Codeword Mastiff

The girl hesitated by the bench, looking at him through narrowed eyes, and tucked a wayward strand of pink hair behind her ear.
     "Are you all right?" she asked.  He glanced up at her, startled.
     "What a question!"
     She shrugged, but stood her ground.
     "Sorry," he said, "That came out a little loud.  I don't do much talking.  Except to myself.  And then I really holler.  But I'm a bit out of practice with this...one to one stuff."
     That made her laugh.
     "Are you a monk?"
     "Wow.  You've really got the questioning line mastered, haven't you?  For an encore I'm hoping you'll ask me what the meaning of life is.  Why do you think I might be a monk?  This," he tapped his brown corduroy denim-style jacket, "Is positively my best non-monk disguise, too."
     Apparently deciding that it was safe to sit down beside him, she did so.
     "I knew a monk once," she said.  "He looked a lot like you - shaved head, goatee beard.  He went to Nepal a couple of years ago."
     "Smart fella.  Did he ever come back?"
     "I don't know.  We lost touch."
     "I'm sorry to hear that.  No."
     "No...what?"
     "No, I'm not a monk.  Right now, I'm not entirely sure what I am.  The standard definitions seem a bit redundant, and liable to provoke undeserved sympathy.  Let's swing the telescope around.  How do you spend your time?"
     She leaned back on the bench, stretching out her legs.
     "Well, obviously I talk to strange men in parks.  When I'm not grooming dogs."
     "Good grief, is that an internet thing?"
     She convulsed in giggles.
     "We have got a website.  And a van!"
     "I pity the poor pooches.  Little do they know that the trail of treats leads to capture, eventual enslavement, and supremely glossy coats."
     "You know, Diane's writing our new ad for the local paper, but I think you should do it."
     "And when the business is a failure, you could write it off as a tax loss.  I like your sense of planning.  It smacks of Machiavelli."
     "So," she said, "Are you all right?"
     He gazed into the middle distance as a cloud passed before the sun, muting the greens and yellows of the surrounding parklands.
     "Not really," he sighed, "But I hope to be.  Perhaps once I graduate from being...a strange man in the park."
     She blushed.
     "I didn't really mean it like that."
     "I know.  It's okay."
     "You looked worried.  And sort of familiar.  I think I've seen you around somewhere."
     "Probably at a bus stop.  I'm usually going from somewhere to somewhere else.  Perhaps I should look out for you in your van.  Hitch a lift with all the captive canines."
     They were silent for a moment as the clouds began to part and the sunlight returned.
     "I get the feeling," she said, "That you've got a million things to do."
     "And that's just this afternoon," he nodded.
     She took her mobile 'phone in its glittery silver case out of her pocket, and stared at him.
     "Right, I need you to know something," she said.
     He raised an eyebrow.
     "All the ransom notes for the dogs are made from letters cut out of the Evening Echo?"
     She frowned.
     "I'm being serious."
     "Sorry.  Go on."
     "I have literally never done this before.  For all I know, you're some fugitive on the run from an open prison."
     He grimaced.
     "There's a lot of that about lately, isn't there?  Never let it be said that our criminal justice system lacks some fairly fundamental flaws."
     "Christ, please tell me you're not a Sun reader."
     He solemnly held up his right hand.
     "I am not now, nor have ever been, a reader of the Sun newspaper."
     She shook her head.
     "My God, you're all jokes, aren't you?"
     "It's a temporary aberration, I assure you.  I'm sixty per cent serious, and forty per cent terrified out of my wits most of the time."
     She smiled at him.
     "That sounds healthy."
     He shook his head.
     "Not at three o'clock in the morning, it isn't.  Somewhere in the world, right now, it's three o'clock in the morning.  We should probably remember that."
     "I'm going to give you my number.  Has your 'phone got an NFC chip?"
     He stared at her, shocked.
     "What witchcraft is this?  Not only did you use 'an' correctly, but you know about Near Field Communication.  Keep this up, and it'll be the ducking stool for you, my dear."
     She rolled her eyes.
     "Again with the jokes."
     "I can't help it," he said, "I'm rapidly veering into that forty per cent quotient.  No, sorry, my 'phone's old.  It's got whiskers, a pension, and a free bus pass.  In fact, for all I know, every time I put it back into my pocket, it slips into a comfy pair of mini incontinence pants."
     She leaned against him, laughing out loud.
     "How do you come up with this stuff?"
     "Believe me, you don't want to know."
     "Actually, I sort of do.  That's the point."
     Again, they lapsed into temporary silence.  A chestnut-coloured mastiff suddenly bounded up to the bench, hotly pursued by a man in shorts wearing a Reebok t-shirt.
     "Sorry," said the man, "I was just sorting out the lead, and he bolted.  Come on, Hercules."
     They watched them sort themselves out and move away into the park proper. 
     "That's a great name for a dog, but the divinity-based antecedental pressure must be immense.  Psychologically, he's probably a complete mess."
     The girl with pink hair shook her head again, and turned on the bench to face him.
     "Who are you?"
     He stared down at the ground.
     "Your toughest question yet.  Does it matter?  Really?"
     She bit her lip.
     "I don't know, but probably, yes.  I'm just sensing this weird...connection with you."
     He nodded, his gaze drifting off to the woods beyond the park.
     "It's something I fundamentally understand, but could never explain.  A combination of randomness, biology, and pure circumstance guiding events.  I was at a house party in the eighties, and was hopelessly in love with this girl who was crazy about at least two other guys at the time.  I don't know what I was, or represented to her, probably a kind of surrogate brother, but it was a hopeless scenario, and persisted for nearly a decade.  Imagine that."
     "The eighties?  How old are you?"
     He sighed, and stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
     "I'm going to guess at...twice your age.  And you have my permission to leave immediately."
     She laughed.
     "I'm older than I look."
     "That's interesting, because I used to look older than I am.  Somewhere along the line, things somehow evened out."
     The girl slipped a card out of her mobile 'phone case.  It had a cartoon of a poodle and a shampoo bottle on it.
     "Second number on the card," she said, handing it over.  "I need to go.  But I need you to know that I really don't want to.  Call me."
     "Codeword Mastiff?"
     Again, she laughed, raising herself from the bench.
     "You're very...different."
     "That's not always a good thing."
     "Yes," she said, "Yes it is.  But you probably wouldn't appreciate that, and I think I know why.  Codeword Mastiff."
     She was some yards away when he said, under his breath, "She's got pink hair.  This world is officially extraordinary."


FIN

This Man Beyond Impediments.

Everybody wanted a story that day.  Some revelatory tale that might simultaneously contextualise and enlighten.  It was a tough ask, and the author paused too long.
     "What should I say?  What can be said?  Is it fancy, or dim cowardice that stays my hand upon the keyboard?"
     A wiser voice replied, "You're such that the moment has no control.  Seize that opening, master the complexities of the silence, and give what you have without regret."
     So fleeting, all that doubt.  So inescapably trite amidst the inherent chaos of reckoning and reconsideration.  Heroism, redefined, became the convenient watchword of an emasculated policy of self-determined withdrawal, instead of blatant exterior expression.  He'd caved in, instead of reaching out, and that error became definitive...for only a moment.
     "I do have something to say," cried the author, "And it will be heard, in however scant a quadrant.  It is this..."
     Scribes, adept at analysing drafts, perused the script that the author submitted.  It was lengthy, at times incoherent, but it carried the weight of conviction, and one or two of them smiled at its parabolic inconsistences.
     "This man," noted Scribe Number 406, "Offers insight without parallel.  His account is detailed and flawless, but it is encumbered with an overriding sense of despair.  This, I fear, will not play well with the masses."
     Scribe Number 707 took a different view.
     "What I have read confirms my belief that the author understands destiny and happenstance.  His limitations are humanic, not detrimental to pure understanding."
     The author smiled, taking on board the received critiques, and worked upon his second draft without bitterness.  The forum was absurd, he decided, and subject to all the myriad contentions and obfuscations that editorial imperative determined.  Ultimately, there was no one to please but himself, but he was his own worst critic, so the draft existed in a virtual limbo for several days.  The judging panel, vast and eclectic, pondered upon his edits, passing casual judgement upon the merest typographical alteration that he made, until the time came for the author's final submission.
     "I hope you know what you're doing," said Althea10, catching the author during an unscheduled Hangout.  "I've read your edits, and they're terrifically bold."
     "It is what it is," replied the author.  "If the world needs to know something beyond this, then it knows where to reach me."
     "You need to consider the impediments," said Althea10.  "Truth has a way of getting distorted, reinterpreted, and finally diminished."
     The author punched up a smiley face on his keyboard.
     "Truth is absolute, Althea10.  It either cuts, or glances off.  But it is always remembered."
      The author, this man beyond impediments, posted his revised draft, and switched off every computer he owned.  It was done.  End of.  Whatever happened next was, he decided, down to fate.



For a more adept iteration of the author's message and intentions, e-mail him at tyger.doyle@gmail.com.