Limited Visions

By Joseph Solar

1. Good at Music. A nine year old musical prodigy is found locked in a cellar, but where did he come from and why is he here? Hoping to unravel the mystery, Caitlin Moran discovers a surprising truth about his identity.
2. The Best Shot. Alison is a war photographer who believes she is receiving messages from the spirit world but her latest message tells her something she would rather not hear.
3. The Hypnotherapist and the Tree Surgeon. An unhappy secret is affecting Carla’s love life. Can she bury her past and start to live a normal life? She turns to hypnotherapy for help and finds she’s not the only one with a story to tell.
4. Drinks for Two. A man tries to pick up a woman in a quiet, late-night bar but his chat-up line reveals a greater truth than he intended. Do you really know who you're talking to?
5. Talk to me of Mendocino. Jane’s new life in America is full of adventure and promise until a trip back home turns her life upside-down.
6. Things You See at the Zoo. Richard and his daughter Lily meet a strange woman during a rain shower. Richard loses his sense of reality and Lily will never be the same again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Solar
• Release date: Oct 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005525279

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Limited Visions

Joseph Solar

Copyright © 2022 Joseph Solar

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the prior permission of the author.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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Good at Music

A nine year old musical prodigy is found locked in a cellar but where did he come from and why is he here? When Caitlin Moran tries to bring him back into society, she discovers a surprising truth about his identity.

The Best Shot

Alison is a war correspondent who believes she is receiving messages from the spirit world but her latest message tells her something she would rather not hear.

The Hypnotherpist and the Tree Surgeon

A tree surgeon has a secret past that is affecting her love life. She turns to hypnotherapy to sort herself out and finds she’s not the only one with a story to tell.

A Drink for Two

A man tries to pick up a woman in a quiet late-night bar but his chat-up lines reveal a lot more than he intended. Do you really know who you're talking to?

Talk to me of Mendocino

Jane’s new life in America was full of promise until a trip back home starts a chain of events that turns her life upside-down.

Things You See at the Zoo

Richard and his daughter Lily meet a strange woman during a rain shower. Richards loses his sense of reality and Lily will never be the same again.

3. The Hypnotherapist and the Tree Surgeon. An unhappy secret is affecting Carla’s love life. Can she bury her past and start to live a normal life? She turns to hypnotherapy for help and finds she’s not the only one with a story to hide.

4. Drinks for Two. A woman in a quiet, late-night bar fends off the attentions of a man whose story about space travelling reveal a lot more than he intended. Do you really know who you're talking to?

5. Talk to me of Mendocino. Jane’s new life in America was full of promise until a trip back home starts a chain of events that turns her life upside-down.

6. Things You See at the Zoo. Caught in a sudden rain shower, Richard and his daughter Lily meet a strange woman who tells them she's a rain fairy. Richard loses his sense of reality and Lily will never be the same again.

Table of Contents

Good at Music

The Best Shot

A Drink for Two

Talk to Me of Mendocino

The Hypnotherapist and the Tree Surgeon

Things You See at the Zoo

Good at Music

WE’D BEEN STANDING THERE FOR OVER AN HOUR waiting for the men to finish. I was cold and tired and all I wanted to do was to be back in bed. It was nearly two in the morning, pitch black and freezing. Who gets up at that time? I breathed on my hands to give them some warmth but it never works, even my breath was cold. I joined the police woman near the railing and we exchanged polite smiles but we didn’t speak. It’s strange how we gravitate together, women with women, men with men, in our little groups. It’s familiarity I suppose and the sense that we don’t have to impress anybody, but since I looked like a steaming tea cosy, it was better not to try.

One of the male officers came over to pass a comment but the immediate fall into silence after his witty observation sent him drifting back to his colleagues. His interest was more to do with the young female officer than with me. Young from my perspective anyway. She was small, blond and pretty. I’m more, well, what someone once described as ‘motherly’. Can you believe that? To be a mother is a proud, impressive status but to be called motherly means you’ve got no sex appeal.

Behind us, the blue patrol lights flicked our shadows across the wall and an ambulance waited nearby, its rumbling engine blowing clouds of exhaust gas into the night. The men had been working on the cellar door for at least ten minutes under sharp white spotlights. It was one of those steel security doors with bolts and padlocks, set down a flight of narrow stone steps. God knows what we expected to find.

The engineer with the acetylene cutter, shouted. ‘We’re in.’

He shifted his goggles back over his head and wiped the concentration from his face. There was a ragged cut of melted steel around the door handle that had fallen, steaming, into a pool of melt water. I saw an oily rainbow ripple across the surface. The police officers switched on their torches and told us to stay where we were. Almost immediately they hesitated in the doorway. There was a light on in the room. The officers looked inside and discussed something I couldn’t hear. The first one turned and beckoned me down. My heart was pounding.

***

The woman who had called us had said there was a boy in the cellar by the name of Mazli and he was now ready to leave. She told us nothing more except the address of the building and an apology for not letting him go sooner. We thought it was a hoax at first, we get a lot of those, but we check every one. I’ve seen a few horrific scenes with children in my time so in a way, I was prepared for anything but when I got to the bottom of the stairs and looked in I understood why the officers were so bewildered.

This was no emaciated child in a stinking cellar, no rats scuttling over a rotting carcass and a stone floor littered with detritus, this was a large, well-lit room painted in pale colours of blue and cream. There was a single bed in the far corner piled with soft sheets and pillows and two armchairs in the centre set around a coffee table. An upright piano stood against the wall on the right and a television in the corner. It was more like a cosy bedsit than a prison.

I had the uncontrollable urge to laugh, mostly out of relief than horror, it seemed so ridiculous. All this waiting, the tension and fear, and we had just broken in to someone’s basement flat. The boy looked as bemused as we were. He was sitting in one of the chairs reading a book, The adventures of Robinson Crusoe. He did not run to us with tear-filled eyes or beg to be released from a terror that we could not comprehend, he just looked up, smiled and put the book on the table. He looked about nine or ten years old and was wearing camouflage combat pants, blue moccasin slippers and a yellow Borussia Dortmund football shirt.

One of the officers, trying to suppress a smile, remarked it was like a nursery for sensitive plants, kept temperate by the air conditioning unit in the ceiling. A door on the far side led to a corridor with bathroom and shower unit and thick towels, and opposite, a fully-equipped kitchen with a freezer stocked with food. Whoever had incarcerated this child had obviously visited him within the past few days.

The boy had short black hair and a pale complexion. I remember his eyes, dark and intense, watching everything, watching the police and forensics as they fussed around him, watching them examine the room and the furniture. We stood back while the crime team dusted the surfaces. I introduced myself to him, Caitlin Moran, and took him by the hand, he did not resist. I asked him how long he had been here but he didn’t answer, he just smiled politely and seemed more interested in the officers examining the room.

Inspector Burke, who was heading this team, walked to the piano. It was a highly polished affair, obviously quite new and above it were shelves of printed music, art books and ancient history. That should have given us a clue if we'd known their significance at the time. There were adventure stories, and books on geography and space travel, the lives of classical composers and on the floor, a stack of football magazines. A cupboard at the end of the bed was stacked with computer games that appeared unused, neatly stored and in pristine condition. The whole collection intrigued me, it was unusual, considering the behaviour of most of the children I've encountered. Burke flipped open the piano lid and casually pressed some of the keys that were still covered in fingerprint dust. I felt the boy’s fingers tighten in my hand. It was the first solid reaction to anything we'd done.

***

I was his case-worker, a kind of psychologist and carer who was tasked with trying to piece together the story behind his discovery. The police called him Maz, they do that sometimes, abbreviating a name to be friendly, to get him to open up and it worked. He was an articulate child, slow-speaking and guarded with his information, unwilling, I thought, to tell us all he knew. Whether that was true or merely suspicion on my part, I couldn't say. People, especially children in situations such as this are reluctant at first, unable to talk about their experiences but eventually they try to give you as much information as they can, they babble with details and often confuse the story. Unless they are trying to protect someone.

Mazli had an accent that one of the officers said was East