“Hai De”
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I enjoy writing short stories and poems.
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Short stories

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Terrorism's Last Victim

The thin, plainly dressed woman looked pale and frightened as she stepped into the small, bare room, which buzzed with journalists, photographers and cameramen. Her frame looked frail amongst the two burly, dour-faced policemen who guided her through the tense throng to a seat alongside an older officer who possessed an air of authority and was clearly in control of the press briefing.

"Can I please have your attention?" he commanded loudly, pausing to indicate that he would proceed no further without their co-operation,

"Ladies and gentlemen, you will be aware that Mrs Mary Turnbull here was the only survivor of today's horrific terrorist outrage. She will answer your questions for the next ten minutes or so, after which I will answer any further questions until everyone is satisfied that they have all the information they need. Who's first?"

There then proceeded a barrage of questions about the horrendous bombing of the nursery school: What was Mary Turnbull doing there? What did she see and hear? How did she manage to escape unharmed? Did she know any of the other mothers or children who had died? What were her feelings towards those that had carried out the deed?

Throughout the inquisition, and despite the oppressive atmosphere, Mary Turnbull remained composed, if reticent, and answered all the questions thrown at her with an understandably complex mixture of overwhelming sadness and intense anger. The questions dried up after a few minutes and after a few requests for formal information from the officer in charge, the press filtered out of the room and sought to contact their respective newsrooms.

Only when the door closed on the last journalist, did Mary Turnbull's face lighten somewhat. Her eyes flickered to the left and met those of the officer,

"Was I OK?" she asked.

"You were terrific, Theresa", chuckled the officer, "They seemed to swallow every word. I almost believed you myself!"

"Thanks", replied Theresa Haye, pleased that someone else felt her performance to have been as authentic as she herself believed it to be.

Theresa knew she was a naturally gifted actress - she had been from childhood - but this had been a most demanding assignment. To fool, so completely, a horde of tough, cynical journalists was a challenge she had, at first, been reluctant to accept. Yet on further thought, there seemed little to lose. If she was successful, there was a great deal of money to be made, and if the facade failed to convince, she would receive plenty of publicity about her acting talents in the attempt.

She had undertaken two solid months of intensive study, under tuition from two men whose real names she was never told, into the details of the Sussex village where the nursery stood and of its inhabitants. She had been thoroughly briefed on the answers to give to any and all questions that might be sprung on her. The press conference had been the culmination of the training. Theresa was relieved that it was finally over, was confident that it had been a success.

The officer smiled as he poured out a celebration champagne drink for both of them from a bottle that had been hidden under the table out of the journalist's sight.

"Here's to your continued acting career, Theresa," he toasted.

Theresa stood up from her chair and sipped at the drink. Turning to the officer, she casually remarked,

"You aren't really a policeman, are you?"

"You know better than to ask questions, don't you?" he paused, "...but no, I'm not a policeman. And that's all you need to know."

But the alcohol gave Theresa sufficient momentary courage to voice a doubt she had harboured for weeks,

"No it's not all. There's something else..."

The officer froze, staring at his drink,

"Oh yes?"

"Well, I was just thinking," she stumbled, "I understand how you did it, but not really why. You fake an explosion at a nursery, you get actors to pose for the cameras as dead bodies and escaping survivors and you set up this press conference. What's it all for? I'm not complaining for my part - you've been very generous - but what on earth does any of it achieve?"

Eyes still fixed on his drink, the officer paused to compose his answer. He had expected these questions to have been raised during the training, but somehow she had managed to restrain herself until it was all over. Theresa searched his eyes for an answer and thought she saw a momentary look of regret, before he blinked and it was gone. He turned to face her.

"Theresa, do you remember that the Government tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce a series of laws last year which would have given the authorities extreme powers to search, arrest and imprison anyone suspected of a terrorist act, without restraint or the need for explanation? Many people, including myself, believe it would have stamped out the terrorist threat once and for all. You probably remember that the coalition became divided about whether the laws could be justified because of the human rights they would have clearly infringed. They narrowly failed to be passed as a result.

Now, the terrorists took note of this, and began a new offensive. This time, though, it was almost exclusively aimed at military targets. You see, Theresa, public outrage is greatest when bombings and killings involve innocent victims. What the Government needed to pass the laws was an outrage - a massacre of completely innocent people - in order to gain enough public backing for the laws and in turn to put an end to the terrorist threat."

Theresa now began to see the whole of which she had been a part. A faked bombing of women and children to push public outrage far enough that there would be no opposition to the new laws. It was vast and unbelievable concept.

"I don't believe it!" she gasped, "All this deception, to pass a few dodgy laws? You'll never get away with it! Someone will check up in the village or one of the relatives of the people who are supposed to be dead will give the game away? How can you expect to tie up all the loose ends? It's crazy!"

"You need not worry about that, Theresa. All the loose ends have been seen to. There won't be any leak."

"But how can you say that? Any operation involving that many actors and actresses is bound.....". Theresa stopped and it suddenly hit her.

The press couldn't be fooled that easily. They needed carnage, they needed bodies, they needed weeping relatives. She began to appreciate that this was, after all, too big an operation to have been faked. There was only one way the Government could have tied up all the loose ends. They really had bombed the nursery, the bodies really were dead, the damage was real. She felt sick to the stomach.

The officer realised that she had begun to guess the truth,

"You have to see the whole picture, Theresa. Terrorism kills hundreds of people in this country every single year and many more are seriously injured. What are the lives of a dozen people compared to the ending of terrorism for good? It was just something that had to be done. The Government will have no trouble passing the anti-terrorism laws now. These are the last, the very last, casualties of the war against terror."

Theresa's head spun with the enormity of it. No, she could not grasp the whole picture. She could only see the bodies of mothers and children scattered around the ruined building. She felt weak and slumped back into her chair. Her heart pounded fiercely and her glasss dropped to the floor.

"Generation after generation has tried to defeat terrorism", argued the officer, his words droning in her aching head, "but this is our best opportunity yet. If there were any other way, we would have used it. Nobody wanted this."

Theresa's eyes closed and his words started to get muddled. So, this was how the Government tied up its loose ends.... all its loose ends. Her thoughts briefly focussed on the champagne, and then became confused and dreamlike.

The officer moved to take her weight as Theresa's body began to slip to the floor. He laid it gently on the floor.

"If there was any other way...", he whispered, as he removed his jacket and covered the face of what he faithfully believed would be the last ever victim of terrorism.

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Lower Turpinne

It had been a dull opening to the conference, and Jon Royle was a man who believed in keeping his mind active. In that sense his job was ideal. Leaving school with acceptable, though not outstanding qualifications, Jon had sought a career which offered a chance both to stretch his creative skills and appease a near insatiable curiosity with life. A few years and a few dead ends later he began what was to become a notable career in the Blade Keenly Advertising Agency.

Jon rose steadily to become head of the Resource Department which specialised in dreaming up new ideas for promoting products, people or places. Dreaming was, in fact, where Jon believed his best work took place. Although setting an example to his more junior staff in the long hours he worked, he often suggested the ideas that turned out to be the company's most profitable at the regular early morning departmental brainstorming meetings, claiming them to have been inspired by his previous night's visions. Over his first five years, Jon became very well thought of by those in the Company that mattered. One of the senior partners even went so far as to marry him!

The conference had been promoting a new sales technique involving linking mail shots directly to credit card sales. Jon had booked in at the last minute. It had looked somewhat intriguing from the brochures and gave him a chance to get out of the office for a few days. He had tried to persuade Rachel to join him, but she had made it perfectly clear how interesting she felt it would be, by insisting on staying to attend what Jon knew would be a fairly routine share meeting. He smiled to himself - those organising the event had shown their true skills to lie in the promotion of the conference rather than its content. The "new sales technique" was a thinly veiled reworking of various tried and tested methods. Jon felt a little annoyed at himself for having been drawn so easily into the glossy brochure's exaggerated promises, although he still had an intuitive feeling that there was a novel sales method there somewhere.

The rain didn't help, of course. He normally enjoyed driving, but felt himself tensing up as he navigated the few miles back to his hotel. It was a dark evening - low cloud cover obscured any moon there might have been. There were another three days at the conference if he decided to stay to the end. If nothing else, he encouraged himself, it was a means of extending his contacts within the industry. That must count for something. The rain was gradually getting heavier and Jon was keen to avoid getting lost. He spied a small signpost pointing down a road to the right indicating the direction of a village called Lower Turpinne, some 58 miles away. The distance was somewhat concerning, as Jon was heading for what he guessed to be the neighbouring village of Upper Turpinne and had expected to arrive there within ten minutes or so. He was about to stop and check his map when he spied a large lighted sign welcoming him to the village of Upper Turpinne. He found his hotel a mile further on down the main road and after checking in and taking a hot shower, sank gratefully into a deep sleep.

Jon woke with a start the following morning. He quickly checked his watch to confirm that he hadn't overslept. He hadn't. He blamed his abrupt awakening on the traffic outside his window. Jon had grown used to living a quarter of a mile from the nearest road - one of the benefits of marrying a wife with an inherited manor to her name. As was his custom, Jon's first action of the morning was to grab what he called his "think-pad". Rachel occasionally teased Jon about his obsession with recording anything and everything he could drag back from his recently vacated dream state. But he'd received promotions as a direct result of this routine and was not about to forgo it simply because he was away from the office. He began jotting down odd, disconnected words, occasionally ringing them or connecting them together with lines and arrows. They would have meant nothing to anyone peering over his shoulder, and on this occasion meant little to Jon either. The journey to the hotel the previous night had seemingly weighed heavily on his mind overnight - visions of rain-drenched roads seemed to be a common theme. Jon wrote down "Lower Turpinne 58 miles" and. as was often his way. began to muse about anagrams of Lower Turpinne. He smiled as he noticed that the number of letters in the words Lower and Turpinne were 5 and 8 respectively and that these numbers coincidentally made up the mileage that had appeared on the signpost he had seen. He smiled because earlier that year - on his 35th birthday - he'd noticed that his own name had 3 and 5 letters. Coincidences were everywhere if you took the trouble to look for them, he thought to himself. When he felt that his mind had been fully dredged of the night's thoughts, he washed, dressed and enjoyed a hearty breakfast.

The highlight of the second day at the conference was an hour-long conversion with an attractive young saleswoman over lunch. Were it not for a well-developed guilt complex and his wedding ring, he may have been tempted to arrange a further meeting after the afternoon session. But as it was, he left directly after the last speaker, choosing not to attend the optional workshop which followed the demonstration. As he threw his suitcase into the back of his car he glanced around him to see who else had left early, and was suddenly overcome with a feeling he hadn't experienced since a certain day of truancy at secondary school - the punishment for which remained the most outstanding aspect of the memory.

The journey back to the hotel was far more pleasant than on the previous day. The sun was beginning to set, although it was still bright enough to drive without lights. Jon's mind wandered as he hummed along with the music in his car. Then suddenly he braked hard, quickly indicated left and pulled into the side of the road. Fortunately there was no traffic behind him, for it would have had little warning of the sudden stop. Jon put the car into reverse and drove back about a hundred yards down the road. Once there, he peered out and up through the windscreen to the sign at the side of the road. It pointed to the village of Upper Turpinne, but the mileage was 38 miles. It was this that his mind had seized upon. Surely he had seen a mileage of 58 miles yesterday, he asked himself ? Admittedly it had been a dark and wet night, but he was convinced the sign had read 58 miles.

Jon put the car into first and pulled back onto the road, still wondering how he had misread the sign yesterday. He turned his stereo off to concentrate. It had struck him as odd yesterday evening that a small village such as Lower Turpinne to be had been signposted from so far away. But he had actually written down the mileage himself that morning. He began to reason that, perhaps, he'd been on a different road yesterday when he spied the sign welcoming him to Lower Turpinne.

Jon pulled into his hotel, lifted his briefcase from the car and strode up to the hotel reception.

"Good afternoon, sir !" said the immaculately dressed receptionist.

"Good afternoon. I wonder...."

"Yes, sir ?"

"I'm thinking of visiting Lower Turpinne tomorrow. How far away would you say it was approximately ?"

"By road sir ?", Jon nodded, "Oh, I would say maybe 40 miles, sir."

"Is that all ? I'd heard it was nearer 60 ?"

"Not if you take the most direct route, sir. No more than 40 miles."

"Thank you"

Jon made his way up to his room where he washed and changed. He sat on his bed and picked up his think-pad. There was the reference to 58 miles. Jon purposefully crossed out the 5 and inserted a 3 in its place. Smiling to himself, he made a further note on the pad, reminding himself to make an appointment for an eye-sight test on his return.

The final day of the conference could not come soon enough, and Jon debated whether to travel directly home or to spend a final night at the hotel and set off early the next day. But the afternoon session overran by forty-five minutes making the decision easier as it was getting rapidly dark by the time he left. Jon noticed that it was getting chillier these days - winter was fast approaching. He turned the heater on in the car, pulled out the choke and reversed out of the parking space. As he drove away from the conference he pondered the possibility that the hotel might have no rooms left. He had packed his bags and paid his bill that morning, in case he decided to drive straight back. However, he had not seen many other guests in the dining room, and felt it unlikely that he would have to look for another hotel. If necessary, he could always drive back after all, though he preferred to travel in daylight hours.

As he approached the signpost to Lower Turpinne, Jon deliberately slowed the car, half expecting the sign to have reverted back to 58 miles ! What he saw, however, made him slam on his brakes yet again. He sat for a moment and noticed his breathing was fast and he could feel his pulse. He leaped out of the car in some indignation. The car headlights illuminated the sign and the mileage now read 16 miles !

Jon approached the signpost slowly, reaching up to touch the metal sign attached to the wooden post. He brushed the figures with his hand in case anything obscured the true mileage but, this close to it, it was obvious that the figures were moulded metal showing a 1 and a 6. They stood out in relief from the sign plate, as did the words of the village, and black paint had been applied to the top of them. They had clearly not been added to or tampered with. A whole new sign would have had to have replaced the current one for the mileage to seem as authentic as it did from the distance he was now standing. Jon's eyes scanned the surrounding area, half hoping that he was the subject of some elaborate practical joke. However, it was too dark to make out any local pranksters who might have been spying on him, though he found that an equally unlikely possibility.

Jon sat back in his car, stunned Perhaps he was making too much of it all? After a moment he decided continued to the hotel. The receptionist smiled on seeing Jon and asked if he wanted the same room. Jon nodded with a half-hearted smile, but his mind was elsewhere. As he headed for the lift, he turned to the receptionist.

"Yesterday I asked you about visiting Lower Turpinne, and you told me it was some 40 miles away, do you remember ?"

"I remember you asking, sir," he replied, "but I told you it was nearer 20 miles away"

"No," corrected Jon, "You definitely said 40 miles. I remember it distinctly!"

"Well I apologise if I did, sir, though I'm not sure why I would have said that. It is about 20 miles. It takes about thirty minutes by car."

"Are you sure?" stammered Jon.

"Certainly, sir. My daughter lives there."

"Oh...well...thank you anyway.."

Jon picked up his overnight bag and made for his room. He was convinced that the manager had, for some reason, changed his mind about the mileage since yesterday, but had no idea why. Furthermore, Jon had not got the impression from quizzing him that he was lying. He appeared to believe quite sincerely that he had told Jon the correct distance the day before. If this is a conspiracy, thought Jon, it's both well-constructed and utterly pointless.

That evening, Jon made the decision to stay an extra day, and visit Lower Turpinne. He rang Rachel that night saying that some unfinished business would delay him for a day. She saw nothing suspicious in this, and Jon purged his overactive conscience by convincing himself that it was indeed unfinished business. He made some confused notes in his think-pad that evening, before slipping into a night-state that was somewhat less than restful.

The following morning, Jon once again checked out of his room, paying his bill without any further conversation. His dreams from the previous night had produced very little intelligible information to add to his think-pad. He packed his bag back into his car and drove down the road to the offending signpost. Deliberately, and with aroused curiosity, he parked his car and crossed the road to look at it, since it faced the traffic coming in the opposite direction to which he was travelling. It was surely too much to hope that there was an overnight change to the sign, to confirm the paradox. But when he rounded the sign he couldn't hold back a gasp at the mileage showing 12 miles. This was clearly a prank, but surely not aimed at him? However, prank or not, he was determined to get to the bottom of it. Glancing around him to confirm he wasn't being watched, he removed a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, and made a small inconspicuous mark in the bottom left hand corner of the sign. Nobody would be aware of the mark unless looking for it specifically, but should the sign be removed or altered, it would be clear from the mark's absence.

Jon returned to his car and, driving a little further down the road, found a place to turn it round and headed back towards the hotel. As he passed the sign, he confirmed that the mileage was still 12, as he reset the mileometer in his car and turned right, in the direction that the signpost pointed. The journey was a bright and pleasant one, following leafy lanes occasionally opening up on spacious fields of various harvested crops. In under twenty minutes he passed a sign welcoming him to Upper Turpinne. His mileometer read just under 12 miles - at last he knew for himself how far it really was to this apparently mysterious village!

Jon stayed there for a couple of hours, taking morning tea at a small but expensive restaurant in a little alley off the main high street. On leaving, he casually asked the waitress how far it was to nearby Lower Turpinne. She replied that it was about 10 miles. Jon thanked her, though she didn't know how grateful he really was. He was now fairly sure that there was nothing at all mysterious about the place, and that it was simply something strange at the site of the signpost that remained unexplained.

Jon drove back in the direction of the hotel, hoping for some lunch there before heading for home. However, he couldn't resist stopping once again at the signpost. He parked his car a little way down the road and sauntered back to it. When he moved around to read it once again, his theory crumbled like an autumn leaves underfoot. The sign showed Lower Turpinne to be 8 miles away. Jon's "secret" mark was still there, however, and the sign looked identical to what he had seen that morning. Without regard for the expensive suit he was wearing, Jon slumped down to sit on the grass wayside. His mind searched for a reasonable answer to the riddle. But, after ten minutes, it was no clearer.

He returned to his car, and sat there, trying to make sense of events. As he stared aimlessly, his hands resting on the driving wheel, his eyes fixed on the mileometer. Since resetting it at spot where he was now parked, earlier that morning, he had registered just under 20 miles. Yet he had checked after the journey to Upper Turpinne, and it had showed 12 miles. Why had it only added an extra 8 miles since then ?

Jon pulled out his pad of notes and looked over the notes from the previous two days, and then previous weeks. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but part of him felt he'd missed some clue. Some hint as to what was really happening. He jotted down 58, then 38, 12 and 8. He glanced up at the sign - "Lower Turpinne 7 miles". "Seven miles?" he gasped. This just wasn't possible. No-one could possibly have removed one sign and replaced it with another in the minute or two he'd been parked in front of it. Was he going insane?

When he stopped laughing, he had an thought. Jotting down some quick calculations based on the different mileage he had noted down and the times he'd seen them, he estimated that Lower Turpinne would be 0 miles away in just over half an hour. "Now that I would like to see!" he mused.

He settled down in his car. At first he stared at the signpost, willing it to change while he looked at it. It didn't. A car passed and Jon noticed the driver look at him quizzically. Not surprisingly. Glancing back at the signpost - two miles! Two miles to Lower Turpinne. Two miles. Jon stepped out of his car once more and looked down the road ahead. All seemed as normal as ever. And yet he had almost started to believe that this village was somehow getting closer. It defied all logic, but what other explanation was there? In the distance, he thought for a moment he saw movement. The signpost now read one mile. There was movement. He squinted and could make out, what was it? - a tree? a house? They did seem to be moving closer. And at some speed. Suddenly frightnened, Jon jumped back into his car. He locked the door and then felt silly for doing it. Through the windscreen buildings, trees and….and a church steeple were just a few hundred yards away now. He could see people. They showed no discomfort from moving at high speed, yet they clearly were. Seconds past and the village was upon him. Jon's jaw dropped. He felt like his own car was speeding forward through the village road, but he knew the engine was turned off. People in the village turned to look at him, but didn't seem surprised or concerned. There was the alley where he had had tea. And then it was behind him. The sights and sounds of Lower Turpinne passed and were fading quickly. A post-box on a pole was the last really noticeable thing to career by. And as Jon stared, the scene ahead became much like before - an empty road.

He turned around and could make out some movements in the distance, but not much. He looked back at the signpost, but it had gone. Across the road, however, a new signpost had appeared. He knew it hadn't been there before. He strode across the road and moved around the far side of the new sign. The sign would now be seen by cars travelling in the opposite direction. It said "Lower Turpinne 5 miles". That makes sense, Jon thought, and yet he knew it was absolute nonsense. Jon walked back to his car both confused and amused. He started the engine, drove forward a few yards and stopped. Looking back, he read the new sign again, and started to laugh, first a small laugh, then a long hearty belly laugh. "Eight miles already, eh?" he snorted.

And was still giggling uncontrollably as he drove up his drive as Rachel stared worriedly at him.

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New Trap

His eyes flickered to the right. The electronic imaging in Rand's helmet visor gave some form to an otherwise completely dark cargo bay. A bead of sweat trickled down the inside of his helmet. Slowly and purposefully, he took another step forward. He glanced nervously at his chrono. Time to check in.

"Time 34:26. Position 25 83 14. All clear to this point"

Perhaps today was his chance to encounter a new trap ? He considered once again the enemy - the Dardan race - as so often before. Rand believed the secret to staying alive in this war lay in understanding the enemy philosophy. Their aversion to physical destruction, for instance, which made them prone to losing head-on battles with laughable ease. But their trickery, their technology and their utter relentlessness were legendary, and the war had been continuing for thirteen years.

This battle had been short even by Dardan standards - too short in the considered opinion of Rand's superiors. Dardans had the habit of withdrawing from positions rather than fighting for them, but leaving multitudes of sophisticated traps which made early invasion and later inhabitation of the captured territory virtually impossible.

Rand was a Probe-op, one of a select team, highly trained and hand-picked for outstanding qualities of alertness, concentration and speed of reactions. Probe-ops were the first line of defence against the enemies' technological wiles. Their job was to clear recently vacated battlefields of anything the Dardans might be counting on to give colonising humans a nasty surprise. Earlier that afternoon, one of Rand's team had defused a Flash-trap which would otherwise have blinded anyone within five spacials of it going off. Another had given sufficient warning of a seeping Gas-trap for suitable measures to be taken. The trap was misnamed as it emitted a mind-numbing virus, not a gas, which destroyed all memory in those it affected. There were a host of such devices, all of which the Probe-op needed to be utterly familiar with. But the most challenging and dangerous of the traps were the new traps. A Probe-op tackling such a previously unencountered trap had to survive simply on his wits and reactions. Rand wondered whether this was his chance - a newly vacated Dardan base with up-to-date traps already encountered. He had heard that the base had been used for Dardan time-travel experiments. That seemed unlikely but, by the look of the equipment around him, something of a highly technical nature had been going on. It was going to be difficult to spot traps amongst such unfamiliar shapes and surfaces.

Rand fingered his blaster cautiously and took another step forward. He turned to look back at the distance he had cleared so far. At this rate he wouldn't be finished within the tenth. Dardan quarters were always strange, but the number and variety of unfamiliar objects around him was significantly slowing his progress. Probe-ops were trained to recognise known traps, but what would a new trap look like ? Rand sidestepped, squatted and adjusted the luminosity dial on his visor.

Then a click. Soft and seemingly over before it had begun. Rand froze . His senses burned. Had he really heard anything - perhaps not. His own probe equipment was not always as silent as it was designed to be. Rand glanced at his in-built visor display. Nothing had registered there, either audibly or visually - another false alarm. He straightened again. His eyes flickered to the right. The electronic imaging in Rand's helmet visor gave some form to an otherwise completely dark cargo bay. A bead of sweat trickled down the inside of his helmet. Slowly and purposefully, he took another step forward. He glanced nervously at his chrono. Time to check in.

"Time 34:26. Position 25 83 14. All clear to this point"

Perhaps today was his chance to encounter a new trap ?

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Yesterday's Tomorrow

An abrupt metallic clang woke me with a start. My eyes opened instinctively, but blinked shut again to avoid the bright sunlight pouring into the room. My head sank back on the pillow and I gathered my thoughts - nobody should suffer such a rude awakening. My heartbeat gradually slowed and my eyes ventured from beneath their lids to investigate the cause of the noise.

I was in a small room and my eyes searched in an increasingly frantic manner for something of a familiar nature. The sound had come from the far corner, where a solidly built metal door stood. My bed looked sparse and felt uncomfortable. Light streamed through a high window to the left, casting a shadow of bars on the opposite wall. I racked my mind for some recollection of how I had gotten here, but could remember nothing.

I dropped my legs to the side of the bed and sat upright. The room was dark, contained little furniture and no personal effects. I was dressed in a loose fitting robe. I stood up and walked across the room to a small desk on which rested only a pad of paper and a pencil. Someone had scrawled a message on the paper, but the room was still quite dark and the writing was difficult to read. I picked it up and crossed to the barred window to illuminate it further. The message was strange,

"I do not know my name. I must try and remember why I am here".

The writing was unfamiliar and I considered who might have left the message. I couldn't see how I could help the unknown author - I was having enough trouble ordering my own thoughts. I flipped through the rest of the pad for further clues as to who the mystery visitor might have been, but it was blank. I tore off the top page and returned to the bed with it.

I wondered whether I had always had this difficultly of thinking clearly and remembering events from the previous day after waking from a deep sleep. But I soon found myself struggling to remember anything at all. I could recall nothing about yesterday, about last week, my youth, parents or ........ or even myself ! Perhaps I was in a hospital ward, suffering from some illness which impaired the memory ? Yes, that could well explain it. And it would shed light on the scrawled message - another patient with a similar ailment had wandered into my ward or perhaps had been a former patient in the room where I found myself. I decided it was time for a few answers.

I strode over to the door and reached for the handle, but there was no handle, nor a catch of any sort. I couldn't even see a keyhole. I pushed the door, at first cautiously and then with increasing effort, but it was as solidly shut as it appeared. I hammered on it in frustration and shouted for attention. Then, resting my ear to its cold surface, I listened for any reaction to my disturbance. I thought at first that I heard distant voices, but it was difficult to be sure, and if voices they were, they remained distant.

I turned round and raised my eyes to the window in the far wall. It was small and barred, but seemed to have no glass in it. I could see nothing out of it where I stood as it was a foot or two above head height. Standing underneath it proved no more successful, but if I jumped and clung on to the bars I found that I could view a cloudless sky and the tops of some trees before the aching in my arms proved too painful and I dropped down again.

I sat back down on the bed to collect my thoughts. I could feel my pulse pounding and tried to convince myself that it was due to hanging from the window. But it wasn't. I was angry. I didn't know why I had seemingly been locked up and ignored. And I was scared, for I had no idea what I had done to warrant such a punishment. Perhaps all would be explained. Perhaps I was in a hospital ward and the nurses had accidently locked the door, or I was a kidnap victim, or perhaps a prisoner of war, or ..... no other explanations came to mind.

Back at the door I hammered and screamed again. It was all I could think of to do. Yet it achieved nothing. I could see no way of escaping or understanding my position without outside help of some kind. But no help came. I was greeted by silence. Even from outside I could hear no wind, no birds, no traffic.

Time passed, though it was only possible to measure it by the way the shadow of the window bars tracked around the room. They appeared to be rising from their lowest position, perhaps one or two in the afternoon, when I had my first suggestion that I had not been left to simply rot in the room.

I was taken by surprise, however, lying on the bed trying to rescue lost thoughts when a short scraping noise came from the door. I sprang up, but before I could reach it a tray had been slipped through a floor-level hatch which was immediately slammed shut again. Ignoring the food, I battered the door,

"Stop ! Wait a minute - let me out ! Who are you ?"

They must have heard me. And yet not the slightest reaction.

"At least tell me where I am ........ Tell me why I'm here !"

I sank to my knees, roared in anger and pounded the door once more. I felt alone and betrayed. Betrayed from what I had no idea. Perhaps I deserved this treatment for some hideous crime I had committed ? I wondered if any crime could warrant such isolation, and whether knowing what it was would make the exile any more bearable ?

The food on the tray beside me smelled good. I picked it up and took it over to the desk, drawing up an old upright chair. My captors had provided me with a metal knife and fork. Clearly they did not countenance any escape. Or even suicide, I mused. The food tasted excellent and I ate it all and wondered how long it had been before I'd last eaten. I could still remember nothing. I decided to leave the tray on the table - if they collected it at least I would see who they were.

Sidling back to sit on the bed I picked up the piece of paper on which the message had been written. An idea suddenly occurred to me and grabbing the pencil I wrote a short plea for help on the back of the page,

"To whoever finds this. I need your help. Please call the police. I am in the room above. Please help me"

It was a long shot, but I had few options. Rather than crumple the paper into a ball which was likely to be ignored, I folded it into an aeroplane shape and aimed out through the window. The first attempt hit one of the bars and dropped back into the room, but the second sailed through and out of sight. I uttered a silent prayer for its safe journey and then went back to hammering on the door for a while.

An hour or so later I began to grow sleepy. The sun was less bright now, but it was by no means night-time yet, and the feeling of sleepiness felt unnatural anyway. I wondered if the food or water had been drugged in any way, but could see no point to it if it had. I lay back on the bed and gradually succumbed.

When I woke again the cell had darkened significantly. It was still light enough to see around it, but I knew that it wouldn't be for much longer. My eye was drawn to the desk, and suddenly I realised that the tray was gone. I cursed my captors, but I couldn't believe that they would have drugged me simply as a means of removing the tray. I got up and roamed the confines of the cell to see if there had been any other alterations while I had slept. I picked up the pencil which lay on the floor by the bed. I wasn't convinced I had actually left it on the floor at all. And I tried to remember the colour of my robe before the sleep. Had it really been blue or had they changed it while I slept ? The page with the message on it was missing from the pad of paper - I could find it nowhere. Why would they want to take that away ? Surely it was meaningless ? What was the message again ?

I sat down on the chair and my head sank to the desk with my arms wrapped around it. I could feel something important slipping away, but I wasn't sure what it was. I knew I must concentrate on something. But I was still so very tired.

The sun was setting quickly now. I picked up the pencil. I needed something to concentrate on. I began to sign my name, but couldn't bring it to mind. I knew who I was, but I couldn't put words to the thought. It was exasperating and I thumped the desk with my fist. I wondered if I could remember how to write at all. I put pencil to paper,

"I do not know my name"

The writing style seemed unfamiliar, but it was clearly mine. I was encouraged that I had at least retained some basic skill. Maybe in time other skills and memories would return. If only I could concentrate. I decided to set myself a goal for the next day. Something small and achievable, yet a significant achievement I could aim for,

"I must try and remember why I am here".

Perhaps a night of sleep will help to retrieve the memories I've lost and those that are still slipping away ? I wonder how long it's been since I've last eaten. Hours ? Days ? I pull my robe around me and look around for a bed. Finding one, I lay myself out on it, my eyes close and my mind wanders. I quite fancy cooking myself a breakfast tomorrow. I should have gone shopping today. I mustn't forget to go tomorrow. But first, sleep.

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Confuse a User

Users phone up our Helpline,
With every problem they can find,
Sending e-mails, ringing through,
But, there's something that we do,
If we find we're short on time,
We quote to them this little rhyme,
Stare the user in the eyes,
And tell them that, "The problem lies....

With Lotus Freelance, D.R.S,
A.T. Bus and Config Sys,
Polling lights and 1-2-3,
16 bytes and L.T.E,
Locks and racks and switching-box,
Vax and stacks and Paradox,
I.C.L. and LAN and WAN,
Terminal and A.M. fan,
Earth and live and I.B.M,
Floppy drive and Hayes modem,
Four-way wire and new screwdriver,
Quietwriter printer driver,
Faulty test disk - data lost,
Call Request Desk - Compaq DOS,
G.L. output, I.M.L,
Serial and parallel,
Fibre optics, keycap sticks,
Hub synoptics, 3-8-6,
Paintjet, PROFIT, mains four-gangs,
New kit, 8-bit, P.C. hangs,
Chargewire, toner, screws and fuser"

....this should all confuse a user,
So we'll quote this this little rhyme,
And prove the Helpline is sublime!

(Judged the winning entry in a National ICT Poetry Competition by Pam Ayres!)

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Swat!

The bumble bee above my head
Is very soon going to be dead
My Dad is getting in a rage
Trying to find a suitable page
To swat that bee with anytime
And so I wrote this little rhyme
It's all about that bee, so near
That it'll get clouted on the ear
So bee, please stop buzzing, please
'Cos then my Dad would like you bees
But, alas, the bee has not
So from my Dad it's got a......SWAT!

(written at 11 years old)

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The Ballad of Gildaway

Nestled gently, valley deep,
Lies the place they fought to keep,
Lies the city, wise men say,
Bore the name of Gildaway.

Mystic dwelling place of old,
Piercing towers flashing gold,
Fairest city, shadow grey,
Sunshine played on Gildaway.

Built aside a river gush,
Built amidst a landscape lush,
Firm foundations laid to stay,
Everlasting Gildaway.

Evil forces spied its light
Peaceful men were forced to fight,
Peaceful women rose to pray,
For the fate of Gildaway.

Bold defensive barricades,
Merely slowed the bandit raids,
All the life-blood drained away,
Leaving only Gildaway.

Market square nor narrow street,
None now echo sounds of feet,
Not one single soul this day,
Lives its life in Gildaway.

Branches bend as sandstorms moan,
All deserted, overgrown,
Only wind and leaves now play,
In the ruined Gildaway.

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Bobby the Goldfish

Bobby is my goldfish,
He loves swimming to and fro,
He dreams of what his life would be,
Should he ever be let go.

Snowie is my pussycat,
She loves to purr and play,
She dreams of eating Bobby,
But he always swims away,

One morning, very early,
Bobby's dream came true,
No longer cooped up in a bowl,
His world seemed fresh and new.

The bowl had disappeared,
The water was no more,
For Bobby flew across the room,
Flicked out by Snowie's paw !

He landed on the sofa,
Like a great big trampoline,
This view of his environment,
Never had he seen.

His heart was pounding fiercely,
His lungs were short of breath,
Suddenly he realised,
He was very close to death.

In the nick of time I found him,
Lying parched and dry,
With my loudest voice I shouted,
"Bobby ! Do not die !"

I quickly gave resuscitation,
Breathing through his fishy lips,
Sadly it was too late, so
I went and had him fried, with chips !!

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Greener Grass

Close your mind - reality confuses
Wear your mask - for all its uses
Steer in the rut - it's easy to follow
The known is safer - all else is hollow
Stagnate in cages you helped build
Bear your cross and nurture guilt
Ignore the conflicts, heard and seen
The other grass just seems more green.


Yet some rebellious men
Think again
Challenging inherited axioms
Changing inbuilt attitudes
Altering allegiance
Reversing radically
Settling slowly
Growing gradually
Greener grass contrasting completely
The scorched stubble of previous pastures


Lesson learned
Decisions confirmed
Bridges burned
No return

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