Floodwater Fortune

Trudging along on my daily government-sanctioned walk to get out of the too-small house with too many people, I think how weird this year has been. Walking is a ritual that I wish wasn’t necessary, but at least it boosts my vitamin D levels. And keeps me sane. The paths are boggy, slippery, and sometimes overflowing river water covers my welly-clad feet.

To my left, something is sticking out of the mud, swept into the undergrowth by the floodwater. It’s covered in a fine layer of silt, making the colour hard to discern, but it is clearly a notebook. A small one, that’s definitely seen better days. I’d usually leave things like that, but I’ve recently been on a litter-picking crusade. It might be short-lived, but I’ll keep going while I still have my convictions. And I’ll do anything to make me feel like I’ve achieved something today.

I squelch over to pick it up, gingerly, just between my thumb and forefinger. I don’t have a bag with me, and really don’t feel like putting a soggy book in my coat pocket, so I cut my walk short and head back. At home, I place the little black notebook in a plastic bag and leave it in the garage to decontaminate. It’s probably been in the undergrowth for days, the chance of it having the virus on it is very slim, but old (or new?) habits die hard. Maybe this is what I’ll automatically do with all of my finds and purchases for the rest of my life. At least it’s a lesson in patience and delayed gratification.

Four days later, my sister shouts up the stairs, asking who the crusty book in the garage belongs to. I had completely forgotten about it, but I trot downstairs to take a look. I don’t know why I hadn’t put it immediately into the bin when I got home, but the same feeling that made me keep it 4 days ago, made me open it now. The pages are stiff, stuck together. The first page is blank apart from a scribble at the top: someone testing their pen. The second has a doodle of a tree, reaching branches across the double page spread. And the next 30 pages are full of writing. Scrawled across pages and pages, in spiky handwriting, making it’s own jagged lines, ignoring the rigour of the existing pre-drawn ones. Automatically I feel like I am intruding. You shouldn’t read other people’s notebooks, they’re private. But there was no chance of me reuniting the book with it’s owner, if there was anything worth reuniting, unless I read it. And so I do.

It was everything I’d wanted to write, but never could. It is romance, magical realism, twists and turns. It is sketchy, shaky, but beautiful.

I don’t know what to do with myself now. There are no identifying details, nothing that even hints at to whom the book might belong. I place the book back down, carefully, and briefly forget about it again.

As I doomscroll through Instagram, a sponsored post pops up. A writing competition. Short stories. With a cash prize. And the theme fits perfectly with the story written in the little black book. Is this fate? Or does the algorithm know me better than I know myself? Judging by my targeted ads, probably the latter. I’m a sucker, capitalism has me in its thrall, so I click on the link.

All this story needs is a polish, this story inside my magical little black book. And so, I submit it. Just before I click the button, I pause. Should I do this? It feels like cheating. But it also feels like this was meant to happen. Maybe the book was cast into the river, just so that it could land in my line of sight, on my daily sanity walk? I decide to go with that, because, honestly, I could do with the prize money. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. With that thought, I click, and then quickly close all of my open tabs.

Three weeks later, my inbox pings. ‘Congratulations’, the email begins. I’ve won. The magical story from the little black book has won $20,000.

But will the money ever feel like mine?