3455. Drone on

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It was remarkable. Fourteen year old Petro was doing what scientists had said was impossible. The Great Nation (the most powerful country in the world) was sending a single drone to drop a catastrophic bomb on their most hated (and hateful) enemy. What Petro had done was to crack the code and he was now manipulating the drone from the little desk in his bedroom.

It was a full-time job; he couldn’t let go of the controls for one second until he had stabilized the drone’s flight plan. The scientists would wrench control back. He called out to his younger sister: “Maggie, pick a country! Hurry!”

“Saudi Arabia,” she said. Petro looked at the list of countries’ geodetic datum coordinates  he had made and pinned to the wall. “Saudi Arabia it is!”

“This is such fun!” he said. “They’re not going to believe at school what I just done.”

3454. Hypnotherapy

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Raymond was a hypnotist – and a very good one he was. He didn’t use his skill for psychological or medical reasons; he used it to entertain. Large crowds were drawn to his shows. In fact people scrambled over one another in an attempt to get chosen to be part of Raymond’s hypnotic act.

He would get the selected audience member to do stupid things when in an hypnotic trance. For example he got one person to applaud furiously whenever the word “goat” was mentioned. Someone lay on their back on the stage floor and wiggled their legs in the air like a frustrated spider. There were many, many entertaining commands given.

Near the end of his most recent show he went to hypnotize this man and told him he was to walk around and around the stage and every seven steps he was to stop and do a little of the “President Trump Dance”. So entrancing was his hypnotizing that he hypnotized himself. He began walking around the stage stopping to do the Trump dance. It was hilarious.

After a while his wife came up on stage and announced that was the conclusion of the evening’s entertainment. It would take several hours for her husband’s hypnosis to wear off. The audience left, well satisfied.

“That was very convincing, dear,” said his wife. “You can come out of it now.” And he did. “Did you pay the performers we hired?” was his first question.

“The usual,” she said.

3453. Murderous intent

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It seemed impossible. Graeme had tried at least three times to murder his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. It simply hadn’t worked. He’d tried poison; he’d tried arranging a car accident; he’d tried shooting him point blank in the chest. None had worked the way he had intended. The guy seemed immune to being murdered.

The mother of the ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend had drunk the poisonous concoction. The sister of the new boyfriend had driven the car. The gunshot in the chest missed; it was too dark to see properly.

Graeme had his heart set on trying one last time. This time he would make sure it worked.  In the dead of night he threw a Molotov cocktail through the bedroom window.

Wrong house.

3452. You’ve no idea

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Bad luck seems to have followed Hilton Friedlander all his life. He needed a change of scene; a change of life style; a change from getting accused of this, that, and the other; a change from being the hot topic of gossip in the village.

Jenny-Lee had a baby girl and the gossip said Hilton Friedlander was the father. Rosina Beaconsfield had disappeared and somehow Hilton Friedlander was suspected of being responsible. An historic house in the village had burned to the ground and Hilton Friedlander was presumed to have started it. Yes, a change of scene was definitely in order.

Hilton Friedlander sold his house for a song and moved to another village more than a hundred miles away. What a mistake that was. You’ve no idea what the new house owners discovered under the floorboards. You’ve no idea what the new house owners discovered behind the false wall in the closet. You’ve no idea what the new house owners discovered in the boarded-up garret.

Well, I’m not a gossip. If you haven’t any idea what the new house owners discovered I’m not going to be the one to tell you.

3451. Bus trips

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Mrs Dockery caught the bus most evenings into town. She had long retired from being a nurse at the hospital but, as she said to the bus driver: “I like to take in a film or the theatre or even a quiet meal in some not overly busy restaurant. It takes the monotony out of life; after all I’m alone at home during the day with very little to do.”

But all good things must come to an end. As she said to the bus driver:  “The police have warned of a serial killer in the area and I’m not going to take the chance of meeting him in a dark alleyway. I shall refrain from taking the daily bus trip until there’s better safety news.”

As luck would have it, the serial killings stopped at the same time as Mrs Dockery stopped taking the bus into town most evenings. After a while it seemed safe once again for her to take the bus. Anyway, the monotony of staying at home with little to do had become overbearing.

The bus trips resumed. So did the serial killings.

3450. Blue murder

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I don’t care, Officer, how many witnesses say they saw me leave the house of the murder. You just want to find someone, anyone, to hang the murder on. Well, it wasn’t me. In fact I don’t know those people and I’ve never even been to their house ever.

You say they were murdered in the kitchen with the carving knife. I don’t have a clue where the kitchen is, let alone where they keep the carving knife. How would I even know those people’s names? You say I knew the woman in the past, but I’ve never heard of her in my life. Not that I remember anyway.

Then you go and tell me that the carving knife is in the drawer near where they hang the green pet budgie’s cage. I never even knew they had a green budgie. It used to be blue.

3449. Used binoculars

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When Justin shifted house his front window overlooked a lake. What he needed was a pair of binoculars. One never knows what might land on the water; grebes, ducks, bitterns, stilts, storks, swans… The possibilities were endless. Even someone rowing on the lake in a canoe could be interesting.

Have you seen the price of binoculars these days? It was way beyond the cost that Justin was prepared to pay. Secondhand binoculars were as good as any. The pawn shops must have shelves of them.

When Justin entered the pawn shop it was creepy. The pawn dealer leered at him over the counter. “Yes?” he asked. The “Yes” was between a hiss and a dribble.

“Have you got any used binoculars?” asked Justin.

“There’s a shelf of them,” said the pawn dealer. “They’re all used. Take your pick.”

“Ugh,” said Justin looking through the first pair. “That’s disgusting.”

“You said you wanted used,” said the pawn dealer. “I can’t help what previous owners have looked at.”

After several further attempts at looking through used binoculars Justin decided that getting a brand new pair, despite the cost, was the thing to do. He wasn’t interesting in seeing what other people had pawned.

3448. Closed gates

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Little Brooke was all of six and was very pleased that she could open a farm gate all by herself. She raced ahead to open the gate for her father who was not far behind.

She reached up, undid the latch, and opened the gate.

“Thank you,” said her father. He kept on walking. Brooke closed the gate but couldn’t do up the latch from that side so she darted through the gate to the other side. She could easily reach the latch from that side.

All was shut, but she was on the wrong side of the gate. That was no trouble. She leapt onto the top of the gate, threw her legs over, and jumped. It was done in a fraction of the time it had taken to open the gate.

After that, her father would put one hand on top of the gate and flip over to the other side. Brooke was too small to do that, but she could climb and jump as quick as lightning. Her father always pretended not to notice and kept on walking. Brooke soon learnt that things were a lot steadier at the post end of the gate. The latch end was always wobbly. And by jumping at the steady end she could keep up with her father.

3447. A card from aunty

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It came as a complete surprise to me when a birthday card arrived in the mail from Aunt Beverley. She had never sent me a birthday card in my whole life. In fact I was surprised that she knew the date of my birthday at all. There wasn’t any news in the card; just a fairly curt “Many happy returns on your birthday to Clive from Aunt Beverley.”

Why she still called herself Aunt Beverley after all these years I have no idea. I gave up using Aunt and Uncle as titles when I stopped wearing shorts to formal occasions. Well, what was a grateful forty-three year old nephew meant to do? I would have to send her a card on her birthday, whenever that was. I phoned my father.

 Dad wasn’t too hot on knowing when Aunt Beverley’s birthday was but he looked it up. It was quite a few months away. I wrote the date on my calendar.

As the big day of Aunt Beverley’s birthday approached I readied myself. I wasn’t going to spend a lot of money on a fancy card  – the postage would be expensive enough – so I headed for the cheap Chinese dollar shop. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had trying to find somewhere to park the car. It was raining and the only space I could find was in a parking building that had a sign that read “Minimum parking time – 1 hour – $7.00 an hour.” I had no option; I’d been round and around the block eight times. The cheap card shop was about a fifteen minute walk in the rain.

I got a card; it had roses on it. I paid the seven dollars at the parking building and headed for home. STAMPS! I hadn’t bought a stamp. Who these days has snail mail postage stamps in the house? I turned the car around and headed straight back to town. I was wet and in a bad mood when the traffic officer stopped me and said I was speeding and that would be ninety dollars.

I got a stamp at the supermarket and headed once again for home. This time I made it. Aunt Beverley could well be grateful. Several days later a note arrived in the mail. It was from Aunt Beverley. “Your card arrived. I presume it was for a birthday and not a sympathy card like it read. You missed my birthday months ago but I think you may have intended it for late Aunt Peggy. It would have been her birthday; not mine. Aunt Beverley.”

3446. The eternal garden

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It was a great relief to Rex to have ended up in Heaven. He’d tried to live a good life, but not with a great deal of success. Apparently God must’ve turned a blind eye to a few things. Anyway, here he was!

It was a little disappointing because Rex had hoped he’d be able to fit in a bit of gardening (in between hymns you understand). He had been a keen gardener all his life and thought when he had an eternity of time on his hands he might be able to spare some time to do some gardening.

He was able to ask God if there was a garden anywhere. “Do you think you could spare a little place where I might have a garden?” he asked.

“Goodness me!” said God. “What a terrible oversight. You can have a whole planet if you want.”

Rex was suddenly transported to a fabulous gardening planet. “Go to it,” said God.

Rex started his mission with aplomb, but… but… oh dear… he didn’t like to say anything to God but…

There were no weeds. There was nothing to do.