The adrenalin boiled
and roiled through his body. Finally,
the big day! Bellingham’s Mime
Fest!
 |
| PILAR MORIN 1895 |
He looked in the
mirror. “Perfect!” He
would be indistinguishable from any of the hundreds of others signed up to don traditional
top hat, red kerchief, black and white striped shirt, white gloves and
suspendered trousers, all strolling downtown’s sidewalks, running into imaginary
glass walls, walking imaginary dogs, or pulling on imaginary ropes.
He examined the note;
“THIRTY SECONDS, I’VE GOT A
GUN, ALL THE MONEY IN YOUR TILL. NO ALARMS, NO DYE PACKS, NO FOOLISHNESS AND NO
ONE GETS HURT! ”
“Perfect.”
He walked into
the bank. The other “customers”
smiled. He glanced at the overhead
camera, wordlessly pointed his thumb and index finger in the timeless little
boy’s gesture for an imaginary gun, winked, and pantomimed the traditional trigger
pull representing a shot.
Wordlessly he handed
the note to the smiling teller. The
smile faded, replaced by a quizzical glance.
“What can I do for you sir?”
Impatient, he pointed
to the note.
“Sir?”
This time he emphatically
hammered on the note with his finger.
“I can’t read
this sir. I’m sorry, you’ll just have to tell me what you want.”
Customers were
beginning to pay attention. No more
smiles.
Resolve broken,
he turned and fled.
The bank manager suppressed
inappropriate laughter as he read. “Miss
Jenkins, are you telling me you really can’t read this note?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you learn
to read cursive as a school child Miss Jenkins?”
“Cursive, Sir?”
