Something From the Time Cabinet

While going through some of my old possessions, I found an old bit of writing I had done. It's a very short short story, more of a micro-narrative really, hastily scrawled while waiting in line for something, if I recall. It makes reference to Conan O'Brien's perceived nemesis from his Finland special, which I suppose would date this to about 3 years ago. I should warn you, it's not particularly funny, it's ridiculously short, and doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, the only person this thing is probably of any interest to is me. But I do feel bad about not posting anything, so here's a bit of silliness.






Only once did I have the pleasure of meeting Forss Fagerstrom. It was the winter of '88, the coldest one yet recorded by the weather gypsies. As I recall, he was wearing forest green moccasins, and smoking a rather large rubber phallus. We were at the same fancy dinner party, on the occasion of Admiral Forsythe's eleventh birthday bash. Fagerstrom's eye caught mine, and for whatever reason he chose to impart some wisdom.

"Jimmy," he said, though my name was Wagsley, "Jimmy my boy, has anyone ever taught you the secret to successful banking?"

I could honestly say no one had.

"Well, the secret, dear Jimmy, is to take all of your money and fashion it into tiny paper boats. And the change, well, they can be sailors, can't they?"

I saw no reason why they couldn't, yet the entire process still confounded me. "And how does one gain returns in such a venture?" I inquired.

"Poor naive Jimmy," he ticked. "Don't you see? You send the ships out to sea, and they return from the new world with gold, and spice, and stuff."

His breath reeked of cheap brandy as he leaned forward to deliver the final word. I wasn't sure which "new world" he was talking about, so I did the only rational thing I could. I drew my revolver, pulled back the hammer, and blew out the back of his head all over the balloon animals.

In the ten years since the murder, and the resulting police shootout that claimed 18 lives, I have been able to see that his words, though profoundly stupid, do carry some wisdom. He didn't mean physically fold your money into ships. Or maybe he did, point is it's a metaphor. Probably. I'm not really sure, but then I guess I'm not as smart as Forss Fagerstrom.

He really had so much to teach us. It's a shame his life was cut tragically short by me.