Flowing Fonts and Poor Richard!! In 500 words...

Happy Tuesday, everyone!!  And a big, warm UT welcome to new followers and crusaders!!  Current followers - don't think I'm leaving you out ~ this is especially for you... :D

Today, I'm posting my entry (I use that term loosely, you'll understand once you read it...) into Madeleine's fabulous FLOWING  FONTS contest!!  You can read all about it and sign up (you've got till 2/28!!) over at her lovely Scribble and Edit blog found HERE.



Poor Richard. The Californian FB page he’d consulted before visiting L.A. assured him driving his own car would be a Snap. Too many wingdings on the road, he found. After surfing the crowd all night at a midnight ravie, he wished for a cab ride anyhow. But, it wasn’t all bad. He did meet enigmatic Estrangelo Edessa, an Algerian entrepreneur who’d recently relocated to Cali and hobnobbed with the off-Broadway circuit.

 He told Richard he’d married a Harrington (like that was supposed to mean something?) and his invention of the Instamatic cocktail chiller was going to have a huge impact on the world’s alcohol economy. With his fancy onyx ring and his cool use of Informal Roman (it was a real, if obscure language used in Eastern Europe, Edessa had told him), how could Richard not believe every word that crossed this Mistral’s lips. He’d have been better off believing Dad was a centaur and Niagara Falls had suddenly become Niagara solid!

But, he gave his money to Estrangelo anyhow. Returns on his investment were supposed to be short coming, but after a near century of time passed, Richard decided to hunt down Mr. “Jokerman”. His quest led him to Georgia, to a seedy cooper black motel called the Modern No. 20. He found his swindler writing freestyle script on the motel walls with a Lucida calligraphy marker. Estrangelo wrote the same three words over and over again, “Bookshelf Symbol 7.”

 “What does it mean?” Richard begged. “Is that where my money is, you son of a shruti!”

 Estrangelo only clutched his chest and toppled over dead.

 Richard searched the man’s pockets and pulled out a piece of parchment. There was an a(e)rial map of the town etched there and a black X on Cambria Rd.

 Hopping back in his car, he followed the map’s direction and stopped in front of an old brick library that had “Verba de futuro” in wide latin letters chiseled above the entrance. “Words about the future”, Dick translated. He may have been cheated, but he was still an educated man.

 He stumbled across the threshold and sought out the librarian, an old woman with short silver hair and a name badge calling her Ms. Marlett.

 “Bookshelf Symbol 7?” he asked.

 She pointed a bony finger to a bookshelf at the back of the room. As he got closer, he saw the 7 carved along the edge of the case. Every book there had its spine facing outwards except one. He took the, by all accounts, “book antiqua” off the shelf carefully and laid it on a nearby table.

 A twenty dollar bill stuck out between the pages. Richard pulled it out and looked at the face of it, dumbfounded. “Verba de futuro” was written there. A post-it note on the back of the bill served another slap to his face. “Gotcha, sucker! Here’s my words about your future. You don’t have one, because I’ve still got all your money. Better luck next time, Dick.”



So...there you have it!  The lesson here?  In case anyone approaches you about investing in an automatic cocktail chiller?  Don't do it!!!  It already exists.  Yeah, it's called "ice".  :)  Happy writing today!!