The Musketeer!

A Story by Abishai100

Fran is a typical bored Beverly Hills house-keeper who travels to Madrid to discover a real form of modern Earth dawn.

A special Coronavirus-prayer to remind us all of real modern Earth dilution. God bless (and stay safe!),

----

====

Fran's a house-keeper in Beverly Hills who reads Shannara (Terry Brooks) fantasy-adventure novels and daydreams that in her modern world of wealth and boringly predictable conveniences, there lurks real ancient 'musketeers' or honor-driven 'highlanders' of 'musketeers-of-honor' who're here 'among us' to deliver us strange and special feelings of escape from Beverly Hills vanities. This is what Fran daydreams about as she's entertaining her mansion owner's personal down-time indulgences.

FRAN: I think I'll take a summer-trip to Madrid, despite all the Coronavirus precautions, and look for musketeers.

She meets what seems to be one musketeer in a Madrid cafe, and he's making a very intricate and alluring drawing of an Alien sci-fi horror-franchise Xeno-alien, and he turns to her and kisses her on the cheek and tells her, "Isn't it funny how the vanities of sci-tech never drown out our basic human primal fears/imagination about pure evolutionary dread?" Fran thinks she's found a real 'musketeer' in this cafe-sketcher of this bizarre and frightening Xeno-alien!

She's now in a Madrid bookstore and she meets a young couple who seem a little unusual, dressed in an unusual kind of clothing, with turtlenecks and plaid pants but with very expensive looking top-hats. The couple is reading Shannara books about fantastic knightly-princess couples from Medieval times engaged in quests for true magic and courtly love. Fran asks the couple if they feel 'aroused' by such readings, and the couple tells her, "We're always serious about democracy, Fran."

Now, was this young couple a musketeer-couple or just/simply a romantic couple who Fran idealistically sought to 'build' in her delusional mind as perhaps one of those 'real-life modern musketeers' who're 'among us' in modern times to offer us strange and magical and healing 'doses' of anti-consumerism vanity? Fran then meets a computer-wizard in Madrid who's been working on a computer algorithm to deliver COVID lifestyle preparation simulation video-games to youngsters online, and she's convinced this nerdy but intelligent Algerian-Spanish man (Amlan Satan) is indeed one of those 'real-life' modern musketeers she's daydreaming is an actual citizen of modern democracy.

Fran decides to accept an invitation by Amlan to his house where he may show her his previous work with Coronavirus endurance, and at his gorgeous Madrid cottage, Fran is introduced to Amlan's wolf-dog Sky, and she realized this young man is a naturalism-thinking with a great democratic bent towards life on Earth.

Fran then takes the Madrid metro and meets a dashing trio of young Spanish men who call themselves the 'Red Hood Gang' for some reason. They tell her they find her to be an attractive American beauty, and she blushes. She wants to know why they're dressed like theater-performers on the street by the metro station, and they tell her they're a team of diamond pirates.

RED HOOD GANG: We rob banks to help people forget about modern depression.

FRAN: Jesus, I suppose there're all forms of 'modern depression' in media that remind us of real world hell!

The Red Hood Gang prepare to steal blood-diamonds (warlord-mined gems from Africa/Europe used to fund terrorism!) from a Madrid safe-box belonging to the corrupt Dutch baron Emil Kuyt and expose him in the Spanish media as a capitalism exploitation artist. They invite the fascinated Fran to join them in their special stolen taxi-ride to the bank. After the Red Hood achieve their little diamond-heist, they give Fran $30K worth of their stolen Robin Hood gems.

FRAN: These guys robbed that Madrid bank of those awful 'blood-diamonds' using water-guns!

Fran then goes to a pastry-shop in Madrid where she meets a mother-and-son-and-daughter who manage the shop. They offer her their best pastries and she indulges in what tastes like heaven. They explain to Fran that they represent the 'old guard' of Madrid/Spanish hospitality and struggled to make their pastry-shop work in Madrid after the mother's/woman's husband was killed in a war-mission linked to the USA and ISIS. Fran concludes this shop-team must be real-life modern musketeers.

Fran then decides to go to a Madrid night-club and meets a trio of hip youngsters, Spanish yuppies, or sometimes insulted as everyday 'Euro-trash' and they seem very charmed by Fran's rather unusual 'Euro-mission' to indulge her 'Shannara daydream' to find 'real-life' modern 'highlanders/musketeers' who bring enchantment and heroism-fantasy to our modern world of capitalism vanities. This night-club trio in Madrid suggest to Fran that if she doesn't look too hard these days, she might find 'musketeers' amidst us, all around us really, seeking to find that kind of 'worldly optimism' amidst all this commercial darkness.

Fran meets a street-poet in Madrid who tells her that these 'musketeers' she seeks perhaps derive from a collective 'institution' of ancient-order derived philosophical 'place' or some kind of heritage-descended modern-world 'club' (similar to a college fraternity).

FRAN: I wonder if I've been watching too many cartoons and am daydreaming about escaping real civilization!

Fran doesn't think this way when she attends a Madrid fashion-show featuring iconic and unusual models dressed in futuristic/dystopian clothing re-presenting a socialized consciousness about enduring apocalyptic tribulations like the Coronavirus. These "Mad Max" fashions present these models are real-life 'musketeers' of post-apocalypse Earth depression.

MUSKETEER: You must think that all the indulgences of capitalism create architectures of Earth-wealth dehydration!

Fran then goes to a Spanish order church (Christian) to light a candle and pray and meets a strange and thoughtful young priest inside named Hektor who's been praying about finding everyday simple magic in our downtrodden world of great commercial arrogance and nihilism. Hektor seems to be a real 'old-guard' priest and Fran believes he must be one of those 'musketeers' she's been daydreaming about in the real world. Hektor tells the daydreaming American house-keeper woman traveling in modern Madrid with this strange personal 'enchantment-mission' that all she really needs is a moment of religious design.

Fran returns to the USA reinvigorated and invests some of her personal saved Beverly Hills wealth into a local California social group making street Coronavirus medicine-art to inspire modern day people enduring this real-life tribulation of 'apocalyptic' proportions. She's learned/thought that the the fantastic 'musketeer' she daydreamed about just may 'lurk' in the yearnings in all of us, seeking to wrought real healing in times of real worldly darkness.

Fran suggests to her Beverly Hills mansion owner/employer that they go to a special Mercedes-Benz hosted international California fencing-sport match between France and Spain, featuring two iconic fencing-champions. This adventure of the senses will awaken their boring life of capitalism indulgences and entreat them to a moment of spiritual escape! Her boss agrees, and the two share an afternoon of incredible fencing-dialogue.