Watermark

All it took was one pair of scissors to realize that his life was a mess. Well, that, and $20,000 he found in a black book wedged in the rocky shores of the pacific.

Edgar Bailey lived endlessly in academic work. Without much of a social life, he was found in the corner of his bedroom on friday nights, deep into the spine of his law book. As usual, his nose remained pressed to the heavy weighted pages. There was nothing interesting about his life in the middle of rainy Seattle. He was average looking, still in law school, with a tall lanky figure, a mediocre gpa, and hardly any connections to family. Not many friends tried to call or else theyd get denied by another excuse for a case, some homework, or just plain apathy to their request.

Sitting on the floor of his open room, he stared at the pair of golden-clad scissors on his desk. He had a fear of scissors. Actually, he had a fear of water and of car tires. Once when Edgar was crossing the street too soon, a car almost ran over his foot and it gave him a tremendous amount of anxiety ever since. But as for the water, he never liked it since childhood. Showers were scary, pools were out of the question. Never would he be seen in the rain without an umbrella. It was a very embarassing fear, but he hoped that it would just disappear one day when he got tired of it.

Most importantly, he hated those scissors. Yet, he always used them to cut apart his weekly newspaper of the latest mysteries around town. Criminals wanted, something spooky, an opinion piece, etc. Whatever it was, he made a book of it. What struck him last week was an ad for a lost black book. In the picture, it was small and unattractive. But at the same time, this sort of find amused him.

"I wonder why this was important enough to post an ad for".

Edgar examined it further, and saw that it was lost near the shoreline and the owner needed help to retrieve it and return it to them as soon as possible. Even though he hated the ocean, Edgar decided he would give it a shot for the hell of it.

Walking down the wet cobblestones, he reached the point where the road finally met the creaky boards of the oceanside entrance. Carefully going down, he looked around at the gray skies. It was filled with the sihouletttes of black birds.

Keeping his eyes peeled, he searched in the sand, around garbage bins, near the road, and in the greenery near the forests. When he was just about to give up, he spotted something sticking up between the rocks. It was a wrinkly leather black object.

"Ah....you were in plain sight all along..figures."

Edgar grabbed the book and opened it quickly, not wasting any time as the sun began to set. To his suprise, a wad of cash sat perfectly inside the front cover. Completely untouched. Looking into the journal, he saw many entries and scribbes of the ocean.

However, something was very strange about these entries.

Every single one was written about water. Fears of drowning, its elemental properties, the way it gives us life, and even its coloring. Every single page was filled with water.

Startled by this and feeling like he wasnt alone, Edgar put the journal in his pocket, put the money in his wallet, and headed home. Upon arrival back at his roomy apartment, the scisscors he hated glared back at him with a quick shimmer in the light. Edgar was debating on calling the owner, but wondered if he should keep this money for himself. Seeing that the journal was also full of strange entries, he decided to take the dreadful scissors out again to cut them up for his book of oddities.

Without much thought, he began to cut the pages and glue them in his scrapbook.

"God this is pathetic, but theres nothing else to do around here"

Edgar glanced at the next few pages of the journal and froze. In the description, it described someone of his size, features, and occupation going into the ocean and never coming out. Now invested, he glanced at all the preminitions that the journal spewed about water related deaths.

Edgar pushed back the journal in disbelief and threw the scissors across the room. They a nearby glass of lemonade, and its contents spilled across the floor. Without time to process what was going on, the money in his wallet felt heavy. Everything in his wallet began to feel heavier than before, and soon large drops of water began to fall from his trousers onto the floor.

Soon enough, the chair legs turned to rivers and the desk turned into a sea. The entire room was filling with water and Edgar tried to swim out but couldnt. The ad flashed in his eyes and all he could see was the year "1894". That would mean he was over 100 years old?

"Thats impossible. Its 2021!" he gulped.

But slowly, the water rose to the ceiling and Edgar felt part of the water. The room was filled and seeped out into the hallways, it traveled to streets.The building was flooded.

When the police came later, they found an empty apartment, but no Edgar Bailey. Not even his identification could be found in the remains, as everything had been demaged.

Sticking out from the floorboards was one pair of golden scissors and one tattered black book with empty pages.