A Mystifying Discovery

Their arrival to the Big Island of Hawaii had an auspicious beginning.  The plane trip from NYU began with luxurious service from an investment in first class tickets that they had agreed were worth the price.  The 5 college students’ 2 week vacation to Hawaii had been planned for months and the pre-graduation trip hopefully would be well-worth the wait.

Upon arrival they exited the plane, checked into their hotel room and hit the beach immediately.  The splendor of the black volcanic sand of the beach contrasted brilliantly with the clear ocean water. 

They enjoyed frozen Bacardi daiquiris on the beach and soaked up the atmosphere.  The beach was crowded with a collection of locals which were easily distinguishable from the tourists.  There were suffers and body-boarders enjoying the waves while the tourists mostly enjoyed the free-flowing alcoholic beverages and the warm sunshine.

A mysteriously stranger appeared intrigued in his mind concerning a seemingly cryptic misdeed that had occurred on the island weeks earlier.  The self-consumed stranger did not bother to introduce himself; rather he walked up to the group of tourists from N.Y.U. and began speaking.

With no direct conversational engagement, he said, “Apparently it vanished.  Nobody could figure out where it went.  It was their and then it was gone.  Ten minutes before the exhibition; it was gone.  They checked the vault and it was gone.”

Later that day they discovered that what was missing was a precious jewel, a 15 pound diamond had vanished.   Since it was none of their business they dismissed it and continued their vacation.  However, a week later hiking in the distant hills they made a fascinating discovery.  They came across a small cave.  On the wall they found archaic writings.  Later they ascertained that the writings were almost 1000 years old and from the natives of Hawaii. 

The writings discussed an ancient jewel which had served as an idol of worship.  From the writings, which were later to be translated by an expert in archeology, it was discerned that the jewel had mysteriously appeared to the ancient civilization some time before the writings on the cave wall.   The jewel had served as an idol of worship for the ancient tribe of the island and had inspired their entire basis of the mythology and religion.  The jewel inspired ancient epics that mirrored the Greek writings of The Iliad and The Odyssey although the island, which was distant from the shores of the mainland, had no direct contact with those civilizations. 

Just as mysteriously as the jewel was originally discovered it mysteriously vanished from the island nearly 500 years later.  The idol of worship also had prophesized the conquest of their people from distant explorers from a far-off land as well as other events in the history of this ancient people.

The college students later came across the mysterious stranger to share their discovery.  As students from N.Y.U. nearly ready for graduation they could not discern the meanings of the writings on the wall of the cave.  However, they had been able to make some sense of the paintings and drawings on the wall.  They were aware of the mystery of the missing jewel that the stranger had shared with them and the expertly crafted paintings on the wall of the large diamond were easily referenced to be similar to jewel which had vanished weeks earlier.

Upon this later meeting with the stranger, who they discovered to be an investigative archeologist, they referred him to the cave.  Apparently, the cave, which was no secret to the residents of the island, had never had such writings or drawings on the walls.  However, the investigative archeologist, well-versed in the ancient language of the natives of the island was able to translate the writings on the wall.  All that was able to be discovered was that the diamond apparently appeared mysteriously on the island more than 1000 years earlier and just as mysteriously vanished. 

Although they had never been seen in the cave before, the writings could be dated back to the time of the ancient natives of the island.  No further clues were discovered discerning the enigmatic mystery other than that the mysterious jewel seemed to appear, disappear, and reappear from past ages up to the modern times.

Krispy-Kreme Doughnuts

A purple turtle meandered his way along Venice boardwalk.  Nobody paid much attention to him.  The Jamaicans, the weightlifters, and the marijuana dispensaries grabbed most of the attention.  He could remember a father’s day far in the past in which he and his son between the two of them were able to defeat an angry rabbit in a marathon swim around the pier after they had spiritedly shared a joint of Humboldt’s finest between the 3 of them .  Of course that was a long time passed and now he and his son mostly smoked marijuana in the privacy of their own home.  It was o.k. because as it is widely known, purple turtles usually suffer from glaucoma.

This father’s day was different.  Instead of a phat euro-joint he and his son enjoyed beers in one of the boardwalk beach bars.  It may seem overly sentimental to most, but he and his son often enjoyed the scenery that can be found on the boardwalk including the large host of sea-turtle waitresses.  His son especially enjoyed having the sea-turtle waitresses bring them pitcher after pitcher of beer, but he was a little old-fashioned in that his attention could not be drawn away from the much more innocuous and friendly mermaids. 

Poseidon could not touch them from this placid enclave on the beach and neither could the alligators that had tormented him in his youth in the swamp-lands of Florida. 

“How many fathers’ day do you think we can keep celebrating like this?”  His son asked. 

It was a very perplexing question which spent much time plaguing his mind.  Usually purple turtles lived long lives especially if they lived in the zoo, however it was wise to stay out of France. 

He answered his son assuredly with the knowledge that forsaking the turtles who make the unwise move to France most lived to be over a 100.  He responded to his son by saying, “We can expect to be meeting like this for years to come despite your mother’s insistence that I stop ogling the mermaids.”

From their view on the ocean side they could see the crowd passing.  The father noticed a majestically collared blue crab with his claw around a bikini clad seahorse.  His son seeing the same thing offered a question as to when the last time his father had seen a crab like that.  His father replied by saying, “It’s been a while but I can remember seeing one like that in way back in my first tour of duty in Saigon.  I remember wondering why it had been so far away from the ocean.”

They continued watching the crowd as it passed.  The son noticed a one-eyed, one-horned, yellow-purple people eater.  The son inched back with a degree of fear.  “That things safe, isn't it?”  He said to his father. 

His father, in his many years, learned not to be afraid of such things.  He said to his son, “As long as their domesticated they won’t hurt anyone, but it’s important to make sure that you keep them fed.”

The day at the beach was nearing an end.  Although purple turtles have a remarkable tolerance for alcohol, a day at the beach sitting at the bar was starting to catch up with them.  Father’s Day was not quite over though.  The celebration would continue into the night.  The rest of the family was planning to join the party and the festivities shortly before sun down.  They had outlawed bar-b-q’s on the beach in recent years.  Rather than smore’s with graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate, their family was bringing Krispy-Kreme doughnuts full of glucose and carbs to revitalize father and son after a long day at the beach.

The rest of their family arrived shortly after 7 p.m.  His wife was a beautiful mermaid from the depths of the ocean of the south pacific.  Upon her arrival he could not help but thinking what a lucky purple turtle he was in his slightly drunken state.  Father, son, mother, and the rest of their family enjoyed Krispy Kreme glazed twist doughnuts while watching the sunset into the pacific.

A Red Scarf and 50 Parking Tickets

“Have you ever noticed a red scarf like that one before?” Michael asked a cousin he had not seen for a while.  A strange slightly unkempt guest wearing a red poke-a-dotted scarf across the room had caught his attention.  His cousin did not share his interest but Michael was intrigued in the midst of his mild state of inebriation.

“Who is it anyway?” he asked his acquaintance.  “I can’t remember where I saw that scarf before.”  The oddity was even more strikingly bizarre from the mystery guest’s appearance.   He was wearing the red scarf with a complete three-piece suite.  It contrasted starkly from the tuxedos and more conservative attires worn by the other men at the wedding reception.

The guest got up from his chair and walked across the room toward the wedding cake.  The reception had been going on for a couple of hours now and the ceremonial cutting of the cake had occurred earlier with much splendor.   Walking in the direction of the cake, he stopped at the champagne flowing fountain.  As if it were a shot of whiskey from the days of the old west, he poured himself a glass and he drank it in one gulp. 

The red scarf was worn around his neck resembling the flowing hair of the bride.

“This way no one will recognize me,” he thought to himself.  “Cheap champagne for a wedding,” he commented to a female guest near the champagne fountain.

“I know now,” Michael said to his acquaintance.  “Doesn’t that look familiar to you?”

His companion mentioned back in his own state of slight intoxication that it didn’t look familiar and thought to himself how Michael’s fascination with the red scarf was beginning to annoy him.

“It couldn’t be,” Michael continued, “but doesn’t that look like the scarf that the guy who robbed the credit union last month wore?”  The reason he remembered such an obscure fact was that the robber on the news was shown wearing a white dress shirt with a strange poke-a-dotted scarf and a nylon covering his face.  Although the appearance of the mystery guest was different than that the shadowy figured portrayed on the news last month the scarf seemed to be identical.

The sinister figure slowly roamed about the room to associate with others at the ceremony.  In a wedding party of 450 plus nobody could possibly remember all their distant friends and family.  That’s why he enjoyed these celebrations.  The food was always good, the alcohol flowed freely, and the upscale grouping at events such as these mirrored his appreciation of the good life which he could not afford on his own.

“So what are we supposed to do anyway?”  Mike’s companion asked.  “Should we call the police because a guy at a wedding reception is wearing a red scarf that looks familiar?”

“You’re right,” Mike confessed.  “That wouldn’t be a good idea.  But, I wish there could be some way that I could know for sure.”

Mike consumed in fascination decided to investigate further.  He approached the mystery guest and asked as if he were an old friend, “How long has it been?  It must have been more than five years now.”

The mystery guest wasn’t at all surprised by an onlooker questioning his attendance at a family affair.  He did this sort of thing all the time.  He responded the way he always did in such occasions.  He politely shook the other party’s hand and found a quick excuse to extricate himself from the conversation.

The anonymous guest was getting a little drunk on the free-flowing champagne.  He decided it was time for him to leave the social occasion without giving so as much as a thank you for the free food and drink.

While the guests were exiting an hour later Michael noticed a police car in the parking lot.  Apparently the man with the red scarf had dozens of overdue parking tickets.  More amazing than that the parking enforcement officer noticed the red scarf and quickly called for backup. 

As Michael drove away he thought how a red scarf, a wedding reception, and 50 parking tickets were an interesting avenue into spending twenty years in prison.