‘Twas after noon when young d’Artagnan called in a possible shooting. Although he hadn’t personally witnessed the horror, he had it on the best authority that Athos and Porthos had resolved to confront Aramis at a public location near Coal Mine Avenue and South Pierce. Words were exchanged, epithets hurled, weapons drawn, and Athos shot Aramis down like a dog, wounding him grievously.

Officers rushed to the scene, but all seemed keen and serene. They contacted local hospitals, but none had admitted a mutilated Mousquetaire. Puzzled, deputies asked d’Artagnan how he came by his knowledge of the furtive felony. Simple, d’Artagnan said; it’s all over Facebook.

Sure enough, the whole bloody business was detailed on page after cyber-page, everything from Athos’s lion-hearted declaration that “when all else fails, pull out your gun,” to Aramis’s valiant postings from the emergency room assuring supporters that he’d only suffered a “flesh wound” and would live to fight another day. Turns out the savage encounter was nothing more than a crude work of romantic teen-fiction cooked up by the classical trio – “a joke”, Athos told officers, meekly; a harmless entertainment, and purely “metaphorical”.

An especially critical deputy countered that he perceived “no literary or poetic value to a post stating he was ‘dodging gunfire from a homey’” and gave the three authors a harsh review of why such online tomfoolery is “a bad idea”. The contrite cavaliers promised to keep their metaphorical swords sheathed from now on.