The Little Black Book

This morning I was woken by a phone call from an estate lawyer in Calgary. He called to notify me that my Grandmother had passed away in her sleep peacefully the night before last. He also informed me that she had named me to be the executor of her estate.

"Executor, to what estate sir? My Grandmother lived in a nursing home." I replied.

He responded "I am aware of Mrs. Summer's circumstances, however, as her executor you have some legal responsibilities to adhere to first, for example, deciding what to do with her remains, as it is not specified in her will."

Assuming he was referring to the personal items she had in her room the last time I saw her I responded, "Well anything that is of monetary value can be donated to the Salvation Army, the rest can be thrown out."

With a very stern voice he replied "Ms. Summer's, you can not donate your Grandmother's body or ashes to the Salvation Army. However, you could donate her organs for the purpose of research to an educational faculty, as I have already mentioned, it is not specified what her last wishes were. This is your responsibility now. Further, I will need your signature on legal documents so when could you come to my office?"

"What is the address" I responded.

"2021 Landslide Lane, Calgary, there is free parking in our office parkade" he said.

I wondered how long ago she had written her will, and why she named me to be the executor. I may have been the first grandchild born but I hadn't been to see my Grandmother in about 8 years. The last time I drove the four hours to get there, she started yelling, denying that I was related to her, accusing me of trying to harm her, and demanded that I leave.

She had a long battle with dementia that started when I was in my teens. It seemed after my Grandpa passed away she slowly began to die. First it was depression, then Alzheimer’s disease, then advanced dementia. Whatever the case, I now had to take the day off work to drive to Calgary to assume my responsibilities to honor my Grandmother's last wishes.

After meeting with the estate lawyer I proceeded to my Grandmother's nursing home to pack her belongings and as I remembered she had one photo of my Grandpa on the wall, a pair of shoes, a walker, some personal toiletries, clothes and a hand bag in her dresser. Other than that, there were no personal belongings. I thought to myself "no wonder she lost her memory, and only remembered Grandpa."

Everything that belonged to my Grandma was inside this small box I had placed on my front seat. I reached for her handbag wondering if there was at least a few dollars inside I could use towards fuel to make it back home, or get something to eat because I had forgotten my debit card in my blazer that I left at work. My eyes immediately filled with tears the second I opened her handbag.

Inside was the little black notepad we had found about 40 years ago. I must have been about 7 years old at the time. I will never forget that day. Grandma and I were waiting for the Alberta Express train from Edmonton to Calgary. I was spending the Christmas holiday school break with her because my parents thought she needed the company as my Grandpa had just passed away. I remember standing on the platform at the train depot and the wind so cold it took my breath away, The sun shinned so bright glistening off of the fresh snow fall, it blinded me. I remember hearing on the news radio that it was -45 Celsius with the wind chill luckily I was bundled up and prepared for the elements and had plenty of warm clothes in my travel bag if I did get cold.

The man sitting on the bench next to us could not say the same. In fact, he was the complete opposite. He was not wearing a parka, gloves, socks or even pants. He sat with his knees to his chest and arms around his legs. Aside from that he had only a ball cap and a pair of sandals.

Grandma was a Christian woman and could not handle seeing this man in this predicament so she proceeded over to the man to try to help him with his situation. She came back blissfully smiling saying He looked up at me and he had the most memorizing eyes I have ever seen and when he spoke it was like I have known him my entire life. But how?

The bell sounded for the train boarding and we noticed that the man Grandma seemed to have a crush on was not getting up to board. She said "Sir I will pay for you fare, you will freeze to death if you continue to sit out here, please it is the least I can do."

The man replied to Grandma "I am lost, I do not even know where I am or if I even need to board this train, where it goes or why I am here."

"All aboard, Last call" shouted the locomotive engineer.

My Grandma said to the man Don’t be stupid because this is the last train of the day. The next one comes at 7:30 am Monday. And today Saturday. You will die from hypothermia if you stay out here any longer sir."

He insisted on paying for his own fare but the ticket personnel laughed at him and said "sorry we don't accept monopoly play money, we only take legal currency, tokens, or cheques. So Grandma paid for his ticket. She said "let me see that pretty play money you have there". It was colored with shiny transparent sections with holograms. We all believed it came from some high end board game. He didn't even have pennies or dollar bills.

Just before we approached the city this beam of light appeared in the field not far from us and the man got up and said that was his only way home he ran through the train car straight to the back and jumped off the train disappearing in an instant. I noticed that he had left something on the seat where he had sat. So I quickly grabbed it to see what it was and waited to show Grandma when she came back from staring out the back of the train.

His notebook was different than any other writing pad that we had ever seen. The front cover was black and had the words 'Trifecta Dataset' in silver foil printed letters. It's ivory pages extended beyond the front and rear cover borders, and the paper inside was not blank or lined, it was little tiny dots. There was also an elastic band that secured the contents inside of the notebook with a neat fancy triangle shaped pen attached to it that said Moleskine.

Inside the front cover it had a place to write your name and contact information and the mystery man only had his street address written inside which was in Edmonton. So we mutually agreed that the man's name was Moleskine. Grandma said we would return it to him when she took me back home.

So, my week at my Grandma's had come to an end and I had already forgotten about the notepad but Grandma sure didn't. She was anxious to see Moleskin again. So upon arriving in Edmonton we jumped into a cab from the train depot and arrived at a small little house with a white picket fence.

"Please don't take off on us" Grandma said to the cab driver.

"Grandma can I ring the door bell please?” I begged.

This small woman answered the door and said "hello sweetie, may I help you?"

Grandma said "Yes, Is Moleskine home?"

"I am afraid you have the wrong address ladies" she responded.

A boy around my age with eyes just like Moleskine's peaked around the corner to see us standing on the porch. Grandma apologized for interrupting them and we hoped back into the cab.

Grandma turned to me and said "I bet you that young boy was Moleskin's son He had those mesmerizing eyes, too" "With a puzzled expression on her face she said "This must have been his wife, maybe he has a reason to hide."

"Grandma can I draw in the book since we cant find Moleskine?" I asked.

"I don’t see why not now that we can't return it Grandma replied.

We played a game with the dotted paper using lines to make boxes writing our initials inside the box once we completed them. I remember I had won by the time our cab arrived at my parents house.

Why my Grandma held on to this all these years is what puzzled me. "Did this journey with me have a special place in her heart or was it Moleskine that made it worth keeping close?" I pondered. I guess I will never know.

Looking inside the book I noticed and it bent for Friday July 12th written inside saying that Tredeau would be in Edmonton to discuss the Trans Mountain project. "Hmm, that's odd" I thought to myself. Justin Tredeau was younger than me so how could Moleskine know this?

I checked my calendar on my phone and indeed July 12th was on a Friday this year which is 2019.

After doing some investigating into the whole thing I had concluded that the winter of 1946 was the year we had gotten the notebook which also had a Friday July 12th. Pierre Tredeau was campaigning to be Canada's next prime minister. But what did all the rest of the data mean?

One page there was a bunch of dollar symbols and 5.4.19 and Kentucky

Trifecta maximum security disqualified

Country House 65-1

Code of Honor 14-1

Tacitus 5-1.

It made no sense to me so I slipped the notebook back into my Grandmas handbag and headed home.

When I got home I decided to look into Mr. Moleskine as that was a name I had never heard and the first thing that popped up On my browser was a company named Moleskine they were previously operating under the name Modo & Modo and they produced and designed luxury notebooks, planners, sketchbooks, leather backpacks, journals, wallets, and other stationary. However, what amazed me most was this this Smart pen Ellipse tablet system that allows you to draw or write on the paper tablet, then offers an array of options such as editing and sending your notes through the app. This is exactly what the man left on the train in 1946! How could this be I wondered. The specs said that Moleskine commenced in 1997 and released this very system in 2012 yet I held proof that we had this technology in 1946.

I concluded Mr. mystery had to have been a time traveler. It was either that or this was all just a dream I would wake up from soon.

When I realized it was not a dream I drove to the address on the inside cover of the notebook and rang the door bell once again.

A light for the porch turned on and as the door opened and I saw the man behind it, I realized it was him! Mr. Moleskine.

“Hi what can I do for you" he asked. I presented the notebook to him and he said “How did you get this? I was just writing in it not more than an hour ago.”

I told him the entire story and he did not buy a single word of it. That is, until he saw the Kentucky notes . “ This is bizarre, this is my writing but I never wrote this" he said.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“Hell yeah my lady!” he replied with excitement. “Time to place our bets on the Kentucky Derby this coming weekend.”

I had Never bet on horses before but I now had ah an $18,000 funeral expense for my grandmother thanks to being named an executor which I didn’t have so I figured why not it’s only a couple bucks might as well give it a shot. So Saturday morning came and my new acquaintance accompanied me to the track to place our bets and we won!

I only placed a $1 bet and all 3 horses came in as I bet with one horse being disqualified as the notebook said. It put $20,019 in my pocket and $279,000 in my time travelers.

“Too bad the notes ended here” he said.

I turned to him and said “What is your name anyways?”

“Tim Edmund Travelers" he replied.

In my eyes that spelt time traveler. I had won enough to pay for Grandmas funeral expenses but the real win was finding my soul mate as I later became the time travelers wife.