Paul's 29th Journal

Paul woke in a cold sweat. Pulling his shirt away from his throat, he took a look around and recognized his room with its white walls, framed movie posters, and books strewn over every surface. He couldn’t remember making such a mess, but maybe his headache had something to do with forgetting what had happened the night before? Looking for clues he turned to his left and saw the familiar green nightstand, but on top was a little black notebook he didn’t recognize. Sitting up gingerly, not sure if his headache would get better or worse with movement, he placed his hand on the journal and pulled it to him. He heard rather than saw a pen hit the ground and decided he’d have to find it later, the pressure in his head was too much to lean over further, but he was still curious where this notebook had come from. Opening the book, he saw his own handwriting on the inside cover. It simply said “29”.

Flipping to the first page he saw an entry, but it wasn’t a normal journal entry. It was a letter…to himself?

Paul,

If you’re reading this, it didn’t work.

You’ll have to try again, I’m sorry, but IT IS worth it.

What you need to know is that you’ve done this

before, but for some reason you can’t remember any of it.

Hopefully you’ll be able to do it right this time.

It starts with a cold sweat and a headache

and ends with saving Natalie’s life.

-Paul “29”

The entry had a been a bit sobering, but Paul still wasn’t sure if this was a joke or not. Save Natalie’s life? What did his ex-girlfriend have to do with this? And what was with the “29” after his name?

He decided to get up and grab some coffee and then finish reading what his crazy, possibly drunk, brain had come up with the night before. Had he sat down to write a story last night and just forgot?

After brewing a pot, he leaned against the counter with the coffee mug in one hand and the mysterious black book in the other and flipped to the second page. He went on to read about how at 8:35 AM a woman, Natalie’s aunt, would knock on his door.

Paul stopped reading to look at the clock. It was 6:04 AM. Not that it mattered, he laughed to himself and scrubbed a hand down his face. This was just fiction…right?

Reading further, he found that it mentioned other notebooks and that he shouldn’t show them to anyone. He had completely forgotten what he had seen when he woke up, so he wandered back down the hall to his bedroom. Taking a closer look at the books scattered across his room he realized they were little black notebooks just like the one he was holding. Picking one up, he saw on the inside was the number “12” and in another he had written “5.” Altogether there were 29 notebooks including the one he had found by his bed. Skimming a few of them, he noticed they all started with a letter to himself and then went on to mention Natalie and her aunt. If he guessed right, the numbers were based on the order they were written, but it was crazy to think he had created all of these entries and didn’t remember. Deciding it didn’t hurt to keep reading, he sat on his bed with the 29th journal.

It told him that Natalie’s aunt would offer him $20,000 to spend the day with Natalie. Paul raised an eyebrow at this, curious why Natalie’s aunt was going to give him so much money. He hadn’t seen Natalie since she had broken up with him abruptly two months ago and he had never really spent time with her family, but the book assured him it was important to tell her aunt “yes.”

Paul decided the notebook went way beyond a normal prank, especially one he would play on himself, but he had this weird feeling that this was somehow true. That he really did need to know everything that this book said. His headache got better and then slowly worse as he sat reading the content of the notebooks, learning more as sunlight began to stream into his room.

Sometime later he heard a knock on the door and, looking up, he realized it was 8:35 AM. After reading everything in the notebooks he knew what happened next. He now knew that if he didn’t speak to Natalie’s aunt, then Natalie was definitely doomed. He stood and tucked the notebook into the back of his jeans and, making sure it was covered with his shirt, he closed his bedroom, walked past the kitchen, and opened his front door. The woman standing there was distraught, but since he was expecting her he let her in. Fifteen minutes later Natalie’s aunt was handing him one of those large manila envelopes containing $20,000 in cash, some in 100s and some in smaller bills. She said it was all she had and that she desperately wanted him to “help keep Natalie safe.”

As soon as the aunt left, he headed out to find Natalie. His first job today would be to convince Natalie to let him tag along with her throughout the day. In the notebook it told him exactly how the day would go and how it was his job to keep Natalie from harm. It said if he couldn’t save her by the end of the day, then he’d have to write it down in a notebook and do this all over again tomorrow. That was what “Paul 29” meant - each notebook was a day he had lived over and over again, never quite succeeding in his mission. After what he’d read, he was determined to remain “Paul 29” and never have to read about this awful day again.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite sure how she would die today. A few times her car exploded and others she had fallen off a building just as he’d reached the edge to grab her hand. Sometimes he had helped her survive all that just for her to be killed by a rogue bullet during a shootout at a robbery downtown. It wasn’t surprising to him now that he would wake up in a cold sweat after not being able to save her all those times.

His second job for the day was to figure out what to do differently today that he hadn’t tried before. He had an idea why her aunt was hiring him to keep her alive today. It was Natalie’s 25th birthday and she would inherit billions from her deceased father’s estate. She had once told him that if she wasn’t alive to claim it, then it would be distributed to her aunt. Even though it seemed like a nice, protective thing to do, the fact that her aunt had hired him today of all days left him suspicious of her motives.

His apartment was close enough to the café Natalie would be at this morning that he arrived just as she was packing up to leave. In the past if he started an argument with her, then she would run up to the roof to cool down and would “fall off.” If she just left normally out the front door and got into her vehicle, then he would get there just as another driver hit her car, causing an explosion. He couldn’t let either happen. He just had to figure out a way to keep her here, so he walked up to her and just blurted out:

“Your aunt is trying to kill us.”

She had been packing up her bag, but with this she fell back into the seat. “How do you know that?!” she asked, her eyes growing larger than he’d ever seen before.

“Your aunt paid me $20,000 to spend the day with you. I…I think she’s trying to make sure we’re in the same place so she can get rid of us together.”

“Paul,” she leaned forward as if she was going to tell a secret. “Why do you think I broke up with you? Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you?” She ran a hand through her hair, a sure sign she was nervous to tell him something, and continued. “She threatened you. Later today I’m meeting with the family lawyer to sign over half of my inheritance to her so she’ll leave us alone.”

Now was the time to tell her what he knew. Maybe it would give her a chance to save herself. Paul told her about the notebooks and how everyday he saw her die by some tragedy or another. Natalie was already nodding. “You mean you’ve already gone through this day before, that you follow me around all day and there is always some accident? It sounds really crazy, Paul.”

For a moment he was worried she would storm out, but then she said, “But I believe you. I don’t know how or why, but I know you wouldn’t make this up.” He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as she continued. “Maybe my aunt is staging these, I don’t know, “accidents” so that she’ll get all the money?”

“Ok, yeah,” he slid down into his seat with relief, but immediately sat back up. This was no time to relax. Plus, he had an idea. “You’re meeting with your aunt today, right? She mentioned she would see you later.”

“Yes, I’m supposed to sign paperwork with her at the lawyer’s office today.”

Since her aunt knew where she would be, and was probably using the meeting at the lawyer’s office as her alibi, they had to be smart about getting Natalie to safety. They made a plan and decided to take the back exit out of the café. Unfortunately, they couldn’t take Natalie’s car and Paul didn’t own one so they decided he should use his phone app to hire a ride to take them to a police station just in case Natalie’s aunt had her eye on Natalie’s accounts. They would just have the driver avoid any of the normal routes into the downtown area where she was supposed to go for the meeting.

A few hours later they were leaving the police station. Natalie explained her concern – and, along with some information Paul couldn’t really explain how he knew - the very open-minded police arrested her aunt. They were able to get her to confess to spending millions of dollars on hitmen to set up a bomb in Natalie’s car, push her off the roof, and even to stage a robbery, which happened to be a set-up to make sure Natalie would be shot as a bystander - all to get 100% of Natalie’s billions and not look too suspicious.

Paul woke in a cold sweat. Pulling his shirt away from his throat he took a look around and recognized his room with its white walls and framed movie posters. He turned to his left and saw a little black notebook on his nightstand. He turned to his right and saw Natalie’s dark brown hair spilling over the other pillow. Pulling her into his arms he snuggled closer and whispered, “I forgot how warm it is with you here. I’ll have to turn the heat down.”

Natalie smiled and turned to Paul. “What happens now?” she asked. He frowned and shrugged, “I’m not sure. It wasn’t in the notebooks.”

“No, I mean what are you making me for breakfast?”

“Oh,” Paul could tell she was partly kidding and huffed out a laugh. He remembered the pen under the bed and rolled away from her to grab it and the fresh notebook on his nightstand and handed them to her. “Write down what you want and I’ll make it happen.”

It was a new day after all. Anything was possible.