Brilliant Short Stories

by Stan Mason

  ‘Can I have two more?’ he asked, as she poured out a cup of tea from the steaming kettle.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s all you can have,’ she told him coldly. ‘We have to limit them to visitors otherwise they’d all be gone in a flash. And then we’d have nothing to give the rest. I’m sure you understand.’

  He seemed to accept her explanation and took the cup she handed to him sipping the tea noisily.

  At that moment, Betty Boyer entered the kitchen to stare at the man and she almost gasped in surprise at his desperate appearance. Then she looked at Marsha with a firm expression on her face. ‘Is everything all right in here?’ she asked, in an attempt to help her colleague if she needed assistance. ‘I’ve just come in to get two cups of tea.’

  ‘Two cups?’ ventured the stranger, lowering his own cup to his lap. ‘You must be very thirsty.’

  Marsha began to laugh at the joke and the stranger joined in as he realised what he had said but Betty Boyer’s expression remained totally unrelenting. She took the two cups of tea passed to her by her colleague and left the kitchen area with a jaundiced view in her eye. She didn’t like the look of the man and she intended to keep a watch on him in case anything untoward happened to her friend. However, Marsha was quite relaxed with the stranger, although at the back of her mind there were some reservations. If only she could read the man’s name on his wristband and perhaps note the telephone number she would feel much better. Nonetheless, she had taken pity on him and, as she turned, she could hardly believe that she actually uttered her next sentence.

  ‘If you like, I’ll take you home after the bingo and you can have something to eat. How about that?’ She had some old clothes of her husband waiting to be despatched to a charity shop but the man sitting in the kitchen had prior need. At least she could claim that she had done her good deed for the day... feeding and clothing a poor individual who was wanting.

  ‘I’d really like that,’ he told her impassively. ‘Thank you very much. It’s very kind of you.’

  Darryl had seen the stranger enter the hall and viewed him with some disgust. The man was clearly a tramp. His clothes were in rags and he sported some very bad cuts and bruises on his face as though he had been in a fight. The Community Centre was a place available to local people not to indiscriminate tramps who chose to use the premises to doss out for a night or two. He had watched the stranger follow Marsha into the kitchen and could only imagine that she had offered the man a cup of tea before sending him on his way. He considered it an intrusion on his pet project... the bingo session... and all it entailed. The nerve of some people who simply walked in on a function without so much as a momentary pang of guilt or concern! Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him and he entered the kitchen a short while after Betty Boyer emerged with two cups of tea.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded of his wife, with a slight tone of anger in his voice.

  The stranger stared at the organiser’s bat-hat in amazement. ‘You’re Batman, aren’t you? The Cape Crusader.’

  ‘No I’m not Batman!’ snapped Darryl. ‘This is Halloween Night at a private bingo session and you’ve not been invited!’

  ‘I didn’t know bingo sessions were private,’ muttered the man inoffensively. ‘I thought anyone could come along.’

  ‘Well not tonight!’ said Darryl raising his voice. ‘This is a Halloween Night party and people have come dressed for the occasion. So it would be appreciated if you would leave.’

  The stranger took another sip at his tea. ‘There are lots of people out there not dressed for Halloween,’ he declared, much to the annoyance of the master of ceremonies.

  While this was happening, Marsha tried to read the words and telephone number on his wristband but they still remained elusive partly hiding under the man’s cuff. ‘I’ve invited this man to our house afterwards,’ she admitted to her husband, ‘to goive him something to eat. He’s hungry.’

  ‘You did what?’ spluttered Darryl in disbelief. ‘You’ve invited him back to our place for some food? Since when do we take tramps into our home?’

  ‘A word please!’ Marsha’s tone was quite sharp as she took her husband’s arm and led him outside. ‘Look,’ she warned him. ‘he’s wearing an identity band on his wrist. He may be an escaped lunatic from the asylum at Baddlespoke. You don’t know the score. If you carry on at him he might lose his temper and not only harm someone but also do damage to the property. Now if you’ll let me handle him carefully, we can get rid of him later on and there’ll be no trouble. All we need to do is to show him some kindness. Do you understand?’

  Darryl thought about her comments for a moment and then calmed down. ‘All right, all right,’ he bleated weakly. ‘But you didn’t have to invite him back to our place. There’s no telling who he is or what he might do. We could all end up dead by the morning.’

  ‘Well he’s not staying the night, that’s for sure,’ she retorted. ‘Trust me. It’ll be all right.’

  He resented the situation strongly but could do no more than shrug his shoulders and return to the podium for the second half of the session, calling everyone to order before reading out the numbers drawn from the box. Marsha found a seat for the stranger and she sat opposite him, still trying to read his name on the wristband. He remained quite still, occasionally looking round the hall at the people involved in the game without making any comments or causing any problems.

  At the end of the evening, after everyone had left, Marsha and Darryl cleared up the main hall and collected all their gear and other items before going home. When they arrived there, she opened the front door and entered, beckoning to the stranger to follow her inside. Darryl struggled in behind them with the microphone and a bag containing all the bingo items. He was very disgruntled about the man being invited to his home but it was a fait accompli... there was nothing he could do about it. Even worse was the fact that the man may be an escaped lunatic from the local asylum. It was a sound possibility especially as he wore a white wristband. After all, they knew nothing about him whatsoever.

  The three of them entered the lounge to find their two sons busy enjoying themselves. The eldest, Wayne, was working on the Internet reading e-mails and sending messages to a friend in Australia. Patrick, the younger son, was using a virtual reality device whereby he stood in front of the hearth playing tennis, waving his arms about unceremoniously.

  ‘Take a seat,’ invited Marsha to the stranger who sat gingerly on the long settee seemingly enjoying the comfort. She went behind the furniture and glanced down at his wristband. Her eyes rested on the first word ‘Paul’ but the surname and the telephone number were out of range. Well at least she had something to work on. ‘Tell me more about yourself, Paul?’ she asked casually, although she felt that her voice had moved to a slightly higher level than usual.

  ‘You know my name?’ he asked with surprise. ‘How can that be? I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Well you look like a man called Paul to me,’ she countered trying to sound convincing although she was certain he would realise how she had found out.

  ‘You hit the nail right on the head. My name is Paul. You’re not a psychic, are you? One of those women who know all the important things about a person without having to be told?’

  ‘No, I’m just a Halloween witch. Nothing more,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’

  ‘Well there’s not much to say,’ he told her briefly.

  ‘It would help to know. We women like to know all the ins-and-outs about everything and everybody.’ She sat in an armchair opposite the man.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ the stranger asked pointing a finger at Patrick. ‘What’s he got on his head?’

  ‘Oh, he’s playing tennis by himself.’

  ‘Tennis... by himself?’ repeated the man needlessly.

  ‘Yes, haven’t you seen a v
irtual reality set before? You put it on your head and you can do anything. Play any sport... ski-ing, table-tennis, football, tennis, you name it.’

  ‘You just put it on your head and play,’ gasped the stranger with incredulity. ‘That’s amazing!’

  ‘Yes, but you mustn’t use it for too long or you become disorientated with the reality of life.’

  ‘How awful!’ returned the man with concern. ‘Are these virtual reality sets in common use?’

  ‘For those who can afford them,’ replied Marsha candidly.

  ‘And what’s the other boy doing?’

  ‘He’s on the Internet. Probably e-mailing his friend in Australia. He usually does that.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ commented the stranger. ‘What is the Internet? What’s e-mailing?’

  ‘Whew, that’s not an easy one to answer,’ remarked Marsha with a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘The Internet is a giant computer which can be used by anyone in the world. You buy your own computer and you can use it in your own home to receive information on any subject in the universe. You can even view houses room by room on it, watch women dance in the nude, check up on any details you require, even read the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. You can contact anyone in the world by e-mail which is like sending a letter to them but in this case it’s instant by means of the Internet.’

  ‘And what happens if you haven’t got one of these computers? What do you do then?’

  ‘Well there are Cyber Cafes on the High Street you can go into. They have a series of computers and you can pay for the time you spend on it.’

  At that moment, Patrick removed the virtual reality set and looked at his watch. ‘Damn!’ he muttered. ‘I’ve missed the start of the movie on Sky teevee!’

  ‘Sky teevee?’ asked the stranger obliquely. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Wow, you know very little about anything,’ cut in the youngest son rudely. ‘Get with it, man! Don’t you even watch television? Sky teevee has over seven hundred channels.’

  ‘No, I don’t watch it,’ replied the visitor blankly. ‘How can anyone make all those channels work?’

  ‘By satellites which orbit around the earth of course.’

  ‘Which orbit around the earth,’ repeated the stranger.

  ‘Gees! You don’t belong to this world, man! You don’t belong to this world!’ The young man left quickly to go to his own room to watch the programme.

  ‘How can you have a computer in a house? Most of them are as large as a factory.’

  Wayne turned away from the Internet to take a hard look at the stranger. ‘Where have you been for the last twenty-five years. All computers are the size of that television set in the corner. Patrick and I have our own in our bedrooms.’ He guffawed loudly. ‘Big as a factory! Where does he come from? Anyway, I must get on. I’ve got a date tonight.’

  ‘A date? It’s nearly ten o’clock at night,’ retorted the man looking at the clock.

  ‘Get with it, feller. The club doesn’t open until ten-thirty and I’ve got my date to pick up.’

  The stranger merely stared at him in disbelief. ‘Really?’ he muttered almost inaudibly, as if trying to absorb the information in his mind. ‘Really?’ He looked at Marsha with a appealing expression on his face.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about teletext or fasttext either, do you? Or about hi-fis, CD players or DVDs,’ continued the young man critically.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ admitted the stranger with a gloomy expression on his face.

  At that moment, Wayne’s telephone began to play a tune and he removed it from his pocket to answer a short call. When he had finished, he turned to the stranger. ‘You may be surprised to learn that this is a mobile. Everyone has a mobile these days. They carry them around with them all the time. But this one is something special. It’s a WAP telephone. I can use anywhere in the world and get thousands of teletext messages and all kinds of information on it. And, best of all, I can carry it around in my pocket only needing to charge up the battery every week. How about that! Sorry, Ma!’ he said to his mother. ‘I’ve got to go. Love you and leave you!’ He blew her a kiss and moved swiftly to the door before disappearing.

  After he had gone, the stranger turned to the woman appealingly. ‘Would you mind showing me around the house. I’d like to see the place and what you have here.’

  Marsha shrugged her shoulders. It was a odd request by a stranger but the man was clearly not a burglar so she conceded to his wish, firstly taking him into the kitchen. ‘It’s a normal kitchen. Waste disposal in the sink. Halogen cooker for high-speed cooking. A dishwasher. A fridge-freezer. Fluorescent lights. Next year we hope to buy a robot to do the cleaning here. They’re a bit expensive at the moment.’ She opened a cupboard to display a vacuum cleaner. ‘A carpet cleaner with no dust-bag. Gas central heating.’ She took him upstairs to the bathroom. ‘Duplex taps, a shower room, a heated toilet seat.’ He followed her into the bedroom and held back as she dimmed the lights. ‘Don’t be concerned,’ she told him. ‘It’s only a dimmer switch to turn the lights up or down to whatever level you want them to be. Here’s our bed. The headboard can be controlled by this electric button to go up or down. There’s a television set on the wall.’

  ‘Isn’t it inconvenient when you want to turn it on or off, or change the channel.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she laughed. ‘We have a remote control. In fact there’s a television set in practically every room in the house and they’re all on remote control.’ She pressed the button on the unit to turn it on and a newscaster appeared.

  ‘... and three hundred Taleban soldiers were killed in the latest battle in Afghanistan. Planes bombed the area around Kabul and Kandahar before the British troops parachuted into the area. One American airplane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. In Israel, tanks moved into the West Bank this morning and killed fourteen Palestinians... ’

  Marsha switched off the set and turned to the man who appeared concerned.

  ‘What was all that about. What’s going on in the world?’

  ‘Well, there’s always at least two major wars going on at the same time. But you must know that.’

  ‘What’s a surface-to-air missile?’ he asked bluntly.

  ‘It’s a missile which is fired from the ground and seeks out an aircraft flying above by its heat emission. When the missile reaches the target it explodes.’

  He fell silent for a short while as if to absorb the information before turning to the woman again. ‘What are the black boxes underneath all the television sets?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh they’re the video-tape recorders.’

  ‘The video-tape recorders?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a device whereby you can record television programmes whether you’re watching television or not. Or you can play video-tapes of films hired from the local shop.’ She took him out on the landing. ‘Both the boys have hi-fi sets in their rooms as well as televisions, video-tape recorders and computers, as well as a lot of other electronic gadgets.’

  He left the woman to go downstairs as if all the details were too much for him to take in all at once. ‘What about your car?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a Ford with computerised windows, heated seats, controlled fuel flow and an air-bag.’

  ‘An air-bag,’ he repeated dryly. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘In case of a crash, the air-bag inflates in front of the driver so that he isn’t hurt. Look, I’ll make you something to eat before you go. What would you like? A teevee dinner, stir and fry, a supermarket special, an Indian meal, a Chinese meal, an Italian meal or what?’

  The man’s face turned up in disgust and he shook his head slowly. ‘No, I won’t have anything, thank you. I have to be on my way.’ He opened the front door and went outside to watch Darryl climbing into his c
ar before pressing a control unit which caused the garage door to swing upwards slowly. The man watched him drive the vehicle inside before walking down the path into the street, silently, quietly, impassively.

  He sauntered at a regular pace to the main highway before thumbing a lift from a passing lorry.

  ‘Where are you goin’, pal?’ asked the driver inquisitively.

  ‘Donniround,’ came the swift reply.

  ‘Donniround!’ repeated the other man slowly. ‘There’s only a prison there. That’s all.’

  ‘I know,’ stated the passenger. ‘I’m an inmate there.’

  The lorry driver’s eyebrows shot higher. ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘No, it’s true. Look, I’ve got a tag on my wrist.’

  ‘I didn’t know they let people out of there for a day.’

  ‘They don’t. I broke out this morning.’

  ‘Then how come they haven’t tracked you down by the tag?’

  ‘Ah, well it’s very easy to disable them. Then they can’t tell where you are. It makes them go blind.’

  ‘So, if you’re out, why do you want to go back there?’

  ‘It’s a long story but I’ve got to break back in tonight.’

  ‘Break in? What the hell do you want to do that for?’

  ‘Because I belong there. As I told you, I broke out early this morning.’

  The lorry driver shook his head sadly. ‘If you’re so keen to get back in there why don’t you just go to the front door and ask them to let you in. It’s so much easier.’

  The passenger thought about the advice for a moment and then nodded his head. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Why were you in a top security prison like Donniround in the first place? What’s your story?’

  ‘Hm, well many years ago... you might say in another life... I killed four people. Don’t concern yourself. I’m not a mad serial killer. They were all members of my family who hated me and, naturally, I hated them. It got to a ridiculous point where they were trying to kill me so I got in first. I was arrested and the judge sentenced me to life imprisonment to serve a minimum of twenty-five years. Well the time’s up next week so I decided to break out a week earlier just to find out what life’s like on the outside these days. I mean I was only twenty-six when I went in and I’ve spent most of my life in solitary. Now I’m fifty-one years’ old and I was certain things had changed.’