Twice a week, the exercise class I have attended for years meets under a certain freeway overpass. The other day, I discovered a note scrawled in the concrete. I had never noticed it before. Now, I have a long history of not noticing stuff, but when I asked around, nobody else had previously noticed it either. Perhaps we are all oblivious, or perhaps the message is an indication of intense longing, sufficient to carve long-dry concrete.

I LOVE ART BERMUDEZ.

Note the final curl to the final letter, rendering a heart from the Z.

I don’t know anyone by that moniker, but man do I love that name! Arturo Bermudez. I can guarantee that one of my novels will include a character by that name. In fact I am tempted to use this for a character in my fantasy detective series, FRAMES. The character is currently named Hernandez.

What am I thinking? FRAMES is finished and in revisions! To change a character’s name is to change the character; to ditch “Hernandez” at this point would be a kind of murder. And I love Hernandez. Everyone who has read the book loves Hernandez.

I do look forward to meeting the fictional Arturo Bermudez soon; probably in book two of FRAMES. Meanwhile, I hope the concrete scribe and the real-world Art are doing well, together or no.

(The current WP Photo Challenge wants to see “unexpected”.)