The Old Man's Choice, by Peter Shilston

Paul sat in his chair as rigid and motionless as a statue, but inside his head thoughts spiralled endlessly around without reaching any conclusion. In the past he had always had confidence in his judgments; it had been one of his strengths; but not so now. Was he doing the right thing? Was it too late to change? How was he to know? He had always acted in accordance with certain fixed and inviolable rules, but he had never pretended to great intelligence. Throughout his long career, others had always done the detailed and difficult work for him: his function was to provide dignity and stability, and to calm down those brainy chaps when they got over-excited, as they often did. 

He had been respected too, and generally successful. But now here he was, alone. He dimly sensed that the world had changed: the rules which had governed his life had perhaps ceased to exist. The brainy chaps who might have helped him out had gone. He should have gone too: he realized that. More than once he had retired, and then allowed himself to be called back. He should have resisted that last call; in his heart he had known it all along: the only time in his life that he had ever acted weakly. Surely at his age he should have been allowed to live in peace! It had brought him nothing but uncertainty, when every course of action seemed distasteful.

          

Now there was this man he had to meet: a man young enough to be his grandson. Not that he would have wished any grandson of his to turn out like that! He had already met him more than once, and had disliked him intensely. The fellow was common beyond belief; obviously risen from the gutter; ill-mannered, disrespectful, dishonest and consumed with violent ambition: a man who acknowledged no rules of any kind in his pursuit of power. Paul’s oldest friends had warned him against having anything to do with this person. Where were his friends now, when he needed them most? Gone; all gone. He was alone, and what was he to do? For the first time in his life, Paul felt helpless; a mere cork, drifting in the tide of events.

          

The door opened to admit the unwanted visitor. Paul rose ponderously to his feet and, maintaining dignity till the last, stood as ramrod-straight as if still on the parade-ground. The other man was plainly ill-at-ease. He had taken the trouble to dress formally for the occasion, which served only to make him look more ridiculous than ever. The two exchanged stilted and unmeaning compliments, scarcely bothering to disguise the contempt they felt for each other. But the formalities had to be gone through. So the older man and the younger shook hands, and Field-Marshal-President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

Don't Touch, by Martin Needham

It is now the 734th year since the outbreak of the Great and Merciful Peace and all the inhabitable areas have agreed upon two supreme commandments. These two rules were  born out of the  necessity of circumstance and have transformed human existence. 

Early in the time of Scarcity  the elders who took control of the holy google-net ruled that all human life was sacred and may not be taken, every individual must eat in moderation and exercise to maximise their lifespan. The eggs and sperm are still taken from the young at 17 years of age to be protected so that selected embryos can be produced  in gestation tanks when required by their family.  

For the first  two hundred years humanity prospered, people expected to live to 120 and then 150 and now 200 years. The sterile homes and blessings of the virtual worlds created by the omniscient and most revered google-net  meant that people continued to live entertained and safe existences.  So the planet was fully repopulated until the time of the  Super Abundance, coinciding with the final impotency of antibiotics. 

At this time the second great rule was revealed to us. Thou shalt not treat the sick. So for half a millennium we have lived in the midst of a dichotomy of rules born out of conflicting necessities which are  sustained by a personal greed for life and enshrined in religion. Thus we preserve and revere our online lifespan but we may not interfere with the sick. In this way the overall balance of life is preserved.  We study the great sciences of prevention, sterilisation  and vaccination that we might live longer. Everyone must wear their life preservers; white synthetic spider silk suits that armour us against the scourge of abrasions. We live within our sterosphere helmets that protect us from infection. We conduct our business through virtually controlled machines and exercise in virtual worlds inspired by reality and imagination.

I am a servant of the great and most majestic high google. In my first half century I was one of the developers of the most miraculous world time web, which has become the great investment sensation of our  age. We succeeded in drawing in  digital signals refracted back from the black star gravity pool. These data streams from the birth of our most revered google net brought us knowledge of what we now call  "the age of visceral engagement" .  At first we were shocked and sickened  by the violence, bare flesh and physical contact. It has since been used to reform our virtual entertainments.  

This is my first attempt to send a super accelerated data burst on the reverse path back through the curve of the  space/time depression. There is no rule against it, but in my heart I know there should be.  Studying your lives for over a hundred years now I feel compelled to warn you of the unfortunate alignments of rules, culture and circumstances that have enslaved us. I realise that this act may threaten our own existence.

I am 198 years old. I have followed the rules, lived long and been  well rewarded by our standards,  but perhaps less well in your judgements. I will send richer data streams after this simple old fashioned coded message, but try to imagine.  We must endure our illness and the consequences of them, we must not intervene.  We do not touch and remain untouched. 

I have recently lost another greatgreatgreatgrandchild in such circumstances as further fuel my doubts about the rules by which we live. We had stepped outside our block - risky but not against the rules. Five year old Louis saw the leaves blowing down from the trees. Before he could be stopped, he put up his visor that he might chase and catch a leaf. It brushed his eye as it floated down: infection followed and then death. 

I have stood coldly by and watched death too many times, and I know that you would judge me ill by the standards of your time for doing so.  Our children's instincts betray our true nature. It is  buried deeper as we mature by the consistent layers of conditioning that we must not touch.   When I first looked back at your time I was shocked, offended and physically sickened by the way that you touch each other, walk barefooted, breathe the air. We had lost the words for two mouths touching and even now I cannot bring myself to write it,  but now I am obsessed  by it and jealous.

 Preserve your humanity not your individual  selves, live a real and dirty life. Set your descendants free.

Yours in perpetual  servitude.            Gideon

The Fairy Cow of Mitchell's Fold, by Pauline Fisk

www.mythstories.com

Rural poverty it’s called. When you’ve got no work, bread or money for rent and the job-seeker’s allowance has been removed. There are folk up Mitchell’s Fold who don’t have fare money for the town bus, so God knows how they’re supposed to find work.  Things are desperate up there. If a fairy cow came along, begging to be milked, anybody could be forgiven for giving it a try.

That’s what happened to Angela.  Her cottage backs the wind and faces the standing stones of Mitchell’s Fold. She drew back her curtains one morning to find a cow between the stones, calling out to be milked. Now, Angela knew the legend of the fairy cow, but was a proud woman who’d never milked as much as the State in her life, so she ignored it. Every day the fairy cow called out; every day it sounded more desperately. And Angela was desperate too. She had mouths to feed, so in the end she decided needs must.

Angela placed a pot under the cow, hoping nobody would report her to the DSS. As in the legend, the milk came easily.  She filled her pot and every day afterwards, whatever its size, that got filled too.  Word got round and friends on benefit starting turning up. Ex-friends on benefit turned up too, and people whose benefits had been stopped.

Every day saw bigger containers placed under the cow.  Whatever the size, there was milk for all.  Pails to pots, couldrons to stone sinks, water tanks to Angela’s enamel bath that she yanked out without regret because she couldn’t afford to heat water anyway.

There was milk for everyone, and milk to spare. The spare became butter.  Churns were dug out. Cheeses were made the old-fashioned way. People milked all day and churned all night. Everybody was happy. There was a smile on every fat-filled, milky face.

But you know what it’s like.  Always someone begrudges someone else’s good fortune - in this case, the farmer who owned Mitchell’s Fold. He complained about riff-raff breaking down fences, leaving gates open and letting dogs run wild.  They’d worn a six-lane highway across his land, he said, taking home tanks of milk they’d got for free. And if there was one thing above all others that our good farmer friend couldn’t abide, it was the ‘something for nothing’ mentality.

Farmer Friend phoned the DSS. When he learned no rules prohibited magic cows from yielding milk to whomever they pleased, he decided to act.  In the wee hours before sun-up, he entered the stone circle with a three-legged stool. Before automated farming, he’d been good at milking.  Now, his crabby fingers remembered the knack.   

By nightfall, the fairy cow was dead, milked dry into a sieve which she could never fill, her river of wasted milk bled into the soil. Only then did the farmer stop. He walked away, and no one touched him.  No one needed to.  They left that to the avenging Angela of Mitchell’s Fold.

Within days the hill was empty, everybody down at the Job Centre accepting work at below minimum wage.  The farmer was delighted. He decided to abandon farming and go into politics.  But he never got the chance.      

There’s an extra stone at Mitchell’s Fold, in the centre where the cow once stood.  How Angela did it no one knows. No one was murdered there. The law couldn’t touch her. There’s no rule against turning fledgling politicians into stone.  

Tomorrow is Another Day, by Nathalie Hildegarde Liege

“Tomorrow is another day, but here we are!” he shouted at his mate. His arms set his body’s rhythm. His hair bounced like a soft stroke to both shoulders. “Do you have to tell me the truth?” he added in a calmer voice, his chin down, his forehead heavy, his neck still and his throat dry.

Simon and his mate were walking their way back to the home they had shared for more than a year. They were looking ahead, trying to make plans for that pleasant home. But could the issues between them only be solved by the truth? 

Simon’s dry throat returned him to his senses. He forgot what were the questions in their plans. He was very keen to recall the tiny paragraph he read in his latest National Geographic about cheese fix. His fridge stored the best choices of calming caso-morphins. He didn’t care what his mate had said last Thursday about his fix after he ate a whole soft fat Camembert in five minutes. Not such a big deal as a full 500 gram tin of ice cream licked in half an hour before a TV screen. This was the act of terror he remembered mentioned in his teens by the guilty man himself, who at daytime was the most respected teacher in the playground at school.

Simon’s mate was behind. Would he choose silence after a crude attempt to bring truth to the situation?  He tried to reassure him with good news: “You are about to have a comfortable night. You should be pleased I got new mattresses today for our beds.”

The time had come for his mate to make his voice heard again. He cried out:  “Would you listen? You walk too fast. Would you please slow down? I need to breath in deep! I can’t tell you the truth at the pace we go.”

He fixed his eyes on an unknown but also fast-paced passer-by.  Simon and he both tuned their pace to a steadier mode.  “Now that you pay attention to my opinions,`’ said his mate,  “are we going to define the rules? The truth goes alongside rules, does it not? We can’t keep on pretending. We have no clear rules, and you don’t seem to care so much as I do.”

“What are you talking about? “ Simon said.

“You once again bought something without asking me first!  Mattresses! Your spontaneity isn’t my freedom. That’s what I had to say! Will you accept any rules?  You can’t just act the way you eat cheese!  Stop and think! Man… question your right to decide for others!  Shall I use magnets on the fridge for my written- down rules, to break your unrehearsed plays? You trespass on my intimate territories! Grow up! Accept some rules in our life together. Only then will you be able to share properly and make me happy with what you wish I am, or have if I agreed it, or reckon you must have yourself.”

“That’s an unfair statement, mate!’ Simon muttered.  “Let me sleep on it”  

The Master of the Angels, by Peter Shilston

When Lorenzo di Prato heard the rumour that his only daughter considered herself betrothed to the young painter Tancredi, he was not pleased. He considered it entirely unfitting that he, a prosperous and respected cloth-merchant, should have his family linked by common gossip to a struggling, penniless artist. This was not the future he intended for his child. So when he confronted Gianetta, and she could not deny her friendship with the young man, he had the girl shut away in a convent until she should come to her senses.

Tancredi was saddened, and also insulted. Admittedly he was as yet unknown, but he was sure his prospects were good. Had he not been commissioned to work on the altarpiece at the new church? It would depict the Adoration of the Virgin, and he was to paint one of the side panels. He was certain that this would establish his reputation as a painter, and quickly lead to fame and wealth. But also he truly loved Gianetta, and now he missed her greatly. As the days and the weeks passed by without her, he became more and more depressed. He began to neglect his work. Increasingly he became aware that it was dull and uninspired, and yet he was unable to do anything to improve it. He took to hanging around the gates of the convent for hours at a time, hoping for just a glimpse of his beloved; but the walls were high and windowless, and no man could enter without permission.

Gianetta was also very lonely and unhappy. To ease her grief, she took to praying in quiet places away from the nuns. Especially she liked to climb to the top of the campanile, where there was a small platform: the only place in the convent from which it was possible to catch any glimpse of the city outside. Here she would pray fervently for help and deliverance. And here one day her prayers were answered; as two Beings descended in majesty from the skies and took her hands; and then, in an overwhelming miracle, glittering wings grew from her shoulders, and together the three of them rose beyond the prosaic earth and soared upwards into the cloudless blue.

The only person who saw them was Tancredi, from his lonely vigil outside the nunnery gates. As soon as they had risen beyond his sight, he rushed back to his church and seized his brushes; and he painted his panel before the vision could fade from his memory. It showed three angels in brilliant colours. It was much the best part of the altarpiece, and its fame spread far and wide, so that his reputation was established and he was known ever after as the Master of the Angels. But he never married Gianetta, for the poor girl was now incurably insane, and was never again able to leave the shelter of her convent. Most of the time she was quiet, but occasionally she would escape the vigilance of the nuns, and then she would climb the tower of the campanile, and would be found there, wildly invoking the heavens with tears in her eyes.

"Fly!" she would call, "Oh, fly! Please, fly!"

Winterwood, by Peter Shilston

Jinna scrambled over the stones of what had once been a wall and looked down the slope to the snow-covered wood below. Not a single print of any kind disturbed the whiteness, and only a gap in the trees like a low arch showed her where the path ran. The light was lowering and gloomy beneath the leaden sky, and the prospect filled her with deep uneasiness. But she patted her coat and felt the slight bulge from the inner pocket. There it lay, the great jewel. She must carry it safely through the wood to the other side, and whatever her fears, she could not turn back now. Setting her face in determination, she half walked, half slithered downwards, and, ducking under the laden branches, entered the winterwood.

Inside it was very quiet. The trees were packed so densely that there was little snow underfoot, but the darkness was greater. She could trace where the path wound itself, and there were dimples in it, as if feet had already passed that way: feet too small for a human, but making patterns unlike any animal that Jinna had ever seen. The path continued to run downhill, until she reached the bottom of a valley. Jinna found she had reached a frozen river which she must cross. She listened carefully for the sound of trickling water, which would mean thin ice that might break under her weight: even if the water was shallow, if she got her feet wet, they would freeze. But there was no sound. Jinna realized that since she had entered the winterwood, the utter silence had been broken only the crunching of her boots in the snow, and her own breathing. Somehow this was even more oppressive than the noise of things moving around her. She sensed that here in the wood it was always winter, and nothing lived. Fighting back her mounting fear, she crept carefully across the ice and up the bank on the far side.

The path rose now, until she came to the summit of a low ridge where the trees opened out. There was nothing in the clearing except an immense log, the remains of a fallen tree, half-covered in snow like the body of a frozen dinosaur. The light was slightly better here, and Jinna paused for a rest. For reassurance, she again patted the lump on her coat, and then, acting on sudden impulse, reached into the pocket and pulled out the jewel. She held it up, and even in this dimness it glowed and sparkled with its internal radiance. Never had she seen anything so immeasurably beautiful. She must save it, at all costs! But its glory only made her surroundings seem more threatening. The trees appeared to close in on her. She sensed that the winterwood hated and feared the jewel; would smother its radiance if it could. Over to her left came a sound, and then another: the first she had heard in the winterwood. Maybe it was only the soft thump of snow falling from overburdened branches, but Jinna feared it might be something far more threatening, though she knew not what. She realized she had made a serious blunder.

Quickly she returned the jewel to her pocket, and pressed on. Now the path twisted round to the right, and then to the left. Fear stalked behind her, and she walked faster and faster, her breath panting with weariness and mounting anxiety, never daring to glance back. Then, up ahead, amidst a thicket of smaller trees, she saw another low archway, and knew this was the end of the wood at last. With her escape now in sight, panic at last overcame her. She ran. Through the archway she ran: branches clawed at her face and snow cascaded over her head and back, but she had escaped now, out onto the open plain, freed from the winterwood for ever.

For a while she simply stood there, panting with relief. Then once again she felt her pocket. There was nothing. She tore open her coat and plunger her hand into the pocket. It was empty. In mounting desperation and terror she searched each pocket; every inch of her clothing; once, twice, many times. Nothing. There was no doubting it: the jewel was gone.

Gradually she managed to subdue her terror and steeled herself. She knew what she must do. Somewhere, somehow, she had dropped the jewel, and now she must find it again. Slowly, reluctantly, she forced herself back to the archway through the trees and re-entered the winterwood, retracing her steps, examining the snow on each side, stumbling with weariness, tears frozen on her cheeks, until at last her strength gave out, and she fell forward on the snow, and she died.

　

But then the clouds rolled away and the snow melted. Flowers blossomed in the grass. Jinna felt the warm sun and looked up in wonder to see birds playing on the budding trees. Then a Voice, so enormous that it filled the horizons but was at the same time gentle, spoke to her.

"You have done well", said the Voice.

"But I failed", said Jinna, "I lost the jewel in the winterwood".

"No. You were victorious. There never was a jewel. There never was a winterwood. But you fought to the very end. You have triumphed. We can now proceed to the next test".

In a Seven Year Old Anxiety Can Present as Boredom, by Barry Tench

2B were doing ‘My Father’s Job’ that week. I recall that the lilac trees in the school playground were heavy with flower and that the purple dripped with April rain.  I searched the grey sky behind the roofs of the terraced houses opposite for some sign of the sun that would mean holidays weren’t far away. My desk lid was scored by the pointed ends of countless protractors, initials and dates scarred the soft wood. What if I made my dad sound interesting, and by implication insurance? Would I be forced to follow in his footsteps, to become an insurance salesman for the rest of my life?

I had watched him return home in the evening, stand in the frame of the back door and blow cigarette smoke out into the garden; walk through the house into the living room, did he ever speak? I don’t remember. He would turn on the television, open the evening paper, light another cigarette. The kettle would whistle in the kitchen but he wouldn’t turn his head to see if someone was going to take it off the stove.

I went to his office once; he’d forgotten to collect me from the dentist and I walked through town to his office. I wasn’t sure which way to go, I traced my steps back, took another street. I asked a woman if she knew where my dad’s office was. I didn’t know the name of the building but said, he is an insurance man. She pointed me up the bank to a tall grey building.

“There are offices in there young man”. 

I used to have dreams of a Tyrannosaurs Rex hunting me, crashing through the rooms of our house to where I was hiding behind a jar of pickles on the top shelf in the pantry.

I stumbled in through the glass door. The lobby of the office block smelled of damp paper, cigarettes and feet. The walls, the windows, the beige linoleum on the floor, everything looked like it was coated with a thin film of grime. I sat next to his desk as he joked with colleagues about forgetting to collect me from the dentist, he smoked another cigarette.

I faced 2B. I wanted to say my dad was a teacher, a bus driver, a shop keeper but I didn’t have time to consider the details. Miss made those ‘go-on’ eyes at me. I looked at the faces of my classmates. Is he going to cry? Is he going to piss himself?

“John what does your father do?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes he does. What job does he do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does he go in the morning?”

“He’s dead.”

“Sit down John. I’ll speak to you later”.

I walked back to my desk past Brian Evans whose father had been killed last summer when his motorbike had hit a tree. I still can’t decide if he was smiling.