Short stories - 'Strange Magic' - Web Of Deceit/The Drama King

STRANGE MAGIC

Web Of Deceit

Even as a little girl, Maxine always had a good business head. She often raised some money for her favourite charity at the tender age of ten at primary school. Although she was very bright and full of ideas, the other children were not that fond of her. She was too loud, outspoken and big headed and made herself very unpopular.

When she left primary school to go to secondary school, she continued to raise money for various charities. She was very creative, good at art, needlework and just generally thinking of original ideas. She seemed to make something out of nothing, which was a little like her personality. As she grew into her teens, it was obvious that she loved making money; not only for charities but for herself and she dreamt of the day when she'd be driving a flash, expensive car and living in a big country rural house. She would have a large workforce and have an early retirement with the grand master plan.

Maxine was not very popular at secondary school as she was a little highly strung and kept boasting about what she was good at and the children would shun her.

when she left school, she excelled in art and studied at college thinking it would be easy but the course was not as interesting as she thought it would be and she dropped out, shamefully thinking her talent could lead to a job anywhere in the world, but alas, she ended up in a dead end job in junior positions with no responsibility.

Many years later, she met her husband, Dean and together they bought a tiny cheap top floor two bedroom maisonette in a small, market town where Dean would travel into work by train and Maxine worked full time in office administration. She often day dreamed of what life might have been like if she could only hit on an idea which would be foolproof. If only she and Dean could afford to move out of their tiny little maisonette and move into an area more desirable, but on their wages they could only just about afford the mortgage they had. As time wore on, two children came along, a boy then a girl, with only thirteen months between them and Maxine found herself so busy and knee deep in nappies, the dream of moving on to a better life had to go on the back burner.

As the children grew older and started primary school. Maxine returned to work part time, but she was so bored with her job. She started dreaming about making money to get out of this rut.

It was November with thoughts of Christmas and while out buying those special cards, she wondered how everyone could afford it year after year and all of a sudden, as if a light bulb had been switched on, she stumbled across an idea of making her own cards! She always used to be so good at art and creating things, she was sure she could make some cards that would be so personal, she visited an art shop and picked up some paint, an assortment of gold and silver letters and more art and craft pieces. Maxine was so excited; she couldn't wait to get back home to start making them.

She made some cards for her own family, adding personal little odes which were so pretty and cheap to create. She knew she had the knack for making things look good and was such a perfectionist. Her family were so touched and pleased with her cards and knew from then she was onto a good idea.

Maxine started making all different cards in all shapes and sizes, in an array of different designs for birthday, anniversary, wedding and for all other occasions with such innovation and as word got around slowly, some of the mums' at her children's' primary school started to approach her to make special cards for them as well, although they only asked once as Maxine was always gloating. As Christmas approached, she had so many orders for her cards their tiny living room was so full of boxes, cards, paper and other stationary and it began starting to feel cramped.

After four months, she started to make a tiny profit and she approached her local newsagents to sell some for her. Her cards were an instant seller and the demands grew from the newsagent.

She got the idea from a magazine that gave her the idea to advertise her cards on the Internet and got Maxine thinking that maybe in time, if she could work it out, to create her own website as her cards were getting more popular, although she was not computer literate, but knew just enough to get her by.

Night after night, she gradually put her website together until finally, two months later, the website was ready to launch. The only drawback was, if the public used a search engine, to find her website, Maxine would be charged each time her website was hit. She printed off some business cards and passed them around to anyone and everyone she knew and like a spiders' web; her little business began to grow. She soon got so many requests' she was inundated with orders and after some time she had to employ a couple of people to help. The orders were coming in thick and fast and she found a unit and employed two more people.

She boasted about her growing business to some of the parents at her childrens' school and made herself unpopular by bragging to much and her love of material things annoyed the other mums'. Her staff did not like Maxine and her gloating either, but Maxine did not care; as far as she was concerned, she was onto a brilliant idea.

Orders were growing fast and in time, Maxine and Dean could afford to move and buy a three bedroom house and the following year, they found the perfect retreat. Dean gave up his job and put all his time into the business. It went from strength to strength until the workforce was twenty one. So many beautiful original cards were made, all individually by hand and little poems and odes were written to criteria. Another year later, Maxine and Dean moved again into a much bigger house with five bedrooms and it was now, her dream of making money; a flash expensive car and a big rural house. Life just couldn't be better. She was so glad her children were removed from the local primary school as they were so much better and brighter than all the other children and they were able to afford for them to go to a private school go get the better education they deserved.

They rubbed shoulders with people with businesses and money and often threw dinner parties with their new friends and pleased to be away from their ordinary working class friends.

The good life lasted for about eighteen months and they even started making plans for an early retirement and called their accountant, but after rechecking the bookkeeping, it seemed a little out of sync. Maxine ignored the slight decline and dismissed the accountant, but they did seem to be slightly less busy.

They saw their accountant again the following month. Again, it seemed the business was not making as much money as it used to, although orders were still being placed, Maxine started to worry a little as it didn't make any sense and she said goodbye to their regular accountant and employed another to recheck and audit all their accounts. The new accountant looked a little worried when he said that the figures were so much lower from the previous year that he suggested that they sacked some of their staff and by the following month when he returned, he seriously suggested that they think about downsizing their property. It got to the stage where the children had to be taken out of private schools and the business started to go further into decline.

The staff were infuriated to have lost their jobs and treated so badly, they tried to take Maxine and Dean to court, but after a few months they had to declare themselves bankrupt and lost their whole business.

Their dream home, the fast expensive cars and the early retirement all gone in a matter of months. Their children now back in a mainstream school.

Nobody knew exactly who was making the hits on the website. Nobody know where the hits were coming from, but to this day, the website is continually being hit over a thousand times a day and no orders are ever placed. Maxine had unwittingly ticked a box about a five year contract to run her website, so nothing could be cancelled.

Between some of the mums' at their children's' old primary school, their sacked staff, the accountants and their so called business friends, resentment had built up and boiled over and like a spiders web, they all stumbled on the idea of searching for the website and made it their mission to keep using the search engines that hit onto 'Special handmade cards for all occasions'. 

click here

Copyright Linda Lawrence

February 2006

Strange magic

The Drama King

As he pulled the pins out of the doll, he became aware that something wasn’t quite right as he felt the black ominous feeling almost chocking him as he started to become very much aware that something was becoming completely out of his control and very much amiss.

In a haze of yet another nightmare, the dread, fear and the smell of his own perspiration mixed in with some strong sickly perfumed sweet deodorant, he tried to think back to some better times for some distraction. The dreams were becoming more profound and persistent and he was so frightened of drifting off to sleep and terrified of what the dark inky night might bring.

Emma and Alex didn’t part very amicably. It wasn’t always like that though – they were very good friends before they become an item and the world was very rosy – but only for a short while, after a much turbulent start. Alex had been with his now ex girlfriend for many years and it was clear that the relationship had become over-stretched especially when Emma appeared on the scene! She flew in like an elusive and most colourful Butterfly in a crowded pub in the Seaside city and from that second onwards, he was transfixed and almost hypnotised by her beauty and originality! Heads turned as she met her now relieved, but flustered girlfriend as she greeted her. Emma – forever late, but even later now as she missed the earlier train from her work place and frustratingly could not return a call or text message from her mobile phone to let Amy know of her arriving even later! There were simply too many tunnels on that journey home that affected the level of reception and as each message failed to send, she become increasingly frustrated. Mobiles! They never worked when you desperately wanted them too! Her bright lime green knitted hat that somehow matched her electric blue shoes, the brightest of purple large stitched scarf and the thinnest of a classic Black Jacket that squeezed around her every curvy tiny bone structure of her twee waist and swept upwards towards her neck. Her forgivingly long stripy rainbow-coloured woollen stockings that kept her legs warm in the chill of a February evening, again, somehow matched the mismatch fingerless gloves that carried her black fifties style handbag she’d bought from a local second hand shop she loved and shopped in regularly that sold such oddities.

Amy had been a friend since the earliest of school days and even though they seldom got the chance to meet, they had arranged a ‘girlie put the world to right’ over a few glasses of wine, each exchanging the latest gossip and gripes; the state of the economy, how each were coping with their work ties and well…. men! As the evening wore on, Emma became aware that the same light blue/grey eyes were on her more often than others and as the girls were leaving, a young male – about her age ran up to her and nervously threw her the old cliché and asked if she’d come here often! It was laughable but through the shyness of this young man, she saw through his eyes he was genuinely interested in her and that common comment actually broke the ice that hadn’t been broken for a long time and stayed for a little longer while they all chatted. Still reeling from a broken relationship, Emma remained cynical, but they exchanged e-mail addresses for the time being.

At last the girls felt they had finally found good quality time to catch up and continued their slightly drunken chats until the early hours but all too soon, the evening came to an end and Amy would stay over and return by train to her familiar smoky town the following afternoon.

There was a message from Alex as Emma checked her e-mail. He must have sent it on his arrival home that same evening. ‘I would love to see you again – perhaps for a drink sometime?’ Emma gave it some thought and replied ‘Yes, maybe sometime in the near future; I have projects at work that will keep me busy for the next couple of weeks, but will keep this in mind’. Almost immediately Alex replied ‘I am still with my girlfriend, Jade and it has been a long relationship, but I intend to end it soon’. And with that, Emma did not reply back to him. She did not want to get hurt again nor involved with any complications and had put herself in her protective shell and there it would stay. At least for the time being.

Work was busy and she threw herself into her role and when it had eventually quietened down she checked her e-mail. Most were from Alex! She thought that would be the last of him after she didn’t bother to reply, but there were so many and out of curiosity she counted sixty-seven! It was obvious he was infatuated with her and even more apparent; he really did want to see her again and she naturally felt flattered. She e-mailed back explaining that if he had finished his present relationship, she would agree to meet him – she really couldn’t be bothered to filch her way through all of these messages and their contents.

Eventually they met in the same pub she had first seen him in and they had the most enjoyable and comfortable evening just chatting about anything and everything! Alex had convinced her that he would move out of the flat that he and his present girlfriend were sharing just as soon as he had found new accommodation and from that night, they become very good friends insisting that was all it would be until Alex had found himself another flat.

The scorned woman was delirious in her now empty flat and with all traces of Alex gone apart from odd bits of material from his clothes and his hair that was caught up in the plughole of the bath. She would see to it that Alex would suffer as much as her and made it her business to turn up to the same haunts as Emma and Alex would go to over the weeks which made for a terrible atmosphere. Eventually, she gave up and got on with her life, moved forward and met somebody new.

At first, it was good. They shared the same taste in music, food, wine, enjoyed the same concerts and even word games! Creepily, they even shared the same birth date! But as the weeks passed on, Emma wasn’t as enthusiastic as Alex; the persistent e-mailing demanding to know her feelings for him and the sudden and embarrassing emotional outbursts wore her down. It was obvious the relationship had become one-sided. Alex seemed almost disturbed emotionally and felt Emma ‘owed’ him for finishing his last relationship. Perturbed by the whole thing, she knew she had to finish with him. After all the problems she encountered initially, she did not want any more problems in her life as he had swiftly become yet another one. She also knew this wouldn’t be the end as he continued to e-mail her with false accusations and vulgarity. And it still didn’t end there. He turned up at the same haunts as Emma’s; he knew what shops she shopped in, where her friends lived, the place she worked. He seemed to be around every corner, his face appeared in every pub, club and venue causing a scene beyond belief. His anxiety rubbed off on all that knew him leaving behind a trail of worried and anxious friends, some becoming ex friends because they found it impossible to approach him and as they comforted Emma after yet another Oscar winning performance by her ex. They simply did not understand how his mentality had changed for the worse.

The night terrors continued to get worse and at one point, Alex physically felt black-gloved hands tighten around his neck and as he willed himself to wake up in his bed sit bedroom only to find the light switch had been turned off which made him panic deeper while his struggle for breath quickened.

Jade had spent many hours sticking pins in the doll that she bought from the shop that sold such oddities. Precision was so important of course, paying intricate detail around the temples of the head. The medium brown hair that got caught in the plughole of the bath was easily used for her needs and the pin placed exactly in the part of brain that controlled thought and mentality. She’d had enough of the drama king and needed to get him to move out of their shared flat and was deliriously happy when he left her – at last in peace! He had made her suffer because he kept reminding her that he finished with his girlfriend before her and his very persistence eventually drove her over the edge.

The forgiveable long stripy rainbow-coloured woollen stockings and lime green knitted hat that adorned her doll that so suited her was now removed to give Emma the space she so desperately needed that now gave way to the new and more terrifying night visions Alex was now experiencing.

Copyright Linda Lawrence

9^th April 2009