Ed Osborn.

A Borrower’s Caution.
Judgement by uniform, great rewards are bestowed. A victor would be determined by the finest adornments. Certain that failure awaited, a plan was devised. Knowledge of distractions guaranteed that collection would be trivial. During retrieval, kilo by kilo, a costume grew. All November the hotel was scoured for baubles, burnt sierra the most desired. Whiskey proved a useful tool, when absolutely necessary. Still, the process was arduous, more so by the delicate tango required to keep true intentions safe from view.

Laying in wait, and laying on the charm. Over drinks, after golf, indirectly. Very quiet, without echo, parts fell into place. Even so, the hardest tasks lay ahead.
Many may think to do this. Yet only one would dare scheme.

Borrowed goods unerringly carry a tell. It is to bank on. Guaranteed that between headwaters and delta a true signature is carved, despite the arrangement of oxbows. Stockpiling, any Zulu will tell you, is akin to building a tinder. Prudence will only carry so far.

Heeding no common call, the plotter advanced. In the night sky, Alpha Crucis shone a warning; brightest, but bottommost. No matter, completion was nigh. Xenias, like rubies, crowned the lot.
On the appointed day, a crowd gathered. Feathers unruffled and towering elicit one bravo after another.

Queries were heard; one, then another, and another. Under duress the uniform’s true nature emerged. Assembled from components but not consent, its function was less covering than x-ray. Retrieving their errant plumage, they shrilled a yankee scold: Mike, Oscar, Charlie, Juliette, and even Papa joined the chorus. Threadbare, the errant Romeo abandoned the crowd. Zeroed out, half-lit reports had him later trying the foxtrot again in Lima, India, Quebec.

Bio ~ Ed Osborn.
Ed was born in Helsinki, Finland and spent his early life aiding his parents to smuggle art out of the Soviet Union. After one such endeavour went south, he relocated to Philadelphia where he grew up in a Quaker household under a witness protection program and periodic visits from the FBI. The Quaker religious ceremonies are marked by long periods of silence, and Ed’s experience of them was where he learned to pay close attention to the tiniest and most unlikely of sounds. Several subsequent years of French Horn study were unable to sway him from the unfortunate career trajectory that his family’s religious inclinations had set in motion.