Short Fat Stubby Finger Stories PRESENTS

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Click Icon for EPISODE 1 (start) to read from the beginning

  To go to NEXT Episode: Episode 62

     Use SEARCH (above right) for other episodes.  eg: Episode 36      

      WEBSITE: Coming soon           ABOUT: Coming soon

EPISODE 61

Alone in the room, save for his thoughts, and the still comatose Rosetta, Joseph was feeling perplexed for reasons he did not truly understand.  He found himself at the crossroads to the future that he could now see unraveling; yet in the same breath he was still undecided about how he thought the future would unravel, but unravel it would over the next twenty four hours … and he would be at the epicentre.
  Joseph knew that he was as much the cause of how it would unravel as was anybody or anything else that had been involved in the past forty eight hours or so; perhaps more so than the majority of players.  He was by now absolutely certain he had involved himself in something far more intricate and deadly than he could ever imagine.  And, to make matters harder for him to understand, he had no proof whatsoever of his right to be involved.  Yet his mind kept telling him that he was; had been telling him for years beforehand, and the events that had surrounded him over the past three days had constantly passed on the same message.  There was something missing in his memories, his thoughts, his past; he was absolutely certain of this.  But he could never bring it to the fore.
  There were times when Joseph had racked his brains to the point of an incoming migraine before relinquishing his attempts to locate the missing information.  He knew deep down that he was dealing with something tangible that his mind was accepting as a co-incidence, but he could not get a handle on it, and it was once again sending him into a frenzy because he knew that time was fast running out.  It was not just the statue that he had had to find … there was something else that must resurface from the past before this would all be over.
  Joseph became besotted with finding the answer he sought.  This time he was going to give it every ounce of concentration he could muster from his already overworked mind.  He was going to force the memory to surface, or snap his mind in the attempt.

********

Joseph stood at the edge of the bed and forced his eyes to concentrate on Rosetta’s face and nothing else.  He was going to use the curvature of her beautiful face as his focal point as he forced his memory over a series of carefully selected events it had recorded at various key stages of his past.  He felt that he needed something that was both radiant and pure to concentrate on; something so charmingly pristine it would wash away the darkness that had been spread across the memory and allow it to rise into the light once more.  He immediately transferred his thoughts back to the day that he and Rosetta had first met; to the day her beauty had, along with her father’s tale of jewel encrusted statues and mythological creatures, created an aura of mystical curiosity that he could not resist.
  But no sooner had Joseph’s contrived supernatural journey commenced … it ceased, and Joseph’s mind took him even further back; back to the strange thoughts and images that had occupied his head as the monitor on his desk at Johnson’s began to explode less than an hour before he had met Rossetta.
  However, that scene too was quickly replaced, this time by the barrage of images that had entered his mind on every occasion of his attempts to read his stars on his personal computer at Johnson’s.  But that observation was also quickly despatched and replaced by a new entry into Joseph’s head; an image that he was uncertain if it had been seen before.  It was a vision that he may have had before, but he certainly didn’t remember it very well if it had arrived in the past.  However, as the memory continued to unfold, Joseph eventually began to recognise elements of it, but certainly not the way it was now being seen.  Slowly Joseph began to understand this was something that had taken place just prior to what he always saw in the strange thoughts that always entered his mind when reading his stars on the internet … and it was as if it had somehow been recorded on a mind camera that had been set a different angle; It was almost as if his memory had been edited prior to viewing on previous occasions, now it was only the edited parts that his mind was reproducing.  This was a new visualising of an old event, but would it be what he searched for,he wondered?

********

In this version the projected images began with eyes slowly opening, the vision now on display originating from within what Joseph was certain was the eyes of a young child; his own young eyes.  Somehow, Joseph knew for certain that the eyes were his.  He knew instinctively that this was the scene he had seen many times before, only previously he had seen it from a different viewpoint; a scene where he had seen himself laying in a basket on a small, stone pebbled beach at the side of a small creek in an extremely rugged patch of the English countryside.  Glistening icicles that grew slowly on the limbs of the small trees lining the fast running water reflected the brightness of the full moon that fell down on the nighttime Earth.  And the moon shared the sky with the stars that dominated the open universe.  That scene had been the most beautiful of all the stored images that had been offered to him over the years.  Now it had been relegated to the second most beautiful memory he had.
  Now, as his eyes opened and shut, as the child fought his way out of sleep, the vision that his awakening mind was receiving were bright stars in the sky.  Not just one or two as one would see in the brightness of a nighttime large city, but thousands upon thousands of bright red, green, blue and yellow diamonds that actually did twinkle in the vastness of the dark background of the endless universe that housed them … and Joseph could feel the muscles tensing as what he saw brought a delighted smile to his face.  Then the eyes began to wander across to the left, an action that was instantly rewarded by the unbelievable magnificence that lay before them as they took in both a far distant galaxy, and much closer nebula.  Joseph was not a religious man by any account, but at this very moment in  time he was in complete awe of what was running through his head; for all sake and purposes, it was as if he was sitting on a small asteroid in outer space and taking a slow, self-cleansing trip through all the heavens had to offer.

********

Eventually, however, the strain of moving his eyes to the end of one side of the universe became too much for the young child’s capability of moving in the small cane basket that housed him – and he immediately began the process of moving the eyes completely to the far right hand side of the universe.  And, as this exotically visual journey commenced, the worlds of one, two, perhaps three trillion stars throughout the universe were exposed to the young child’s thoughts and imagination.  Then to add a virtual reality dimension to the visual extravaganza comets passed by, their long tails constantly dispersing large chucks of rock and ice into the waiting heavens.  Large asteroids and strange looking craft that passed from one planet to another appeared and disappeared within seconds.  And shooting stars and meteor showers appeared by the hundreds as they speared their way through the skies in all directions; traveling upwards and downwards and sideways before they too disappeared as the child’s eyes the moved slowly through the night sky.  And in reaction to this magnificent display of an astronomical the child began to laugh in a wonderfully, excitable, unsolicited, happiness that the joy of what he saw brought to him … and Joseph had no choice in the matter, but to join in as his mind took him on a journey of absolute wonder undertaken by his own younger self.

********

The young child, barely six months of age, had no idea in the world what the stars meant to the universe, why they existed, what their job in the universe was; and nor did he care.  He was only six months old.  But he thoroughly loved what he was looking at.  At his age, he didn’t have any need to fully comprehend exactly what it was he was looking at; it was already giving him more pleasure than he could ever have hoped to receive.
  But as the young boy smiled gleefully at the beauty of the universe that was being unveiled to him, an uninvited tear began to form in his eyes; an unexplained sadness unexpectedly began to cover his bedding.  His small, multi-blanket covered cane basket had kept him warm during his waking time. He had been comfortable until this moment and could have most likely remained engaged in what he saw in the sky until the man came to collect him.  But now, now things were changing; and they were changing rapidly.  A silhouette both Joseph and the child automatically presumed to be his mother suddenly approached the basket; blocking out the brightness of the full moon as she appeared in front of the child and reached down with her face and kissed him on the forehead, somehow managing to find the room in the minuscule basket to give him a loving squeeze, then moved back and disappeared.  But not before she said something softly in the child’s ear which caused Joseph some consternation because he was unable to hear the words clearly, nor could he understand the fractured portion that did make its way along the canals of his ear.  The best he could make out of the small bunch of words she had spoken was ‘Zargonwill’.   And even then Joseph was uncertain whether that was a complete word, or part thereof.  As far as whether it was a name, place or description was concerned, should it have been complete, it still meant nothing to him unfortunately.  Joseph was aware that the last words spoken to him as a child would have been a welcome and gratefully received gift, but it wasn’t meant to be.  And it was quickly made clear to him that it mattered not at the moment: Joseph was not in a position to reflect on his missed opportunity.
  The light from the moon that shone down on the young child’s eyes was particularly strong at this angle, and it had made it hard for both versions of Joseph to make out the woman’s profile; all they could see was a full frontal silhouette of the woman’s face, the width and depth of the head, but no particular distinguishing features such as the shape of her nose or the way her hair was styled.  The child, though, was convinced that it was his mother; after all, he could smell her, he could sense her, he could feel her … and so he was satisfied it was her.  The older Joseph, however, had no way of making physical contact and would have preferred to have seen her face; seen it for the first time in over thirty four years, but he knew that now to be an impossibility … and that accepted thought brought a tear to his eyes.  However he gingerly bit down on his tongue and brushed the tear away.  He was pushing his memories to the maximum limit not for sentiment, but to obtain much needed answers.  As much as the vision had created a magic melancholy moment for him, he needed to move on; to find a new starting point,  There had to be something in his memory … there had to be.

******** 

As Joseph fought desperately within his mind to locate the key to the missing secret he knew he was hiding somewhere inside his head, he again found himself looking through the child’s eyes.  The bright glow of the full moon that had arrived back after the disappearance of the mother figure had barely had time to reappear before it was again obscured.  Only this time the moon lost its brightness because of the huge dark silhouettes that now confiscated its golden glow.  A silhouette of a gigantic creature occupied around one third of the full moon’s presence in the sky, while a swarm of smaller, yet just as terrifying bat-like creatures accompanied the much larger monster on its journey.   The sight that met the eyes of both man and child set the mind of the child into terror mode, and the scream and tears that the young boy dispersed were equal in volume to the fear in his heart, while the older version of Joseph could feel his heart beating wildly, and his head aching.  However, the horror and fear both versions felt was not caused by the terrorizing visual appearance of the pack and its master, or the knowldedge of their capabiliies, it was the continued trend of starlight turning to darkness as the pack passed by them.  It was the continuous expansion of the planets and lifeforces that were now dead or dying that was breaking their combined hearts.  It was this that was making them sad, for they, and they alone, that knew that this was happening now, as it had happened in the years past … and would continue to happen – until the night lights shone no more.

********

Then suddenly the stars and moon disappeared completely as a new silhouette appeared above the child, and this unrecognizable shape reached down towards him as the mother had done.  But this silhouette quickly disappeared as the young boy was lifted high into the arms and chest of a man in his fifties whose cheerful face was illuminated in the once again unrestricted moonlight.  The child didn’t see the man’s face for several moments after that, his own face tucked in neatly between the man’s neck and the top of one of his shoulders, but he could certainly feel the man’s bushy beard tickling him and it quickly helped disperse the anxiety he had been feeling but a second or two earlier.  In fact it made him giggle, and that, in turn, made the man’s face light up, and very quickly made him laugh; his huge roar of laughter made the man’s arms and belly bounce, an action that caused the child to break out in uncontrolled laughter and that was what took place until they finally arrived at the car where the bearded man placed the basket down on the ground while he opened the passenger side door, then moved the passenger seat back as far as it would go so he could place the basket safely on the floor where he could see him.  As soon as the man finally stopped laughing he began talking to the child, not words in an attempt to communicate with the child, rather random words of comfort in a tone that he hoped would keep the young boy stress free.  They had a long drive ahead of them, and a distressed baby would have been of great hindrance to them both.  ‘Better the child should sleep’, the man thought.
  The child could not understand what the man said; the accent was far too thick for the child to understand.  It had been much thicker and coarser than what the child had heard wherever he had been residing with his mother, but the man had certainly given the child the most wondrous replacement for the stars from his shoulders where he had placed him in order to move the child to the vehicle.  From this lofty height the child’s eyes could now look down and see where his basket had been placed, and, as he travelled the one hundred yards from the side of the creek to the car, he had found the scenery to be at the very least in equal proportion to the stars above, perhaps even better.  The creek was neither too narrow to ignore, nor too wide to cross.  The river was deep enough to ensure the speed of water retained nothing in its path as it rushed from north to south, but shallow and narrow enough to see the pebbles glimmer in the light from the full moon above.  Suddenly they arrived at the car parked at the side of a bend in the creek, the man was now standing on dry land in a position that virtually put him at the dead centre of the middle of the creek that receded back into the much larger fir trees located several hundred yards past the spot where the child had been waiting for the man’s arrival.  And this was the view that would remain Joseph’s favourite memory, even though for the adult Joseph this was the first time he had seen it since he was six months old and he had only seen it from this height and angle for no more than three to four seconds at most.

********

From where he was now located, his head resting against the bearded man’s shoulder, the child’s eyes were fixed on the wonderful view of the moonlight covered landscape that lay directly ahead, running from the epicentre of the creek all. the way to the much taller ancient firs that were covered in total darknes giving the view the most tbeautiful background.  It was a postcard beautiful image that filled the babies eyes and heart with joy.  But the night had been long, night time was settled on theland and it was beginning  to snow.  As the snow flakes falling against the dark background of the larger firs under the still beaming full moon caught the child’s attention, the child’s eyes began to close again in a manner similar to the way they had opened minutes earlier … and after several false starts the eyes finally remained closed, the child now in a safe, peaceful sleep within his blanket covered basket on the front seat flooring of the man’s vehicle.

********

Joseph was surprised by the tear that he felt lodged in the corner of one eye as his mind and thoughts transitioned back to the present.  He had felt he had done the right thing attempting to take his mind back to uncover some mysterious clue that may have been locked in there, however, outside of the new image he had seen, there seemed to have been nothing useful located.  Joseph shrugged in defeat as he began to focus his thoughts from his journey deep in the vaults of his memories, to the beautiful Rosetta still fast asleep in her man made coma … and it allowed the reality of what was going on in his life at the moment to return to the fold.  As did the tip of the knife pressed in against the back of his neck.

********

  “It was a trap.  All of my men were killed,” Raji’s soft voice rasped threateningly as he used his free hand to grab a handful of Joseph’s hair for security against any move Joseph attempted.  Twisting the top half of Joseph’s body around to face him Raji then roughly pushed him down on to the bed, Joseph’s ungainly collapse half covering the prone body of Rosetta as he landed, “Did you think that it would be that easy to get rid of us all?  I will kill you in a minute.  But first I want to know why you betrayed us?  You were given what you requested, so why did you turn on us?
  Somewhat bewildered by this unexpected and violent attack, Joseph somehow managed to find his voice, objecting to his accuser that he had no idea what Raji was talking about … then, despite the presence of the knife in Raji’s hand, something inside Joseph snapped and he started to rise from the bed.  Raji moved closer, the knife blade less than twelve inches from Joseph’s face, but Joseph found courage and strength within himself that he never knew existed, and with almost an inhuman speed, Joseph slammed one hand up as he rose quickly to his feet, hitting Raji’s outstretched hand with such force as he rose the knife flew out of his hand, and it flew so hard across the room it did not stop until the tip was deeply embedded in the wall.  As the knife flew out of his hand, Raji lost his balance and as he fell forward his face connected with Joseph’s balled-up fist.  Raji was unconscious long before he hit the floor with a loud thud.
  Joseph quickly looked around the room and located Rosetta’s dressing robe.  He used the cord to tie Raji’s hands behind his back before dragging him into the next room, dumping the body near the lounge just as Mary and Martin walked in.
  “Sorry to barge in, old chap.”  Martin began before he had fully taken in Joseph’s current interaction with Raji, “The door wasn’t locked.  Just knocked and it opened … and what’s all this?” 
  “Dissatisfied customer.” Joseph replied wryly, “Want’s his money back, I think”.
  “Oh, my goodness.  What happened, Joseph?”   Mary gasped in surprise at what she was witnessing.
  “He came at me with a knife,” Joseph replied as he walked back into Rosetta’s room to extract the knife from the wall, “I had no choice but to hit him.”
  “Oh, Joseph,” Mary cried, “it’s a miracle that you weren’t hurt.”
  “Do you think we should we call the police?” Martin enquired.
  “No.  Not yet anyway … he wasn’t trying to just kill me…he was angry for some reason.  He was raving on something about a trap and his men being killed.  No, we will just wait until he wakes up and perhaps then he may be more reasonable, because I think there may be something going on that we need to know more about .
  “I am awake now.”  Raji snapped; the tone in his voice indicating he was even more angry than he had been before he found himself in his current pedicament.
  “Ah, Raji … a bit more settled down are we now?” Joseph asked mockingly.
  “You set us up. Why?  Did you think that you would get away with it?  Did you think that you could murder all of my men and that I would not come after you?” Raji hissed.
  “What were you going to do?” Joseph laughed with an aggressive laugh, “Come back and haunt us?”
  Raji could not understand Joseph’s jibe, and the tone of his anger increased.  
“What do you mean?”  He asked without any reduction to the strength of his anger.
  “I mean if we had arranged to kill your men, then we would have arranged to kill you too.”  Joseph replied with clarity, but his tone clearly expressed retaliatory anger, “Then you would be dead and we wouldn’t have had to worry about you coming back, would we, you stupid man?”
  Joseph’s tongue spat out his words with such venom that Raji found himself unable to defend his own statement or actions.  Joseph then lowered his voice to a menacing whisper, “Listen to me Raji.  We have a choice here … whether to call the police … or to let you go.  And that doesn’t mean for one minute that we will let you go with your life intact.  The choice will be determined by your answer.  Do you understand?”
  “Yes.”  Raji was now becoming increasingly confused, and was also far more subdued than when he had first entered the room.  He had not expected to find himself in this situation and it put him into a quandary; He finally conceded and nodded his head in agreement.
  Joseph’s voice assumed its more natural tone.  “Good.  Now, for starters, we know absolutely nothing about your men being killed.  Secondly, you were to provide us with an antidote for whatever was affecting my friend Rosetta in return for the information that I provided you with.  What you gave us has had no effect on her recovery.  Now you come in and try to kill me.  Can you offer us any reasonable explanation as to what is going on, one that we are likely to believe; some realistic reason that would persuade us not to involve the police in this matter?”
  Raji went quiet for a moment or two, as his mind tried to take in Joseph’s response.  He had been so certain of his reasons for attacking him that he was not mentally prepared for any form of rebuttal to his accusations.  Finally, reluctantly, Raji let go of his anger.
  “I really thought that you had set us up,” he began,  “There seemed no other explanation for it.  As far as the girl is concerned, I have no idea what is wrong with her.  The Punjani assured me that they did nothing to her in the first place.  I had taken your word that she had been affected by the same illness that her father was suffering from … and it was you, or at least Martin, who said that it was Ramanes that had affected them.  Again, I must assure you that they had nothing to do with Professor Tusacani’s situation either … as far as I was concerned, it was a serendipity moment that had brought us together, nothing more.”
  “You swear to that?”  Joseph asked, his voice demanding the right answer, “Do you swear that you or the Punjani had nothing to do with Rosetta’s condition?”
  “Yes, I swear.”
  “Then who was it?”
  “I have no idea.  Perhaps it wasthe Punjani, though I very much doubt it.  They would not employ me if they wished to do their own dirty work.  They needed somebody that would search for the statue with both vigor and discretion and they decided that Martin would be perfect for the role, and I was employed to act as a go-between to encourage a thorough job by offering the Ramanes antidote as a reward once we discovered the reason for Professor Tusaccani’s comatose condition.  When our spies reported that you had joined Martin in the search the Punjani were satisfied that they had made the right decision, which is why they took your word that the statue’s hiding place was about to be revealed.  Which it appears that it was, seeing as how all of my men are dead, my truck has been stolen … and there is a great big hole in the ground where the tractor had been standing.  It seems that you were right, Joseph.”
  “You are not a Punjani?”  Martin asked disbelievingly.
  “No.  I am an adventurer.  Like you.”
  “And a mercenary to boot, it would seem. You negotiated with me on their behalf, and from what we have heard about their involvement with this Punjaniti of theirs, Rangor, they are not good news.  So you obviously have no scruples about the class of people that you deal with.”
  “And you dealt with me … there is a difference in our scruples?”
  “Touché.” Martin smiled, “How did you become involved with the Punjani?”
  Ah!  That’s a long story.”
  “We have got the time – would you like to share it with us?”
  “I could tell it a lot better without my arms being tied.”
  “What do you think, Martin asked, “it’s our call?”  Martin asked.
  “I guess that we can take a risk.” Joseph replied and untied the cord.      
  Once he was freed from his bonds Raji stood up, but made no attempt to escape.  Instead he calmly walked over to one of the chairs.  “Perhaps we would all be more comfortable sitting than standing.  It is rather a long story.” 
  “If it is going to be a long story, then perhaps I should volunteer to make us all a cup of tea.”  Mary offered with a smile; a smile that was created mainly because she felt she was on the verge of hearing another strange tale of monsters and beasts that seemed to run amok in this village.  As far as Mary was concerned she had already seen so many strange things and heard so many tales to last her a lifetime, but she also thought that another good tale or strange event was like a moorish chocolate or cake … there was always just enough room inside to have just one more … or perhaps two, or even three, but for the moment one more was more than enough.
  “I will give you a hand.”  Joseph offered, and for Mary, his offer felt like a second layer on an already sweet cake.
  The other two gave their requests and settled back in their seats, but Martin positioned himself to be able to move quickly should Raji suddenly decide on a quick departure.