Alan woke to the familiar sound of the door bell; it was 7:30 am, usually he would have rolled over and ignored it, today was different. Alan jumped out of bed flinging on the first clothes he came to and dashed down the stairs. He flung the door open and standing before him was an elderly man with a wrinkled face and grey thinning hair, the relief post man,
"Hi, sorry to bother you, could you tell me where number 57 is?" asked the old man slowly.
"It's just over there," Alan replied politely, trying not to curse at being got out of bed to answer a simple question which if the man had bothered to look, he would have seen it was only next door.
The man hobbled away as Alan shut the door, angry that his sleep had been disturbed for no reason. He went to the kitchen to make a coffee, still angry with the post man. The door bell rang again, Andy stormed to the front door, flung it open,
"No I don't......!" Alan stopped mid sentence, "Sorry I thought you were someone else," he said.
"I have a delivery for Mr Alan Holmes; if you could just sign here I'll get the parcels." The delivery man said quickly and firmly. Alan signed; this was why he had jumped out of bed when the door bell had rung earlier. His early anger had evaporated, three months he had waited for this delivery. The delivery man returned with several parcels and Alan took them thanking the man and apologising again for his earlier outburst.
Alan was like a child at Christmas, the difference being he knew exactly what was in his boxes. He unpacked each box carefully, the first contained six memory cards he counted them and checked their condition, the next a digital camera, and then a small laptop computer and the final box contained a set of six plastic dolls. The dolls were approximately 6 inches tall and very flexible.
Usually, Alan wouldn't bother to read the instructions that came with electrical goods, but this was different. He wanted to make sure he knew exactly what he was doing this time; there was no room for error. He sat down and began to read the instructions, hours passed while he read, re-read and made sure he understood.
Confident that he fully understood what he needed to do he inserted the first memory card into his camera and placed the others into his bag. He went back to his room and got dressed; he had a shower and a shave before heading to the door with everything he needed.
Alan headed to the local shopping centre, where he knew there was an art exhibition. He studied the exhibits carefully admiring the artist's choice of colour and the composition of each piece. One piece really caught his attention; it was a large painting showing a countryside landscape, not too dissimilar to an area he had visited as a child. He took out his camera and took a photograph of the painting. He looked carefully at the image on his camera display, and then as he was happy with the image he turned the camera off and removed the memory card replacing it with a new one.
