"Madison"

Rob is a regular at the café on the edge of Madison.

Madison is a small town at the bottom of the Appalachians. It’s residents typically grow up and grow old here, but the cities around are bustling with tourists and investors looking to find the best vacation spots to expand their wealth. Rob sits at the café in his usual spot by the window, overlooking the mountains.

“Want the usual?” was about the only conversation Rob experienced every day. He had grown sick over the years, had no family, and no friends.

“Yes, please” he answered to the waitress.

Rob has been visiting Madison for 20 years. The resident’s talk about him as an outsider, wondering what is so important about this place that makes him keep returning. The workers at the café know he is not an investor, but he is seen walking all over town appearing to be searching for something.

Rob drinks his coffee and reaches into the pocket of the same coat he has worn for years to pull out a little black book. He reports his findings for the day when he notices a young woman come into the café to start her shift. She was very beautiful and appeared to be in her early twenties. He had never seen her before. She puts on her apron and a nametag labeled “Samantha” and walks over to refill his coffee.

“Are you writing in your journal?” she asked Rob. He did not expect her to be so straightforward.

“Yea, kind of” he answered.

“I drink coffee and write in mine every morning” Samantha said.

“Really, what do you write about?” Rob asked.

“I write to-do lists, dreams, and a lot of poetry” she said.

Rob answered, “Oh really, what are some of your dreams Samantha?”

“You can call me Sam” she answered. “I dream of moving away, having a career, and making a difference.”

“What kind of difference, Sam?” he asked.

“I want to help people” she said as she smiled and walked back to get an order.

Rob had heard this before, but he had never met someone he felt was so genuine. Samantha had a lightness about her that seemed strange. She was happy, hopeful, and childlike. Something was very different about her and he realized he had never seen her in town before.

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?” he said as she walked by.

“I’m from here!” She answered with a big smile.

Rob wondered why he’d never seen her before and asked the cashier as he left if she was from Madison, but he said he hadn’t seen her before either.

The next morning Rob walked all through town, searching and making his ‘rounds,’ wondering if he’d see Samantha. He went to the café and ordered his usual, waiting for Samantha to come in for her shift but she didn’t show.

He reached into his pocket for the little black book to report his findings for the day but it wasn’t there. He immediately panicked.

He searched all over the café and retraced his steps the whole day throughout Madison. No black book. His panic was at an all-time high. Everything was in that book.

Rob remembered the last he wrote in his book - could Samantha have stolen it? He couldn’t imagine her doing something like that. Was he fooled?

The next day Rob missed his rounds through Madison and sat in the café waiting to see Samantha. She finally showed up for a late shift and he immediately approached her.

“Give me back the book” he said angrily to her.

“What book?” she asked, terrified.

“The one we were talking about yesterday, the one you stole from me” he said.

“I didn’t steal anything from you, I don’t know what you’re talking about” she said as tears started to come to her eyes.

He frustratingly left and had no idea what he was going to do. How was he going to get all of the information he had written for the last 20 years? How was he going to do his job? What was he going to tell his boss? What would they do to him?

He reached in his pocket for the keys to his car when he found the book.

Rob was relieved. He felt like an elephant had stepped off of his chest.

He looked through the pages to make sure everything was there - until he ran past a page that had been torn out.

It was the report from the page the day he met Samantha.

He ran back into the café, but she was gone.

He asked the cashier he’d known where she had gone but the cashier had no idea what he was talking about. Where had she gone? he asked himself. Had he finally lost his mind? He stood outside looking around for her, but no sign.

He got into his car and wondered what was so important on the page. What did he find that day? Why did no one notice her leave?

The next day was his day off- but he returned to the café to see if she would return to work and asked the manager. The manager was confused and said that a Samantha did not work there.

He said to himself that he had finally lost his mind, but remembered the missing page. How had no one noticed this woman, and why did she tear out a page in his book?

Rob returned to his rounds through Madison the next day and tried to retrace his exact steps the day he met Samantha again to find some kind of answer but had no luck. He ate at the café at his usual time, and continued writing his reports in the little black book despite the missing page. He wondered how he was going to tell his boss of the missing page, and what might happen to him.

Madison was a town that was very good at keeping secrets. Rob had been sent on a contract here to report his findings of the people he saw everyday residing in Madison with home addresses and descriptions. He regularly reported to his boss weekly – with no idea how this information was useful.

He wasn’t sure how reporting the daily habits of people living there helped the people he worked for.

It was no secret in Madison that children had gone missing, but none had any idea of where they had gone or how they disappeared.

Rob returned to his rounds the next day, regularly retracing the locations he was told to investigate, except this time on his round he noticed that one of the flyers on the board with missing children on it had a familiar face. The town had kept the board with missing children flyers up throughout the years and it had always been the same. He looked closer and noticed the picture was of a young girl around 5 years old with a bright smile and small text below that read “$20,000 reward” for anyone who could find this little girl.

It was Samantha.

Suddenly he realized why he had never seen her in town before.

He noticed the flyer had a description of where she was last seen.

Rob immediately went to this location in hopes of finding out if this was the mysterious woman he had met.

Rob found himself in the middle of the large state park in town that took up a lot of the county.

He had walked on one of the trails the day he met Samantha to take a break from studying the habits of the townsfolk.

He desperately ran through the trail to unravel the mystery of this missing woman but couldn’t seem to find anything. He wasn’t sure of what he was even looking for until he suddenly found a sheet of paper lying on the ground in front of what looked like a hidden pathway trailing off into the woods.

It was the missing page in his little black book, except with a note written on the back that read “I hope this helps.” Suddenly his phone went off and his bank account had been deposited 20,000 dollars.

Rob wondered how someone he had just met a few days knew his bank account information. He came to a startling realization - this was the reward for Samantha.

Was this from her, from someone who intentionally set out for her to go missing? Did she just happen to show up in town that day? What was she there for?

Rob desperately needed this cash in order to repay his debts to the people he was working for. He needed this cash to be free, but how could she know?

Suddenly Rob remembered the last thing she had said to him and realized that she had appeared in town that day in order just to steal his black book.

He wondered what he had written in his book about this town that was so important to her, but thankfully took his reward and was happy to be a free man.