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.
Follow inspiring, new, fresh music at
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.
Follow inspiring, new, fresh music at
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.
https://revitalise.org.uk/

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.

https://www.jagerpress.com/thebreakingc
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.

https://revitalise.org.uk/

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.
https://revitalise.org.uk/

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.

https://www.jagerpress.com/thebreakingc
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
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you updated when the next free short
stories on the Jager Press’ Short Story
eBook will be available.