Where Title "April Fool: Better Times Ahead" Came From

"[Michael’s Journal

Bombay, India 4 April 1980]

...It was about 2 a.m. as I leaned back exhausted on the back seat of the dusty Premier, racing down the dark streets of Bombay. As the car hit 60 to 80 kilometers per hour on the airport run from the Taj Mahal hotel in Back Bay --that's when it caught my eye--something bright and clean in a sea of dark rotting walls that make up Bombay's center city. We flashed by, hell-bent on our mission as I leaned wearily against the window of the taxi watching the faded, chipped and jammed tenement buildings whizzing by. The black Bombay air whipped my hair and was sucking itself into my nostrils. Rolling up the window only made the thick air hotter, so I let the wind blow, comfortable in the knowledge that I could leave what these people would wake up to tomorrow. I had to get out of India.

Driving through Bombay that night, what I saw should have warned me. It was something out of the ordinary. Bolted to the side of a building was an immaculate white plastic sign, which looked out of place as the taxi zigzagged wildly through Bombay's fetid night air. In the dim light the bold, red letters proclaimed:

"BETTER TIMES AHEAD."

Below it, a crisp blue line:

"APRIL FOOL."

Did I really see that? In a flash it was gone as we raced through the empty streets towards the crammed airport and a 5 a.m. flight to London... going home to Houston..."

Stay tuned for release date...