The 23 Solution

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Thursday’s entry began as a re-imagining of how Michael Phelps got home from the Rio Olympics. Naturally, I just had him dive in the ocean off the coast of Rio and swim home. But a funny thing happened on the way to Baltimore. The story twisted in my fingertips, and instead I gave him a new home as a merman in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil.

Besides, whenever you can squeeze the word “archipelago” into a story, your internal editor knows you have something going there.

The answer to the “23” connection? Phelps holds the all-time record for Olympic gold medals. You guessed it. Twenty-three of his twenty-nine medals are gold. His specialty, like the way he springs into the ocean in the story, is the butterfly.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to stop by next week for another edition of the Flash Mystery of the Week. If you want more , catch up on an older (and really difficult) mystery here!