Dove Cottage at the edge of Grasmere was full of surprises. I always imagined that it was set back on the fell side rather than in the middle of habitation. In fact, the road that runs past its front was, in its day, the main road from Kendal to Whitehaven and would have been incredibly busy.
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I have never seen a sunset that I didn’t like. Some, however, are more likeable than others.
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Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize.”
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From space, the opening looked like an ant hole in a pile of sand. It was difficult to believe that it was actually more than two hundred metres across. Whatever had dug it out must be some size. It was hibernation season so the chances were that its occupant was still inside. The problem was that my orders were to find out exactly, with photographs if possible. An assessment would then be made but my guess is that the human race had started on the path to wiping out yet another species.
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Red tiles, steeply pitched to ward off the heavy snow that occasionally falls in this area. The timber frame had withstood the onslaught of inclement weather for several hundred years. It was early spring and the buds were just starting to appear on the bare brown branches. The main rooms were on the ground floor but my favourite space was in the attic, under the eaves of the roof. My antique desk was placed so that I could see across the orchard to the surrounding fields.
Over the centuries I had written millions of words. As I got older my spirit passed from one body to the next. Each person was different in their own way but all were conjoined by the same unstoppable compulsion to write.
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As fast as technology moves us forward, some things never change. Take me for example. I have the latest ear pods plugged into my head but I listen to works by a composer who died over 300 years ago. I am a writer by trade and although I have the option of dictating my scripts to a software program that can transcribe what I am saying, I am more productive and creative when I use a notebook and pen.
It all started with a meeting with my agent. I make a living from my craft but it is often touch and go whether or not I can pay the monthly bills. Contrary to popular opinion, it is only a tiny minority of writers, particularly in my genre that make fortunes from sales of their books. The agent in question had decided that my numbers were insufficient for him to bother with me any longer and as you can imagine I was not happy. I left his office with my hoodie pulled up over my head and Haydn’s 6th Symphony drowning out the world. I was not trying to hide my face from the close circuit cameras and I certainly did not have anything to do with the events that followed.
It was a busy Wednesday morning and the subway had been crowded. As usual, I ignored the crowds and they ignored me. My mood was not improved when I emerged from the depths and was walking up the last flight of steps out into daylight and was immediately knocked to the ground by a man with a Middle Eastern appearance. He scrambled over me being pursued by at least three other thugs. I picked myself up swearing loudly. Just a few moments later I heard what sounded like a gun being fired three times and the crowd below me started screaming. I was propelled out by the crush of the people behind me but I overheard someone shouting that it was a man that had been shot by his pursuers.
This was nothing to do with me and I didn’t want to be caught up in police interviews all day so I pressed on, walking the three blocks to my apartment. The door camera and face recognition system unlocked the heavy bolt, and having checked that there was no-one immediately behind me I entered. It sounds like overkill but the street that it faced was not the safest area in town and I had blown an early cheque on securing the entrance. I climbed the stairs and started to empty my pockets. Wallet went into the second draw down, loose change into the dish on the hall table. But that was not all. Amongst the coins was a memory stick that I didn’t recognise. I hadn’t used one of these for years with all of my writing being backed up on cloud storage. Where the hell had it come from? And then it struck me.
The guy who had been shot. He must have slipped it into my pocket when he knocked me over. Dammit. I was now going to have to take it to the police and explain why I hadn’t stopped to give a statement. At best that would be awkward and potentially I could be charged with obstructing the course of justice. I needed to think and so the purchase from another of my early cheques came into play. I switched on the coffee machine and emptied a fresh pack of Ethiopian beans into the top. I have a bit of a Green tendency so I always made sure that I bought Fair Trade products when possible and the volume of coffee that I consume must have made a significant contribution to the Ethiopian economy.
As I ingested my caffeine fix, I pulled out my laptop and plugged the memory stick into the port. After all, I decided, if the item was unrelated to the event in the subway I would be landing myself in bother for no reason at all. Conversely, I couldn’t think of any other time when it might have been slipped into my pocket. The laptop – yup another purchase from an early cheque – fired up in seconds and I opened the file manager. The device was detected and showed a number of folders which were cryptically labelled. However, there was a text file in the root so I opened it up and began to read.
Holy Shit. After a few moments, I realised the severity of the situation that I had gotten myself into. Before thinking further about this, I needed to check the rest of the files for any kind of confirmation. After all I was a fiction writer myself and this could just be an outline for a story that he had been writing. Not likely I know but at this point but I was grasping at straws. If the contents of the text file turned out to be correct, my world – in fact everybody’s world was about to change for ever. But then, it got worse. I was looking at the text file which had a web link. It opened my web browser onto a web cam and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
It was pointed at a small cube that was connected to a series of meters. The readings on these meters were unbelievable. If the output from this cube was to be believed, the worlds energy problems would be solved instantly. At this point, I was only 50% convinced of it’s authenticity but at the back of my mind, the thought that a man had been murdered in an attempt to retrieve this memory stick would not go away. I continued to open and read through the material but much of it was so technical, filled with terminology and formulae that I didn’t recognise, that I only had a superficial understanding of the content. I needed someone who would be able to verify it’a authenticity but I had to be careful.
A week later, I was sat in the same place but a lot had happened in the interim period. First of all, I took the memory stick to a man that I trust implicitly – my brother. He is smart. A professor at the local university, he had access to resources that I could only dream about – that is, if I had understood them at all. He verified the contents and urged me to release them onto the internet. He was right, I should, but I feared for the consequences. The files showed a method of producing free, clean energy that could be set up almost overnight. At a stroke, it would put the energy companies out of business. It was no wonder that someone had been so desperate to retrieve the storage device. The poor sod that was murdered was obviously a whistleblower but it had cost him his life.
I had sat here for two days weighing up the potential consequences of my actions. My brother was ringing almost hourly to ask if I had done it yet. On the one hand, free, limitless energy that would improve the world overnight. But if it could be traced back to me, I would certainly end up like the guy in the subway. They hadn’t traced me yet but it was an inevitable consequence if I released those files. The oil companies would want their revenge. I had it all set up ready to go. All I had to do was to press the enter key but still I waited.
And then my door bell rang. The video camera showed three men standing there. They had found me.
I pressed send.
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It had taken two years of assiduous online searching before I found her. Her electronic profile was gaunt, in fact, almost non existent but I knew that she could provide the answers that I needed. I hoped that the fact that I had tracked her down would be sufficient introduction and would not scare her away. It was almost a shame to disturb her as she concentrated on an old style paper book with what I guessed was an espresso coffee in front of her. She had cut her hair short since the single blurred image that I had unearthed had been taken but I was certain that it was her. It was time to introduce myself.
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They looked back without regret. It had been a wonderful time but it was now in the past. It was time to look forward.
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She came to life, emerging from the picture, and mingled with the crowds who were gawking at the paintings by the great man. She smiled as she listened to the stories that they were telling. “She was his lover/muse/illegitimate daughter”. You could fill in the gap yourself.
“Let me paint you” he said ” and you will be immortalised. You will live for ever. “
He hadn’t meant it literally.
Or had he?