Misfortune's Mischief

Every day, at precisely 6:35am, Nikolai Metrovski's rusty analog clock clings and clangs him awake. Every day, at precisely 6:36am, Nikolai Metrovski begins hating his day, before rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and sitting up on the side of his bed. In one deft move, Nikolai grabs the old clock, flips the switch in the back turning off the alarm, and tosses it over his shoulder into the overflowing laundry bin on the other side of his bed. Opening his bedside table drawer, he pulls out a crinkled bag of dollar store coffee grounds to fill the old coffee machine his mother gave him, and tries to be thankful that at least he has running water.

Nikolai lives in a small studio on the fifth floor of an apartment building in the old fabric section of town. The old warehouse turned living quarters can be drafty, the elevator is permanently broken, and a family of rats live in the staircases. As Nikolai sips on his hot coffee, he closes his eyes and tries to remember what exactly it was that had convinced him to move to the city. Old and weathered train tracks neighbor the building, and as the 6:42am train clunkers and whistles past, Nikolai stands as if on autopilot. In three gulps his hot coffee is gone and his throat is burned, he pulls on the same pants he wore yesterday and decides between his last two clean work shirts. Dressed and depressed, he walks down the four blocks to his factory job to begin the work he hates to gain the paycheck he needs to barely live. Maybe, if he can save enough, he can find work he actually loves, but he's been saying maybe for two years now. And sometimes it's hard to keep believing.

Nikolai clocks in, nods at his coworkers, and locks in at his position, where he will stand for the next eight hours until it is time to leave. There is a lunch break, but Nikolai works through it every day, hoping on some level to be recognized for his hard work. To be acknowledged. To be appreciated. To be something.

Work is over, ice-cold rain falls from the sky in sheets, and with no umbrella or jacket, Nikolai keeps his face down with his chin pressed to his chest and holds his arms in tight in an attempt to keep warm. Nikolai has always been strong, resilient, and committed to moving forward. But with his toes freezing in his rain-clogged shoes, his shirt sticking to his back, and the only retreat from the rainy day being his lonely studio, he begins to cry silent tears that are lost in the rain. Giving up never looked so good. But bad days only end when you finish them, so instead of jumping into oncoming traffic, blurry-eyed Nikolai trudges on, led by his integral belief that good days will come.

With one block left now, Nikolai begins warming up by thinking of his bed, but loses his footing on what feels like an uneven cobblestone, and crashes down into the murky sidewalk puddles. Searching around for the culprit of his fall, Nikolai does not find a loose cobblestone, but instead a rain-soaked, leather-bound, little black book slightly larger than his hand. Nikolai looks around for a possible owner, but no one else is outside on this rainy day. Sheltering the book under his torso, Nikolai opens to the first page, hoping to find a return address or name, but the only words written are:

'Dear Stranger,

This book is not lost, but waiting to be found. Your dreams are worth dreaming, your life is worth living, and you deserve to be happy.

With all my love,

A fellow stranger.'

Confused, Nikolai turns to the second page and gasps at what he sees. Closing the book and running the rest of the way home, Nikolai's face lights up with a smile that could shun away the rain clouds themselves. Back in his studio, he opens the book again to the second page, where a rectangular hole has been cut out in the remaining pages to make room for a stack of money labeled to be $20,000. The very next day, Nikolai Metrovski quit his terrible job and began planning how to reclaim his life, his happiness, and how to repay the kindness of the stranger who helped save his life.