RETURN TO PARADISE
There I was, squirming in my dread, awaiting anxiously this coming week’s show trial of Gauleiter Trump, managed by fixers Moscow Mitch and Looney Lindsey, in which the orange committer of many crimes is deemed not guilty by Senate Republicans and hunting season is opened on his accusers and detractors. Yeah, I’m both of those—small time to be sure—but nevertheless an enemy of the cult of Trump and his Fascist clowns; they will doubtless seek payback for my constant carping now that he’s sure to be acquitted. I fear the coming purge.
How do I save my liberal hide? What do I do? I’m too old and brittle to head for the mountains and hide out in a cave, armed only with my cane. I needed help.
Then it came! Salvation! In the form of a letter in my mailbox. From a stranger with a proposition I just can’t refuse. It read:
Dear Larry Meyer:
I am aware that this letter comes to you as a surprise as we have not met before or handled any business deals in the past. Nevertheless, I have contacted you with genuine intentions and I hope I can trust you with this inheritance opportunity which will be explained below.
I retrieved your contact address in my search for the next of kin to a deceased customer of our bank Mr. George Meyer, a citizen of your country, who lived and died in London, Ontario, Canada, of cardio arrest. Unfortunately, this customer died intestate leaving his bank account with an open beneficiary status. All efforts made by our bank to locate his relatives have been unsuccessful, so I decided to write to you as I have monitored the account for the bank for five years now and no one has come forth with any claim. I would like to present you to our bank as his next of kin to claim this dormant account worth $9.2 million U.S. dollars.
You will apply to the bank as an extended relative to the deceased customer while I work from the inside to make sure all needed information and evidence are provided to you to back up your claim. The account has an open beneficiary status, which is why I have contacted you to come forth to claim the funds as the next of kin and beneficiary. Since he is from your country and you both have the same last names, it’s easy for you to become his official next of kin. If we do not make a claim to the funds now, the funds would be reverted back to the system as an unclaimed estate.
I assure you this transaction would be handled under due inheritance procedures and every necessary arrangement will be put in place to make you the real beneficiary of the inheritance. It also requires all confidentiality at this stage and I believe that you are ready to keep this absolutely discreet until you are able to claim the funds from the bank. Once the funds are released by the bank, it will be shared between the two of us.
Please send your response to me indicating your readiness to proceed with this transaction and we will discuss more details as well as the procedure to achieve a successful completion.
Sincerely yours,
Maurizio Stefani
Dear old Uncle George! Or was he my third cousin? I barely remember him…but I must have a snapshot or two lying about…maybe of him watching me catch my first bluegill out of Lake Ontario…or some such puddle up there.
I must say, it’s about time I got a break. You see, I am a member of the Silent Generation, born between The Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, best known for…well, not very much. Yep, we’re the timid, forgotten, cowering meeks luckless enough to be born during the Great Depression, who never got our shot of Mojo..
Now, all that has changed for me with a single letter from Maurizio. (Yes, I’m a bit concerned with him saying that the legacy will be “shared between the two of us.” I think he’s deserving of a finder’s fee, certainly, maybe up to a very generous million, but not a penny more.) With the remaining $8.2 million I can flee the vengeance of Trump’s Biker Gangs before the impeachment trial ends and return to paradise, Bora Bora, where I spent so little time so long ago.
See that pad on the far left? That’s going to be mine, where I’ll see rainbows of tropical fish glide under my glass floor, brush up on my French, reread James Michener’s tales of the down here, listen to the mellow vibes of Dimitri Tiomkin, watch cumulus clouds build their towers of salmon pink and blood orange that fade to gray at each day’s end.
Wish you Libs, Dems, and rational thinkers were here, and out of harm’s way. But I’ll write to you if you let me know which prison you’re in—or gulag if Donald has farmed you out to Vlad.
Au revoir et bonne chance,
Lorenzo
General Delivery
Bora Bora
French Polynesia
