Meet the Fontinos

By Eric Landa

Meet the Fontinos, tiny little creatures that live inside the stories of our books. They can barely be seen by the human eye and prefer to hide inside the alphabets. They live in a fascinating world with talking animals, an evil sorceress, a human guardian, and an ugly green story monster. Read on and 'Meet the Fontinos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VeryTales
• Release date: Apr 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463880487

Eric Landa

VeryTales publishes books and stories from varies authors. We hope you'll enjoy reading their work as much as our authors loved writing it.

Book preview

MEET THE FONTINOS

Eric Landa

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Eric Landa 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Thank you for purchasing this book

I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

Eric Landa

INTRODUCTION

Letters, alphabets, words, and paragraphs are the foundations of our language through which we all communicate. They form the basis of how we write and read stories. However, what if I told you that letters and words are not only part of the story; but something far more obscure that exists between our physical world and the realms of the alphabets?

For many years now, I’ve had an intimate relationship with the realm of the letters. I know about their tricks, their secrets, and about their schemes. Also, I know about the excitement and fun that often exist in their mysterious world.

Letters hold magical powers!

Have you ever wondered why on first contact, letters and words often seem so appealing to a little child? Or why reading a combination of letters can instantly make you feel happy, sad, angry, afraid or surprised?

Do you know that even though we only have twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, there are over twenty-six million ways to combine these letters? Therefore, a combination of letters brings forth a word; a group of words gives birth to a sentence and so forth and so on.

Have you ever wondered why some letters don’t look good together when you combine them? When you join certain letters together that don’t quite fit, and something instinctive tells you to change it. The sequence occurs naturally as if letters have a will of their own.

It is as if these letters are alive…

Well, it appears they really are!

There are living beings active inside the letters, and they are called Fontinos. They are tiny living creatures that can’t be seen by the human eye. These little critters are brilliant at hiding. They are so scared to reveal themselves that they hide behind letters, and often inside an entire word. Though they hide to the extent of becoming undetectable most of the times, they are always there, as they live inside story books. Sometimes, they can also be seen on our computer screens or inside the written texts of our cell phones. They would present themselves as a dead pixel.

They perform all their activities inside the letters; they live there, work, talk, play and sometimes, they show themselves unwillingly.

When you see a letter or a word that just doesn’t seem right, a printed letter that is unclear and not sharply printed, a dead pixel, or dirt or grid on a piece of paper; well, that’s the Fontinos at work. If you look closely, really closely, you might be able to spot two tiny little eyes staring right at you or you notice a little foot here or a tiny little arm there. They are so scared of revealing themselves to humans that when you touch a letter on a printed book they shrink away and sometimes spill magical blotted ink.

Their names and origins are largely unknown, and we know very little about their day to day life. But lucky enough, some of us, those they have come to trust over time, can see them; hear them; understand them and even talk with them.

But, why do the Fontinos hide? What are they so afraid of?

Well, first of all they hide because they are a bit scared of the light as they rather prefer to work in the shadows discreetly. Secondly, they hide from most humans because they are quite shy, and lastly they will always hide from the story monster!

Who is the story monster?

The story monster is a nasty creature that eats letters and words and then vomits them in a different form and structure with the intention of disrupting the story. It misunderstands stories to confuse the readers deliberately. Also, it creates chaos in texts and shuffles words around to take away the joy of story reading. The story monster is not a nice creature at all, and the Fontinos are afraid of him. As they try to bring joy to the reader, the story monster distorts the intended meaning and makes the reader feel terrible.

Now, let’s discuss the nature and formation of these elusive creatures. They are usually referred to as Fontinos, though the females are sometimes called Fontinas, and their offspring often referred to as little Fontinis.

They have different characters just like human beings. You will see the clumsy ones, the smart mouth, the bad kids, the pretty girls, etc.

They typically come out at night to play; though some of them go hunting in the forest or fetch water during daytime while some of the younger Fontinis go out to play.

They are quite mysterious and often full of surprises. They are the ones that make a story fascinating to you. If you are reading a book and it’s so boring and complicated to understand, just know that the story monster is at work here.

As said earlier, the Fontinos come out of the books at night when humans are not watching. They come to light when people are sleeping. Once they become your friend, they will always make you happy. They are fun to be with. They chatter endlessly when they are happy and when they have a new human friend.

They move from one book to another when they have finished their mission in a particular book. They have their likes and dislikes. Some of the Fontinos like seeing the forest, some like the sky, some the water while some like being on the road.

They move away from a book when something bad has happened to them.

If you would like to know more about the bad things that make the Fontinos move away from a previous book, you’ll have to read on.

The Fontinos have had plentiful adventures in their lifetime. And have traveled far and wide across the continents.

Continue reading, and you’ll discover