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    Specimen & Other Stories
    Specimen & Other Stories
    Specimen & Other Stories
    Ebook125 pages1 hour

    Specimen & Other Stories

    By Alan Annand

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    About this ebook

    A six-pack sampler of short fiction by Alan Annand: humor, crime and WW2 adventure.

    Bananarama: Reformed meat-eater embarks on a 15-day bananas-and-orange-juice diet, with surprising side effects.

    The Date Square Killer: Mild-mannered hit man finds love, social justice and the meaning of life in non-random acts of murder.

    River Girl: Middle-aged bureaucrat takes a detour on his morning jog that leads him to an unexpected rendezvous with Fate.

    Specimen: A wealthy butterfly collector visits his twin brother, warden of a penal colony, who is building his own unique collection.

    The Bassman Cometh: My night with Margaret Atwood: Hapless university graduate student in 1975 ruins famous Canadian author's poetry reading.

    The Naskapi & the U-Boat: A German U-Boat in WW2 visits northern Quebec to install a weather station, but a native family compromises their secret mission.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlan Annand
    Release dateFeb 11, 2015
    ISBN9781927799116
    Specimen & Other Stories
    Author

    Alan Annand

    ALAN ANNAND is a writer of crime fiction, offering an intriguing blend of mystery, suspense, thriller and occult genres. When he’s not dreaming up ingenious ways to kill people and thrill readers, he occasionally finds therapy in writing humor, short stories and faux book reviews.Before becoming a full-time writer and astrologer, he worked as a technical writer for the railway industry, a corporate writer for private and public sectors, a human resources manager and an underground surveyor.Currently, he divides his time between writing in the AM, astrology in the PM, and meditation on the OM. For those who care, he’s an Aries with a dash of Scorpio.ALAN ANNAND:- Writer of mystery suspense novels, and astrology books- Astrologer/palmist, trained in Western/Vedic astrology.- Amateur musician, agent provocateur and infomaniac.Websites:- Writing: www.sextile.com- Astrology: www.navamsa.comFiction available at online retailers:- Al-Quebeca (police procedural mystery thriller)- Antenna Syndrome (hard-boiled sci-fi mystery thriller)- Felonious Monk (New Age Noir mystery thriller #2)- Harm’s Way (hard-boiled mystery thriller)- Hide in Plain Sight (psychological mystery suspense)- Scorpio Rising (New Age Noir mystery thriller #1)- Soma County (New Age Noir mystery thriller #3)- Specimen and Other Stories (short fiction)Non-fiction available at online retailers:- The Draconic Bowl (western astrology reference)- Kala Sarpa (Vedic astrology reference)- Mutual Reception (western astrology reference)- Parivartana Yoga (Vedic astrology reference)- Stellar Astrology Vol.1 (essays in Vedic astrology)- Stellar Astrology Vol.2 (essays in Vedic astrology)Education:- BA, English Lit- BSc, Math & Physics- Diploma, British Faculty of Astrological Studies- Diploma, American College of Vedic Astrology

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      Book preview

      Specimen & Other Stories - Alan Annand

      SPECIMEN

      & Other Stories

      by

      Alan Annand

      Copyright © Alan Annand 2015

      Published by Sextile.com at Smashwords

      Specimen & Other Stories

      © Alan Annand 2011

      V.16032016

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Distribution of this electronic edition via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal.

      ISBN 978-1-927799-11-6

      Table of Contents

      Bananarama: Reformed meat-eater embarks on a 15-day bananas-and-orange-juice diet, with surprising side effects.

      The Date Square Killer: Mild-mannered hit man finds love, social justice and the meaning of life in non-random acts of murder.

      River Girl: Middle-aged bureaucrat takes a detour on his morning jog that leads him to an unexpected rendezvous with Fate.

      Specimen: A wealthy butterfly collector visits his twin brother, warden of a penal colony, who is building his own unique collection.

      The Bassman Cometh: My night with Margaret Atwood: Hapless university graduate student in 1975 ruins famous Canadian author's poetry reading.

      The Naskapi & the U-Boat: A German U-Boat in WW2 visits northern Quebec to install a weather station, but a native family compromises their secret mission.

      Introduction

      Cormac McCarthy once said, "I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing." Indeed, like many other novelists, for me the short story form has been more of a diversion than a devotion, sort of like a marathon runner taking an occasional jog around the neighborhood.

      These stories, however, reflect the diversity of my interests and style. Three are humorous, two involve murder and violence, a sixth is a wry combination of both. Two are autobiographical, the other four pure fiction. Two are set in my native New Brunswick, two in my adopted Toronto, two in remote climes as divergent as the tropics and the Arctic.

      Ultimately, this collection is an appetizer. If you like some of these, perhaps you’ll enjoy my crime novels, all of which feature heroes and villains with a wry sense of humor and a lust for adventure in all its forms.

      ~~~~~~~~~

      Bananarama

      Many years ago, inspired by the stellar example of the Buddha, and a bizarre association with one Wild Bill Periwinkle, an American New Age writer I’d met in the backwoods of New Brunswick, I decided to become a vegetarian.

      It was a sensible thing to do, although desperation played a part. After years of struggling to make it as a writer, I was ready to emulate the virtues of any good role model, and since Wild Bill had already carved a niche for himself in the publishing world, I figured that if it worked for him, it might also work for me. According to Wild Bill, if only I’d free my body from the bad karma of all those hapless animals sacrificed for my dining pleasure, my luck would turn, and I too could soon see my name on a book jacket. Equally important, Wild Bill explained, there were also significant health benefits.

      After years of eating meat, the heavy mucus coating in the colon thickens to the consistency of truck tire rubber, becoming a host of putrefaction. As noxious debris seeps through the bowel wall, the capillaries to the colon suck up these toxins and distribute them freely among the organs and tissues of the body.

      Wild Bill took a long draw on a skinny joint and passed it to me. He was a normally reticent fellow, but as soon as he had a lungful of ganja smoke inside him, he became as gabby as a talk-show host on amphetamines.

      Thanks to years of encrusted fecal buildup, some colons under autopsy have measured nine inches in diameter, with channels no bigger than a pencil through which one can barely pass a rabbit pellet, never mind the super-sized leftovers of yesterday’s fast food meal. I’ll bet you didn’t know, Elvis had 60 pounds of this crap jamming up his exit route.

      Is that why he died on the john? I said.

      To rid your body of all that intestinal gunk, and pave the way for a better life, both now and in your next incarnation, you’ve got to undergo a cleansing diet, Wild Bill told me in his most seriously spiritual tone.

      It seemed like a worthy goal, and although I’d followed Wild Bill’s advice on any number of other quasi-mystical regimens that had failed to manifest any noteworthy benefit, I was always game for another adventure in consciousness-raising. According to Wild Bill, it was simply a matter of faith and perseverance before my colon would be running as clean as a mountain stream.

      The program was deceptively simple, as outlined in The Canadian Whole Earth Almanac, a copy of which Wild Bill loaned me as proof this wasn’t just another of his crazy ideas, but was in fact endorsed by one of the flagship publications of the counter-culture. In the best New Age tradition, with a strong bias for all things cosmic, the diet would start on the new moon and finish on the full moon. Fifteen days, in which I should eat no more nor less than nine bananas a day. To wash it down, I could drink all the orange juice I wanted. And if I needed to suppress any gas resulting from the consumption of enough bananas to feed a small tribe of monkeys, I should add three cardamom seeds to this daily regimen. That’s it, that’s all.

      This being my first diet, I decided to keep it simple. I’d never been one to suffer from gas, so I didn’t trouble myself with hunting down the exotic cardamom seed at a natural foods emporium. Instead, I went to the nearest supermarket and bought a case of almost-ripe bananas, and a gallon of orange juice. The checkout girl looked at me kind of funny.

      Do you have a pet monkey?

      Yes, but he’s a naughty little primate, and I frequently have to spank him. Do you love animals? Maybe you could help. What time do you get off work?

      She hurriedly gave me change and turned her attention to the next shopper in line. I shouldered my case of bananas and headed home.

      My first day went something like this: two bananas for breakfast, three bananas for lunch, three bananas for dinner and one banana for a late-night snack. The first couple of days went fine. I liked bananas and they seemed to like me. I noticed, however, that despite all this volume, my bowels seemed to have gone on strike. Maybe they were just trying to adjust to this pH-neutral food that was so good for them that they didn’t know how to deal with it, somewhat like the aboriginal peoples who didn’t get it at first that the arriving colonists would, contrary to all the initial evidence, eventually improve their quality of life, turning them from itinerant hunter-gatherers into business-savvy casino operators.

      Finally, on day three I had a bowel movement that should have prompted me to get a photo and/or a witness to register it for the Guinness Book of World Records. It was the size of a banana-colored anaconda, and took several flushes of the toilet to banish it to the netherworld of the sewage system. My inner monkey got quite a primal fright in seeing this snake-like phenomenon so up close and personal, but after it was gone, I felt distinctly lighter in all respects. Maybe I was now on my way to cleanliness of body, soul and spirit, just as Wild

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