---

Latest Story | A Fable about Attention | A Fable about Pot-covers | A Fable about Financial Foresight | A Fable about Another Family | A Fable about Gaming Protocol | A Fable about Hotel Ditties | A Fable about Insurance | A Fable about Point-of-View | A Christmas Fable | Ant Gods | Happenstance | A Fable about an Unexpected Evolution | A Fable about Flattery | A Fable about Forbearance | A Fable about Giftedness | A Fable about Response | A Fable about Tenacity | Homeboy Back & Blue | A Fable about Administrative Slogans | A Fable about Alien Motives | A Fable about Procedure | A Fable about Climate Change | A Fable about Deities | A Fable about Dark Matter | A Fable about Diligence | Guppies | A Fable about Pool Parties | A Fable about Un-Natural Selection | Homeward Bound (excerpt) | A Fable about Breaking News | A Fable about Jibes | A Fable about Psycho-Physics | A Fable about Toughness | A Fable about Surrender | A Fable about Insight | A Fable about Boundaries | Cabbie | A Fable about Definitions | A Fable about Offspring | A Fable about Awareness | A Fable about Authority | A Fable about Cause & Effect | Another fable about Perspective | Succulence | Transaction | A Fable about a Transformation | A Fable about Off-Message | | A Fable about Symbiosis | A Fable about Union | Moe, the Vagabond | Tinker Thinker | One Never Knows | A Fable about the Internet | A Fable about Gods | A Fable about Prediction | A Fable about Craft | A Fable about Debate | A Fable about Smartness | Another Fable about Research | Boots | A Fable about Mindset | Circle of Shade | A Fable about Gamesmanship | Another Fable about Community | A Fable about Multi-Tasking | A Fable about Ditziness | Ties | A Fable about Fortune | A Fable about a Franchise | A Fable about a Glitch | A Fable about Genetic Research | A Fable about Mites and Men | A Fable about Protest | A Fable about Quests | A Fable about Utility | Twin Game | The Crossing | A Fable About The Resort Business | A Fable About Crisis | A Fable About Space/Time | A Passing Talent | Rooli, the Slave | A Fable About A Carbon Footprint | A Fable About Resurrection | A Measure Of Respect | Creature | Meanings | A Fable about an Extraordinary Rendition | Old Shoes | Trancendental Fable | A fable about a Sales Pitch | A fable about Fear | A fable about Servitude | Postcards | hotdog | Familiar Eyes | Cruisers | Click For Older Stories...

---

A Fable about a Franchise

There is a show that featured a debonair detective who smoked a thoughtful pipe and fought fair while he solves the crime. In entertaining episodes he thwarts every villain. Just in time, he makes the crucial connection and saves the herd of our Community.

The twist with this guy - the spike to our heartstrings, as it were - is that as ever-saving the Distressed Damsel as he does, he never gets a kiss!

Of course this is suggested as reason for his devoted fan base of fifty plus females; for in senior citizen popularity polls his show reigns supreme and its advertising intake is terrific!

Then the writers introduced a rival: a redoubtable female who is sassy and smart, easy on the eyeballs, and as insightful as their tobacco-fancying detective. More than just being close to either side of thirty, she seems a manipulator supreme and evidences considerable man-eater tendencies.

The transformation of program's devotees was immediate.

The shift to raw sex appeal quickly forced the creators to write the good detective off a cliff in a car crash that also saved the tigress female for a probable future attitude switch: in the last episode, at his cremation scene, she was fractionally less cynical about our late hero's righteous calling.

Nationwide, the hype remains hysterical. The broadcast channel has polled its viewing public for direction.

Moral: Stripes may change, story lines must.