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Little Black What?

Is this a joke?

By Kylie BestPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
1
Am I the one receiving or giving? Photo captured at my desk in Texas.

It wasn’t the place I would normally find myself. Full of smokers, some classic rock placing over the new, digital jukebox. The wall on the far side of the room was painted from top to bottom, a mural of World War 2 and Korea. Being the youngest and, albeit, not a perfect ten, one of the more attractive women in the joint, I tried to avoid any contact with anyone and casually made my way over to a tall table against the wall. Someone brushes shoulders with me on their way out the door, guess I really am invisible, jerk.

When I sit down to try and get a glance at all of my surroundings, a Chef bursts out of a door in the back corner, holding to-go boxes in one hand. As he turns away from the gap-tooth bartender, clear as day is his ass-crack. My face unmoving, I silently ask myself “how the fuck did I end up here?” Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a little black book on the table I’m sitting at. Shit, was someone sitting here? Was this here a second ago? I don’t recall. God, I am so oblivious. Fortunately, no one was around to witness what was probably the tenth embarrassing I’ve done today. Glancing around the room, I briefly make eye contact with a few on-lookers. Most of them clearly had never seen a full set of teeth, or a hairbrush.

After an awkward amount of time had passed, no one lay claim to the table or the little black book that sat there, beckoning me to open it. I reach for it, waiting for a stranger to swat my hand away at any moment. It feels worn and battered in my hand, like it’s seen some shit in its day. It also feels and looks oddly familiar, somehow. Taking the rubber-band around it off, I crack it open. No name on the first page because god forbid anything ever be simple for me. A small gap between some pages in the middle, probably a bookmark. Hoping it’s a driver’s license or something to help easily identify the owner, I turn a chunk to the page. A piece of thin paper falls to the table. It’s folded in two, slightly open, just sitting there, another thing summoning me to dig deeper in my own little mystery at this forsaken place on the edge of town. I give in and pick it up. My breath sticks in my throat as my eyes finally take in what I’m seeing. I’m not kidding though, have you ever choked on your own breath like your body is betraying you? Of course you haven’t, everything bad or random only ever happens to me. Just my luck.

How long has this moment lasted? Seems like I’ve been sitting here forever and a day. Is that my heartbeat or has my heart stopped? My eyes are glued to the paper like I have no choice but to take this in. It’s a check. Right about now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking my luck has changed, right? Maybe, but it also makes absolutely no fucking sense. The check is written out to me. For $20,000. To me. Twenty thousand fucking dollars.

I quickly and clumsily put it back in the little black book, put it in my purse and dip out of there. I had agreed to play pool with some new friends here, but I clearly had other shit to do at the moment. They’d understand for sure. Casually trying not to run across the parking lot, don’t mind me. The wind hits my face, stinging. I slam my door shut and just sit in silence for a second. How did this happen and who would do this? I was obviously experiencing some kind of prank. Yet, no one claimed the book or has been occupying the table I sat at. I needed to calm down before I attempted to solve this clusterfuck.

I found myself drawing a hot bath, clearly dazed as I drove home. Do you every do that, completely forget where you are and what you’re doing? It happens to me more often than I’d like to admit. Anyway, I sat there as one does at the bottom of a shower. Shocked, confused and…excited? I mean, $20,000 might not be much to others, but this could change my life. I may be funny and have a few good friends, but overall I am definitely a fuck up. Always stuck in a rut, the reality of my life is insignificant compared to most. I could pay off my credit cards, pay off some other debt, really get out of here and build a better future. You know, the stupid way most people only daydream of their ideal life but never work towards it, the usual.

Before anything else though, I need to figure out how in the world this has happened. There has to be an explanation. My new friends? Someone who knew I was going to that hole in the wall tonight. Overall, it wasn’t many people to choose from. I hardly knew anything about the new people I’d met, no one in their right mind waste this kind of money on a stranger. A strange stranger, at that. No one on this earth would have the heart or the money to just do that out of kindness. Not anyone I could think of any way.

I sat at my desk, again in a day dream. The image playing in my mind was all the highlight moments from my life. I mean highlight in the most generic way possible, the core memories, but nothing special about them. It still had to be somewhere in the range of the early morning, maybe 3:00 a.m. I finally came to, turning my focus to the little black book. The only thing that occupied the surface other than some ink pens and sticky notes scattered across. More ideas that will die a lonely death on a piece of wood. I realized I hadn’t even bothered to read the book, being more concerned with who left me a fuck ton of money. Starting from the beginning, I skim the pages, trying to read faster than my brain would allow me to. It’s a diary. Honestly, too bad it wasn’t a classic little black book, I could’ve called a whole list of people and be out of this weird reality.

The entries aren’t exactly the way I remember events, but they’re similar. A story about being a little girl, quotes from books I’d read, notes to myself about stories or projects I’d never get to. They were familiar, but slightly different, as if someone was living my life but having the best possible outcomes of memories. Okay, was this a fucking joke? Someone making fun of my life because my life is a fucking joke? It had to be. It was taunting me with the life I’d always thought mine was supposed to be. I need a drink.

One whiskey and joint later, I continue my reading of this life I wished I had lived. Just like when I was daydreaming, reading this diary was like reading the events of my life unfold, but obviously you know, better. I couldn’t stop reading, not for hours, and I finally started to get to more recent events. This had to be one of my new friends, because they also met someone new a couple of weeks ago, same time and same kind of setting. Finally getting closer to solving this life-changing mystery.

“…and so that’s why I’m leaving this here for you, to start your life as the new version of you. I’ve watched through your eyes the different outcomes our realities hold. Being you, I couldn’t NOT intervene.”

I’m sorry, what? This little book is mine? I mean, mine but not mine? It went on to say that there exists other realities, sometimes there are repeats of souls, not exactly the same but still connected. “You know those day dreams?” she writes, “where everything fades and all sense of time disappears? That’s where we meet. You see glimpses of my reality, and I, yours. Like I said, I couldn’t help myself but to help, but you of all people know that. You would’ve done the same thing. I hope this helps you to start pursuing your dreams because let me tell you, they are real and they are possible.”

Once again in a day dream, I snap to and realize I’m reading the diary, like I’d done so many times before to make sure I’d gotten everything exactly right, that I didn’t miss anything. Seems like I had read it a hundred times before. With that reassurance, I left that little black book with a hidden secret at the tall table in the corner and walked out, walking towards a future that I knew existed. Someone runs into me on my way out. Would it kill people to be a little more aware of their surroundings? Geez.

fact or fiction
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