Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam -

- I have a catapult. Give me all your money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head


I have been sitting here at my desk working, and looked up and out the window in front of me at the sun coming through the trees and across the lawn, and the pansies just planted by the gardeners who frequently but inexplicably come through to abruptly pull up the plants that are in full bloom to replace them with new plants in full bloom...and I noticed a truck in the parking lot being unloaded of its cargo of brown suitcases.

The suitcases are a mystery, and this is not the first time they have appeared; in fact about once a month a truck like this rolls up and hundreds of the identical bags are taken off and hauled upstairs to an office without identification on its door.

For about a week after this delivery, there will be a number of people, all dressed impeccably, seen leaving the building each with a brown suitcase. Sometimes they will congregate in the parking lot, smiling and laughing - but if a non-suitcase-toting individual wanders too near they scuttle like ants, tucking their cases into their cars and zipping away never to be seen again.


Then too, there are the meetings....just down the hall from my office is a conference room used by all tenants in the building; tantalizingly enough, it has a glass door allowing a casual bypasser on his way to the soda machines to observe the goings-on; unfortunately the room is miraculously silent, an unseen "cone of silence" dropped over it that disenables even the most covert eavesdropper from getting so much as a word. Cursed Cone. The suitcase people congregate in this room, apparently some type of indoctination into the Secret Society of The Brown Suitcase, with various posters lining the walls which resemble shelves of cereal boxes or large books. Various speakers take turns waving arms and gesturing at the cereal boxes. In the meantime a pile of the suitcases lurks in the corner awaiting distribution. Eventually the meeting ends and the group leaves silently with their cases.

My mind races. Assassins? Anarchists? Amway? What do the cases contain? What is the secret code hidden in the lines of cereal boxes. I have found myself in the grocery store staring at the shelves of cereal, trying to recognize something from the poster...trying in vain to decipher the code. Was DaVinci a member of this secret society? How would I go about finding out if he carried a Brown Suitcase? If I look hard enough, will I see in the dark recesses of "The Last Supper" the corner of a Brown Suitcase peeking out from under the table? DId "Mona Lisa" have a brown case tucked under her mantle? Was that the secret behind her smile?

The unmarked truck has just slammed its rear door and is speeding off, the last three cases being gathered up and taken inside by a man in a blue suit. I may never know the secret...so I will go back to work.