The Introduction

He gently raises his delicate glass of robust red wine to his pursed lips and sucks a little into his mouth letting it wash around and release it’s timeless flavours on his tongue, he thinks to himself about life and the way it has turned out for him,  as he remembers that fateful day when he lost his keys.  He takes a bite of his cheese croissant.  “Ah!” he thinks, “It is a gooood day to be Frrrench.”  For some reason unbeknownst to him, he has a good feeling that something good will happen to him – like the day that two particles of unknown matter and majesty collided together after journeying perilously through time and space to create a tiny planet which would come to be inhabited by many species, the most successful and youngest of which, the human race, from which would spawn Jean-Philippe and through his life he would take many turns and paths and each time he would wonder if it was the right way to go, not realising, of course, that they would all add together and lead him straight to this point now, with his good feeling and the taste of cheese and red wine fighting for the love of his tongue.

    Behind him the Eiffel Tower sits proudly dominant over the horizon and anything else that wishes to challenge it’s dominating dominance.  At this moment a small bird is releasing from his nether regions, in mid-flight, the breakfast of small French insects, some French bird-seed and a set of two keys, which it ate the day before in a binging exercise that was brought on from not eating for six days.  

The insects were left feeling extremely confused as to their specific location, coming from a very dark, wet and sticky environment to now feeling the wind in their “feelers” and a burning sensation in their eyes which became worse as they have no eyelids and cannot blink to alleviate the burning.
    The bird-seed fell for approximately ten seconds before deciding to each go their separate ways (which were quite a few considering how much the bird ate during his binge) and the keys decided that straight down and as fast as possible was the best option for the fall and carried it through with perfection.  Unfortunately for the keys though, their plan was hindered by a low-flying aircraft hurtling towards it’s destination, desperate to stop and rid itself of it’s massive load.  Highly upset by this inconsiderate interruption of their course, the keys bounced off the windshield and found themselves stuck on a bolt attached to the EMERGENCY DOOR.  They could not move and decided rather to hitch a ride on this inconsiderate contraption until such time as another plan could be made.
    The bird could later be found falling from the sky after dyeing from a heart attack which was brought on by a serious case of indigestion caused by his massive breakfast binge the day before.  His body though, found it’s final resting place, albeit slightly flatter, in a field where it was discovered by some falling bird-seed which set up camp and later grew a vineyard that produced grapes which, by a total accident, were discovered to produce the best red wine France and the world had ever tasted.

    The captain of the inconsiderate aircraft which so disgustingly interrupted the falling dance of some very disgruntled keys, projected his voice into the in-flight communications system and announced their arrival and explained that upon departure of the aircraft, red wine, a cheese croissant and love letters (as this was the world capital of love) would be distributed to all passengers to welcome them finally, to France.  One of these passengers left eye was interrupted from taking in her surroundings by something shining on the tarmac, she bends over to pick up the shiny object and upon closer inspection realises she has found a set of two (now very agitated) keys.  “Claire-Bear,”  asks her mother, “What have you got there?”
“A set of keys,” she replies putting the keys in her pocket, “It must be my lucky day...”



Continued next week...