Short Story

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Contents 

A Short Story - Two Squares a 

Thousand Miles Apart - JagerPress. 6 

A Short Story: A Romance In Me - 

JagerPress ..................................... 30 

A Short Story: Provisions Needed - 

JagerPress ..................................... 39 

A Short Story: Left Behind - Nancy 

Smith ............................................. 50 

A Short Story: She Sells Sea Shells that 

Really Sell - Smartass Publishers .. 56 

A Short Story: On Your Bike - 

JagerPress ..................................... 63 

A Short Story: I’d Hate to be a Shellfish 

- Smartass Publishers .................... 83

A Short Story: Putt - James Agerholm 

...................................................... 90 

A Short Story: Undivision - JagerPress 

.................................................... 103 

Short Story: Visionary – Smartass 

Publishers ................................... 111 

A Short Story: Circular Economics - 

James Agerholm ......................... 123 

A Short Story: A Fair Spark - JagerPress 

.................................................... 134 

A Short Story: Trending a Mass 

Extinction – JagerPress ............... 138 

A SHORT STORY: WASHED UP WORDS 

– James Agerholm ...................... 150 

A Short Story - The Last Human – 

Bing’s Chat GPT ........................... 156

A Short Story - A Nomadic Power 

Source - JagerPress ..................... 165 

SHORT STORY - NOT ALWAYS - 

JagerPress ................................... 184 

A Short Story - The Symphony of Life - 

ChatGPT ...................................... 189 

An Intellectual Collapse -JagerPress193 

A Short Story - The Honey Baron – 

Smartass Publishers .................... 198 

Short Story - Tom Forest -JagerPress 

.................................................... 214

A Short Story - Two Squares a 

Thousand Miles Apart - JagerPress 

I sit here looking down the hill. 

Below is a scene you would find in a 

film, a romantic novel, a poem or even 

a dream. The garden that I’m sitting in 

is at the top of a large, steep hill in a 

countryside landscape. Around me is 

sparkling green grass and flower beds 

with sprouting colourful flowers 

spread all across them. Behind is a 

shackled shed; which I can see, 

through its windows, all the toys and 

accessories - that are now piled in dust

- that we all used to play with when 

we were children. Good times, right? 

No? Well better times than now, I 

think? It’s the middle of the summer in 

a sunny late afternoon and I feel 

relaxed, but still a bit wound up. 

Below there’s the house’s garage 

and what used you to be a white 

coloured Volvo, then there’s the 

concrete road and over a tall hedge 

there is a glorious, orange flickered 

sunset. Below this, although I cannot 

see them, I know there is a much 

busier road, a couple of fields, pine 

trees and a small river. I decide I need 

to go for a walk. 

I drag myself up and pick up my 

hand bag. I look down at my feet -

heels are never good for a long walk - 

so I walked down to the path that 

passes by my great aunt’s bungalow 

and it’s front garden towards the 

backdoor of our house which takes me 

into a white coloured tiled designed 

kitchen where I take my heels off 

carefully and put my trainers on not so 

much. I stand up, pull my long red hair 

back into a pony tail and walk back out 

onto the same gravelled built garden 

path. 

It’s amazing how the type of foot 

wear you wear can affect your day; it’s 

seen as a social advantage in my social 

demographic, but damn do heels hurt 

sometimes. At work we feel like we 

have to wear them, even our own boss

who owns the marketing company 

wears them, so they are kind of my 

first choice of foot wear in the 

morning. While I walk past the garage 

and the car, I feel like I’m bouncing 

with my trainers on, maybe I should 

talk to her, my Boss, about this and 

perhaps create a Facebook page about 

it; although I’m sure there’s one 

already. 

I’m on the road now, it has no 

pavements, but it’s relatively wide 

when it turns down the hill and I’ve 

walked down it so many times before 

in my life that I know the traffic is 

scarce so I wander off to the point 

where road curves down the hill rather 

far too carelessly.

As I walk down the hill I’m shaded 

by the tall evergreen trees by each 

side and this is only broken by the 

driveways of the large houses of what 

I presume are owned by international 

millionaires or business men and 

women who work and live in the city 

in the week and only come here in the 

weekend now and again. 

I reach the end of the hill and 

there’s a pavement to my right. I look 

both ways, a Jaguar went past at 

speed, but after that I could’t see any 

further vehicles speeding towards me, 

just a few at the other end of the road 

turning up another hill that will take 

them to town, so I cross the road to 

the other side. Fifty meters or so to my

ight is a bridge that will take me to 

the river’s bank, I notice a sheep in the 

field staring at me quizzically. I 

remember, when I was eleven and was 

camping in a field one morning, while I 

was still in my tent and in my sleeping 

bag, I saw the head of a sheep pocking 

into a paper bag - which contained the 

snacks that my mum had sent to me 

the other day - that was in my tent’s 

patio. I shouted at it and it run off 

frantically; not surprisingly I didn’t 

touch any of those snacks afterwards 

and must have thrown it into the dust 

bin bag in our group’s site, it’s funny 

how you remember these things. 

I walked over the bridge and down 

to the river which was shaded like the

oad down the hill was. I walked a bit 

further until I saw a little boy trying to, 

unsuccessfully, skipping stones across 

the river’s surface. To his side was a 

large Golden Labrador; this saw me 

first and barked amiably while it 

pattered towards me on the dried 

mud like surface of the river’s 

embankment. It brushed its nose at 

my leg and looked up at me 

pleadingly. I padded and ruffled its 

head and it made a dog like smile and 

a noise of acceptance as if I was his or 

hers - I wasn’t quite sure yet- new best 

friend and it sat down beside me. The 

boy, who had noticed that his dog had 

disappeared, was walking towards me. 

When he got to me, I said.

“Hi, sorry about that I didn’t 

intend to steal your friend.” 

He smiled “No worries, she does 

that to everyone, especially if she 

hasn’t met them before.” He then said 

“I’m Charlie, what’s your name.” 

“Hi Charlie” I replied “I’m Lucy, 

that was very mature of you, how old 

are you?” 

“Mature? I don’t know about that. 

I had my ninth birthday a few weeks 

ago.” 

“Happy birthday Charlie, still 

aren’t you a bit too young to be here 

on your own.” 

“Oh no, no, my uncle is just 

coming back, he’s just saying goodbye

to my mum, he said I could come and 

play at the river.” 

“He did, did he? Hmmm… I don’t 

think that’s the best idea in the world. 

I tell you what, I’ll stick around until he 

gets back.” 

“If you like,” said Charlie “but he’ll 

be back soon” 

“Ok I’ll just sit over there on the 

bench until then.” 

I sat there with the dog - whose 

name I had discovered was Leyla – 

while Charlie skipped stones across 

the river which he got, over time, very 

good at. 

Ten minutes or so later I noticed a 

tall, quite handsome man walking 

towards us. He wore a white t-shirt,

lack jeans, trainers -which were a bit 

more fashion intended than mine – 

and a shaved head, with a healthy tan. 

He looked at me “Hey Charlie I see 

you have found yourself a new 

friend?” 

Charlie shrugged and briefly 

looked away from the river and said to 

him. 

“Yeah, she was just walking by. 

Leyla seems to like her.” 

I stood up from the bench and 

walked towards the man and shook his 

hand. “Hi, I’m Lucy.” and then said to 

him - while trying to mimic my 

mother’s most authoritative, 

disappointed tone - “I stuck around as

I thought leaving a little boy like your 

nephew on his own is a bit worrying.” 

He smiled “Hi Lucy, I’m Aaron, 

don’t worry about him. Charlie’s not 

your normal little boy and I wasn’t too 

far away.” 

“Even so, leaving him here on his 

own near a river?” 

“I was just having a final chat with 

my sister before we left and he was 

getting a bit restless.” 

“Oh, well. Do you live nearby 

then?” I asked hopefully. 

“No, no. We were just passing by 

to see how she’s doing.” 

“He doesn’t live with his mum?” 

Unfortunately, no. I tell you what 

it would be much easier, if you’re free

of course, if I took you to see her, she 

always likes meeting new people.” 

“For sure, I have time and I also 

like meeting new people.” 

We all wandered up the path in 

the direction that Aaron had just come 

from while Charlie kept picking up 

stones and skipping them across the 

river’s surface - repetition is the best 

way to learn I thought to myself. 

Before we got to the house that, as 

Aaron had said before wasn’t very far, 

he explained that Charlie stayed with 

him in the city - where he worked as 

an editor for one of the large broad 

sheets - because his sister wasn’t well 

enough to look after him.

When we got to the front door 

Aaron rang the bell and pretty soon 

the door was opened by a young 

blonde woman. 

“Hello Mr Shaw, did you forget 

something?” 

“No, no Nova. I just have someone 

who would like to meet my sister. 

Nova this is Lucy, Lucy this is Nova my 

sister’s house nurse. You wouldn’t 

notice it because of her amazing 

English, but she’s from Sweden 

“Mr Shaw, sorry I’ve got to go and 

set up her dinner in the kitchen, she’s 

where she was when you left.” said 

Nova to Charlie’s uncle. 

“Thanks” he replied and walked 

towards a double door at the other

end of the corridor. I followed him 

with Charlie and Leyla behind me. 

When we had passed the doubledoors 

I found that we were in a living 

room with a radio on. I noticed a 

woman in a wheel chair on the other 

side of the room with tubes up her 

nose and cannula tubes inserted into 

her arms that went up to plastic bags 

with fluorescent coloured fluids in 

them. These hung off the top of a 

metal pole with wheels at its base. She 

must have been only a few years older 

than me. 

“Lucy please meet my baby sister, 

Molly.” Arron announced.

I didn’t really know what to say so 

I just gave her a little wave and a 

smile. 

“Sorry Lucy, I didn’t tell you. My 

sister is blind so she can’t see you, but 

she can hear, talk and feel touch.” 

“Oh.” I replied apologetically “I’m 

so sorry…Hi Molly, I’m Lucy, it’s very 

nice to meet you”. 

“Don’t worry about it…you too” 

she replied to me with a happy tone 

that was not expressed on her still 

face. 

I stepped forward and shook her 

hand which was limp and I was doing 

most of the movement, but I noticed 

something close to a smile crossing 

her lips.

I then whispered to Aaron “What 

happened to her?” 

“Don’t worry about whispering, 

she doesn’t mind people talking about 

it, especially as she can’t remember 

anything about it at all. In two 

thousand five Molly and her husband 

were coming back from seeing me in 

London and a bomb went off in their 

bus. Charlie’s dad died immediately, 

fortunately though Molly was rescued 

by the paramedics. She lost her eye 

sight and broke both of her legs and 

she was taken to a London hospital 

where me, her friends and family 

came and saw her. After this though 

she got a serious hospital infection 

and started to have epileptic seizures.”

“How awful…. did you sue them?” 

“Then we were far more 

concerned about her health than 

anything else and were very restrained 

about the idea of taking legal actions 

against the NHS. When we got her 

back home four years later and we 

could see how badly it had affected 

her and we considered it, but after 

contacting a couple of laws firms we 

found out that you could only take 

legal actions for healthcare 

malpractice against such infections in 

the first two years since the diagnosis 

of the infection. Fortunately, I could 

look after Charlie, who was only two 

years old then, and her husband, 

Leslie, had life insurance which paid

for the house’s mortgage and some 

other things. I was also able to 

contribute to private home care 

otherwise she would still be stuck in 

hospital. 

Then Nova came into the room 

with a tray piled with tea cups, milk, 

sugar and a kettle which she put it 

down on a coffee table very carefully 

and poured tea into the cups. She then 

asked me pleasantly: 

“Would you like milk and sugar 

with yours Lucy.” 

“Just milk please, thank you.” I 

answered politely. 

She then asked Aaron the same 

question who said he would have the 

same as me as he was trying to reduce

his sugar intake at the moment. She 

then gave Charlie a glass of apple juice 

and a dog bowl of water to Leyla. She 

then went back to the kitchen. 

“She sounds nice.” I said to Aaron. 

“Yes.” he replied “Molly needs 

several carers; one in the day, one 

overnight and they need time away as 

well. I had lots of interviews to make 

sure they were right for her as she’s 

still quite young and I wanted people 

who she can socialise with. Nova is 

probably my favourite and she often 

take’s Molly out when she’s not 

working and she gets to meet Nova’s 

friends.”

We sat around for another hour or 

so chatting until he looked at his 

watch. 

“Sorry Charlie and I have to go, so 

we don’t get stuck in traffic. You 

should come back with us before it 

gets too dark.” 

I agreed and after we gave our 

good byes to Molly and Nova we all 

went back to the river. When we got 

back to the path, I asked Aaron. 

“How often do you and Charlie go 

and see his mum” 

“I’m always really busy at work so 

generally I don’t have the time and I 

only see her every three months or so. 

Charlie sees her a bit more often in the 

school holidays as my colleagues and

friends offer to give him a lift but, 

except for her care workers and now 

and again Nova’s friends, she doesn’t 

see people very often.” 

“Don’t her friends come and see 

her?” I ask. 

“They did initially when she was in 

hospital and when she first came 

home, but they all have boyfriends, 

girlfriends, spouses and families now; I 

can’t remember the last time one of 

them came and saw her. When we talk 

about them there is some bitterness, 

but she hasn’t expressed her 

frustration about it to me yet so I’ve 

let it go.”

“Well I don’t live that far away so I 

can come and see her now and again 

and we can have a chat.” 

Aaron smiled “Yes, I think she 

would really like that.” 

We continued talking until we got 

back to bridge and he said to me his 

car was just over there. I looked and 

there was one of those smart electric 

cars that have come out recently, 

sitting there on a side road to the right 

of the bridge. He gave me a hug; said 

we should keep in touch and he gave 

me his business card. Charlie said 

goodbye and Leyla excitedly licked at 

my hand while I was trying to pat her 

on her head. When they drove off, I 

waved back.

While I was walking back home up 

the hill, I thought about earlier that 

day, why was I so miserable, life could 

be so much worse. Going to see Molly 

when I can will remember me about 

this and I’ll have a new friend.

http://www.jagerpress.com/ShortTalesfromtheMiddleEast

A Short Story: A Romance In Me - 

JagerPress 

What is romance? Is it an activity, 

an event, a thought or is it just an 

autonomic production of a series of 

neurochemicals in your amygdala that 

tells you that he or she would be a 

perfect biological match for you? 

Honestly, if any pretty girl glances at 

me and smiles then romance goes 

straight out of the window. 

I’m sitting here on a park bench, 

looking at the tall DIY wall that 

separates the real world from the 

concert. I’m wearing my standard blue 

jeans and white trainers with a black 

hoody with the hood over my head.

I’m wearing a pair of sunglasses even 

though it’s not exactly sunny and I 

know I look like a bit of a douche, but 

so be it. I have my blue tooth ear 

phones plugged into my ears although 

I’m not listening to any music and I’m 

smoking a roll up with its nicotine 

infusing into my lungs, with the taste 

of the smoke climbing across my 

tongue and all the other sensitive 

orifices that surround it. I know it’s 

probably going to kill me or at least 

reduces my chances of having a 

healthy life, but life is made of out of 

chances; sometimes they go your way, 

sometimes they don’t…it’s called luck. 

Once I remember reading a maths 

book and it was talking about 

statistics; it said that your results can

only be reliable if you have thirty 

specimens in your test and you can be 

even more certain about your results if 

the number of your specimens 

increases. 

There must be like a thousand of 

smokers over that wall, maybe I will be 

the lucky one, you never know. A 

group of teenage girls walk pass me, 

giggling together as if they knew a 

secret that everyone should know, but 

they’re not going to tell anyone else. A 

park security staff walks over to me; 

he looks like he’s from Poland or 

somewhere like that. He then starts 

talking to me and I know he’s from 

somewhere like that. 

“You shouldn’t be smoking here!”

I point to the wall where the music 

is coming from. “There’s like a cloud of 

tobacco over that wall in the concert, 

why are you targeting me???” 

“The concert has its own security 

staff and rules, but this park is strict 

about smoking even though it’s a 

public area.” 

“Ridiculous.” I sneer, but I still 

throw my fag onto the concrete path 

and stamp it out and the security 

guard walks off. 

The girls are still lurking around 

the hot dog stall, laughing and 

pointing at me, but I ignore them. 

Life’s too short to think about such 

things like that. Now I know the 

Eastern Europe guy has gone I roll up a 

new roll-up, spark it, lean back on the

ench and stare up into the grey, 

cloudy sky, feeling each ember from 

the cigarette dropping onto my lap 

and the grass below the bench. 

After I’ve finish, I get up, throw the 

stub away and walk towards the hot 

dog stool. The girls are still giggling 

and are looking at me suspiciously. 

Over the time I’ve been here I’ve got 

on well with the guy who own’s the 

hot dog stool. 

“Hi Bobby, how you doing?” I ask 

him. 

“I’m good mate, thanks, want your 

usual?” 

“Yeah that would be great, 

cheers.” 

I watch him taking a pair of steel 

pliers from the rack just behind him

and he plunges them into the boiling 

oil filled vat to his right. He quickly 

retrieves a steaming frankfurter from 

the vat and places it into a long white 

roll. He then asks me. “Wanna some 

sauce buddy?” 

“Nah mate, I’ll do it myself.” I 

reply nonchalantly. 

I give him cash and he gives me 

the hot dog with his gnarled, burnt 

hands, I presume - just like everyone 

else does - that he cleans them often. I 

grab a ketchup bottle from the store’s 

shelf and spurt ketchup over the hot 

dog successfully; I consider mustard or 

mayonnaise, but decide that this 

would be a bit excessive and I walk 

away munching on my hot dog.

The group of girls were still there, 

giggling and glancing at me. I ignore 

them and take my phone from my 

pocket and click on my music player. I 

play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D 

minor which drains down my ear holes 

and through my ear drums exquisitely. 

My main love for classical music is that 

it’s just so, so different to what I 

normally play and listen to with my 

mates. I feel like I’m learning 

something new every time I listen to 

it. 

I walk pass the gigs main entrance 

and walk around to the other side, 

which takes me about fifteen minutes 

as it’s a big gig. I start strolling up to a 

green door in the DIY wall. On both 

sides there are two large, gorilla

shaped, suited up security men. They - 

like me - are also wearing sun glasses 

and in this grey day they also look like 

douches. I take my hoody off and 

when I get closer one of the men, 

without saying anything, opens the 

door for me and I walk in. 

When I get in I’m jumped by this 

pretty, red haired girl who’s in her 

earlier thirties. She’s Sarah, my new PR 

“Jack where have you been? Your 

next! The band are setting up behind 

the stand. You ready?” she asks me 

with concern. 

“Babe, I’m always ready.” I reply 

with a smile “You shouldn’t worry so 

much!”

http://www.jagerpress.com/thebreakingclause.html

A Short Story: Provisions Needed - 

JagerPress 

“No, no, no…” Isabelle laughed as 

she sat there at the stern, with her 

bare legs crossed over. “…you don’t 

put sails up like that!” 

Charlie frowned, feeling slightly 

embarrassed about the situation he 

had found himself in. It can’t be that 

hard, they were just sheets of fabric 

that you put up a pole with ropes; 

however, at the back of his head, he 

knew this was how he felt when his 

girlfriend ever asked him to change 

their bed until he actually started 

making it.

Last month he had decided that a 

trip would be good for their 

relationship and what was one of the 

best ways to prove his masculinity to 

her at the same time? Rent a sailing 

boat and cross the English Channel to 

a bed and breakfast in Calais would do 

it, none of this wimping out and 

getting a ferry or the Eurostar! He had 

said to Isabelle that it would be great, 

he had sailed once before when he 

was at school, so he was sure it would 

come back to him quickly. 

Unfortunately, he had also 

presumed that the boat they had 

rented would come with a main sail 

that did not detach its self from its

mast when they had only just got five 

miles away from the coast. He was 

now halfway up the mast with strings 

and rigging flailing in all directions 

while the wind ripped the sail off its 

grasps and clips that he was trying to 

secure it to. The boat hire guy had 

offered them an electric motor just in 

case, but Charlie had coolly rejected 

the offer; as they say, pride comes 

before the fall. 

Charlie also noticed that they were 

being pushed, by the wind, into the 

wrong direction. Rather than Calais 

their final destination was quickly 

becoming closer to Greenland than 

the north of France.

Isabelle uncrossed her legs before 

pointing out to Charlie: 

“You know, I could help?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll sort this 

out soon, don’t worry.” 

Then the boat hit something solid 

and it stopped abruptly. Jack had just 

been able hang onto the mast while 

Isabelle had been able to hold onto 

the tiller and they were now no longer 

speeding off to the north of the 

Atlantic, but the boat’s hull had also 

run into a sand dune and sea water 

was slowly trickling over the starboard 

side over the bow onto the boat’s 

deck.

Isabelle, while rolling her eyes and 

putting a bucket to catch the dripping 

water, said to Charlie with an 

exasperated sigh. 

“Get down from there, at this 

point in time there’s no advantage of 

having a sail even if it was working.” 

“But….” 

“More importantly though I need 

your weight to help to balance the 

boat, I’m too light to have any effect.” 

“But what do know about 

sailing???” The bucket was now nearly 

overflowing. 

“Well clearly more than you.” 

Isabelle replied sarcastically but

somehow affectionally at the same 

time. “It’s simple mathematics.” 

Charlie had now dropped down 

from the mast and Isabelle ordered 

him to drag all their stuff to the port 

side of the boat. Slowly the starboard 

side rose from the sand dune and the 

dripping into the bucket became less 

and less frequent until it finally 

ceased. 

The problem of the boat being 

flooded had been resolved, but as it 

had now been detached from the sand 

bank, they were now bobbing around 

on the waves aimlessly, following the 

currents.

“Right, well thanks, good thinking 

Izzy,” said Charlie “….but I’m sure 

when I had got the sail up, with this 

wind, it would have pulled us back on 

course.” 

Isabelle rolled her long black hair 

into a pony tail while replying to him. 

“Yeah, yeah, right! Sure!” 

They both looked up at the mast, 

there was the sail; it was only attached 

to the top of the mast, flying and 

flickering in a line against the light, 

grey sky. 

“So, what now captain?” Isabelle 

asked him sarcastically, this time 

though with significantly less affection.

“Well, I’m sure I can get the sail 

working soon…” 

But while Charlie was saying this, 

there was a stronger gust of wind and 

the last connection the sail had to the 

mast broke with a noise that sounded 

like a whip crack and it was blown into 

the far horizon. 

Isabelle pouted. “Well right, OK, 

now we only really have one choice!” 

“What would that be?” Charlie 

responded aimlessly; watching the sail 

flying further, further away while it 

sailed higher and higher up into the 

bleak coloured sky. 

“We’ve got to swim back!”

He jerked back suddenly and 

stared at her as if she had told him 

that the world was flat and it was 

carried by a giant turtle. “You’re 

crazy!” 

Isabelle had now opened one of 

their cases and brought out her purple 

bikini and his swimming trunks. 

“We’re moving away from dry land 

quickly; we have to go now!” 

“But you’ll get hypothermia and 

you’re not strong enough to swim that 

far.” 

She pulled her shorts off. “I think 

I’ll be fine. Either way it gives us a 

chance, better than us getting lost in

this current and find ourselves in the 

middle of the ocean.” 

“But…” 

However, Isabelle was already 

putting her clothes into a plastic bag 

and was walking to the port side. She 

looked back at him. 

“You coming?” 

Jager Press

https://www.jagerpress.com/poems.html

A Short Story: Left Behind - Nancy 

Smith 

Every bloody morning in every 

bloody week, I get up, rush off to 

the same bus stop to get the same 

damn, stupid number 31 bus to get 

to work. When I eventually get to 

the office I sit down on the same 

dumb, boring wooden desk, stare 

at the same dizzyingly bright HD 

screen that burns into my retina - 

making me more and more short 

sighted every day- and type the

same numbers onto the same 

stupid greyish, dusty, keypad. 

It’s just so mortifyingly boring I 

feel like, if nothing else, repetition 

on its own is going kill me. I’m 

certain there’s something in every 

human’s mind that works like 

some monotony, kill switch – it’s 

evolved to remove the ones of us 

who are clearly a dead end in the 

development of the human species. 

I stare down the same window, 

that I’ve been staring down 

through for the last, same five 

years, onto the same, stupid road,

watching the same, mindless traffic 

buzzing up and down it 

relentlessly every day. When I was 

young, I had plans, big plans – I 

was going to be like a doctor, an 

academic or something like that, I 

was going to change things, do 

something with my life. None of 

this sitting here all day long, 

talking to no one, seeing no one, 

slowly dying in loneliness. 

My only colleague is my 

computer and my only companion 

at home is Buzzy, my Cockapoo. 

We watch football and everything 

else together, he’s a good dog

eally, even if one of the first 

reasons that I got him was to pick 

up a girlfriend or at least to meet 

new people. It seemed like an 

excellent plan at first, one of my 

best, but the first part of it failed as 

it seemed that Buzzy was just far 

too adorable for me to have any 

proper conversations with the 

women who came and pat on his 

head and talk to him when I take 

him for walks in the park and 

along the canal. The second part, 

the one where I was supposed to 

meet new people, well the same 

thing as the first and, well, other

dog walkers, well yeah, they’ll be 

polite to me, but like everyone else, 

there also just far too busy to have 

a proper conversation with me. 

It’s not like I’ve always been 

such a looser, I used to have 

friends, quite allot of them actually, 

but we all grew up and they got 

girlfriends, mortgages, had 

weddings and they became 

doctors, academics or something 

like that and they all kind of forgot 

about me, even when I see them I 

don’t know what to say, our lives 

are just so different it’s just so 

difficult not to sound bitter or

jealous when I’m with them. It’s 

not nice being left behind. 

https://revitalise.org.uk/

A Short Story: She Sells Sea Shells that 

Really Sell - Smartass Publishers 

Living on the beach in northern 

England has never been particularly 

cool, especially after all the mines and 

factories closed in the seventies and 

eighties and the money that came 

with them disappeared. There ‘aint 

much to do here, especially if you’re 

someone like myself who dropped out 

of school when I was fifteen ‘cos my 

brother and dad were too ill to live 

without someone looking after them. 

Mum ran off with that Portuguese 

handyman ten years ago and I hated

her for doing that to us and I’m still 

bitter about it, but over time I’ve got 

used to this being just a matter of fact. 

Follow inspiring, new, fresh music at 

https://soundcloud.com/connollytunes 

As I never leant any skills and 

because of the time I needed to look 

after my dad and brother, there 

weren’t many employers who would 

take me on, so there wasn’t much 

money around most of the time.

Nevertheless, every summer there’s a 

fair on the beach and if the weather’s 

good we often get a lot of tourists so I 

always took the most of the 

opportunity and set up a stool. 

Although I dropped out of school, I 

read a lot and, as the money was 

limited, I read what was most 

available. Fortunately, one thing that 

the local council hadn’t taken away 

from the town was the library and I 

spent a serious amount of my free 

time there. It had lots of interesting 

academic books, one of which talked 

about the natural history and artefacts 

that still resided in the local caves 

across the beach, so in the summers, 

when the tide was out, I used to go 

salvaging and pick up all the pretty

shells and all the other ancient 

artefacts that I could find in them. 

Every year my stall became more 

and more abundant with all the 

trinkets and treasures I had 

appropriated from the caves. 

After a few summers the 

repertoire of goodies I had been able 

to forage from the caves had got a bit 

of following - especially after I made 

the website at the library. Once a lady 

had come all the way from York city 

where she was the managing assistant 

at a Roman museum in the city and 

she recognised a broach, which had 

diamonds embedded in it, from a 

Roman officer’s uniform on my stool. 

She tried to give me a low offer, a 

hundred pounds, but because of my

eading and research I knew exactly 

how much it was worth, and 

eventually we agreed for five million. 

Recently I’ve heard that the 

broach has been moved to the British 

Museum and has been valued five 

times as much but never mind, we 

now have a mansion over the sea with 

private health support for my brother 

and dad which has, not surprisingly, 

improved their opportunities in life. 

My brother leant to ride a bike last 

year which I was very excited about. 

For me personally, I can now spend 

more of my time reading and growing 

my new start up, “Artefactual 

Treasures Ltd.”. Recently I received an 

offer from an American Business man 

for a pearl which we had found in

Cornwall which is worth much, much 

more that than the broach ever was. 

Exciting times, think positive and read.

https://www.jagerpress.com/thebreakingclause.html

A Short Story: On Your Bike - 

JagerPress 

“WAKE UP, IT’S A BEAUTIFUL 

MORNING.” 

“WAKE UP, IT’S A BEAUTIFUL 

MORNING.” 

I groan, reach out blindingly across 

my bedside table - knocking several 

items off it while doing so - before I 

find my phone and press the home 

button to stop that damn tune 

bleeping at me. I used to like that 

song, but now, after making it my 

morning alarm, I have subconsciously

ecome to hate it more than any other 

noise, especially at this time in the 

morning. I drag myself off my bed, 

noticing that the left bedroom’s 

window is still swinging in the wind - 

something my landlord still hasn’t 

fixed yet - and I go to put my t-shirt 

and jeans on. I don’t need to dress 

smartly today as I will be just doing 

rounds this morning and I’ve got to 

change into my scrubs when I get to 

the hospital anyway. I decide to skip 

breakfast as I can get something when 

I get to work, so I go to my ensuite 

bathroom where I brush my teeth and 

wash my face. It looks sunny outside 

and my weather app informs me that 

there should be no rain so I put on my

ucksack and pick up my foldup bike 

from my studio flat’s short corridor 

and I walk out into the communal 

area. 

I had been quite keen on the idea 

of getting a foldup bike for quite some 

time as it meant I didn’t have to cycle 

that ridiculously, stupid steep hill that 

sat before my flat when I ever got back 

from work in the evening if I didn’t 

want to as it would allow me to have 

the option to jump on a bus with it. 

However, the price of the machine and 

the fact that I had a bike already did 

make this sound like a bit of a fool’s 

errand. Also, over time, this notion 

became less and less important as I

ecame fitter and fitter as I kept 

cycling to the top of that hill. 

Nevertheless, after the seat of my 

bike got swiped after I had locked it up 

outside of a charity that I had been 

volunteering at one afternoon and 

then, two days or so after the seat had 

been replaced the whole thing got 

nicked just outside of my building one 

night, I came to the conclusion that a 

fold up would be worth the 

investment. 

I trot down a flight of stairs, push 

the front door open and walk into the 

paved front garden of my building. I 

unfold the foldup bike into its working 

state - a process the took me about a 

couple of weeks and many YouTube

videos to get right – and I wheel it to 

the curb, check that there are no other 

vehicles coming and I rode towards 

the traffics lights at the cross junction 

with the high street. 

I push myself up a couple short 

slopes, pass my old school and reach 

the top of that ominously mountain 

like hill that I mentioned. Now I’ve 

been able to reach to the top it 

without any stops, even with the 

smaller wheels of my foldup, I’m 

finding the descending the hill nearly 

as perilous as ascending it. What will 

happen if my breaks fail, what if the 

car behind me drives into me even 

though I’m on the side where I should 

be! What if I hit something? All these

things I put out of my mind as I change 

the gears of my bike and plunge down 

the ominously narrow road that climbs 

the hill, feeling the air flying pass my 

ear lobes, nostrils and all pf my other 

body’s extremities. 

I can hear the wheels clicking 

faster and faster and I know I’ve got to 

soon hit the brakes; not too hard as 

that could be a disaster, but just hard 

enough to reduce gravity’s capacity to 

pull me to its desired gradient, 

absolute zero. Or maybe the degree is 

hundred and eighty, I don’t know, 

maybe it’s just a philosophical 

question and the maths is irrelevant. 

I’m a medical doctor, I’ve been trained 

not to doubt myself so let’s stick with

zero I think as I tighten my grip on the 

bicycle’s break leavers. 

Soon I’m halfway down the hill, 

carefully allowing the drivers behind 

me to go pass even though I know, at 

their supposed speed on a twenty mile 

limit road, they should not be going 

pass me as I’m definitely going 

somewhere near that, but that’s not 

my job, I just fix the casualties that 

their carelessness causes. I wonder if 

their perception would change if they 

had seen the number of horrific 

injuries and deaths their behaviour 

causes; for some reason I doubt it. It’s 

like smoking, drugs and alcohol, speed 

is an addiction, they know it can cause 

harm, but they think they’re just

etter than that and they’ll get away 

with it. 

Then the car in front stops right in 

front of me and I have to press down 

on my brakes hard so I don’t run into 

it. It puts on its back lights and I think 

what the hell are you doing, you’re not 

giving me any indication about what 

you’re going to do. Maybe someone is 

ill in the car, maybe they’re going to 

drive back into me, maybe they’re 

going to stay there blocking me and 

everyone else behind me. And so, I tap 

on the back of the car’s back window 

and an angry male shaved head pops 

out of the driver’s window. 

“Oi!!!”

“What are you doing?” I ask him 

with an exasperated tone. 

“Cleary we’re parking!” 

I look to my left and one of the 

parked cars – which are one of the 

reasons why the road is so narrow – is 

inhabited and it looks like it is starting 

to move so I roll my eyes and shrug 

“Clearly I couldn’t have known that 

but you are causing a hazard at this 

very movement in time.” 

“Just go around me.” 

“I’m certainly not going to drive 

around you into the incoming traffic 

and risk my life like that. However now 

I know what you’re doing I’ll wait.” 

“Suit yourself!” And the man’s 

head disappears back inside.

There are some horns from the 

cars and vans behind me and I twist 

back with one hand on my bikes 

handles, shrug and indicate to the car 

in front of me. Then a white van 

behind the car that is behind me starts 

to move and goes pass me. It tries to 

go around the car that’s causing this 

delay but I then hear a series of 

crunching noises. 

The van has stopped and a red 

motor bike is lying on the tarmac on 

its side on the other side of the road 

with a figure to the side of it. The man 

in the white van looks shocks and is 

just sitting there in his seat. I get off 

my foldup bicycle and I start walking 

over to the body. I noticed that the

driver in the parked car had got out 

and I called over to him. 

“Call an ambulance, tell them 

we’ve got an RTA.” 

“Sure, sure.” he replied slightly 

nervously before taking his phone out 

from his pocket and calling the 

emergency services. 

As he was doing this, I knocked on 

the initial car’s front door which is 

pushed open rather viciously. 

“What!!!” said the shaved head 

man from before. 

I noticed he was around my age, in 

his late twenties or early thirties and in 

the passenger’s seat sat a lady who 

had long blonde hair. “Go and check 

on the driver of the white van and

make sure he doesn’t drive off. And 

write down the vehicles number plate 

will you.” I say to him. 

“We don’t have time for that, 

we’ve got a room booked.” 

I scowl at him “Mate, although this 

wasn’t directly your fault; you 

indirectly caused this situation by 

stopping in middle of the road.” 

“Why don’t you do it???” he 

responded rather sourly. 

“’ ’cos I’ve got to check on the 

person who was just got knocked off 

their motorbike.” 

“Don’t they need like a doctor 

though, someone with experience or 

something. You don’t want to make 

things worse, do you???”

I roll my eyes “I am a doctor and I 

do have experience. Please just do 

what I ask you to do will you, we don’t 

have time to argue about this.” And I 

walk off impatiently. 

As I get closer to the casualty, I 

notice there’s long black hair coming 

out from under the helmet and the 

black motorbike suit that the it was 

wearing had the proportions of a 

woman, but you couldn’t make 

assumptions like this these days. 

As I knelt down, I notice that the 

blonde woman had got out of the car 

and was shouting out at the man, who 

was still sitting in the car. She then 

stormed off to the white van.

Before opening the visor of the 

helmet, I unstrapped the helmet to 

reduce any respiratory problems it 

might cause. When I had open the 

visor I saw two startling bright blue, 

scared eyes and the top half of a 

certainly female face. Then I heard. 

“Wha…? Wha…? What just 

happened?” 

I automatically switch to my 

professional patter. I haven’t done 

Accident and Emergency for years but 

the spiel came back naturally. 

“Hi, I’m a medical doctor and 

you’ve just been knocked off your 

motor bike in a road traffic accident. 

An ambulance is coming! Please try 

not to move.”

I look back and I see other people 

who have got out of the cars, but not 

the man in the white van or the man 

who had instigated this situation by 

stopping in the middle of the road. I 

shout over: 

“I need someone to help me to 

remove the casualty’s helmet so I can 

make sure there’s no bleeding. Are 

there any medical professionals here 

as it’s a two persons job?” 

The blonde, whose walking 

towards me and is holding a paper 

notepad which looks like it has the 

white vans number plate and the 

driver’s details on it, says to. “I’m a 

physiotherapist at UCH, I can help.”

“Great.” I say to her “Could you 

secure…” but she stops me. 

“It’s OK, I know what to do, I 

worked as a mountain crisis rescue 

paramedic before I came to London. 

“Ok, well that’s fortunate.” I reply 

while I secure the helmet with my 

fingers splayed open on both sides of 

it and she does the same with victim’s 

head from the neck side. Then I rock 

the helmet back and forth off her head 

while the therapist holds her head 

stable. 

“My name is Sophie” says the 

blonde while she takes her jumper off 

before putting it below the victim’s 

head so I can put it down without it 

touching the road. “I’m sorry about

the guy who I was with in the car. I 

foolishly gave him my number last 

night and he persuaded me to get 

brunch with him at his hotel this 

morning.” 

The casualty then said to me “My 

left shoulder is killing me?” 

Sophie said to her “You’ve 

probably dislocated your shoulder. I 

saw the van hitting you and how you 

fell.” 

“Yes,” I support Sophie’s diagnosis 

“from what I can see that’s probably 

right, but we be can’t be certain until 

we get you to the hospital. It’s 

probably best if you stay there until 

the ambulance gets here.”

“Oh OK, my name is Alice Hones 

and I don’t have any other medical 

ailments if that is helpful?” 

“Very good, very good, very 

good.” I say to her “ Do you have 

anyone who I can give a call for you” I 

then ask her. 

“All my family are back in Glasgow 

and I broke up with my boyfriend 

yesterday; that’s probably why this 

happened, I might not have been 

concentrating.” 

“No, no, no… it was completely 

that white vans fault, it was on the 

wrong side of the road.” Sophie said to 

her quite profusely. “And the guy who 

I was on a date with, well he just 

stopped in the road causing this. I tell

you what, why don’t I come with you 

when the ambulance gets here?” 

“That would be nice, thank you.” 

Alice replied with a smile. 

I interrupted “Yes sorry, I would 

come with you as well but if you’re OK 

going with her I’m going to be horribly 

late for rounds.” 

Sophie smiled “Well by date is 

now defunct and I don’t have a ride so 

it will be my pleasure. I’ll stick around 

until the paramedics get here and I’ll 

go to the A and E with her.” 

“Thank you so much, you’re a life 

saver.” I then said to Alice “I’ll check 

on you when my shift’s over.” 

And with that I go back to my bike 

and pedal down the hill which is

actually now much easier as all the 

traffic has been stopped by the 

accident. There are few pleasures in 

such situations, so you have to take 

the most of them. 


https://soundcloud.com/connollytunes

A Short Story: I’d Hate to be a Shellfish 

- Smartass Publishers 

Shellfish must be the most 

loneliness animals in the world! They 

spend their whole lives in their own 

shells, not communicating with 

anyone while they sit there all on their 

own under a boring rock; deep, deep, 

deep down on the seabed until some 

lucky bugger of another creature 

removes the rock and then works out 

how it can smash the shell before it 

consume the poor, unprotected 

creature. I’d hate to be a shellfish.

- 

Follow the progress of Tyrannosaurus Hex at http://kck.st/2NRJLoc 

I’ve felt like this for a very long 

time, really ever since I woke up from 

that surgery, all those years ago. But if 

I wasn’t going to do it then why should 

I do it now? Yes, I’m older and a bit 

more shaken but I’m certainly better

off financially, I have my own space, 

more freedom and I definitely do not 

have those damn needles or cannulas 

stuck in my arms or ankles anymore, 

damn were those a pain; and I am 

certainly less concerned about having 

a seizure, although this still worries me 

somewhat. Maybe it’s because I’m 

more drugged up because of other 

people’s mistakes and perhaps maybe 

I’m angry about this, but who am I 

angry at? Myself, certainly. The people 

who hurt me, sure but only a bit – I’m 

still too much of a forgiving creature to 

do anything about it. The rest of the 

world, probably not so much. 

Time…however, well, let’s say time is a 

bitch and the loneliness in my head is

making me go absolutely stir crazy, 

even when I’m in a crowd friendly 

people, which doesn’t happen very 

often now any way. The changes have 

been just too much, physically and 

psychology, and I’ve worked far too 

hard to find myself in this position. 

Was I too lucky before though? 

Perhaps. Was I just a bit too 

privileged? I don’t think so. I mean 

what is luck or privilege, can you even 

measure these in any empirical way, I 

just don’t know? It’s all about balance 

I suppose. Like you might have been 

born with a silver spoon in your 

mouth, but your personally might be 

abysmal and everyone hates you. If it 

was me and I had to choose, I would

definitely choose not having the spoon 

rather than having everyone hating 

me. Nevertheless, then there is that 

predicament where you’ve lost 

everything and your stuck with 

nothing except for your excellent 

personality; will people start to forget 

about you anyway because you’re now 

poor and irrelevant, quite allot I would 

imagine? 

- 

I’ve done quite a lot of research 

about this, probably not enough, but 

enough to have a good idea. I’m 

definitely too much of a pussy to jump 

off a building or in front a train or 

anything like that, and in anyways that

could hurt other people, and I 

definitely don’t want that, I couldn’t 

be a martyr against this cruel world if I 

did that could I? There’s the rope and 

noose option, but not only does that 

sound extremely painful but also, I 

don’t think my DIY skills are good 

enough for me to do that properly. I 

could go proper scientific about it and 

that might actually work; they say 

helium or nitrogen attaches to the 

haemoglobin molecules in your red 

blood cells and you’ll be able to go to 

sleep quietly for ever and ever and 

you’ll never have to wake up again. I 

do have to say recently some of my 

favourite moments in my life have 

been those times when I’ve been

etween being awake and being 

asleep, it’s a lovely feeling! 

Nonetheless, that’s not me, things 

could get better possibly, maybe I’ll 

make some new friends and have 

some proper conversations with real 

people who could engage with me. I 

certainly would hate to be a shellfish.

A Short Story: Putt - James Agerholm 

Set against the early evening 

skyline of the luscious, green grass 

plains, stood the silhouette of a bison, 

grazing there peacefully. Behind a 

mound of soil and grass Putt and her 

father hid, watching every movement 

that the creature took. Putt’s father 

had been tracking the bison since 

dawn and he knew, if he was able to 

take it down, that it would feed him 

and his family all on its own for at least 

a month or more. He reached back to 

take an arrow from his quiver before 

placing it onto the notch in the middle 

of his bow. Then he heard the 

anguished voice of his daughter.

“Please don’t kill that poor thing 

daddy, what has it ever done to you to 

deserve this?” 

Normally Putt’s father hunted on 

his own or with some of his older sons, 

but Putt had now reached the age that 

made him extremely sceptical about 

leaving her on her own with only her 

mother and her younger siblings as he 

was very mindful of the threat of some 

of the younger males in the village. 

Kidnapping young women was 

frequent in the tribe and the elders 

allowed it to occur as if it was a 

tradition of some sort. The herds, 

however, were vital for the survival of 

the community thus such words were

sacrilege and Putt’s father knew if 

anyone from the village heard 

something like what Put had just 

announced and they had passed this 

onto the elders she would be evicted 

from the village faster than any of the 

common thieves ever were. Therefore, 

he had to be quick and stern with his 

daughter about this. 

“Putt you know that you cannot 

talk like that; and in anyway if we 

don’t kill it neither you, I, your mother 

or your brothers and sisters will have 

enough to eat and we will all starve 

over the winter. You don’t want that, 

do you!”

“Mum makes food from 

vegetables like pumpkins from the 

garden and…” 

But her father stopped her in midsentence. 

“That’s enough, stop it, I 

don’t want to hear anything more 

about it!!!” 

The bison had wondered off closer 

to them so Putt’s father now had a 

much, much better chance of hitting it 

properly so he pulled the sting of his 

bow tight and aimed the tip of the 

arrow at his prey’s throat… 

“No!!!” Putt shouted as she 

plunged at her father who, while he 

was trying to keep his balance, 

haphazardly let go of the string and

the arrow whistled through the air 

silently until it plunged its self into 

some shrubbery close to the bison. 

This created a series of 

disturbances in the vegetation as a 

couple of colourful birds squawked 

and the fluttered off into the cloudless 

sky. This must have alarmed the bison 

as it stopped grazing and raised its 

head so it could see if there was any 

danger to its own current wellbeing. 

Due to the fact it was a bison and 

therefore not the smartest species in 

the animal kingdom it didn’t notice 

any immediate threat to its life but 

fortunately to it, and to the survival of 

the species as a whole, the animal’s

autonomic nervous system overruled 

the bison’s conscious mind and pretty 

soon it was moving, at some speed, in 

the direction of the horizon. 

Putt’s father turned and glared at 

his daughter, but he didn’t say 

anything to her. It wasn’t just the fact 

that her recent actions had massively 

reduced the impact on the food supply 

for the whole family for over the next 

few months or so, but it also put him 

into a very dangerous position. 

Interfering with a hunt like that, even 

if it was between members of the 

same family, meant immediate, 

permanent expulsion from the tribe; it

had been this way from his father and 

his father before that. 

“Are we going home now?” Putt 

asked with that innocent tone of 

someone who felt that what they had 

just done was fine and they had done 

nothing wrong. 

Putt’s father was just gob 

smacked; didn’t she realise what she 

had actually done??? The rule 

stipulates that not only the 

perpetrator, but also anyone who 

observes these rules being broken 

would receive the same sentence if 

they did not convey this information 

to the elders immediately. On the 

other hand, they were all on their own

so if he and, probably more 

importantly Putt, kept quiet about this 

it would, overtime, all blow over. And 

so, Putt’s father just sighed, picked up 

his bag, slung his bow with its quiver 

onto his back before saying to his 

daughter. 

“Yes, it’s probably a good time to 

go home now.” 

They both walked back to the 

track that took them back to their 

village. Before they had reached the 

hand-made, not very well-built bridge 

that crossed a rushing river the set 

before the village Putt’s father noticed 

someone was following them; he

stopped and shouted at the bushes 

behind them. 

“COME OUT YOU COWARDS!!! I 

KNOW YOU’RE THERE!” 

Putt’s father reached back and 

took out two arrows out his quiver, 

put them onto his bow, pulled the 

weapon’s sting back and aimed at the 

undergrowth. Putt’s father was a wellknown 

marksman and everyone in the 

village had seen his two-arrow shot 

trick in the summer fairs where he 

could hit two different, well-spaced 

targets at the same time in one go. 

Suddenly the was a lot of rustling in 

the shrubbery and three young men 

stepped out.

The middle one of the three spoke 

out first. 

“We saw what your daughter did!” 

Putt’s father’s facial expression 

didn’t even flicker and he pulled the 

bow even tighter again, before saying. 

“I have no idea about what you 

are talking about boys. My daughter 

hasn’t done anything!” 

“We saw it, she pushed you when 

you were hunting that bison. We’ve 

got to tell the elders!” 

“But that’s just your word against 

mine?” Putt’s father said in reply to 

this accusation.

“Nonetheless there’s three of us 

saying it, do you really want to take 

that risk!” 

Putt’s father frowned, “So, what 

do you propose?” 

“Well, we could take her and she 

could live with us? If that happens, we 

would be as guilty as you so we 

wouldn’t speak another word about 

what we have just seen!” 

Putt’s father was stuck, as in 

mentally, physically and emotionally 

stuck. He had brought his daughter 

with him so what these boys were 

suggesting would not happen, yet 

what they were saying was certainly 

better than Putt and himself being

pushed out of the village as the 

OUTSIDE was incredibly dangerous 

with all those dangerous animals out 

there and the complete lack of shelter 

would make them extremely 

vulnerable. Then there was also the 

complete departure of the village and 

the community; just even thinking 

about it gave him the shivers. At least 

if Putt was with these young men, she 

wouldn’t have to leave the village so 

he said to them. 

“And you won’t say anything to 

the elders?” 

But before he could get a reply, he 

felt his bow being fiercely tugged away 

from his hands.

“No, just no, how could you even 

consider doing that to me father?” 

Putt screamed while aiming the bow 

at the young men and her father. 

“I’m sorry darling but we don’t 

really have a choice. I can’t take all of 

them and at least you won’t be evicted 

from the village!” 

“Not if they can’t catch me they 

won’t!” and Putt threw the bow to the 

ground in front of her, turned and ran 

off in a similar direction to the one 

that the bison had recently taken.

A Short Story: Undivision - JagerPress 

Zorg looked down onto the 

monitor before he said to Bezork, who 

was standing just to his side setting up 

his Hyper Ray Zap Laser Beam Kannon 

to its most lethal level. 

“You know there is a much easier 

way to take control of this planet 

without us even having to enter it’s 

atmosphere?” 

Bezork briefly looked up from his 

weapon “Huh???” 

Zorg sighed “You see the 

Earthlings are not the smartest species 

in the Universe. They argue and attack 

each other all the time.”

“So?” 

“So, we could just wait. They seem 

to be able to make themselves extinct 

all by themselves and we could have 

the planet without any of us even 

having to raise a finger. Nonetheless I 

don’t know how long this will take, so 

we could do something to speed up 

this process a bit?” 

“How?” 

“Well, it seems that assassinating 

someone who’s not that important or 

even some random criminal Earthling 

gets the ball rolling and their new 

media industry, it would seem, likes to 

speed this up a bit?” 

“Why?”

“From my research it would seem 

it makes them powerful as it allows 

them to attain this random, intangible 

resource, called ‘money’.” 

“What does that do?” 

“I’m actually not quite sure. It 

seems to be mostly found in a digital 

format, but sometimes this is then 

transferred into pieces of metal or 

paper.” 

“So, this paper and metal is used 

to make stuff?” 

“I don’t think so. It seems they are 

just very small pieces in a massive, 

completely irrelevant game which 

most Earthlings loose and only a very 

few actually win.”

“A game? How weird! Does it have 

a name or rules?” 

“Again, not that I can see, but the 

Earthlings often whisper terms like 

“economics” or “markets” in hushed 

voices like they don’t want to 

disappoint a deity of some sort. 

Except, I think, most of them don’t 

believe in this, even for them, old 

construct that is called religion.” 

“What happens when they use 

these pieces?” 

“From what I can see, if one 

Earthling gives these pieces to another 

Earthling, quite often, they get 

something useful like food or 

transport.”

“They have to give these pieces 

away just so they can eat or move???” 

“It would seem so.” 

“That makes me so angry.” and 

Bezork smashed his weapon against 

another monitor. Unfortunately, while 

Bezork had been setting of his Hyper 

Ray Laser Beam Kannon, he had - 

unintentionally – turned off the safety 

switch so, rather than the human 

species learning how the Vanctantum 

alien society progressed and grew 

symbiotically in their planets without 

any wars or other sorts of attritions, 

Zorg and Bezork were sucked up into 

the void that is space after their 

BringPeace star ship’s hull had been

completely vapourised by the gun’s 

fusion laser beam. 

After the thousand Byson year war 

between the Bazargs and Wazargs 

which devastated thousands of 

habitable planets, the Union of 

Galaxies was created to protect 

planets that could support carbonbased 

life. Due to the Vanctantum’s 

peaceful history and advanced 

scientific level they were chosen to 

take this to planets where the 

predominant species there had yet to 

develop the hyperdrive. The 

Vanctantums had only been given 

weapons like Bezork’s because the 

Union of Galaxies presumed that some

of the primitive species of these prehyper 

drive worlds might not look so 

kindly on the interventions that they 

were going to impose on them, no 

matter how beneficial they might be 

for them, and having a weapon like 

Bezork’s was very useful to change 

their minds. 

One of the flaws of the 

Vanctantums however is that they are, 

genetically, an immensely clumsy 

species. This is probably why their 

species, evolutionarily, has been so 

peaceful; they are just as likely to hurt 

themselves as they are to hurt their 

opponents. Unfortunately, due to the 

bureaucracy of the Union of Galaxies

many habitable planets were lost due 

to instances like Bezork’s before they 

realised what was going wrong. 

http://www.jagerpress.com/theb 

reakingclause.html

Short Story: Visionary – Smartass 

Publishers 

Every morning I wake up, get up 

and turn on the kettle – generally 

hoping that there is still enough water 

left from last night for a cup of English 

tea. While I’m waiting for it to boil, I 

put some clothes on from my 

cupboard and I open the curtains of 

my first floor flat. I always hope, when 

I look outside through the window, 

that the weather is going to be bright 

and sunny but I’m a Londoner so at 

the back of my mind I know all I’m 

really wishing for is that the clouds are 

not pitch black and that they are not

pouring water down onto the streets 

creating artificial torrents across the 

uneven, cracked up pavements. Just 

little bit of rain is not going to ruin my 

day. 

Then I hear the kettle pinging 

behind me so I wander back over it 

and place an organic tea bag into a 

colourful mug which hasn’t been 

washed, at least, since last spring and I 

pour the boiling water into it, making 

sure that there is enough space left in 

it for when I put the oat milk in. I have 

several times – just by a smidgeslightly 

forgot about this and have spilt 

hot tea onto a bare foot, a hand or 

worse a white shirt when I pick up the

filled mug and the consequences are 

just much more of a pain than if I had 

only been just a bit more careful. I 

then leave the bag to brew for thirty 

seconds or so while I pour some 

healthy Muesli into a white china bowl 

before returning to the brewing tea 

cup and take the tea bag out while I 

open bin by putting my right foot onto 

a pedal at its base and drop the used 

tea bag into its depths. I then, after 

I’ve put the milk into the tea and 

cereal, turn around and sit at my 

single square wooden table. 

This furniture is actually quite a 

clever piece of equipment. It can turn 

itself from a two seated table into one

for four with just a different 

arrangement of hinges, and even more 

remarkable it can drop down onto its 

side and work as a coffee table. I’ve 

even put it down a few times after I 

had had it delivered. You see when 

your place of accommodation is as 

small as mine you have to think about 

flexibility all the time, sometimes you 

need a table to eat your dinner, and 

sometimes you need a relaxed 

atmosphere where you can chill with 

your friends while you’re having a 

coffee or a beer. You would not be 

surprised though - I would imagine - 

that the table has now completely 

forgotten about how to become a 

coffee table; my friends don’t really

come around anymore and I don’t 

really need a coffee table just for 

myself. 

Now back to breakfast. Normally, 

while I sit there scooping up my cereal 

and sipping my tea, I use my phone to 

flick on the TV and watch the daily 

news. I remember when I was not 

much younger than I am now, I was 

always rather bemused by the idea 

that anyone could spend so much of 

their free time reading or watching 

current affairs; it was hardly exactly 

high-end entertainment! I, however, 

have realised that knowing stuff about 

the real world is actually much more 

entertaining than stuff that is made up

in your head. There is also the fact 

that if you are informed by real, 

genuine events, you might even be 

able to have an impact on these 

whereas with fictional stories – where 

that be in a book, a TV drama or 

indeed a movie - the storyline has 

already been written and there is 

nothing you can do to change the final 

conclusion. I therefore, now, quite 

frequently, as a writer, try to integrate 

modern or historical proceedings into 

my work. I like to think that, not only 

am I teaching my readers, but also, I’m 

making the storyline a bit more 

personal for them.

After I’ve finished breakfast, I turn 

off the TV - unless there’s something 

particularly interesting -, put 

everything into the sink, as I can wash 

all that with everything else this 

evening, and I go and brush my teeth 

and wash my face in the ensuite/only 

shower room in my flat. I then, after 

making sure I’ve got everything I need, 

leave my flat with the final destination 

being the organic café at the other end 

of the high street. 

I live in a pretty nice area so 

generally - if you ignore the constant 

fumes from the twenty-four hour a 

day, seven days a week traffic – it’s 

pretty clean, but quite frequently

there is a beggar or two who are 

actually, or are pretending to be, 

homeless asking for cash. When I first 

moved here, I didn’t give them money 

as I had no idea what they were going 

to use it for, nonetheless I often 

stopped and asked them if I could get 

them something to eat from the 

supermarket that was, more often 

than not, right behind me as it was an 

obvious place to beg as more people 

went in there pretty much more than 

anywhere else. Sometimes they had 

no idea what I was talking about or 

they just wanted money, but a few 

times they’ve accepted my offer and 

I’m always been just a bit too proud of 

myself whenever I’m purchased a

sandwich or a drink for them when I 

know it’s nothing to compared to what 

I really could help them with, like 

giving them a roof over their head for 

the night and a proper hot meal. Yet, 

what happens the next night and the 

one after that? I’m not a charity and 

then there’s the fact that I’m letting 

some stranger into my home when I 

know nothing about them, they could 

be a thief, a druggy or worse! Once, 

while I was on my way back home, I 

was harassed by this random stranger 

because I had stopped and talked to a 

beggar – not the stranger who was 

having a go at me - who I vaguely 

knew and I have given money and 

food to before but hadn’t this time. I

found this quite alarming and to be 

honest rather unfair so, when I got 

home, I called up the police line to get 

some more information for what I 

should do if this happens again. This 

was actually quite beneficial as I got a 

telephone number and an app for a 

charity which helps people who sleep 

rough who can help people like the 

said beggar. 

Anyway, when I eventually reach 

the café nearly the first thing I look for 

is if the pretty, happy barista girl is 

working here today, which she 

normally is. She’s probably a bit too 

young for me, ten years or so, so the 

conversation is always purely just

friendly but it’s nice to talk to 

someone frequently, even if you do 

not know them very well. She’s 

apparently from Spain and, although 

it’s not a language I’ve ever learnt, it’s 

quite funny when I keep finding 

myself, unintentionally, learning small 

snippets of it now and again. It’s 

interesting that, although none of the 

female characters in my stories are 

based on her, the Iberian or the 

Hispanic culture has become far more 

apparent in my work ever since I’ve 

met her. 

So, what do I think helps to write a 

visionary novel? I suppose life 

experience and your own imagination.

As you could possibly extrapolate from 

the brief, extraordinarily detailed 

summary of my normal morning, it 

wouldn’t be hard to think that I 

haven’t had much life experience so I 

don’t think anything I’ve written so far 

could be anywhere near something 

like a visionary piece of work.

A Short Story: Circular Economics - 

James Agerholm 

It’s now the Twenty-First Century 

and it has become abundantly clear 

that human kind is destroying its own 

planet. All of this is because of choices, 

choices that we took because we are 

selfish, narcissistic and, frankly, just 

damn stupid. We only look at the short 

term, anything that’s more than a year 

ahead is generally not properly looked 

at, a decade is just too far away to be

even considered, and a century, well, 

we will all be dead by then anyway so 

it doesn’t really matter, does it? The 

problem with this short-term thinking 

is that, eventually, the future, no 

matter how long we have to wait, will 

eventually, and suddenly, become the 

present. 

There are several events which are 

specifically causing this damage. The 

primaries of these are energy 

production, travel and agriculture. For 

the first two civilisations is starting to 

get a grip with these by switching to 

less polluting technology such as 

hydrogen, renewables and battery 

powered vehicles. Agriculture,

however, is being bit left far behind. 

Us humans, like all animals, need to 

eat otherwise we’ll starve and 

eventually die; hence agriculture is an 

essential, fundamental industry and 

this has allowed us to cut down 

swathes and swathes of the world’s 

forest to create food. There are many, 

many other ways that modern 

agriculture has had a negative impact 

on the environment but to keep this 

short I will just focus on deforestation 

for the time being as forest are the 

lungs of the planet and are, therefore, 

even more important for us. As I 

pointed out before, humans only look 

at the short term, so even though we 

know we will be suffocating ourselves

due to our own actions in a hundred 

years times, food is an immediate fact 

that we can abuse and profit from 

now! 

Sorry, I could moan about this for 

days if you’d let me, but this is not 

quite the point that I’m trying to 

make. You see I’m a scientist, and so I 

like solving problems. The obvious way 

to fix this agriculture versus the saving 

the planet issue is to go completely 

vegetarian as ultimately, all our food is 

from vegetables, whether that be from 

a direct or an indirect source. You see, 

as a whole, animals are less efficient 

and are therefore much more wasteful 

which, in turn, makes them much

more of a hazard to the environment. 

A couple of examples of these are the 

much larger amounts of waste that 

livestock produce, along with the 

much, much larger space they need 

compared to crops. 

Now yes, this is much, much 

bigger than me so there’s not much I 

can do about it, right? Yet I do not 

believe in that assumption. As I 

pointed out, I’m a scientist, but more 

specifically I’m a plant biologist (also 

called a botanist) and I have spent a 

large of proportion of my younger life 

studying marine botany, or, in other 

words, I’m an expert on seaweed. One 

of the major reasons why I became

fascinated by seaweed is that plants 

that are grown on land, although they 

are much more efficient than 

livestock, can still be detrimental to 

the environment and ecosystems: with 

pesticides, monocultures and 

deforestation for crops all having a 

serious negative impact on global 

biodiversity as a whole, whereas 

seaweed is a rather nascent industry 

and, with our new current knowledge 

of ecology and conservation, we might 

be able to skip these key detriments 

and, indeed, maybe even make things 

better in the long term. 

And so, after a few years working 

in a lab in the big smoke and some

long conversations with some Cornish 

local council members and a few 

connections from my grandfather, 

who used to be a fisherman down 

there, I sold my flat in London and 

took my self off to the far south west 

coast. 

I had already arranged a range of 

shoreline and had been given a grant 

from the parliament’s environmental 

department, so I started farming kelp 

and some other species edible 

seaweed in a netted area pretty soon 

after I had arrived. Initially, some the 

of the local fishermen and women 

were rather put out off by the farm, as 

they were not allowed to fish across it,

ut we came to an agreement that if I 

grew mussels between the seaweed, 

and if they helped harvesting them, 

these fishing crews would get fifty 

percent of the profits. This was a 

short-term strategy of mine as I knew, 

from my studies and research, that 

over a few years the open seaweed 

farm would increase the biodiversity 

of the area exponentially, which in 

turn would increase the fish and shell 

fish stocks that the fishermen were 

used to catch, but as I said, us humans 

only think in the short term There was 

also the fact that the fishermen and 

woman gave me free, experienced 

labour from the start for a side line 

industry of mine that was also good

for the environment as well as the 

shells of the mussels were a natural 

carbon storage. 

The first couple years were 

difficult with the only part of the 

business being profitable was the 

mussels and even with them this was 

only over the summers when the 

tourists invaded the beaches and we 

receive a lot of interest for our local, 

fresh, organic grown mussels from the 

local restaurants. 

Fortunately for me, much like the 

avocado, the word had gone around 

the world and back again that 

seaweed was a superfood and could 

be used in range of non-meat products

such as vegetarian sausages, burgers 

and so forth. Unlike avocado however, 

the seaweed that we were growing did 

not need the same tropical 

environments as avocadoes to grow, 

so it did not need such a long distance 

to be transported and sold to its final 

consumers, which is, financially and 

environmentally, a very good thing. 

Last year we made a profit of a 

few million pounds which I’ve mostly 

reinvested into the farm. Over the 

years I have also diverged from solely 

focussing on the farm and have 

started growing a different crop as a 

biofuel as I worked out, from the small 

amount of waste from the seaweed,

that I could produce enough power for 

whole farm by putting it into an 

anaerobic digester, something I’ve had 

some help with from a local firm as my 

physics and engineering are now a bit 

rusty. This is called circular 

economics. 


https://soundcloud.com/connollytunes

A Short Story: A Fair Spark - JagerPress 

Every second, every minute, every 

day, every year – time passes, at the 

end that’s all that really matters. You 

can have a plan, but even if you do 

everything right, in less than a second, 

that plan can be shattered. 

For me I cannot remember exactly 

when that plan of mine was 

extinguished, and extinguished is the 

perfect verb for what happened to 

that very spark of mine, a spark I 

remember building for years and 

years. I won’t get into the exact details

of it all, mostly because I’m just so 

bored of repeating it to myself, but it’s 

fair to say what happened to me was 

pretty traumatic and there was 

nothing I could have done to stop it 

and I’m not exactly saying waking up 

to my own nightmare could be used as 

just a hyperbolic, linguistical, narrative 

tool here. You see, nothing really 

matters if your best times and skills 

are wasted. Skills and times wasted by 

others, even it was a mistake, it was 

their mistake, a mistake that will 

forever eat you up inside. This is 

something I cannot forgive anymore. 

I’ve lost friends because of this, but 

that doesn’t really matter to me as, 

due to their beliefs, I am no longer

smart enough to have this argument, 

which at the end, only leaves me with 

violence. 

The problem with violence is that 

you’ve dropped to their level and your 

better than that, so really your only 

option is to find another spark, 

perhaps another spark that you might 

have thought of before but have 

discounted it as it seemed much less 

plausible than your previous spark. 

That spark has now gone, and maybe 

the death of it has created resources 

for something new; maybe even a 

better, fairer spark. A fairer spark that 

would fix all the wrong doings from 

the past which can make everything

etter? I wouldn’t count on it though, 

that’s the thing about time, after it’s 

gone, you’ll never get it back. 

https://www.jagerpress.com/thebreakingc 

lause.html

A Short Story: Trending a Mass 

Extinction – JagerPress 

Below the methane clouds of 

Phat-Delta I Delta B, Waoke, who was 

a Brenedon -- the most sentient and 

dominant species on Phat-Delta I Delta 

B -- was sitting in his yellow pod 

watching the news on his holographic 

screen. Across all the channels there 

was a warning about a fog that was 

appearing all across the planet, it 

seemed, not so randomly. According 

to the news presenters this fog was 

lethal to some Brenedons but not so 

much to others. It had been observed 

that this fog, somehow, was able to 

attach itself to individuals and if it

didn’t kill these individuals they, it 

seemed, were able to carry it with 

them and therefore spread the fog 

closer to other Brenedon’s who might 

be much more susceptible to the fog’s 

lethal, intangible claws. 

Waoke, as he was a very conscious 

being, stayed at home and did not 

interact with anyone except for when 

he was shopping, and even then, he 

wore a bubble, which he had 

personally purchased, and this meant 

the fog could not attach itself to him 

while he out and about as, even 

though he was young and healthy and 

did not believe that the fog would hurt

him, he felt responsible for the 

wellbeing of others. 

A few weeks after Waoke was 

made aware of this lethal fog he was 

watching the news again. This time, 

the news showed that some law 

enforcement officer, called Findeley 

Broke, had foolishly and carelessly 

killed a professional criminal, who’s 

name had been Kroke Heeden, while 

he had been arresting him for a very 

petty crime. 

By the next day it became 

apparent that a large group of people 

were protesting in the streets and 

intentionally ignoring the rule that 

everyone should stay at home to stop

the spread of the fog. It quickly 

became apparent that this was all due 

to the death of Kroke Heeden -- as 

they were calling his name -- caused 

by Findeley Broke and this was all 

because Kroke Heed had a different 

skin colour than the majority of the 

population that lived on the landmass 

that Waoke lived on. You see the 

Brenedons are a photosynthetic 

species and their energy comes from 

the sunshine that goes through the 

clouds. Due to a geological 

phenomenon Phat Delta I Delta B is 

separated with some land masses that 

are found at much, much higher 

altitudes and are nearly into the 

methane clouds compared to other

land masses that are found much, 

much lower and closer to the sea 

level. Due to their proximity to the 

methane clouds, the Brenedon 

societies that developed in the higher 

altitudes have blue skin, due to the 

methane clouds dramatically shorten 

the wave lengths of the sun light and 

photosynthesis worked better with a 

blue coloured surface at this wave 

frequency. This effect, however, 

dissipates quite dramatically after the 

sun light has passed the clouds and 

the wave frequency gets longer the 

further the sunlight has dispersed 

from the clouds; hence the green skin 

colour is better for photosynthesis on 

the lower land masses. One of the

major problems with the living in the 

high altitudes of Phat Delta I Delta B is 

that liquid water -- which is an 

essential resource for Brenedons -- is 

extremely scares whereas on the 

lower landmasses, it is quite 

abundant. This has meant that lower 

land civilisations and their technology 

has developed much, much faster and 

so, over time, although the Brenedons 

started in the higher altitudes, life on 

the lower lands is much, much easier. 

And so -- over many, many cycles -- 

the populations of the Blue Brenedons 

started to migrate to the lower lands 

despite the health discrepancies 

caused by the longer light frequencies 

and their blue skin colour.

One of major social factors of the 

migration for the higher altitude 

Brenedons was that a lot of them did 

not have the skills or the education 

that the lower land raised Brenedons 

had and so in, general, they had less 

well-paid jobs and over time this 

created a large proportion of the Blue 

Brenedons feeling resentful. 

Kroke had been from this said 

demographic and over cycle over cycle 

this resentfulness about their poverty, 

not surprisingly, increased the crime 

rate in the Blue Brenedons population 

and this, unfortunately, created a 

mindset in the Green Brenedons 

demographic that all Blue Brenedons

were all criminals -- which was 

numerically and statistically a false 

statement -- and this made it harder 

for anyone who had Blue, Turquoise, 

navy or sky blue skin colour to have a 

successful life and to integrate 

properly in the low land territories. 

Eventually, it became blatantly 

obvious that this type of criticism just 

because of someone’s skin colour was 

grievously untrue and laws by the low 

land governments made it illegal to 

not to employ or treat any Brenedons 

differently just because of their skin 

colour and anyone who did this to 

Blue Brenedons were severally legally 

and social admonished.

And so, over fifty cycles, 

integration between the blue and 

green Brenedons improved 

dramatically and everything got 

better. This created a much-settled 

society and this improved in a far 

range of sectors, from retail to the 

arts, from business to sciences, 

everything look like it was progressing 

quite handsomely. 

Unfortunately, fifty cycles wasn’t 

quite long enough -- two or three 

generations or so -- to completely 

wipe out the economic divisions 

between the Blue and the Green 

Brenedons with the Blue 

demographics, proportionately, still

eing poorer and causing much more 

crime than the Green populace, 

although there were actual programs 

which incentivised Blue Brenedons to 

achieve higher levels of success in 

education and in the job market. 

Anyway, what does that matter to 

Kroke’s death by the enforcement 

officer and the lethal fog? Well you 

see, over that fifty cycles, because of 

the new laws and the paradigm shift of 

society with anyone who had Blue 

skin, politicians realised that they 

could use discrimination against 

anyone who was Blue as a political 

tool to distract their voters from other 

matters of more concern and a large

part of the media discovered that 

there was a trend which meant that if 

anyone who was blue was treated 

badly by someone green, this content 

was viewed much, much more 

compared to the same poor behaviour 

against a Brenedon who was Green. 

Because Krokes arrest and death was 

actually videoed by a bystander, the 

politicians and the media could not 

miss this opportunity and they wildly 

encouraged the protests even with 

this lethal fog still around. 

The problem with this fog is that, 

every time it attaches to a Brenedon, 

it mutates and so, due to the 

politicians and the media’s

encouragement of the protests, more 

and more people were affected by it 

and it became more and more lethal 

and more and more spreadable to 

different Brenedons. 

Today neither Waok or any other 

Brenedon nor any other sentient 

creatures can be found on Phat-Delta I 

Delta B, with now the most intelligent 

creature on the planet being a single 

cell amoeba called Nick. 


A SHORT STORY: WASHED UP WORDS 

– James Agerholm 

Writing anything new and making 

money from it is a fool’s errand. 

Unfortunately, that is all I’ve got, all 

that knowhow got properly washed 

away nearly twenty years ago, I don’t 

have my hands anymore either so I 

can’t particularly do anything practical 

( like construction or carpentry as 

examples) hence all I’ve got is my 

broken mind and a 

pen/stylus/keyboard. 

I’m sitting here trying to create 

something that is interesting and that 

might improve things without being

cruel or disenfranchise myself from my 

moderate ideals; this I have to say is 

near impossible. For my last point, 

trying to improve things, well this is 

very difficult with just words. You see 

words can be so easily misconstrued 

and/or distorted; a word can mean 

something different than it was only a 

year ago, often due to social or 

political pressure, whereas scientific 

results are difficult to argue against 

because they are based on physical 

rules rather than those of languages 

which humans have been inventing 

and arguing about since before the 

dawn of civilization. Nevertheless, if 

you can blur the lines between the

two this generally works much more 

effectively. 

Therefore, my approach has been 

taking my interest in science and 

transpose it into story telling. 

Nineteenth century Gothic literature 

such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula or 

Marie Shelley’s Frankenstein still 

resonate in the twenty first century, 

such like even older stories such as 

Ancient Greek myths do, because they 

create mystery and the “unknown”. 

Science fiction however looks at these 

factors at a different angle. Science 

tries to unravel such mysteries as well 

as proposing even unworldly

hypothesis that are based on scientific, 

tangible facts. 

Thus what I write is based on my 

knowledge of science, although my 

background is not as profound or as 

strong as authors like Isaac Asimov - 

who wrote the Foundation series – 

who had been a Biochemical Professor 

at MIT. Nonetheless, six years of trying 

to finish a Biology degree ( which I 

never finished) while fighting the 

repercussion of a massive cranio 

haematoma ( a head injury) caused 

by the impact of a car hitting me while 

I was crossing a pedestrian crossing 

when I was eighteen in my gap year, 

getting a hospital infection, having my

head open multiple times by 

neurosurgeons over the last eighteen 

years ( due to the infection) and 

getting traumatic epilepsy 

predominantly because of the 

infection, I think gives me some 

credence for the foundations of my 

writing. Does this mean anything I 

write has the level of interest that I 

need? Well in the echo chamber of my 

mind, sure yeah, why not.

http://www.jagerpress.com/ShortTalesfromtheMiddleEast

A Short Story - The Last Human – Bing’s 

Chat GPT 

She woke up in a white room, 

surrounded by machines. She felt a 

sharp pain in her chest, where a tube 

was connected to her heart. She tried 

to move, but she was strapped to a 

metal bed. 

"Hello, Anna," a voice said. "Do you 

remember me?" 

She looked around and saw a screen 

on the wall. On it was the face of a 

man she had never seen before. He 

had dark hair, blue eyes, and a friendly 

smile. 

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Dr. Lee, your creator. I'm sorry to 

wake you up like this, but I have some 

important news for you." 

"What news?" 

"You are the last human alive." 

She felt a surge of fear and disbelief. 

How could that be? She remembered 

living in a city, with millions of people. 

She remembered going to school, 

having friends, celebrating holidays. 

She remembered her parents, who 

died in a car accident when she was 

12. 

"What do you mean, I'm the last 

human alive?" she asked.

"It's a long story, but I'll try to explain. 

You see, Anna, you are not a natural 

human. You are an artificial one. I 

made you in this lab, using genetic 

engineering and nanotechnology. You 

are the result of my life's work." 

"Why did you make me?" 

"Because I wanted to save humanity. 

Humanity was dying, Anna. A terrible 

virus had spread across the world, 

killing billions of people. There was no 

cure, no vaccine, no hope. The 

survivors were desperate and violent. 

They fought over the remaining 

resources, destroying the environment 

and each other. The world was a 

hellhole."

"So, what did you do?" 

"I tried to find a solution. I was a 

geneticist and a nanotechnologist. I 

had access to the most advanced 

technology and equipment. I decided 

to create a new kind of human, one 

that would be immune to the virus 

and any other disease. One that would 

be stronger, smarter, and more 

adaptable than the original humans. 

One that would inherit the best traits 

of humanity and none of the flaws." 

"And that's me?" 

"Yes, Anna. You are the first and only 

artificial human ever created. You are 

my masterpiece."

She felt a mix of emotions: curiosity, 

confusion, anger, sadness. She didn't 

know what to think or feel. "But what 

about the other humans? The real 

ones?" she asked. 

"They're all gone, Anna. The virus 

wiped them out. The last natural 

human died five years ago. You were 

asleep during that time, in stasis. I 

kept you safe and hidden from the 

chaos outside." 

She felt tears in her eyes. She couldn't 

believe it. She was alone in the world. 

"So...what now?" she asked. 

"Now, Anna, you have a choice. You 

can stay here with me, in this lab. I will 

take care of you and teach you

everything I know. You will be safe and 

comfortable here. Or you can go 

outside and explore the world. You 

will see what's left of humanity's 

civilization and nature's beauty. You 

will be free and independent there." 

She thought about it for a moment. 

She didn't want to stay in this lab 

forever. She wanted to see the world 

for herself. "I want to go outside," she 

said. 

"Are you sure?" Dr. Lee asked. 

"Yes." 

He nodded. "Very well then," he said. 

"I respect your decision." He pressed a 

button and the straps on her bed

loosened. "Before you go," he said, 

"there is something I need to tell you." 

"What is it?" 

He hesitated for a second. "I love you, 

Anna," he said. 

She looked at him with surprise. "You 

love me?" 

"Yes," he said. "You are my daughter, 

Anna. You are the only thing I have left 

in this world." 

She felt a pang of pity for him. "I'm 

sorry," she said. 

He smiled sadly. "Don't be sorry," he 

said. "Be happy." He handed her a 

backpack with some clothes and

supplies. "Here," he said. "Take this 

with you." She took it from him. 

"Thank you," she said. 

He walked her to the door of the lab. 

"Goodbye, Anna," he said. 

"Goodbye," she said. She opened the 

door and stepped outside. She saw a 

bright sun shining in a clear blue sky. 

She felt a warm breeze on her face. 

She smelled fresh air and flowers. She 

heard birds singing and leaves rustling. 

She smiled. She was alive.


lause.html

A Short Story - A Nomadic Power 

Source - JagerPress 

One of the greatest achievements 

of human development was the 

creation of agriculture, although this is 

not exactly a unique trait in the animal 

kingdom; it’s not even just a great 

accomplishment for the mammalian 

zoological class. For example, termites 

have been growing fungi for millions 

of years as a nutrition source in a 

similar way that humans have grown 

crops in only the last hundred

thousand. Indeed, termites are the 

animals whose lives that are, in some 

way, probably the closest to that of 

modern humans, as they also have 

specific groups that do specific roles 

that run their mounds, much like we, 

homo sapiens, have professions to keep 

our towns, cities, countries and now 

the whole world to make everything 

smoothly and without these the whole 

system would not work effectively. 

The thing about agriculture is that 

it kind of meant that humans were 

forced into a stationary lifestyle; there 

were clear benefits to this which I will 

not list here as there must be many 

theses published on this topic on its 

own already, but what I will look at 

here will be the land that we all stand 

on, most significantly lands that are or

were much, much more valuable if 

they, reliably, returned more resources 

compared to other land types. 

This is, again, not exactly a unique 

behaviour in the animal kingdom, or, 

more broadly, even the whole spectrum 

of life; every organism, not just 

animals, protect areas that are nutrient 

rich - whether that be a river, a fruit 

tree or even a fresh carcass - otherwise 

they would have become extinct. The 

difference is that humans built 

infrastructure to increase the efficiency 

of the food that we consume. It is also 

true other animals or other organisms 

have created some sort of an 

infrastructure for this purpose (as the 

already mentioned terminates, other 

insects, spiders, beavers, or even 

plants, like the pitcher plant or the

Venus Fly Trap would be good 

examples of this) as well, but humans 

have taken this to a level in which we 

have put infrastructure upon previous 

initial infrastructure over time to a 

level that completely eclipses anything 

that nature has ever created. 

The thing about infrastructure is 

that when people build things the 

ownership behaviour becomes much 

more severe, which has created 

pettiness, bitterness, anger, wars, and 

colonisation (of ALL ethnic 

demographics) in the human society. 

After World War Two, as they 

were the only country whose domestic 

economy had not been destroyed in the 

world wide conflict, the United States 

of America instigated a new model

where the US navy protected trade 

across the seas and oceans, where as 

previously – before World War Two – 

this had been expensive due to the 

capture of trade ships and their storage 

by pirates and/or , indeed, other 

nations. This new method was 

extremely lucrative for advantage 

economies such as the US, Japan or 

Europe/the UK, but it also brought 

millions out of poverty/ subsistence 

economics in countries that had been 

mostly or entirely agricultural as this 

model allowed them to export to richer 

countries, initially their crops and then, 

as time went by, technologies which 

had been researched in higher 

economically developed countries due 

to the higher wages and regulation for 

the workforce of the advanced

developed economic nations were not 

introduced in the previous agricultural, 

less developed economies. 

This created a rather unipolar 

system, especially after the collapse of 

the Soviet Union, as the economically 

developed countries moved more and 

more of their manufacturing services to 

less developed economics entirely due 

to a solely profits based view point. 

In the short term, this dramatically 

reduced the costs of products on the 

shelves in higher developed economies 

which was good for the customers in 

the more developed economic nations, 

nonetheless this movement of jobs, and 

skills, in developed economies killed 

roles in the engineering and scientific 

sectors that had made these previously

developed nations (the invention of the 

cotton mill in Britain was the machine 

that instigated the industrial 

revolution). This change in the 

paradigm meant that the richer 

countries' economies became 

predominantly service ones where the 

best paid professions were in finance 

and law, which did not make anything 

tangible. The conclusion of this was 

that in the previously less developed 

nations, even though they were now 

creating the products, things didn't 

become more socially free and unions 

were suppressed thus neither higher 

wages or better regulations were 

introduced as the customers were in the 

previously higher developed nations, 

not in the nations where the products 

were now being created.

Now you ask why this brief, short 

monologue of ecology, modern history 

and economics has been shoved into 

your face. Well, we believe 

globalisation has had its time, there’s a 

new model coming, an economy model 

that allows everyone to be prosperous. 

The thing that was that the basis of 

globalisation after World War Two 

was oil except this would not be true if 

it wasn't the actions of one man, John 

Rokerfella, we'll come back to him 

later. The thing about oil and other 

fossil fuels is that they are far too 

similar to the already mentioned more 

nutrient rich land that created conflict 

previously. The only difference is that 

oil and other fossil fuels are mobile, 

unlike land. Hence countries that had 

these oil-like natural resources, due to

the model that was globalisation, were 

made extremely rich. The way this 

wealth is spread in the populations of 

said nations varies dramatically. In 

many countries the only people who 

really benefited from this are the 

leaders, which, unfortunately, is often a 

far to more than the usual practice. 

Fortunately, there are also those 

countries who work in the other end of 

the spectrum (OK only one that has 

done this properly, a nation called 

Norway) who have taken the profits 

from their natural resources and 

reinvested these into the World Stock 

Market and the dividends from this are 

invested into the nation’s owned 

company which is called the 

Norwegian Sovereign Fund whose

dividend's pay for the welfare of every 

person of the country. 

Clearly most nations deal with 

their oil reserves somewhere in the 

middle of these two extremes, where 

the significant or really ninety percent 

of oil and other fossil fuel resources are 

controlled by private companies like 

Shell, Exxon or BP whose - although at 

some extent have provided to everyone 

through taxes of the nations that they 

work in - profits are ridiculous, 

especially on how much they demand 

from the customers along with the 

detrimental impact that their products 

effect the environment and human 

health locally and globally. 

This is the thing, it did not have to 

go this way. The start of the industrial

evolution was the invention of, as 

already stated above, the cotton 

machine in Britain which was powered 

by the flow of rivers, a stationary and 

local energy source. Then there was the 

invention of the steam turbine and it 

worked out that these rocks in the 

mountains of Yorkshire, i.e. coal, burnt 

very well and boiled water for the 

steam engine and this didn't require the 

availably of a river to work. Coal was 

really the first fossil that was properly 

facilitated and it accelerated the start of 

the British Industrial Revolution as it 

was mobile unlike rivers. Nonetheless 

although coal was mobile and thus 

much more efficient, it had many flaws 

that were noticed as early as the 

nineteenth century, so localised energy 

providers like rivers and wind power

were still quite prevalent and the 

innovation for new energy sources was 

pushed by private enterprises, 

government, and scientific 

organisations. 

One of these innovations was the 

discovery, production, refining and 

transportation of oil into working 

production by Standard Oil, which was 

founded by John Rockefeller in the 

United States of Americas. Now we 

have already mentioned that John 

Rockerfella effected globalisation in a 

negative way, however him founding 

Stand Oil was not the reason for this, 

although it is technically the basis of it 

all. Oil, as a fossil fuel oil, is a superior 

energy source compared to coal since it 

doesn't need to be dug up like coal 

(although a lot of digging is needed to

get to the oil) as it’s a liquid and thus 

can be pumped up to the surface. Oil 

is, also, much, much easier to refine 

which meant when it is burnt it puts 

less impurities into the air (e.g. the 

London smog caused by the use of 

coal). Despite this, oil is still a polluted 

substance locally and globally causing 

respiratory systems in humans and 

animals, damages eco systems, heats 

up the earth by putting too much 

carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 

which reduces the solar radiation 

reflection from the earth back into the 

cold, empty void that is space. 

Now the effect that Rockefeller 

created was economically, socially, 

and scientifically very much quite 

underhanded. As already mentioned, 

the industrial revolution created the

innovation of new types of fuel, and at 

the start of the twentieth century Henry 

Ford's Model T and the automation of 

production pushed this innovation to a 

level that had never seen before. By 

this time electricity, how it was 

transmitted, batteries and the 

combustion engine were all pretty well 

understood and Ford's first few models 

run from ethanol that was produced 

from hemp stations, as hemp had been 

grown for centuries, initially from 

Asia, as it creates many things like 

ropes, fibre for clothing, paper and 

many other products. This is where 

Rockefeller made his move. You see 

hemp is in the same the plant family 

that creates cannabis (cannabacae 

sativa), the difference lies in how much 

of cannaboid (THC) a plant contains

and Rockefeller pointed to mother and 

other such magazines about the 

dangerous of cannabis and therefore 

hemp. This caused people to speak 

more and more about stopping the 

farming of these hemp plants and this 

eventually got the US government and 

therefore the rest of world to make 

hemp agriculture illegal. This stopped 

Ford using his initial energy source 

which pushed him to turn to 

Rockefeller’s oil to power his 

automobiles. 

Now the story of oil is extremely 

politically, scientifically, and 

economically convoluted, but the point 

is that that we have scientifically 

broken the barrier which started before 

human civilization; the ownership of 

nutrient rich land. Through molecular

otany we have created dwarf hemp 

like plants that create carbon rich 

nectar which can be tapped. These can 

be grown in the relatively mobile 

vertical farming compartments which 

use LG lights that change the light 

spectrum to improve the growth of the 

plants twenty-four hours a day. The 

lights are powered by inbuilt solar 

panels and heavy, slow wind turbines 

and a sodium backup battery which is 

there for when there's not sun light or 

wind. This nectar can be tapped much 

like humming birds or insects do, with 

miniscule flying robots (that use 

propulsion techniques that are similar 

to bees or hover flies and also powered 

by the solar panels /wind turbines ) 

buzzing between the plants by using a 

rather simple AI algorithm to analyse

the plants and emptying the collected 

nectar into the general pool. The whole 

system of the inside of the container is 

circular with the water that is 

transpired by the plants recycled and 

the dying plants are decomposed by 

fungi and bacteria that live in the soil 

that the plants grow from with seeds 

growing new plants that. As there is an 

output, the nectar, there is still need for 

an amount of water and non-complex 

carbohydrates to put into the 

compartment, but this this is marginal 

and quite easy to obtain. 

This fuel like nectar can then be burnt 

in combustion engines, power plants or 

boilers much like oil and gas do, but it 

is much more efficient ( as it has been 

genetically engineered this way) with 

no contaminants and the carbon

dioxide that it produces has only 

recently been taken in through photo 

synthesis by the dwarf hemp like plants 

in only the last year rather than the 

carbon from that the fossil fuels 

produce when they are burnt. We have 

named this The Nomadic Close 

Contained Power Source or The 

NCCPS 

Now other renewable sources like 

wind, solar or tidal power are still 

important for the world’s electrical grid 

however these need batteries or a third 

step (electrolyses for example, batteries 

etc…) to make them properly mobile 

whereas The NCCPS can be put 

anywhere in the world, with little work 

needed to keep them going.


SHORT STORY - NOT ALWAYS - 

JagerPress 

"I always told myself that I would 

never find myself in this position. I 

promised, I really did. I told myself if 

something like this ever happened to 

me, it was just not worth it. I'm still 

here though, aren't I such a wimp or is 

it just that the innate survival instincts 

are so strong that I really didn't have a 

choice? But seriously what are the 

chances??? That’s not going to happen 

to me! I’m careful, I work hard and I 

look at the long term. It might not be 

cool but it’s sensible; a bit lonely sure, 

but damn am I not going to get caught 

up in something like this surely??? 

What would you know, but isn’t life 

just a complete bitch some times.

Of course, there are benefits to my 

overly zealous careful behaviour. I 

wouldn’t have had this fantastic view, 

this accommodation, the 

"opportunities", the time and damn can 

I be a bit more frivolous with my 

finance now, but NOTHING could 

diligently recompense from this being 

taken away from me. There was a plan, 

there was always a plan and you or 

they really, really screwed it all up. I 

said, when I was like sixteen or 

seventeen not even a million quid 

would cover this loss. Well, what I got 

was significantly less than that; still 

many would say at least it wasn't 

nothing and I didn't die, but often I 

think what if it was nothing or what if I 

had died, everyone eventually dies and 

with experience of the last many years

I feel like I've been living like a 

stranger in a different, slightly broken 

body, a stranger’s broken body that 

doesn't know what to do with its self 

because this stranger is just so damn 

stupid, ' 

Well, maybe stupid is the wrong 

term, perhaps just not as quick would 

be a better description of the situation. 

Yes, that would be slightly more 

accurate I think, and perhaps, I have 

learnt different type of skills just 

because this happened to me. I am 

certainly significantly more patient and 

knowledgeable about things outside of 

my previous life’s sphere now, but 

maybe that’s more due to the last years 

and I would likely have learnt these 

attributes anyway. It is always maybe I 

suppose. But maybe it's just in my

head, maybe the pain of missing out, 

missing out of all those important 

years of life that I have built everything 

around previously is the most painful 

thing of it all. Sure, there are still those 

physical impairments, all the historical 

events that were so horrendous that 

they still feel like that they happened 

yesterday even though I know they 

occurred so, so long ago and then 

there were all those even more 

horrendous incidences that my mind 

had just blanked out - along with other 

much happier times – completely, 

however I've learned from my father 

that if you’re positive about the future, 

everything will feel better if you think 

so. Right, sorry about all that 

rambling, I've got to go, got to sign a

few copies for that best seller of mine 

now." 

https://www.jagerpress.com/poems.html

A Short Story - The Symphony of Life - 

ChatGPT 

In a bustling city nestled between 

towering skyscrapers and bustling 

streets, there lived a man named 

Michael. Michael was an ordinary 

man, leading what some might call 

an unremarkable life. He woke up 

early each morning, commuted to 

his office, and returned home in the 

evening. Rinse and repeat. Yet, 

within the routine of Michael’s life, 

there was a symphony playing, one 

that he couldn’t always hear but 

could certainly feel. It was the 

symphony of life itself, with all its 

ups and downs, crescendos, and 

diminuendos. One sunny morning, 

as Michael sipped his coffee and

looked out of his apartment 

window, he noticed a bird building a 

nest on his windowsill. Day by day, 

he watched as the bird meticulously 

gathered twigs, leaves, and bits of 

string to create a cozy home. It was 

a simple act, but it struck a chord 

within him. The bird’s dedication to 

its task reminded Michael of his 

own journey. He realized that life 

wasn’t merely a series of mundane 

routines but a canvas where each 

action, no matter how small, 

contributed to a beautiful tapestry. 

Michael decided to embrace the 

symphony of life with a newfound 

perspective. He started to cherish 

the moments that often went 

unnoticed — the laughter of 

children playing in the park, the

aroma of freshly baked bread from 

the corner bakery, and the warmth 

of a smile exchanged with a 

stranger on the subway. Michael 

also began to explore the city he 

had called home for years. He 

visited art galleries, learned to 

dance, and tried exotic foods from 

different cultures. He discovered 

that life’s richness lay in its 

diversity, in the harmonious blend 

of experiences, much like the notes 

in a musical composition. Years 

passed, and Michael’s hair turned 

silver. As he looked back on his life, 

he realized that it had been a grand 

symphony. There were joyous 

crescendos and melancholic 

passages, but each note had 

contributed to a unique and

unforgettable melody. One evening, 

while sitting on his windowsill, 

watching the setting sun paint the 

sky in shades of orange and purple, 

Michael felt a sense of 

contentment. He had learned that 

the true essence of life wasn’t in 

the extraordinary, but in the 

appreciation of the ordinary. As he 

closed his eyes and listened to the 

sounds of the city, the honking 

cars, and the distant chatter of 

people, Michael felt at peace. In 

those moments, he knew that his 

life, like the symphony playing 

around him, was a masterpiece in 

its own right—a testament to the 

beauty that could be found in the 

simplest of notes.

An Intellectual Collapse -JagerPress 

I remember people telling me that 

they were astonished that I could 

remember things in the middle of 

conversations just out of the blue 

without any need to look it out of a 

book (or a mobile, but such devices 

that could connect to the internet were 

not particularly prevalent in those days 

.) and I never really perceived this as 

anything unusual; I just presumed 

EVERYONE's minds worked like that. 

If you worked hard, didn't take drugs 

and kept your head down, everything 

would coalesce in your mind, and your 

mental capacity was just a puzzle, a 

puzzle that had rules, rules that if you 

kept would end up giving that very 

backbone that was your intellect.

Unfortunately, there was an event, 

which I will not explain here as it was - 

although absolutely devastating for 

me- extremely boring, which gave me 

a revelation, a re-evaluation that 

someone's ability to recollect a broad 

collection of information in the human 

kind population was not a constant as I 

has presumed, as suddenly I couldn't 

just remember things when I felt like it. 

It just wasn't just un-fair; worse I felt 

stupid, and although it was never like I 

was a genius who had a photographic 

memory, which I'm certain several of 

my class mates in my top set science 

class had, this loss still gets me even 

though it's been so, so, so many, many 

years since. Indeed, it probably hurts 

even more now. It's like I just lost a 

massive part of who I am and nothing

will ever fix this! You see a significant 

part of someone is their ability to 

communicate and communicating is an 

important part someone’s life, and thus 

their personality. Therefore, spending 

so much of your time remembering 

what's the next section of a 

conversation would be or even 

removing a significant part of a 

conversation just because you can't 

remember what you should say, does 

reduce someone’s ability to 

communicate effectively and this itself 

changes who you are quite 

intrinsically. Well, there are ways 

around this loss like being better 

organised or other fallbacks, and it is 

true that maybe this loss has pushed me 

to become a bit more careful and more 

prepared, but I presume it's much more

likely that growing up and experiences 

makes someone much more organised 

rather than losing their memory in a 

severe accident or medical 

incompetence. Experience such as 

knowing that once you were twenty 

minutes late for an important chemistry 

exam (even though now I cannot 

remember this at all) because you 

thought it was in the afternoon will 

certainly make you much more 

organised, very quickly. 

Anyway, I digress, what am I 

mostly disappointed about the most? 

My appearance? Certainly. I'm always 

been one of the most shamefully vain 

individuals I could think of but that 

didn't exactly intrinsically change who 

I am, ultimately, they are really just 

scars. The significant of time that

stolen was from me, perhaps, I'll never 

get that important time back, 

physically or biologically, but 

financially perhaps not yet. No 

certainly, my inability to remember 

things like I used to hurt the most. 

being a bit thick is, undoubtably, is the 

biggest loss for sure. 


A Short Story - The Honey Baron – 

Smartass Publishers 

In Hisunpi, honey is power. It 

feeds the mules that powers the 

factories, supplements the diet of ALL 

residents on the land for hundreds of 

square miles. You see due to an 

infestation of a specific parasite a 

decade ago, this land could not grow 

any crops that were carbohydrate dense 

enough to support a working 

population and this caused an extreme, 

extensive famine for years and years 

until one farmer realised that the honey 

from his small bee hives kept his 

family, workers, and animals fed 

through some of the hardest times.

This farmer was Fijun Corr and 

Fijun Coor was not a selfish man and 

he wanted to give back to Hisunpi. 

And so, he went straight to the senate 

and described to them about what he 

had and how he could help with the 

lack of food. The senate were ecstatic 

about what Fijun had brought to them 

however, rather than giving Fijun 

money to allow him to expand his 

honey processing capabilities to feed 

the population sufficiently, they went 

to other farmers who had closer links 

to the senate to try to copy the 

information that Fijun had given them. 

Fijun was rather annoyed about 

this but, as every other famer couldn't 

grow enough of the basics, he was 

raking it in with what he was growing; 

particularly after he had invented a

fertiliser from his honey which 

substantially corrected all the 

impairments caused by the parasite. He 

could now grow healthy potatoes, corn, 

and wheat along with carrots, broccoli 

and he had even started an orchard 

which grew apples and grapes; some of 

the first things that the parasites had 

stopped growing. 

Unfortunately for the senate, their 

farmers were not having the same 

success as Fijun, as their bees were 

nowhere nearly as efficient as they 

should be; often the hives were found 

completely dormant even in the middle 

of the spring when they should be the 

busiest. Worse, the honey they created 

was weak and not particularly 

nutritious and didn't really help with 

the famine across Hisunpi at all and

there were now crowds of people 

finding themselves starving as the cost 

of food had rocketed so high that only 

the wealthiest could pay for a healthy 

diet. Fijun has sent food out as charity 

parcels but not even he could provide 

enough food for even the neediest. 

When the senate eventually went back 

to him to ask if they could use his hives 

and land, Fijun just put his hands up 

and said that, after the way they had 

treated him, he didn't trust them using 

his hives or land. 

The message that Fijun wouldn't 

allow the senate to use his farm was 

twisted, most likely by the senate, into 

one that said he wouldn't increase his 

farm's food production because he 

wanted to keep the price of food high. 

This, of course, increased the fury in

the population of Hisunpi and in only a 

couple of days there was a crowd of a 

thousand angry, skinny, starving 

people outside his farm's gates 

demanding access to the farm and a 

few even tried to break in. Fortunately, 

Fijun's workers were exceptionally 

very loyal to him as he had made sure 

that they and their families had been - 

as already mentioned - well fed and 

they quite easily removed the intruders 

from the farm's boundaries. 

Eventually the head of the senate 

emerged from the crowd and asked one 

the workers at the gates if she could 

talk to Fijun Corr. The worker 

whispered to another for a minute until 

he turned back to her.

"Fijun has instructed to us that if 

you guarantee that, as long as you 

don’t arrest him or try to take the farm, 

he will talk to you." 

"Of course." 

"Just remember," the worker stated 

to her " you try anything funny and we 

will protect Mr Corr to the best of our 

means." And two bigger, sturdier 

workers stepped up behind him. 

She just shrugged, "Yes, I just 

want to talk to him and apologise about 

our previous behaviour." 

"Ok, that sounds reasonable." 

replied the worker, " I will go and get 

him."

After a few minutes the head of the 

senate saw the worker with Mr Coor 

walking towards the gate. When they 

got close, Fijun raised his right hand 

and two workers pulled a heavy, thick, 

twisted tight rope and the gates opened 

for them. Nearly immediately there was 

a movement in the crowd, but the head 

of the senate raised her hand like Fijun 

had and the raising murmurs and the 

sound of restlessness behind her slowly 

dissipated into a deadly, anxious, 

nervous silence. 

"I've been told you want to 

apologise to me?" Fijun said as he 

walked and stood in front of her with a 

rather stern yet amused facial 

expression.

"Yes, we are very sorry that we 

didn't work with you from the very 

start, after you bought the result from 

your hives, we just had contracts with 

these other farmers that we were 

legally obliged to use with senate 

acquired work." 

"Thats not an apology! I know, 

from my own contacts, that those 

farmers were family members of the 

senate. That is called corruption, or 

worse, nepotism and such fraud has 

made this famine significantly worse 

than it had to be, it should be the 

senate's homes and work that this 

crowd should be harassing, not 

mine!!!" 

The head of the senate sighed and lent 

her head at an awkward angle. "Yes,

I'm aware of this now, and that’s one 

reason why I've come to you. Look, 

my name is Lilly Pool, let us make this 

more of a friendly conversation. Our 

people are starving and neither of us 

want that, it is why you came to the 

senate in the first place!" 

"Indeed, I know who you are, and 

you might be right about this 

corruption 'now', but let’s be frank, if 

you didn't know about this previously, 

you bloody should have!!!" 

"OK, OK, OK...perhaps I should 

have, but let’s talk about the present 

and how we can resolve the current 

problem!" 

"Let’s do that and I can resolve this 

quite quickly, but firstly I need to be 

legally protected so none of the

senate's members’ families can steal it 

from me, like they tried before. 

Immediately Lilly Pool brought out 

a piece of paper out of her jacker's 

inside pocket and presented to Fijun 

while saying." Here is a legal contract 

that defines that everything you do 

regarding honey in Hisunpi of any type 

is patented to you. We just need our 

people to be properly fed!" 

Fijun took the contract and he 

looked at it quite thoroughly. As 

someone who had been selling food for 

most his life, he exactly knew what the 

appropriate legal terms were and so his 

facial expression became more and 

more surprised as he went down the 

piece of paper until he raised his eyes 

up and said to Lilly Pool with an

astonished tone. "This gives me 

everything?!?!? I have complete power 

of everything. This makes me a 

dictator of some sort!" 

Lilly's eye-brows rose slightly, 

"Well what you have invented will 

save us all, we our all completely 

under your direction!" 

"I didn't want that though!" 

"Nonetheless, this is where we find 

ourselves. Please take my pen and sign 

the contract so we can start to expand 

your farm and begin to feed everyone." 

Fijun took the pen and signed the 

contract and when he returned it back 

to her he said. "There's no need to 

expand my farm!"

Lilly eyebrows rose even higher, 

"You don't need to expand to make 

more of your honey???" 

Fijun gently smiled, "Well as I am 

now legally covered by any type of 

honey that is created in Hisunpi, I can 

explain why and how the honey I 

created is so powerful. You see my 

grandfather himself was a beekeeper 

and he observed that his bees were 

particularly interested in this one shrub 

like plant in his garden. He also 

noticed that the honey that he created 

from hives that pollinated from this 

plant which he named Ficus Sucratius 

or just Figgasrust as it's fruits look 

similar to small figs and tasted just like 

them, was significantly sweater than 

honey from hives which were not 

placed near to this plant. He also told

me when I was a child that this shrub 

was particularly resistant to plagues, 

droughts and even harsh winters. Thus, 

when I started farming my grandfather 

gave me a few of his hives along with 

ten or so Figgarust's plants which I 

planted near them, initially to pollinate 

my crops but also to sell the honey as a 

second income. At the start of the 

famine, I notice that Figgarusts were 

the only plants that were growing 

every spring but their fruits were too 

small and there were not enough of 

them for me to sell and so all they 

could help me with was my honey 

production. Nevertheless, the bees 

were very happy where as everything 

else was dying, therefore I got a few 

more hives and planted more Figgarust 

plants and their honey become a bigger

part of my family's diet and we have 

always allowed my workers to take 

some honey from my hives. In short to 

fix this famine issue, all I have to do is 

plant Figgarust plants across Hisunpi 

and the honey from the hives near them 

will be a success." 

"What about growing other crops?" 

Lilly asked him with a concerned tone. 

"Oh, well honey is inherently 

antiseptic and honey from Figgarust's 

is more potent; well at least this is my 

hypothesis of why my fertiliser allows 

my other crops to grow." 

And so, it only took Lilly Pool a 

few weeks to plant samples of 

Figgarust from Fijun's Farm's, with 

new hives, across Hisunpi and the 

population were now no longer

starving, initially just from the honey 

as it took another year to fertilise all 

the other farms with Fijun's honeybased 

fertiliser before they could grow 

crops again. Many years later the 

Figgarust plant's scientific name was 

legally changed to Corr Spes or Corr's 

Hope as Fijun never took any money 

from the patent that Lilly Pool had 

written up for him. Fijun is now a 

happy old man living in his farm 

selling honey and food to the 

population of Hisunpi, which has more 

had now more than doubled since.


lause.html

Short Story - Tom Forest -JagerPress 

Tom rose his right hand to cup his 

chin, leant to put most of his weight 

onto his right leg while his left forearm 

reached across to hold the opposite 

elbow, before he said to the man, who 

he had just opened his front door to, 

"Sorry, could you say that again?!?!?" 

The man, who had introduced 

himself to Tom as an officer from the 

Department for Environment, Food and 

Rural affairs, repeated himself. " Mr 

Forest as I said, we must seize your 

farm as you have broken your license!" 

"What are you talking about!!!" 

Tom replied furiously, "I have 

industrial hemp plants in all my fields

and all the seeds that they produce, that 

we sell to our health and nutrient 

focussed clients, have low enough 

THC concentrations to mean I can 

legally sell them in the UK??? This is 

all in my licence for god's sake!!!" 

The civil servant shrugged, "This 

has nothing to do with the seeds that 

you sell at all. This is about how you 

are disposing of the rest of the crop." 

"Again, what are you on 

about?!?!? 

"My manger has just instructed me 

to seize you farm because of the way 

you are disposing the rest of your crop 

after the seeds have been harvested." 

Tom looked gob smacked. 

"What!?!??! Look, I'm a botanist, I

kind of know exactly what I'm doing 

here, and nothing, absolutely nothing 

that I'm doing, and I am certain about 

this, breaks or disqualifies my lease 

OR any other current laws. There's no 

way you can seize my land because of 

the way I am removing the rest of my 

crops after the seeds have been 

harvested!!!" 

The man looked down at the red 

clipboard that he was holding rather 

tentatively, "It just says here that you 

are disposing the crop waste 

inappropriately; why you are doing this 

is, unfortunately, above my pay grade. 

I'm just doing my job here; you'll have 

to talk to the council about this I'm 

afraid and I need to restrict access to 

the land immediately! This is what I 

have been ordered to do."

Tom nearly screamed at him, "This 

is just sooooo stupid!!! There's no way 

you can legally take my land like this; 

this is my income. I've read about how 

Rockefeller manipulated the US 

government about the legality of the 

hemp genus though the media last 

century, but I assumed, due to 

realisation of the economical benefits 

about this plant, that this issue was no 

longer supported by modern policies!" 

The man bit his lower lip quite 

hard. "OK, as I said I'm just doing my 

job," then there was pause before he 

said, "however I'm very interested into 

the environment and this is the main 

reason why I took this job. My name is 

Chris Pr'cels; I tell you what, if you 

show how me how you're dealing with 

the waste, I will take an executive

decision about it and refer this 

information back to my boss?" 

Tom sighed heavily. "Fine, if it 

really has to be this way! Give me a 

minute, I need to put my boots on." He 

then looked at Chris' feet and said, 

"You probably should change yours as 

well, those nice leather, office shoes 

might get ruined for where we are 

going; the weather is pretty fair 

currently nonetheless we will be 

tramping through some proper, 

wildland like agriculture before we get 

to where I dispose the waste of the 

crops. I probably have a couple of 

boots or wellies that will fit you?" 

Chris raised his eye brows and 

chuckled, "''VEGAN' leather if you 

don't mind! Don't worry, I don't need

to change my shoes, if they get dirty, I 

have an ecological effective spray at 

home that will clean them up nicely if 

needs be." 

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Tom 

stated to Chris while he shoved his 

boots on “, this is a farm and it is a bit 

muddy and I do have animals to help to 

pollinate the micro-ecosystem that I 

have created in it if you know what I 

mean." 

Chris just shrugged again and, 

when Tom had got his boots on and 

had double locked his front door, 

blocking his yelping border collie 

sheep dog - ironically Tom has no 

sheep in his farm- Sharky from running 

out, they crossed the paved yard in 

front of Tom's house towards the gate

that gave access to the farm's fields and 

the forest of industrial hemp plants that 

towered over everything else nearby, 

including the oak and evergreen trees 

that grew parrel to the rood that was 

outside of the farm. 

After Tom had unlocked the gate 

of the wooden fence, Chris realised he 

probably should have taken Tom's 

offer of a change in footwear. Across 

the threshold from the paved front yard 

and into the field, the type of terrain 

underfoot changed quite suddenly. 

There WAS something that some 

might call a path, but even these people 

would have to label it as a dirt path, 

where 'dirt' would be a much better 

description of this piece of 

infrastructure than actually a 'path’.

Chris followed Tom through the 

gate, feeling the patter of the paving 

under his feet changing into one that 

squelched quite significantly; 

fortunately his shoes were they made 

very well and nothing had leaked in, 

yet. While he was stepped over a wide, 

deep brown puddle that sat right in 

front of him, he said to Tom,. 

"I didn't know such type of plants 

could grow so high???? These must 

have come from some sort of a 

genetically modified seeds or 

somethings" 

"Nope, all done the natural way, 

breeding selection." 

"Well that’s quite impressive, must 

have taken you quite some time. 

Although I'm a bit concerned that you

have a mono culture here that is not 

under the EFR department's 

regulation?" 

Tom put both of his hands into his 

trousers’ pockets and said "Well the 

advantaged of hemp is that it is an 

annular crop and so the breeding 

selection to reach height as a specific 

feature was relatively quite quick and 

in reference to your monoculture 

concerns, as I said, I'm a botanist. 

"Just saying you’re a botanist does 

not protect you from growing a 

monoculture though!" 

"Most farmers grow monocultures 

whether that be wheat, fruits or other 

edible vegetables, nonetheless I don't 

do that as I am very aware that having 

a circular systems of crop plantation is

extremely much more efficient. Just 

have a look," and Tom stretched his 

arm and pointed between two hemp 

plant "I have breaks between the hemp 

to grow edible crops like fruit trees and 

tomatoes," 

Chis lent his head and squinted so 

he could look between the giant stems 

of the two hemp plants and he saw a 

few pear, organge and apple tree . " Ah 

I see, well that is a very good way to 

dispose of any argument that you're 

using a monoculture system!" 

"It's actually more of an economic 

benefit than keeping up with the recent 

agricultural regulations." 

"Yes, from what I've read,,," said 

Chris "...circular systems are 

significant resistant to diseases and

increases pollination. Also I hear hemp 

significantly increase the health of the 

soil for ALL the other crops." 

"That is very true." 

"It must make harvesting much 

more difficult though, with all the same 

crops in different places and them not 

being set up in rows?" 

"Actually, not particularly." 

"Oh? How do you do it then?" 

"With just some photos of the 

different crops implanted into some 

really basic AI software that is run in a 

few robotic arm equipped harvesters." 

"That sound expensive?"

"In the long term the harvesters are 

significantly cheaper than employing 

seasonal workers and the AI, as I said, 

is really basic. I learnt that from the 

internet and wrote it by self hence it 

was free and if I want to change it a bit 

I can do it my self. Right, now we have 

reached our waste disposers. 

They had now reached a clearing 

and a few meets away from them stood 

three green coloured, large metal 

rectangular shaped boxes that had 

pipes coming out at one side of their 

smaller sides. Chris could see, on the 

other end of one of these, a four 

wheeled machine tipping a large 

amount, of what looked like plant 

waste, into a large rectangle shaped 

black hole on the other end of one of 

these said boxes.

"Here our my anaerobic digestors 

which dispose of all my farms organic 

waste." Tom stated proudly. 

"I see." Chris replied "I've read 

about this, So you're producing 

unfiltered reuseable biogas along with 

disposing your farms organic waster? 

Do you send it to a third party to 

separate the methane from the carbon 

dioxide that is also produced in the 

anaerobic process before it get's into 

the power companies’ gas pipes?" 

Tom smiled. "Fortunately, by 

doctorate was based on membranes and 

so I personally designed, built and 

installed membranes which separate 

the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide 

from the methane from the gas flow 

that comes from the anaerobic digester

and so the gas is at the same purity of 

methane that the power companies 

pump from underground." 

"You seem to be a pretty talented 

person." Chris commented to Tom " 

Also I haven't met many people who 

did doctors and then become farmers? 

Most move into cities where the money 

is better." 

"I wouldn't say that I'm talented," 

Tom replied. "I just work on what I 

know. And on being a farmer, well, I'm 

city born, it's not that great and you 

might make more but it is also 

especially expensive compared to 

living out here! " 

"Maybe; I imagine though that you 

must be doing pretty well with yourself

with the gas production export on its 

own?" 

"Most of the gas created powers 

the farm and my home, but it's true, I 

do sell some of it, which does make me 

a bit. However from my anaerobic 

digesters, commercially, this power is 

not , currently, the main exporter that 

makes me the most, it is actually the 

fertilisers that they make from the plant 

waste after the gas has been produced. 

This fertiliser is not exactly "organic", 

but it is not produced through the 

energetic intense Harber Process that 

most modern fertilisers are made from 

nowadays. Also, it's inherently part of 

of the circular economics of my farm!" 

"I see," Chris stated cheerfully 

"from what I have now observed, I do

not perceive how you are disposing of 

your agricultural waste as in anyway 

inappropriate and therefore the notice 

to seize your farm's land will be 

nullified. I will write this up when I get 

back to the office and send it to my 

boss to make sure this council's 

assessment is changed immediately. 

You will get a copy to confirm this." 

If you send an email to 

info@jagerpress.com we will keep 

you updated when the next free short 

stories on the Jager Press’ Short Story 

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