Don Vigilantes, Archbishop of New Mexico.
Father Vigilantes for many, many years, had headed the Albuquerque Diocese of which Church Santa Maria del Deserto was a member. The church's lovely adobe structure, built in 1875 was two miles down the road from a humble shack in a fruit tree orchard, where Miss Fortarain lived alone and aging but ever pleased with the success of her...

fruit orchard. Expressing his thanks for the delicious fruits she had provided to the Diocese over the years, Don Vigilantes presented Miss Fortrain with the unusually adorned toothbrush. He had received the toothbrush from a missionary, many years ago, who had brought it from Qatar. A wealthy oil-merchant had gifted the gold-encrusted toothbrush to the missionary for his services in the community. Don presented his only possession to Miss Sally Fortrain for his thanks and for another, more secret reason...

the toothbrush was in a respect, magic.
Magic carries burdens, and Don Vigilantes was tired.
Bound by his vow in an ancient rite, the priest had been obliged to exclusively pass along the toothbrush to a person who either intuited the rite, (the same right that Don V. had learned of) responding to their own unconcious drive, or had acquired knowledge of the rite by way of lengthy research on bizarre history.
In all of his priesthood career years, Sally Fortrain had been the only other individual that Don V. had encountered, who had filled one of these prerequisites.

After laying the precious toothbrush on her old wooden vanity beside empty bottles of cheap perfume and a linen embroidered doily, Sally's mind shifted to its shorter term memory, reviewing the day's events through visualisation.
Earlier in the day, she'd spotted what had seemed to be a younger middle aged couple snooping about the next door property when Sally had been doing the dishes. The tiny
kitchen window above her sink was awfully mucky and she regretted not having been able to make out finer details. The man had been of average height with an almost shaved head wearing plaid shorts, a short sleeved button down light green shirt, and his partner, a rather petite shortish woman also had closely cropped hair, though slightly longer and much thicker.
It was inimaginable to Sally why that snooper woman would wear such heavy black boots and....

an oversized tan trenchcoat unless she worked for the government. They must have found out about her magic gold-encrusted toothbrush. No sooner did she put the pieces together like an age 8+ puzzle of Snoopy, than she heard an ominous knock on the door. She scurried downstairs, looked through the peephole and...

let out a snort of irritation. It was Herman Hernandez, one of the North Valley's many door-to-door salesman.
"What are you pestering me about this time, Herman?" asked Sally.
"Puzzles, for ages 8+: all sorts," replied Herman.
"Puzzles!" Sally said, "you are selling something I might actually want today, Herman. I'll get my purse." "No need for you wallet today, Senora," (I forgot which button makes the tilde) said Herman.
"Are your puzzles free?" she asked.
"I request something a little different if you wish to purchase my beautiful puzzles," he said mysteriously.
"What's that?" Sally
"A toothbrush - a gold encrusted toothbrush."
Sally gasped.

The room was still until Sally's blood-curdling scream chilled the dense summer air: "GET OUT!" As much as she loved puzzles, there was no way Herman was going to get her gold encrusted toothbrush that easily. After double-locking the doors, she heaved herself back upstairs. But five seconds later, her heart stopped beating: the toothbrush was gone! However, Herman had failed as a distraction because she noticed a shadowy figure leap across the hallway into...

the broom closet where she kept her gardening tools, various housecleansers, grandmother's hat collection, copies of 1930's newspapers, camping gear, dogfood and feather duster.
Ha! Quick as Instant Quaker Oats Sally shoved her telephone table in between the outward opening closet door and the hallwall opposite it, wedging the shadow figure in.
" You slimy scoundrel...Gotch-oo...

Those bad girl twins had been messing with Sally for decades.
For this reason and her added firm conviction that the twins' mother should have never permitted the surgical procedure which had disunited their joined-in-the hip status that Miss Fortrain kept her vertical bifocals wrapped on a chord around her neck to use in just such exasperating occasions.
Sally knew she needed help so promptly she telephoned...

Roger Colon, the young man next door who often helped her carry in her heavy groceries. He suggested that she lock herself in the bathroom, turned on the faucets full blast, the shower, and flush the toilet numerous times. Unfortunately he wasn't the brightest neighbor.

Sally hung up, sighed and fell back heavily onto the nearest object which happened to be an 1878 French Provincial Loveseat. She felt sick. There was only one way to get back her magical toothbrush, but she had hoped it wouldn't resort to this:

Ahem...she meant, she hoped she wouldn't have to go to that resort - that dreadful horrible awful resort she had been forced to go to by Aunt Lillian, I mean Gillian, so very long ago. Resorta de los Diablos it was called, near Las Cruces, or was it Resorta de Las Cruces near Los Diablos? Her mind was so often muddled these days. It didn't help that her dear darling toothbrush was missing. Perhaps she could contact her toothbrush telepathically. It was an odd thought but one she'd had before. She laid down and tried to remember....

but her eyes slowly closed and grew heavier and heavier like someone with low metabolism on a Krispie Kreme I.V. Drip. She awoke many hours later, rushed into the hall and discovered the telephone table had been pushed away from the broom closet door. In the captor’s place were 50 puzzle pieces littered across the floor, which would never be reunited to illustrate the beautiful California Coastline. To Sally, the room was as empty as her life would become.

You see, Sally never found her magic, gold-encrusted toothbrush, but to this day, if you ever walk along the New Mexican fruit orchards on a hot, muggy night, you can still hear the muffled cries of a mad woman screaming “All that litter isn’t gold…”
*****THE END*****