Fortune

The moonlight found one twisted shade, one uncovered corner of glass pane to shoot itself into. Late winter, pre-dawn, the 4 am frost thick and obscuring its gaze, sending it shattered, cascading in several directions at once. One beam caught Edmund's eye, but he was already awake, having completed his mandatory two hours of sleep for the night. He rubbed his palms down his face twice, (no more, no less) tossed the blanket aside, and rose in spite of the unnatural heaviness of his limbs. Some days felt heavier than others. He flipped on the lamp, but the glow of the moon alone had done a better job of lighting the room.

The walls were plain plaster, off-white in every space that wasn't cracking under the weight of 15 floors stacked on top of it. The bed frame, exhausted from supporting at least 3 resting bodies before his, had resigned from its post the week before. Its splintered remnants leaned up against the wall, unsure of where it belonged now. A mattress and box spring, stacked together as neatly as possible, laid to the left of a perpetual wet spot on the carpet, left by some backed-up pipe or open crevice. There had been so many that he had lost track. A box fan faced the wall in out-of-season punishment. The alarm clock glowed green and blinked blankly, and he returned its gaze in kind. This view had greeted him the same way and at the same time for over three years.

This morning, however, a new shape emerged against the muted, blurry backdrop. A dollar bill, crisp and unfolded, rested on the bed beside his pillow. His mind raced instantly - had it come loose from his wallet, or from the sole of an old dress shoe where he had tried to hide money from himself once or twice? That felt unlikely; lately, every dime he had was accounted for, as well as some he hadn't even earned yet. Still, there the dollar was before him, and he decided it must be a good omen. Small blessings were sometimes sent to him, poised to revive some hope long locked away or thrown out with the week's garbage. Last summer, a bag of fresh groceries was left on his porch, and a man ahead of him in the bus line had paid his fare just a month before.

Edmund always made sure that he was appropriately thankful for these little miracles, so he did what he had always done: first, he took a small black notebook from a lone floating shelf, documented the date and time, and simply wrote "hope - $1" on the line beneath. Then, he dared to lift his dollar bill, feeling it carefully between his fingers before placing it in his prized possession - a fire-proof lock box hidden carefully in his closet. After a gas leak and subsequent blaze took out his childhood home, he put the few valuables he had in a place safe enough to withstand anything. Aside from the dollar bill, he currently had four leftover packs of ramen noodles, a bag of candy, and five photos of himself as a child. One was a little charred around the edges. He closed the door, set the lock, and pressed on.

The next dollar appeared in the coffee pot's carafe, a standing monument of one of the few luxuries he still permitted himself. A third was in the medicine cabinet where he kept his toothbrush. A fourth in the dish drainer, the fifth on the welcome mat just outside the door. For every dollar found, it was recorded and stored away with the first one, a process that would grow more methodical and less pleasantly surprising as time wore on.

The walk to the bus stop put Edmund clear over $12, and he tucked the growing wad quickly into his pocket before passersby took notice. His empty apartment, his half-broken deadbolt, and a raw memory of getting jumped outside of an ATM years ago shot through his mind. He wasn't prepared to take any chances with hope. His dry, wind-burnt hand grazed a tear in his coat seam; he couldn't remember the last time he had enough extra money to fix it, but at that moment, he didn't have time to consider it further. He had to hurry up before he was late to work.

One day turned to two and then more. The dollars appeared in the strangest of places - just when he thought he knew where to look for the next one, he would come up empty until he caught them in random spots he almost missed. In spite of his great effort to keep his small miracles a secret, it slowly became the talk of the elementary school where he worked in maintenance. After the day a dollar bill was found sticking out of each student locker vent in the building, he was bordering on local celebrity. Some teachers thought he had planted the cash himself, but others knew better, assuming a well-meaning staffer was trying to help him manage hard times.

For a while, each dollar discovery reminded him of how long it had been since he'd had truly spendable money, the kind not given only to be immediately parted with. The rips in his living room curtains began looking more pronounced, the snow soaking his boots more unbearable, the two servings of pasta he ate every day less sufficient. He remembered something his mother had told him once when he was young - that rich folks don't get that way by spending their money. He threw the curtains back to hide the holes and wrapped his boots in tape. It felt like a turning point, a forward momentum.

The weeks became months, and Edmund's conscious gratitude faded some to quiet expectation. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but he knew that more money was certainly on the way; after all, it had been all this time. He found himself checking under rocks outside, flipping through old novels, shaking out his threadbare sheets. At night, he would add up his total for the day and place the new bills neatly in their stack in the lockbox. Over time, there were so many bills that they had to be folded to fit, staggered one over the other, pressed into corners, and wadded up before the door would shut.

One morning, a dollar bill seemed to float down as if by magic, landing softly on his chest during the soundest of sleep. He may have dreamt it falling feather-light from the ceiling, but he may not have; he could never remember his dreams clearly. After the repeating change of seasons had dulled his awareness and reduced the excitement of his blessings, it left him with just the comfort of routine. The reliability of his dollars started feeling as commonplace as the flush of a toilet or the twist of a doorknob.

Upon waking, he began documenting his findings as he always did, but curiosity pushed him in another direction - he decided to inventory exactly how much money he held in his box. It took him the better part of an hour to calculate, but the last dollar put his total at exactly $20,000. He dropped his notebook, suddenly overwhelmed by the magnitude of his blessing. He wondered if now was the time to start a savings account; he'd never had one, much less this much money to put into it.

When Edmund placed the dollar in his box, he hoped he had been continuously thankful enough. Promising himself he'd say a prayer later in the day, he rose to get ready for work.

He spent the day brow-furrowed and deep in contemplation, wondering what his next move should be. In spite of his desire to save the money, more desires were growing clearer within him - one for a loft apartment near the park, another for more than two pairs of frayed, world-weary jeans. If he could spend just a quarter of the money, maybe a little less, he figured he would still be all right. After all, he knew more would come in as it always had. Still, he began to feel uneasy when he reached the end of his workday and hadn't found even one hidden dollar. He decided they must have just been tucked away in places he'd forgotten to check.

Returning home, he was relieved at the click that his antique deadbolt gave as he turned his key. Somehow it still caught after all this time. He instinctively locked the door tightly behind him, not bothering to remove his taped-up boots or hang his torn jacket in the makeshift coat closet he'd made from a curtain rod. Rounding the corner to his bedroom, his eyes struggled to adjust from the blinding snow, leaving him lost in the ill-lit haze of the terribly familiar. Kneeling before his lockbox, he fumbled with the rows of numbers several times, compelled by the fear that he'd lost the thread to his own good fortune. He longed for reassurance. Aside from the photos, the candy, and the ramen noodles, the box was empty. Edmund felt a strange calm fall over him, urging him to accept defeat and loss the way that he knew best, the way that he always had, the way generations before him had done. The slow, calculated breath of one who is lying down in surrender.

His eyes caught the latches of the window, still locked tight and half-hidden behind blinds, secure and steady. The broken bed frame still leaned against the wall. There were no new holes or cracks, no indication that someone had crept in while he was away. He retrieved his notebook from the shelf, opening it just far enough to print the letter X, followed by "hope - $0" underneath. Stability echoed around him: what always was and would always be, the gravity of nothing that had somehow swiftly eliminated the potential for change.