Everyone Else's Everyone Else

by Paul Casselle

  Everyone Else’s Everyone Else

  The world in one short story

  A short story

  by

  Paul Casselle

  Written & compiled with Scrivener

  First published on 30th July 2015

  (Version 101.1 – Amazon Edition)

  ASIN: B0131SRZDC

  Disclaimer

  All characters and events in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, dead or alive, is coincidental.

  Copyright

  Paul Casselle has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed, via any medium, without the written permission of the author.

  paul@paulcasselle.com

  © Paul Casselle 2009-2016

  Dedication

  For Alex; I love us x

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  The World in One Short Story

  TONY HAD ACHIEVED MANY things in his life; a nice house, a good job and a loving wife. There were some things, however, in which he had not managed to succeed. The most upsetting of these was that he still smoked twenty cigarettes a day. In recent years this affliction had cost him the affection of many of his friends and had brought forth the wrath of his G.P. His wife, Elizabeth, was an ex smoker, so, no sympathy there.

  It was eight am on a Monday morning and Tony was in bed. The alarm had shouted loudly twenty minutes ago, and although Tony had turned it off, part of him still pretended it hadn't happened. He turned over, trying not to wake himself, and cuddled up to his wife, who was not there. Elizabeth had risen forty minutes earlier and now came through the door holding a tray full of breakfast things. Tony could deny the day no longer; he opened his eyes and craved a cigarette.

  Elizabeth placed the tray carefully on the bed as Tony sat up.

  “What's all this?” he said, indicating the immaculately presented breakfast. On the polished wooden tray were neatly laid; two hard boiled eggs with slim, well-groomed soldiers, half a grapefruit showered lightly in caster sugar, and a large white plate bursting with fresh croissants, butter and jam. Accompanying all; a large pot of tea. Elizabeth was not normally known for her domesticity. She smiled at him.

  “Why the special treatment,” he looked around the bedroom, confused. “And why are you up so early? Has something happened?”

  His reply was silence and a broad smile. An idea dawned on him. He began to smile himself.

  “No?” he said, his smile growing, drawing a line from ear to ear.

  His wife nodded in an ‘If you're thinking what I think you're thinking’ way.

  “How do you know?” he said, desperate for evidence.

  “I've just done a test. It’s positive. No doubt.”

  They fell into a joyous hug having achieved the first stage of creating a new life, a new soul with endless, yet to be chosen choices. They were both happy for themselves and proud of each other. The breakfast tray teetered on the edge of the bed and destruction.

  Tony looked at his watch, eight forty-five; time for work. What a day this was going to be. He kissed his wife in a totally new way. Not in passion, and not as an intimate hand-shake, but as a profoundly linked partner. A partner he would always be connected with, even after their deaths. They were creating their own immortality. A child; an inheritor of Mother Earth.

  Tony closed the door to his house and walked down the path to the street. Reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes he realised that he hadn't even thought about smoking for the last forty-five minutes.

  “So why do it at all?” he said out loud to the world. The world didn’t answer, but Tony neither noticed nor cared. He deposited both his cigarettes and Zippo lighter into the dustbin by the front gate, then marched off, briskly, to prepare the world for his imminent child.

  On the other side of the street a ragged figure watched, one eye looking inwardly with self-pity, the other scanning the neighbourhood for opportunity. Bill was cold, but had been warmed to see a man across the road throw something shiny into a dustbin. He quickly crossed to the other side of the road. In one deft movement, he retrieved all that was useful from the bin. As he walked away he looked down at his bounty; a Zippo lighter and some cigarettes. Bill already had some matches, so he could sell the lighter, but the cigarettes were a godsend. He looked inside the packet. There were some fifteen usable smokes and about three marinated in take-away curry. This was turning out to be a good day, and was taking his mind off the last eight hours.

  It had been a difficult night. He had been moved on a number of times by the police. Shop doorways were not as secure as the cardboard mansion he had been the proud owner of up until two nights ago. He thought about his box-built home, and slowed to a halt. A tear grew in his eye and rolled, down his unshaven face; wetting his lips.

  Bill’s road to decline had been short and steep. The sudden death of his wife in a car accident had started an emotional cancer that metastasised in his self esteem and sense of purpose. He had been married for seven years, but had no children. His wife wanted to start a family from the very beginning, but it had been Bill who for seven years had been creative at saying no. Now that his wife was dead, his mind endlessly tortured him for being so persuasive.

  A lot of his friends on the street had come there by way of the bottle, but Bill was not a drinker. For him, leaving the life he knew and living on the street had been a conscious and clear choice. Very soon after his wife's departure he had come to the conclusion that he did not want to live. He decided that if he didn’t want to be alive anyway, he was certainly not going to spend so much energy on sustaining his existence. He got up one morning, walked out of the front door - leaving it open behind him - and gave his life to fate. If he was supposed to stay alive then he expected the universe would keep him that way, and if he had done what he was here to do, the universe would let him go. He had no preference either way and would wait to hear from his maker.

  He took a cigarette from the packet, put it between his lips and lit it with the Zippo. He thought again about his cardboard home. It had been three large boxes taped together to create a wonder in cardboard architecture. Bill had inherited it from a friend he had been close to for the eighteen months he had been home-free. His friend was now dead. He had been beaten to death one night by a bunch of youths who had decided their purpose in life was to rid society of subversive, unsightly and useless elements. This particular night they happened on Bill’s friend and, after abusing him verbally, attacked him with boot and fist. The beating went on for five minutes and forty-three seconds, and ended in the vagrant being stabbed four times in the chest. A small group of fellow box-dwellers watched from a safe distance and did nothing. They watched their friend beaten and murdered, and thought, ‘Thank God it’s not me.’

  When the murderers had departed, Bill went to his friend’s side. The man squeezed out a final, gaseous instruction before dying.

  “Take my home, Bill,” he said. “Keep it safe.”

  Bill had fulfilled his friend’s dying wish, but had never been at peace with his new home. He had been one of the cowering onlookers who watched his friend beaten and executed, and looking at his watch, noted that the attack took five minutes and forty-three seconds from beginning to end. Two nights ago Bill had put one of his matches to the cardboard construction as an act of contrition. He didn’t care if it saved him or not. He just needed closure.

  A woman, dressed in formal office-wear, rushed down the street towards him. As she passed, Bill called out to her.

  “Could you spare some change?”

  She looked at him without stopping, as i
f she wanted to say something, but nothing came. She continued down the street without looking back. The November chill brushed against her face, rouging her cheeks and stinging her eyes, but she was oblivious to all external sensations. The only thing in the outside world that meant anything to her today was inside her handbag, which she held tightly to her breast.

  Like so many of us, Linda had dreams and, rather than attempting to attain those dreams, she stayed asleep in her waking hours and dreamed about them. They were those big, amazing, unobtainable dreams, and the key to these just-out-of-reach-ideas was, as often is, money. A warm, happy flush came over Linda. The unbelievable had happened. In only the third week of the National Lottery, Linda had ticked off all six of her chosen numbers as they were announced. This week, her good fortune would reward her with between two and four million pounds. The numbers swam in her head and made her feel faint. Part of her wanted to tell everyone; to shout it out at the top of her voice, but there was also a part of her that wanted to keep it a secret; as if it were an intimate area of her body that only a few special people in her life were allowed to see.

  Her first thoughts had been the usual, spontaneous, selfish plans; an expensive car, a house in the country, a private jet. All the hum-drum chattels of super rich life. After a while her mind turned to other things that would have a longer lasting effect on her internal housekeeping. She had a number of friends who spent most of their waking hours, and she suspected quite a few of their sleeping ones, worrying about money. She could now afford to give all these people a sizeable windfall that would make a real and lasting difference. Then there were her parents. They had worked hard all their lives and were now having a tough time in retirement and the slow-down years. Of course, she would have enough to treat herself as well. A Saab 900 and a house in Clapham would be a nice start. Every minute that went past brought new ideas, each fuelling growing excitement.

  She stopped at a bus stop and waited impatiently. People in the queue could feel something radiating from her, but had no idea what it was. A man, who had just lost his job after eight years of loyal service, stood next to her. For him, life was treating everyone else better than himself. His reading of Linda was that she was a superior pain in the arse, turning her nose up at hard working people like him who were treated so shabbily. He turned his back on her in disgust. In front of him was a young woman who had been trying, with her boyfriend, to get pregnant for some time. She was now worried that there was an insurmountable problem as to why she could not conceive. Linda’s rosy cheeks together with her other-world glow said to her that Linda was pregnant. At first this made her feel sad and her eyes moistened. Then she wanted to reach out and touch, be in contact with, an impregnated woman. She softly touched Linda with her gloved hand. Linda jumped at the contact. To her, someone was after her Lottery ticket. She pulled both herself and her handbag away abruptly. The man saw this out of the corner of his eye. It confirmed his conclusion about this stuck-up woman, being so mean to a young lady who only wanted to know the time.

  The bus came. Linda boarded and was soon approaching her stop. As the bus slowed she got up to leave, her mind building an altruistic empire. She hadn’t noticed the teenager next to her who had been waiting for an opportunity. Linda didn’t know it, but the boy had a talent for recognising the exact moment when a push-and-grab crime was perfectly framed. The moment came. He slammed into her with great force, and she toppled grabbing desperately for a hand-hold, falling to the floor and badly bruising her right thigh. Her bag was gone. John, a man in his early thirties, and a passenger on the bus, came to her assistance. He had no idea that he held, in his helpless, strong arms, a shattered human being.

  John slowly walked away from the scene. The police had now arrived, and he had done all he could. He was glad he had leaped up so spontaneously to the woman's assistance; his good deed for the day. It was ten-fifteen and he was on his way home from staying overnight at his girlfriend’s flat.

  John was a writer who hadn’t written for far too long. Everyday he searched his life, both past and present, for the story, the idea that would bring forth the talent he knew was there. At ten-fifteen on this Monday morning John was both a frustrated writer, and a hungry one. He stopped at a newsagent to buy some chocolate.

  Inside the shop he chose a chocolate bar and stood waiting. Mr and Mrs Amin argued loudly in Gujarati. John grew increasingly annoyed that he had to wait while they bantered bitterly. He tried a subtle, stiff-upper-lip cough, but to no avail. John decided to get more direct.

  “Excuse me, I would like to pay for this,” he announced.

  This time they stopped and looked at him. Without the faintest acknowledgement they resumed their animated argument. John reappeared outside the shop unheard, angry and Twix-less.

  At home, John sat excitedly at his computer, eagerly transferring an idea he had had on the way home into his computer's memory. The story was this:

  A young man found himself in the depths of depression, but he didn’t know why. Slowly it dawned on him. He spent his days alone and his nights even lonelier, and believed he had become invisible to the world. He would ask someone directions in the street and would be ignored. He would arrange a date with a girl and be stood up. He would try to pay for chocolate in a shop and the shop owner would just continue arguing with his wife. He shuddered as his conclusion hit him. He had died, but didn’t know it. He was a living corpse. Not a Zombie, his body was not decaying, but in stasis, frozen in time until he accepted the truth.

  For months he wandered around this living hell baying at the moon and hiding from the sun until one day, whilst skulking in the night shadows, he saw a woman being attacked on the street. There were people all around, but nobody came to help. As she screamed and struggled something inside him snapped. Even if the whole world ignored him he could not ignore the world. Running at full speed he threw himself shoulder first at the attacker. The assailant squealed like an injured animal, turned and ran. The non-person ran after him, and with super-human speed and strength, caught and held him in readiness for the arrival of the police.

  The girl thanked him as tears of gratitude made street maps of her make-up. It was then that he began to hear something. At first, faintly in the background, but as he concentrated it grew into a roar. He looked up to see crowds of people looking at him and clapping. Some people waved their hands and cheered, some of them whistled. Two strong by-standers moved from the crowd and held the woman’s assailant as the applause crescendoed. The young man stood in the centre of this ocean of gratitude with tears streaming down his victorious face and thanked God he was alive, as the sirens of approaching police cars wailed in the distance.

  John sat back in his chair with tears of sadness and joy falling from his face and making the ink run on his manuscript. He re-read his story again and again thinking this was the best thing he had ever written, not knowing it was this story that would make him a bestselling and much loved author around the globe. The time was seven pm.

  John had to rush if he was to get to the restaurant and meet his girlfriend in time. He grabbed his coat and precious story and was gone within a minute. His computer glowed in the silent, darkened room, happy with the part it had played in John’s life.

  In a Greek restaurant, Sam sat waiting for John, making ingenious sculptures from the cutlery and condiments. The waitress came over to her table for a second time to ask if Sam wanted anything. Sam explained for the second time that she was waiting for someone. The waitress was not concentrating on being a waitress tonight. She knew, or hoped, Life had bigger things writ, and returned absentmindedly to the kitchen.

  The chef looked up from the boiling cauldrons with sweat running down his brow and occasionally dripping into the pots. Marilyn, the waitress, smiled a painful smile. She had something to tell him, but didn’t know how.

  Two months ago, on her thirtieth birthday, she had become worried that she would never marry and have a family. Ironically, for many years Marilyn
had argued the case of the independent single woman with her parents. Although she still bitterly defended this to them, she had realised, two months ago, that she no longer felt that way, and was gripped with the fear that her shelf-life expiry date was nearer than she had suspected. On the depressing day that her twenties positioned themselves firmly in her past, her best friend had supported her to get serious about what she really wanted and, ‘go get it!’. It had all seemed such a positive thing at the time, but now in the saddening light of the kitchen, marrying Yanis, the greasy chef and owner of the restaurant wasn’t boding well. She couldn’t believe that she had leaped so stupidly at the first offer that came her way. She now had to deal with it.

  Yanis grinned, showing off his strong, white teeth with two gold replacements.

  “Marilyn, my love. How are you?”

  “Fine,” she squeaked, and disappeared into the restaurant and the safety of numbers.

  John had arrived, and was showing Sam his story. He was sitting uncomfortably as she read. He absentmindedly augmented Sam’s table sculpture. Marilyn approached the table; third time lucky.

  “What can I get you?” she asked feigning interest.

  “Can you give us a few minutes?” John said dismissively, hating the interruption.

  Marilyn snapped. There was simply too much to cope with; whinging diners, greasy chefs and the relentless creeping of Old Mother Time.

  “Take all the bloody time you want!” she screamed, throwing her order pad at the table sculpture, and disappearing from the restaurant, wailing loudly.

  Marilyn didn’t know what to do. Inside she felt like a volcano, but the magma wouldn’t flow. She had something to scream about, but couldn’t find the words. Something deep within her wouldn’t let go and give vent to her anger. She walked the cold streets, seething and not knowing what or whom she resented; oblivious to fact that it was probably herself.