s prayer made no sense to this bogeyman. He laughed, then saw the fool that the pastor was, to pray when in the center of a decaying core, there was no salvation. He dies, the pastor dies, dogs die. But what cannot be killed is what we fear itself. The struggle wasn’t entirely futile – the tug of war, the coaxing, the slap and the pause. This was probably the only exercise either of them got in their dreary, bleak lives.

The dog’s barking stopped. That’s all that the pastor ever heard. The prayers were to convince himself. He could not possibly preach what he himself didn’t believe. So he got up and saw only darkness. The blind pastor couldn’t possibly change what was missing. And now this man’s best friend had gone into the infinite and become the only one to have seen what was most true. It was redemption by sacrifice, by death. The dog died so that the pastor could write his own gospel by searching for the light within his darkest nights.

“You took my soul and made it known so that I may never look down on you.” The pastor said a prayer of acknowledgement. The pastor walked back to tell his village, Judas, his beloved dog was true and pure of heart. The pastor, the priest, he would never rest till this wrong was made right.

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Hello Freedom Friends,

Hope all our aficionados are now used to the new format and website. This issue 07 is thus a compilation of the short stories already published on the website.

Quite a lot of new talent and exceptional fiction from Chris Castle and Ken Goldman. The PDF again has the similar look as before and is offered as a free download. It could be used on your mobile electronic reading devices or be printed out.

It would be nice to see the flood of submissions keep pouring in, even though we are kind of buried in the backlog. Hope the authors who had sent in their stories bear with this, we give equal urgency and importance to all submissions and hence nothing gets done in a jiffy, LOL.

Do keep checking the website and the Facebook page for updates and new fiction and comments are welcome of course.

Pulp To Grind Your Senses !!!

Journal Issue 07; Volume 02
May 2010


Editor’s Note
“The Last Step” by Annette Backshall
“The Florist” by Chris Castle
“The Ambassador” by Alex Russelburg
“Chance Of Rain” by Ken Goldman
“How Tomboy came to be involved in the superhero business” by David Perlmutter
“Ezekiel” by Edward Rodosek
“Steamed Fish with Eyes” by KJ Hannah Greenberg
Artwork Acknowledgements

Have fun and get the present and past downloads in the “Twisted Tales” section.

Can you say “Yay”?

Synopsis: Kids today may seem different, maybe worse; but what goes unnoticed is that parents have changed as well and mostly for the worse. Parenting the impressionable minds of children may just be a lost art form. In this story, a mother encourages the discovery of her kids’ environment by breaking away from the societal herd, giving importance to nature, creativity and all-encompassing love.

About the Author: KJ Hannah Greenberg is usually too busy parenting her teenage sons and daughters to contemplate her navel. If she had five extra minutes, she would bake quinoa pie and feed it to her imaginary hedgehogs. Meanwhile, she steals time by sleeping a little less and laughing a little more. On rare, alternate Tuesdays, Hannah and the hedgies fly the galaxy in search of gelatinous monsters and assistant bank managers. Sometimes, they even catch a few. Read more about her at http://www.kjhannahgreenberg.net/ .

In this inspiring story, we see Ginny Lou be herself to be the change she wants to see in others.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steamed Fish with Eyes
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Chastised for her perspicacious nature, Ginny Lou insisted on contributing, to block party pot lucks, fish steamed complete with lips and eyes, and on planting, in her front yard, where passersby could see them, beds of wild flowers in lieu of a lawn. Though her astuteness allegedly ranked well with her academic colleagues, her neighbors no more knew what to make out of her clever interpretations of mundanities such as clothes lines and wind mills, both of which ornamented her backyard half acre, than they did out of her offerings of algae-dressed salads or of St. John’s wort salve.

In not so discreet huddles, they spoke of the woman whose kids picked and ate weeds, whose husband sat contently, playing recorder, on the boulder his spouse had intentionally set in their yard and who, herself, would rather go on slug walks than get a manicure. It was not so much that they were scandalized as it was that they were baffled.

Peer pressure remained useless in the face of an adult who taught her offspring how to make crowns and bracelets out of white clover instead of pushing them to spend their time earning the local principal’s top foreign language award. Bribes to local police failed to reduce the number of disposable diapers she set out in trash cans when those same officers had been befriended by the woman in her national newspaper column. Even sending their teenage sons to drop hedge clippings all over her driveway had proved ineffective; Ginny Lou, maneuvering her trusty, plastic, orange wheelbarrow between her two, garden glove-covered hands, merely bundled up and hauled those bits to her compost pile.

That rascal of a neighbor refused to hire seamstresses to construct intricate costumes, for her children, for the elementary school’s annual parade, preferring instead to ransack her husband’s closet for shirts suitable for fabric painting. What’s more, she deigned to entertain the community’s children, at local fairs and festivals, as a storyteller. Hers was a popular home.

One afternoon, Beatrice found what she believed was a foolproof means of revenge. Her plan involving maple syrup, crazy glue, and the viscera of a cat found in a municipal dumpster. She contacted Agrimony, her PTA co-chair and the woman who had built a spite fence between her yard and that of Ginny Lou’s. Once more, their little town would experience complete compliance with the understood, yet unspoken, ordinances.

Oblivious to the energies being invested on her behalf, Ginny Lou mentally composed a prose poem about lady bugs while she filled her twig basket with red runner beans. Those legumes and her Dutchman’s pipe vines had been her Mother’s Day gifts to herself.

A few yards away, her two youngest children and about twenty or so of other people’s kids were digging their way to Bancroft or possibly to Toledo. Ginny Lou’s oldest daughter was serving as guide among the rows of asparagus fern that filled the boarders of the family’s vegetable garden, offering handfuls of late radishes and of timely baby tomatoes to those tourists. Her oldest son was showing his friends just where, in their meditation garden, the family had buried their long since deceased, ancient cat, and was pointing out how plantain could be harvested, masticated and applied to bramble scratches if not otherwise spit at siblings.

On one of the benches under the towering oak tree, a friend, from the farm coop, nursed a toddler. Across from her, another mother, parent of energized twins, espoused the relative virtues of family beds and of carob chips. The latter’s children were happily plucking petals off of several types of day lilies.

Beatrice regarded the bucolic scene and shuddered. No electronic toys or designer shoes could be seen, even when she dialed the highest setting on Agrimony’s binoculars. While she handed that device to her friend, she noted, disdainfully, that her friend’s comforter and drapes were last year’s fashion. She accepted, nonetheless the can of beer Agrimony proffered in her kitchen and wondered, silently, if her own children might like to learn how to make animals out of stones and nail polish.

A six pack later, the chairwomen of Pemberton Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Association even openly discussed the possibility that they might, after hours, hire, for a private party, the same recycled quarry, where Ginny Lou was known to take her children to swim. They thought aloud, as well, about running in lanes of basil, at the community-based agriculture farm, where Ginny Lou was a loyal patron and even dared to giggle over the phrases “home birth” and “breast feeding,” which Ginny Lou was known to speak. Thereafter, they compared notes on season tickets for opera and for ballet.

While they enjoyed the serenity brought on by their hops mixed with fermented grain, a handyman, whom they had paid a little more than minimum wage, was making a delivery. Though ordered to deposit the malodorous concoction, personally stewed by Beatrice, to the front stoop of Ginny Lou, mid march, the man had redirected himself to Agrimony’s house and had left the foul mess there. Ginny Lou, who was fond of sushi, always gave his sister, a waitress at the local Asian restaurant, a twenty per cent tip. The frosted blonds who hired him, however, sent more food back to the kitchen than they actually ate and often “forgot” to leave any acknowledgement of his sibling’s service.

After ridding himself of that nasty business, the man did visit Ginny Lou; he meant to borrow her spigot to wash his hands. He lingered, though, gladly accepting a glass of sumac tea and allowing himself to be gently persuaded to regale the assembled ladies with stories of squirrels, of bats, and of the other creatures he encountered when cleaning gutters, caulking windows or making roof repairs.

In clumps, the children gathered round that visitor. One brought him a crown of pampas grass. Another fetched a piece of dwarf bamboo so that he might have a natural scepter. Two more children ran into Ginny Lou’s house and returned with a plate of kohlrabi salad and with a bowl of fresh-picked blueberries, both of which they presented to the man.

After an hour or so of stories about salamanders and of promises to the seated moms that he’d give them a bid on a rustic treehouse for Ginny Lou’s yard, the man left to scrape paint on a neighborhood barn. Some agency or another was converting an abandoned farmstead into condos. A friend who wanted no part of overtime work had invited the man to pick up a few hours’ wage.

The children returned to playing with the garden hose and to giving each other “gifts” construed of dried leaves, columbine heads, and assorted small bones dug from recently located owl pellets. They stopped their play, however, when the loud noise sounded.

Beatrice and Agrimony, too, stopped comparing notes on the flatness of their respective personal trainers’ abdomens and on the complexions of the stock boys at the local food emporium when they heard that sound. More curious than cautious, those moms immediately made for Agrimony’s threshold. Subsequently, the moms and tots in Ginny Lou’s yard were treated to another remarkable, well amplified vibration.

Although the children were busy climbing on the sudden mountain of mulch that had been deposited, by a dump truck, in Ginny Lou’s narrow driveway, the moms, having picked their way over the gardening material, ran to identify the source of the second noise. Quickly, they discovered Beatrice and Agrimony stuck to an important architectural feature of Agrimony’s home. A carpenter and both of the community’s teams of paramedics were needed to separate the women from that front porch.

Brief months later, Beatrice insisted that her family relocate to Short Hills and Agrimony, or so it was said, remained institutionalized at an upscale clinic in Maryland. Ginny Lou was invited to replace those women as the singular PTA chair.

Under her guidance, the school’s art curriculum began to include lessons on sketching area trees and of stones and the upper grades’ field trips began to feature places like the shorebird sanctuary and a nearby soup kitchen. Though Ginny Lou remained powerless to disband the annual parade, she managed to get rules legislated, which limited the expenditures on costumes. She also managed to bring in an herbalist, for a parents’ meeting, who lectured on the benefits of dandelions. A few of the community lawns were doused with less weed killer that year.

Although Ginny Lou continued to encourage her offspring and their friends to plant swathes of wild onions where bluegrass might have otherwise been coaxed and to photograph rather than to stone local chipmunks, she failed to conduct her annual apple harvest. So busied had she become with all manners of teacher recognition and with talent night quandaries that she had to send her loyal spouse to the yearly pick-your-own.

By the time that the snow season arrived, Ginny Lou had quit. She’d rather tease poetry out of students and teach her own children how to use cabbage to tie-dye socks than stand up for yet one more round of applause at school assemblies. Besides, no other mother had stepped in to supply the neighborhood’s children with information on numbats, on yellow scorpions, and on zooplankton. What’s more, she failed to grasp why no other mom stepped forward to fill the lauded position or to provide fish steamed complete with eyes.

**** THE END ****

Copyright KJ Hannah Greenberg 2010

Clipart Image: office.microsoft.com

Synopsis: Love is forever and though we yearn or mourn it sometimes – its everlasting quality means that we can always share it, its always there. Here is another brilliant story of life, loss and love by the best man who puts it into words, our very own FFJ author Chris Castle. His stories have appeared in Issue 04, Issue 06 and FFJ’s first annual anthology.

About the Author: Chris Castle lives and works outside London. His primary influences include Ray Carver, Bill Murray, the films of PT Anderson and the Y: The Last Man graphic novels.

In this beautiful emotional tale, we find that while seasons of our life may change, love can bloom in new ways and the flowering happiness can bring joy to its surroundings.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


The Florist
By Chris Castle

I twist the pins in the lock and finally it turns. There’s a snap and then I pull on the handle and the door opens. I have broken into my first flat, aged fifty-seven. The door swings open and I step inside, the bag in my hand. I look over the small kitchen, the plates gathered on the side, two cups; one for Lucas and one for Angelica. I stop at the bedroom door and don’t go inside. It is just the small kitchen and the hallway I’m after. I look at my watch and work out how much time I have. Then I go to work.

There were two distinct reasons why my wife fell in love with me. The first was because I’m clumsy and the second was because I am a terrible liar. Later, after we were married, she told me one night that she could only ever fall for a man who had as many faults as he did skills. She was telling me this in a certain way; she cupped a hand over my ear and whispered. We had been married a year and two months and we could play such games. That was my gift; to not be perfect.

The first reason happened when I had just moved into a new neighbourhood. I had just started work and had rented the flat at first sight. It was empty and bare and perfect. I washed in the sink when the plumbing worked and ate bread and cheese and ate out once a week. I waited for the sunny mornings and threw my clothes in a big steel pot and washed them the way other people would cook a stew. I watched them swimming in thick swirls, my arm elbow deep in the water, the colours pouring out. Then I would wring them out as best I could and set them over the railings outside my kitchen to dry.

This was the real reason I bought the flat. It had a balcony. It was only three foot by three foot but it was enough. On hot nights I could stand and smoke a cigarette and watch the town come to life. In the day time, the streets were busy and ugly, but at night, half covered and half lit they seemed okay. More than okay; beautiful even.

So that day, I put my clothes down on the railings, set them just so and set off for work.

That night, exhausted, I came back to sleep. It had grown hot and humid and a storm was coming. I put on coffee and pulled a cigarette from my packet and began to pull the clothes in before the rain broke. My fingers ached, that was my first and best excuse for what happened. I was tired, too. But the real reason, as my wife would always get out of me when I told her the story some nights, was because I was smoking a cigarette. Either by using one hand, or blinded by the rising smoke, I managed to brush my clothes, a shirt and two socks, clear off the railing as I reached for them. I wouldn’t have even noticed I was so bone tired, if what I did was not immediately followed by a woman’s scream.

I immediately looked over my railing, the cigarette in my mouth, causing me to squint for a second. I thought there had been an accident, or maybe even a mugging. I looked over and from the ground saw a girl look directly up at me. She had green eyes and was holding a paper bag full of groceries, a long loaf of bread peeking out of the top.

“Hey!” she said, holding my eye, even from that distance. “Are these yours?” she said, hooking the shirt with her foot and lifting it steadily out in front of her.

“Jesus! I’m sorry. So sorry. I’ll come right down. Sorry.” I pitched the clothes into the bowl and pulled the cigarette down to my side.

“Don’t. I’ll come up. What floor are you on?” she carried this on as other people walked by. Her face still bolt upright, my shirt still balanced on her outstretched leg. It was like she did this every day and nothing was out of the ordinary. I think that was when I started to fall a little in love with her. Because she did not care.

“Six,” I said, not thinking anything of telling her, too embarrassed to do anything but what she told me.

“I’ll be right up,” she said. I watched her shift the bag to one hand and then flip the shirt into her other, outstretched hand. Then she crouched and picked up the two socks. Then she made her way into my building and disappeared. As soon as she was gone, I rushed into the bathroom and straightened myself out, knowing this was the start of something, or at least a chance.

Later, she told me that what won her over on that first meeting were the flowers. I am a florist. My mother and father owned a florist and I was born into flowers. We lived above the shop and from a baby I have always been surrounded by them. Being around the shop as a child was like living in a small glass jungle, countless different species all within reach, all with a small price tag jammed into their stomachs. I would have adventures after closing times, living the life of an adventurer as my parents added the takings for the day at the till. But even that was included; the rattle of the tilling machine, the enemy gunfire whistling over my head. The flowers made my life an adventure from the beginning.

I began to learn from the shop the way other children would learn about dinosaurs or planets. I would learn each flower’s name and how they lived; if they were perennial, how many seeds they shed. No fact or detail was too small for me. I would spend one hour before school began and one hour afterwards learning every crumb of knowledge I could.

My favourite nights were the summer evenings before a storm, when the windows would steam with humidity and the flowers would drip sweat the way I or my parents would. My father had a fan running to keep the temperatures on a level, but every so often, just for a few minutes when they were out of the room, I would turn it off and watch the windows steam and the flowers bow and everything would be buried in mist and I would live in a foreign country or more than that, another world for just a few minutes.

My parents died when I was nineteen and away studying. I was studying botany and was reading a text on roses when I heard the news. I remember letting the book fall and looking down at it, thinking ‘Hey! I can read upside down, too! I never knew that!’ That was the first thing I remember after they told me. Then came everything else. It was a car crash, I was told and on the train home, all I focused on were the flowers I would pick out for them. Once I asked my father why he had bought a flower shop and he patted my shoulder and waved his hand around the shop. I followed his hand and looked at everything that was on display.

“Son,” he said, “look around you. Flowers are for every occasion. If there is a birth, a death, a wedding, a test, everyone always needs flowers.” His voice always sounded deep, as if he’d just finished smoking a cigar, even though he’d quit when I was born. Flowers for every occasion, he said and was right.

I sold the flower shop and for a year I tried not to look at another flower if I could help it. I stopped my studies and travelled to big cities, avoiding the parks and living in the most built-up, smoggiest, industrial parts of the world. Later, I visited deserts where nothing seemed to grow. Then after that year, I understood something. I missed my parents terribly, yes, but I also missed the flowers. It came to me while I sat in a café drinking a cup of coffee. The waitress went round each table, wiping them down, and when she reached my table she checked the two flowers sticking out of the cracked vase and took them away. She came back with a new pair and set them in front of me and smiled.

“Can’t beat them fresh!” she said and smiled to me. I walked into a florist the next day and took a job. A week later, I took the apartment that my future wife walked into on a summer’s night, clutching my wet socks in her palm.

She walked into my apartment and saw the flowers. When I finished each day at the florist, I tidied up all the waning stems and gathered them into a black bin liner. The old man who owned the shop was grateful for me doing this, but it was as much for me as it was for him. Each night, instead of dumping the flowers in the blue bin by the back door of the shop, I would carry the bag home and save what I could. Sometimes they would only last one more day, other times, a week. But I always had fresh flowers and for that reason I loved the job.

The place I lived in was small, but I dressed it up to make it look beautiful. Sometimes, when I was tired and could not sleep, I would walk the hallway, the bedroom, and out to the balcony, surrounded by all the flowers and it would feel like I was young again and lost in the jungle of my parents shop. This was what the girl, clutching my wet clothes, saw the first time she walked through my door.

The day I proposed to her was the second reason. We had been living in my small apartment for a year and I knew it was the right time. I worked long hours in the shop and had saved hard. My girl was a locksmith, born and bred, and the family business was going well. We talked of buying a bigger place and with it a future. When we talked this way, my heart soared. We lay in bed, building impossible dreams; I wanted a place with a five acre garden, she wanted a palace with fifty two rooms, just so she could learn to pick the lock on each one. Even when we dissolved into a fit of giggles at the end of our stories, there was still the sense that something was possible.

That night I put the ring in my pocket as she prepared dinner. We each cooked, or tried to cook, one night a week and the other days we left to the fate of the takeaway menu’s gathered at my door. Once a week we would eat out and those nights would be the happiest days of my life. But that night she cooked and I couldn’t wait any longer.

I watched her pop around the kitchen; that’s the only way I can describe it. In a small place like mine, she was like a champagne cork, bouncing off the walls, never stopping in any one place. That night she cooked vegetables while a strip of pork chops cooked in the oven. Pork chops we could both do; they were our winners. The vegetables were something new, and as she put them on the table, she smiled and told me to try them first.

I am not a big vegetable fan. I can eat some; I can push others round the plate like a champion, but on the whole, not for me. I explained this to my mother once, saying I backed the things that grew above the dirt and not below and as far as I was concerned they could stay where God intended them, i.e. buried. I tried a forkful of the greens and forced them down my throat. I was almost sick. I did not want to throw up and then propose to my girlfriend. I knew this would not be considered romantic. Instead I forced them down, using the old trick of taking a big slug of the drink by the plate to wash it all down.  I looked over to her and smiled.

“How are they?” She asked me. Her brow was furrowed and rather than making her look older, they made her look younger, about twelve years old and trying to figure out maths.

“They’re great, honey,” I said, and pushed another heap to the side, ready to get to work on the chop. I looked back to her and saw her break into a slow, wide smile, like she’d just laid down the killer hand in a high stakes game of poker.

“Honey?” She said, the smile at full wattage. “Honey, indeed. I think that’s why I love you, baby. It’s because you’re such a bad liar.”

I looked at her and smiled. I leant forward and we kissed. Later, lying on the kitchen floor, I reached over to my trouser pocket and fished out the ring. I knew she was going to say yes now and I wasn’t scared. We were getting married. But we never did finish those vegetables.

We were married soon after at a downtown office. Her father and two brothers stood close by, while my friend from school, Billy Tompkins, held the ring for me. My boss from work closed the shop for the afternoon and we had drinks and a fat cake in the florists. My wife’s family cracked jokes about me having the girl’s job and her wearing the trousers, but they had a good time of it. That night we went back to my apartment and lay next to each other, watching our matching rings light by the streetlamps outside. We were ready to start over.

If you’re lucky, that’s the end of the story. For a lot of people, they marry, they have kids, they get old and the story ends down the line. Our story was different. One of the reasons my wife popped like a cork was because she had so much energy. Sometimes she would say she felt imbalanced by it. She would be high for days on end, and then she would be low for a day, maybe two. Sometimes it stopped her working, but her family covered for her. I had gotten used to it from the off, and had looked out for her on those days when even little things, making a cup of coffee or collecting the mail from the mat would seem impossible. Sometimes it would make her cry. But on those days I would tell her why she let me marry her; because I wasn’t perfect. And I would hold her hand and she would almost smile and we would wait it out, like a storm, until she was better again.

It was a part of our lives together, a small part, all things considered. For great swathes of time, it was perfect. She taught me how to pick locks and I showed her how to arrange flowers, and we kissed as if we weren’t married but starting out. I took over a run down, burnt out first floor building and made it my shop. It was small and popular and kept us going. I didn’t take on any help, I was happy to juggle all the sides of it. At night I rang up the receipts and took down the takings and I let myself think of my parents and smile. At night we would eat out and on weekends we would visit places, go to the museums or take in a movie.

We tried for a baby. We moved into a new place that had a garden. At the bottom of it was a tree, sturdy and strong, that we had ear marked for a tree house. We had a small bedroom next to ours that we wiped clean, a blank slate for a boy or a girl. We did not buy toys, but we lingered by shop windows and admired rocking horses or furry toys on department store floors.

On the fridge door we had a piece of paper where we jotted down names; on one side were our favourites, on the other side the ones we swore we would never consider in a thousand years. The good ones, the keepers, we talked about quietly, and when we were done, we would sit and look to each other and think about the future. Then we would carefully write down the name, as if we were signing a cheque for the house. The no-names, the shockers, we went through uproariously, laughing out loud as we tried to think of more outlandish, more terrible things we could possibly saddle a kid with. We would write these ones down in thick capitals, with exclamation marks, the way people wrote closing down signs. I think that was the last time we were truly happy.

We went to the doctors and the doctors ran tests on both of us. Then they ran more tests on my wife. She stayed overnight and I visited her, replacing the flowers they had in the vase by her bed with ones I had picked from the shop. She did not speak but instead held my hand. I asked the doctors outside her door what I needed to know. When I went back inside, my wife was looking at the flowers in the vase with tears in her eyes. I walked over and sat by her and took her hand. Neither of us spoke. Instead we looked at the vase. Flowers for every occasion.

After that, my wife got sick. The bouts grew worse. Her father and brothers visited and tried their best. They never called it depression. Instead they called it ‘the sadness’. That’s what we talked about in the kitchen while my wife lay in the bedroom upstairs. I hired someone, a middle aged woman who I remembered vaguely from my previous job who had stopped by the shop to buy some roses. I rang my wife every day, at twelve and two. I came home earlier, worried for my wife. Sometimes she would be reading and seem fine. We would watch television or eat dinner, fragile and almost happy. We didn’t go out. But on those days she was surviving.

Then there were other days. Sometimes I would arrive home and she would still be in bed and I know she would have not moved except to go to the bathroom, all day. Other days I would find her sitting in the spare bedroom, looking blankly at the walls or worse, sitting in the corner, with her knees drawn up to her chest, trying not to cry. And some days I would see her simply standing in the kitchen staring out to the sturdy tree in the garden, and those were the days that would scare me most of all, because I did not know what she was thinking at all. I would stand by her and she wouldn’t even know I was there, even when I called her name. Sometimes I called her ‘honey’ just to see if it would get a flicker of recognition out of her, but she would just kept on staring right ahead.

I talked about quitting work. We talked about medication, which she was prescribed and mostly took. But there would be days when I would shake pillowcases to freshen them up and pills would fly out from the folds and the flaps. We talked about moving, getting a place that would be better suited to the two of us, without all the constant reminders. We talked about adoption; or I talked about adoption, and my wife listened to me talk, but then it would drift out into silence. Some nights when my wife was downstairs, I would excuse myself and walk up to the spare, white room and sit in the corner, draw my knees up to my chest and try not to scream and cry.

I called my wife at twelve. It was a Thursday. It rang out and I knew something was wrong. On other days it would ring out, but there was something on that day that I felt in my heart. I let it reach the dial tone and then I held the phone’s receiver to my ear, feeling sweat rise over me. I put the receiver back in the cradle, my hands shaking and I put my head in my hands. I counted to ten and then reached for my coat, telling Vera, my assistant, that I had to head on home. She nodded without speaking, something she never did, and walked around the counter and opened the door for me. The bell rang as I stepped out and we both jumped at the sound of it, this bell we’d heard a thousand times before. The bell was my wife’s idea, a joke, which I had come to love.

I drove home, feeling the way I had done once when I had a fever and was bed-sick for three days afterwards. I reached our house and almost jumped out of the car, leaving the door open. Anyone could have stolen it, I remember thinking later, I had left the keys in the ignition in the rush, but no-one had taken it. Maybe they knew, the people who walked past that day, that it would have been bad luck to steal from us. The bad luck house, I remember calling it later.

I called out her name as I stepped through the front door, something I never did. It was always quiet when I came in and I didn’t want to scare her. Our house, by then, had become a fragile thing, I knew that much. But on that Thursday I hollered her name, screamed it, as I rushed from room to room, bumping into walls, the way she used to when she fizzed. I felt tears building in my eyes, streaking across my cheeks, burning my skin. I looked everyplace in the house and she was nowhere to be found.

Then I remembered all those times I had come home to find her looking out to the garden, to our sturdy tree. I thought of this while I was in the spare bedroom and as soon as I did, I understood what had happened. I slowed down. All the fizzing suddenly turned flat. I walked the stairs as slowly and carefully as an old man would do. Once, soon after we had moved in, I had done just that, walked slowly and carefully down the stairs, imagining myself old and still living in this house with my wife, both of us infirm and still together, supporting each other. Helping each other to unscrew bottle caps and listening to the radio. None of that possible now, I knew, as I reached the bottom of the stairs. I walked down the hallway and reached the kitchen. I looked out to the garden and I found my wife, her feet a dozen inches above the grass, hanging from the sturdy tree.

I did the same as I did for my parents, picking the best flowers, making sure everything was perfect. The service was small, but everyone we had cared about was there. We held the wake in a bar of her father’s choice and by midnight it was over. I walked back to the house and packed my things. I had sold it at a low price to get a quick sale. After Vera had sorted out another job, I sold the shop, again at a low price. The next day I was moving into a small apartment near to the one I had taken all those years ago, where it had all began. It had a balcony, I made sure of that. One bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom and a balcony. A place that fitted me now. All that was left was the garden of my previous house.

I walked out onto the grass with my shoes off. The feeling of grass under my feet is a feeling I have always loved, and right now, it was all I had to cling onto. During the day I had hired a company to chop down the tree that had taken my wife. Now it was little more than a pile of wood, ready to burn. I dragged a large steel bin from the back gate and put each log in, carefully burning them, one by one. It took me the whole night to burn it down to a bin full of ashes. The sun came up and I looked around. It was a blue sky day. Without the tree looming overhead, it felt like I could see the entire sky, all over the world, forever. All the smoke had cleared and there was nothing but this perfect skyline. And then, finally, I let myself cry.

When I moved into the new apartment, I thought that was the end of it too. I couldn’t see beyond my wife and with her being gone, I had no idea what was left for me. I spent three days in the new flat looking over the city, following the traffic and drinking coffee. I had bought a pack of cigarettes and started to smoke again. I had quit when I met her and now that she was gone I would start again. It made perfect sense in my head to think that way.

But it was not the same as when my parents left me. Now, more than ever, I needed flowers. I bought them for the place, not as many and none as colourful but still there all the same. When I woke up at night in sweats, I would sit and look at them until my heart settled. When I cried out of nothing, I would walk over to them and hold the petals the way other people would hold someone’s hand. I knew I was probably crazy but I didn’t care. When I could hold it together, I would look through our photographs together and would be happy.

The balcony faced a small two tiered shopping centre. There was a supermarket on the ground floor and shops surrounding it. On the second floor were restaurants and a public library. Some days I would go there and grab a stack of books, music, films. Never music by anyone we had shared, no films we had watched together.

It was on one of those days that I walked past the supermarket and noticed the small flowers selection they had by the door. Eight buckets of wilting flowers, two days from being dead. I walked up to them and inspected each bucket; saw the dirty water, the too tight wrapping. I also noticed the price and whistled so loud a woman looked round and shook her head at me, thinking I had directed it at her. I walked outside and saw how far the pavement stretched before it reached the road. I walked over the road to my apartment and ran the four flights of steps. I sprinted to the balcony and looked back to the space in front of the doors that led to the supermarket. Something in my heart flickered.

I set up the flower stall within a month. At first people would see me and almost edge away, surprised. I didn’t use any fancy gimmicks or have a sign. I had spoken to my old suppliers and had simply selected the best flowers. I did not draw people in but simply spoke to the people who looked as if they needed help. I set up for eight in the morning, when the supermarket opened and stayed on until eight or nine in the evening, depending on the light. I worked myself to exhaustion and after I finished up, returned to the apartment and ate, smoked, thought about her, I found I could grab three or four hours of sleep each day.

Business became as quick as it had started slow. I would start to identify regulars, recommend flowers to the men and women who grabbed a bunch to freshen their house or office at the start of each week. There were couples, families with children, and people on their own. I talked to strangers and remained a stranger to them and in that I was happy. It was enough.

I also enjoyed the process of finishing up for the day. Unlike the shop, there were no details to follow. I would put what I had not sold into storage in a nearby lock-up and then simply dismantle the few props, the planks of wood I used, the chair I rested on sometimes, and put them in with the flowers. I would pour the buckets down the drain on the pavement and watch the few petals slide away down with them. I would leave my hands wet and run them through my head, feeling my fingers throb and my back ache.

One night I had finished for the night and had returned to the flat. It was too hot to sit inside and I didn’t take my photos outside. I only ever looked at them on the small table inside. I took my coffee and my cigarette and walked out to the balcony. I stood there, thinking about how my clothes had tumbled all those years before and tried to imagine her voice calling up to me once more. I stood that way for I don’t know how long, until the workers from the supermarket, the late night cleaners, began to file out into the street. They were Polish mainly, working nights and then some of them taking courier jobs in the day. I watched them all stand around nearby where my stall was set and smoke, make jokes. Then they all waved each other off and left for their homes. All except one man.

I watched him as he said goodbye to his friends and then waited on the pavement. I assumed he was waiting for a ride. I fished my glasses off of my shirt and put them on. He was a younger man, early twenties, blond hair and short. He looked nervous. Then just as I was about to go back inside to my photos, I saw him drop to his knees over the drain I used during the day and draw a screwdriver from his shirt pocket, the way I had done my glasses, and carefully loosen the drain cover.

He lifted the cover, watching left and right all the while, and then reached inside. He lifted netting he must have set there during the night and held it up. Gathered inside were all of my discarded flower petals. He held them up to the light and then emptied them into his inside pocket. Then he re-set the net and went about screwing down the drain cover. Then as quick as lightning, he pulled himself up and went on his way, down the street.

“Son of a bitch,” I said and laughed. I couldn’t help it. I turned and walked inside, realising that was the first time I’d said anything out loud, let alone laughed, since I’d moved in.

I checked him the next night and he did the same thing. Every night he went on the same way. The only day he didn’t do it was on Sunday night, the day I didn’t set up the stall. After the second time, when I realised what he was doing, I started to select the best petals from each flower and separate them from the stem before I set up the stall. In the evening I would stand, a little more to one side now, aware I was now spying, and see him fish them out. Sometimes I thought I saw him smile, other times he did nothing more than take them as quickly as possible, for fear of getting found out. I saw his name badge said Lucas.

This went on for a month. Then I made a decision. A decision you only make when you are alone and spying on a thief whose only crime is to steal from drains. I followed him. I watched him go about his task and then when he was halfway through I left the balcony and made my way down the stairs. By the time I came out he had just started off down the road, giving me enough time to follow him at a distance. He made his way down the main strip, and then down a side road, another, until he finally stopped at a block of high rise flats. When he went inside I crossed the road and waited. All the other windows were dark; it was 4:43 am. All of a sudden one lit on the twelfth floor.

I had followed him on a Saturday night. Now it was Sunday morning. I walked over to a café that was opposite the high rise and ordered breakfast when it opened. I ordered another coffee, another breakfast and the waitress looked me over once and said she didn’t know where I was putting it all. I smiled. It was true; it was the first time I’d eaten a meal, a proper greasy, well cooked meal, for a long time. It was almost ten when I saw the boy, walk out of the bottom of the building, arm in arm with a beautiful girl. Both of them wore uniforms and both of them were laughing.

I recognised both of the uniforms. The girl worked at a hotel nearby and he was working for a delivery company. I had delivered to both of them before.

I walked behind them, watching them talk close in each other’s ears like they were sharing secrets, until they went one way and then the other. I watched them wave goodbye to each other and then look back to each other once they had crossed the street. Even amongst the bustled of the city, they looked like the only two people that mattered, that were in love. I hoped, imagined, my wife and I had looked that way once. I went back to my flat and slept, exhausted, and didn’t wake for seven hours. Another first.

I already knew what I wanted to do; all I needed now was an approach. I felt giddy with the idea, like the times my wife and I had written our imaginary lives out on rough paper. I knew what I had to do, but not the invention. I sat thinking it through, holding my photographs in my hand. I looked at my wife and asked her out loud my questions. I smiled. I started to think like my wife, back when she was still a trainee with her family and catching flak from her brothers. ‘The key to success’ she would say as we fought over who got the best bits of the Chinese take-out ‘is to be sneaky.’ She would kiss me and I would kiss her back. I would look down and see the last chicken ball had gone, proving her point.

I started to map out my plan as if she was still there with me. I pulled out the notepad I used for the day’s takings and tore off a fresh sheet. On it I wrote my plan. I crossed out ideas and began new ones. I drank coffee but pushed the cigarettes away, wanting to keep sharp.  I worked until it was late on Sunday night and then I folded the paper up, put it in my shirt pocket and readied myself for the working week.

It went like so; I rang up the courier company asking for Lucas, claiming I was from a language course and found out his shifts. I walked into the hotel on the busiest day and took coffee and lunch in the foyer facing the reception where the girls worked. I watched the pattern of them either beginning at eight and working until three thirty, or starting at three thirty and finishing at ten. The girl, whose name was Angelica, worked day shifts, to help her improve her English, when it was most busy. And give the other, older women, an easier ride in the evening, I noticed. The next week I checked in for a night to double check her pattern, and found it was the same. I left Vera in charge of the stall for a day.

That night I lay on the impossibly clean bed and folded my hands behind my head. I knew I was going crazy, but couldn’t you go crazy in a good way? I knew my life wasn’t what it was, but there was nothing that was going to change that and I understood that. If you love someone, you don’t stop loving them, even after they’re gone. I still loved and missed my parents. I still loved and missed my wife. Those were the things my life was built around. Doing this, this scheme, would be something else. Something good. I put the plan next to me on the bed. I set a photo of my wife, one from the stack, next to it. Then I put my earplugs in and listened to music waiting, for the next day. It was a Sunday.

I break the lock, it’s easy. When you love a locksmith, there are not many things that can stand in your way. I walk in and for a moment I hold my breath. I pad around the small place and see there is no-one there. I breathe again. Then I open the bag I’ve been carrying and go about my work. I put flowers wherever I can, taking what time I can to make sure they are set right and look beautiful. Outside in the hallway people walk by and that makes me stop, my heart in my throat, waiting for the door to open and one of them to come inside. But I’m lucky. I finish and look around and see flowers everywhere, and then I walk to the door. I fold the empty black bag into my inside pocket and put an ID, one for a gas meter reader that  a man left once years ago and never claimed in my hand if anyone stops me. My wife made me keep it, instead of handing it in. She said you never know when a fake ID will come in handy. And no-one ever looks at the photograph. I remember her winking at me after she said that.

I walk out of the building and feel as if I am on fire. I put my hands on my knees and am aware of myself shaking. I know this is a good thing and I am alive and have acted. I steady myself and then walk on down the street. I walk the way I remember Lucas walking when he had grabbed his petals; I put my hands in my pockets and keep my head low.

I reach my neighbourhood. I look at the space where my flower stall will be tomorrow. It is a good thing and it makes people happy. I am proud of it and the work I have done with it. It may be simple the way a baker’s work is simple but it matters.

I walk into my apartment and lean against the door as if I’m keeping something out. I slide down and sit there for a second, taking things in. I have broken into a house and left two hundred flowers behind their door. I pull myself up. I make myself coffee and take my cigarettes to the balcony. I throw them over the side. They fall silently to the floor. No-one stops, no one looks up; it’s not the type of city people do that in, not any more. That was a different time. I drink my coffee and watch the day finish up and the evening begin. I walk to the bathroom and shower. I dress neatly, in a suit and put my wallet in my pocket. So many things have ended. One small, new thing has happened now. I take my keys from the tray. Tonight I am going to go to a restaurant and order the biggest finest steak I can find. It is something I have never done before; order the biggest meal on the menu. I pat my shirt pocket. The photo is still there, pressed against my heart. I open the door and I take a breath. Then I walk out into the night and the city.

**** THE END ****

Copyright Chris Castle 2010

Clipart Image: office.microsoft.com

Synopsis: Chances are, you could have met the extraterrestrial, if only you were willing enough. This is a concise tale of a reporter who gets close but not curious.

About the Author: Edward Rodosek is a Construction Engineer, Doctor of Technical Science and Senior Professor in Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ljubljana, Slovenia, European Union. Besides his professional work he writes science fiction. He is author of four novels and fourteen collections of short SciFi stories in Slovenia. More than three dozen of his short stories have been published in SF magazines in USA, UK and Australia. Recently he has published in USA, a collection of science fiction short stories – ‘Beyond Perception’.

In this short SciFi, a reporter will investigate, looking without a desire to know.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Ezekiel
by Edward Rodosek

Simon swithed off the circular saw and took an armfull of firewood to carry it inside the hut. Although he was only seventeen years of age, he has to do all the hard work now instead of his father who died a few months ago.

When Simon stepped out of the jutting roof he noticed a well-dressed man nearing the farm, carefully stepping around the muddy puddles. Seeing the stranger on his property, Simon stopped and stared at him.

“Are there living… um… the Milner’s?” The stranger’s accent was so distant Simon could barely recognize his own family name.

“Could be–but maybe not,” he said cautiously. “Who wants to know?”

“Oh, pardon me. My name is Albert Vaskas and I’m a reporter with the holovision station KWYS.” The stranger took a black box from his pocket, fumbled around with it and then held something up to Simon’s face. “I’d like to ask somebody of your family whether they’ve seen recently anything unusual in the area.”

Simon shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno ‘nothing about that sort of stuff.”

“What gives, son?” At the door of the hut stood a slender middle-ageded woman with a gentle, wrinkled face.

Simon dropped the firewood on to the dusty ground. “Mum, this fellow says he’s some sort of news hound, from the radio. He wants to know if we’ve seen anything funny ‘round here.”

“Anything funny?” Her face betrayed her amazement. “Why would we have cause to see somethin’ funny? Ain’t nothing strange happens ‘round here.”

“Well, mum,” Simon added, “The only thing could be that big storm at the waxing moon. But didn’t do no damage or nothing, mercy be and thank the Lord.”

“Oh, I get it. That was just about the time Ezekiel…”

“Listen here,” the reporter interrupted her, “I’m not here to ask you about the weather. Someone from the village called our station and said he’d seen some strange lights darting in the sky about before they landed somewhere around here. He said it was ‘near Milner’s hut.’ Perhaps you know something about it?”

“Lights?” Simon stretched out his hands. “Did you see any sort of lights, mum? Nope? You know, sir, we’d really like to help you, but ain’t nothing like that ever cropped up ‘round here.”

The reporter mumbled something between his clenched teeth and returned his contraption to his pocket. A forced smile emerged in his face; obviously he decided to set up a rapport with them, of whatever sort. He gazed on a wooden trough that was similar to those he’d seen at the other houses down in the village. Howevert, the roof-spout that should have been used to fill it with rainwater was lying idly on the ground.

“I see it must be somewhat difficult to earn a living here. Down in the pub they told me that you folks depend on the rain because you don’t even have access to a well. But I guess it rains plenty, no?”

“Yep… off and on,” murmured Simon hesitantly, “but sometimes it don’t. All depends on the God’s mood, you know.”

“Well, you’ll have to fix up that pipe before the next rainfall.”

Simon sniffled and spat on the ground without answering. He didn’t like the man though he couldn’t say why.

His mother said, “Would you want to come in, sir? We don’t hardly get any visitors, you know.”

The reporter hesitated but the lad ushered him towards the open door of the hut. “C’mon in, man. Mind the dog dirt. And watch yer head.”

The reporter bent his way through the low doorframe, but stumbled over the raised threshold. He surveyed the inside of the hut with his experienced gaze. There was just one large room with a two-level bunk next to the wall. In the corner it was an old-fashioned stove, a hewn table with two stools in the centre, and some cups, pots and frying pans hanging on the walls. There were two old kerosene lamps on the shelves along the wall.

He said: “They’d told me in the village the Milner’s had no electricity at all. But I heard earlier the sound of the circular saw; how was it possible?”

Simon wiped his forehead with his sleave without looking at the visitor. “I dunno ‘nothing on what you talking about.”

“Make yourself at home, sir,” said the woman, “I’m just going to get us some cider. The Lord granted us a good apple crop this year.”

The reporter extracted a handkerchief from a pocket and covered a perfectly clean stool with it before sitting down. He swirled the contents of his glass without trying the thick fluid at all.

“Are the two of you alone out here?” he asked.

“Of course not,” laughed the woman. “All told, there’s six of us in the family.”

“Ah,” said the guest, becoming animated, “Might I be able to talk with the other four, then?”

Simon looked at him with a smirk. “Try your luck, man. See if you can get a word out of ‘em.”

“You just leave that to me, lad,” replied the stranger and once again pulled out the black box from his pocket. “You just show me where they are.”

“Well, over there’s Isaac.” Simon pointed a dirty finger at the tabby that was basking in the sun on the window-sill. “Melisa I’ve got tied up out there in the field. I put her post down in another spot each mornin’. I don’t see Melchior. Mum, do you know where he’s roamin’ today?”

The woman smiled happily. “Oh you know him, Simon. He’s probably out chasin’ moles again. Yesterday he dug out a real big one. And Ezekiel’s down there, like always…”

The reporter’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean to say–if I understood correctly–that you’re going on about animals?”

The woman was visibly offended. She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Look here, man,” objected Simon decisively. “It ain’t like that. My dad had an accident in the wood but my mum and I ain’t alone since–no way.”

“You’re right, Simon,” agreed the woman. “You know, sir, these here are real members of our family, you can be sure of that. We get so much good things from them: Melisa gives us milk, Isaac chases the mice away, and you won’t find a better watchdog than Melchior come nightfall. And that’s not even to mention Ezekiel! He’s not so long with us and he’s already done so much good. I could tell you…”

“There’s no need to,” cut in the reporter dryly, and moved his fingers over the box, making it click. “I won’t detain you any longer.”

“But,” said the woman, “you haven’t even tried your cider!”

“And you ain’t spoken to Ezekiel yet, man,” added Simon. “I tell yuh, he’s the cleverest one of all. Take a walk with me down to the basement, if yer up to it. Ezekiel… well… you know, he never wants to come up here.”

“No, I’d rather not, thank you,” said the reporter sharply and removed himself from his stool. “I’ll have to be going now. My photographer’s waiting outside and it’s getting damn late.”

As the reporter was leaving he recollected his earlier experience and carefully stepped over the high threshold–but he hit his head against the low frame. He swore silently, wiped the sweat from his brow and walked across the yard. At that moment the memory of something strange flashed through his mind. In the corner of the hut’s kitchen area he had seen a gleaming, obviously brand-new chromium pipe leading up to a tap. He shook his head. The villagers told him there wasn’t any groundwater around here.

His driver noticed him and approached; the reporter tumbled into the back seat and sighed with relief on feeling the air-conditioned coolness.

“Such a long way to come,” he said to the photographer, “And all for nothing. From now on I wasn’t going to be taken in by any more asinine talk of UFO landings.”

“I agree,” said his fellow-worker. “You better just send one of our junior colleagues out on these useless expeditions; those guys are naïve enough to believe such stories.”

…….. &&& ……..

“Well, he’s gone,” said the woman gloomily. “And he didn’t want to try my cider.”

Simon wiped his nose with his sleeve. “City folk are so highfalutin; but they’re none too bright. You heard him, mum: first he said he wanted to know all sorts of things, then he didn’t even want to see Ezekiel.”

“Well, he wouldn’t know how to talk to him anyways, Simon. You didn’t get it either for the longest time. It took you a while to figure out you don’t need to talk out loud to him.”

“Ya, guess you’re right. In any case, I don’t think Ezekiel would’ve wanted us to bring outside folk to him.”

“You’re darn right. You remember how he didn’t want you to show nobody that circular saw that he made for you, and how he wanted you to just use it at night?”

“I know, I know–my goof. But you also forgot to cover up them new taps Ezekiel done for us. But ain’t it better now that we’ve got this real well instead of that old trough? No more bein’ sparin’ with the water.”

The woman sat down beside her son on the block of wood. They were peaceful for a while in their wordless understanding; only the distant sound of crickets interrupted the utter silence around them.

“Whaddya think, Simon,” she asked at last, “will Ezekiel be with us for long?”

Simon shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think so, mum. This mornin’ I was down there again and he told me somethin’–you know what I mean by that. He let me know his firepod is almost good ‘n ready.”

“That storm must have been some ugly to him, eh?”

“Must have been, but our Wise Lord took mercy on him and steered him to our fields.”

“Ya. But the Lord Almighty done took some mercy on us too when he sent Ezekiel here. He knew we’d shelter him right. Remember all the weird things he needed to fix up that firepod of his, all that stuff he had you draggin’ out from town?”

“Ya, I sure do. But at least he always made me some money for payment after we explained him that’s the only way around here. And there’ll be plenty of it left for when he’s gone.”

The woman’s voice was quiet and reflective. “It’s gonna be some boring without Ezekiel around, don’t you think? We’ve gotten used to there bein’ six of us in the family.”

Her son gazed silently ahead. After a while he started to shift anxiously.

“What’s eatin’ at ya, Simon?”

“Do you think we committed a sin by not tellin’ that man from the newspaper the truth about where Ezekiel’s from?”

His mother shook her head with conviction. “Why? The Lord done sent him to us, and this is a thing between Him and we.”

**** THE END ****

Copyright Edward Rodosek 2010

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