Kronen

Zeb collected Kronen. He had several passed down from his great grandparents,
whom he’d called ‘Hessa" and ‘Squadroon,’ for no apparent reason. He’d been told
that they were from ‘the old country,’ somewhere in Austria, but got confused and
used to tell classmates they’d once owned a kangaroo farm. Zeb would embellish.
His parents, whom he called ‘Fizza’ and ‘Mazier,’ (he liked Z words) told him Kroner
were hard to find in Utah and suggested a new hobby, or perhaps religion. Of course,
Zeb combined the two, and began to dig in the woods, perhaps looking to unearth
Kronen or to find Australia. What he did find were bones, animal bones which he
would assemble into sculptures, usually a pattern of interlaced Z’s. But one day
‘Fizza’ said, "That looks like a human femur you’ve got there, Zeb." And the police
were contacted. Following the investigation, which did, indeed, prove ‘Fizza’ correct,
Zeb became interested in forensics, stopped digging in the ground, and dug instead
into textbooks related to the field. And Zeb is now the highest ranking crime scene
investigator in Utah. Mormons do get murdered, it seems, but not nearly at the rate
of the general population. Around the office, Zeb is known as ‘Agent Z.’

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I'm a writer living in Massachusetts.