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“Remember, you have that interview in the morning", the old woman with sparkling blue eyes said to her husband.

"I know, I'm almost done for the night..' the husband replied, he was hunched over a notebook, slowly writing letter after letter with a shaky, wrinkled hand. The Parkinson’s was getting worse, but he wouldn’t give up writing freehand just yet.

"Ok, goodnight. Shut off the light when you’re done', Ann said in a sleepy voice.

"Goodnight, I love you, A"

He spent several minutes writing just a couple more short paragraphs, a decade ago it would’ve taken him a fraction of the time, even though few could read his writing back then. A blur of scribbles like waves with crosses and horizontal lines thrown in, the writings of a mad man, people close to him would joke.

I’m getting old, he thought. I am old, he laughed quietly in his head. He shut the brass bedside lamp off, set his head down on the pillow, and drifted off into sleep with his youth in mind.

The next morning came, and the bits of light that snuck in from the edges of his curtains woke him as they always did the past couple years. He used to be able to sleep in late regardless of the light. But it was particularly bright this morning, in his cabin tucked away in the North East corner of Vermont, "The Northeast Kingdom" Vermonters called it. A kingdom of trees he liked to think of it, there were probably a hundred thousand trees to every person up there, if not more. Just how he liked things. This morning the sky was blue and the rising sun beat upon the white snow, reflecting more light into his room than usual. Making it another early morning.

The interviewer and his crew of cameramen came a few hours later, and once they’d sat down in his living room with the fire blazing in the fireplace beside them and had out with the usual pleasantries, the real questions began and the camera started rolling:

“Mr. Halworth” the interviewer began, a tall man, probably in his 40s, with short brown hair, a thin face, and round moon glasses like Lennon, "It is a pleasure to be here talking with you. I’ve heard you mention in the past that you attribute your success in your writing career to be a certain… unusual circumstance, is that correct?" he inquired.

“Yes”, Halworth replied.

“Could you tell us more about this mysterious situation that inspired the story that launched your career?”, he asked.

“Sure, but this is the last time…”, he added a little grumpily, and began:

“I had just graduated high school and was excited about going to the University of Vermont. I was utterly mesmerized by the eastern philosophies I’d been studying. Ideas about governing your life, living with little, letting go of desire and so on. I was idealistic, very impressionable, and to be honest, sensitive. Underneath it all was a dormant depression, something that had been coming and going for a couple of years, something I had not yet diagnosed. After leaving my hometown, and coming to Burlington and dipping my toes in the real world, I quickly found myself confronted with many truths about real life that I was wary to accept. I began to question everything I’d previously held dear. My depression consumed me. Luckily, I met someone soon after moving into my dormitory, someone who slowed my descent so that when I eventually did hit rock bottom, I was able to get back up.

There was a potluck in my dormitory one night, and I didn’t know anyone attending. Some people had cooked entrees, some made desserts, and I remember one delicious challah loaf. I was using the dormitory kitchen: a beautiful communal kitchen, the nicest on campus at the time. It was very open, like a dining hall, and had couches and coffee tables near the front, huge glass windows running from floor to ceiling along the right side, looking out to the courtyard, and a large black-topped island countertop. I was making peach cobbler, and it was almost ready to be put in the oven, I was using my best friend’s mother’s recipe “cuppa-cuppa-cuppa”: a cup of milk, a cup of sugar, a cup of flour, a cup of peaches, and egg and… something else. How could I have forgotten?!, I thought anxiously.

After I had been thinking without success for a minute, a brown haired, freckle-covered young woman with big blue eyes and long legs and arms slid her slender body onto the counter beside me, in a kind of careless matter. She had a pleasant facial expression, with slightly upturned lips, and curious eyes.

'Hi!', she said excitedly, with a very friendly, high-pitched voice.

'Hey' I replied, slightly intrigued.

'You’re Thomas? Right? I’m Ann, I live down the hall'

'Ya I recognize you'

'Soo, whatcha makin’?'

'“Cuppa-cuppa-cuppa”, all the ingredients are a cup of something, but I can’t remember the last one… Cup of flour, milk, sugar, peaches, an egg, and…'

'Hmm.. butter?!', she exclaimed enthusiastically.

'Right! Thanks! I forgot because it’s a stick of butter not a cup' I replied

'Ya but you remembered the egg and that’s not a cup either' she chided.

'Haha, weird, right again'

He examined her for a moment, she had a content, curious look on her face, similar to that of a child discovering the world. I believed she had a palpable underlying understanding of the world, something that came across quietly, it snuck up on me even, yet it was undeniable once you really noticed it. It was this combination of bright, childlike personality with quiet, sage-like qualities that made me fascinated, even obsessed with her.

We got together soon after. Things were rocky, even despite our love, it turned out that I wasn’t the only one with the serious mental illness driving my life, Ann had some problems herself, and they created obstacles in our relationship. Despite all of this we stayed together.

On our six month anniversary we were taking a walk in the cool, March air of Burlington, on campus by the Chapel. We stopped by the brick wall of the Chapel, and Ann pulled out a small, black notebook from her bag.

'What’s this', I asked.

It’s a notebook so you can write down all your thoughts and feelings. Open it!', she told me eagerly.

I opened to the first page and was surprised to see three words beautifully written in her neat cursive: I Love You. I looked up into her wide, blue eyes, they caught the light of an adjacent street lamp, making them glow. I held her gaze for a moment and choked out the three words in reply and we embraced.

The following weeks were much better. I enjoyed time with Ann everyday and I poured myself into the notebook, writing about god-knows-what. After writing in the book I always felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted. I couldn't recall what I wrote, like I was in some sort of trance, with only a vague recollection of the topics, but whatever I had been writing, it was helping.

As time passed I realized more and more that as soon as I opened the notebook I could not recall a single word I had written. It almost seemed that the notebook possessed my mind and I immediately became completely unaware of anything my pen was marking on the paper, all I could recall was that some story was unfolding within its pages. These thoughts festered in my mind as the strangeness of my experience while writing in the notebook became undeniable, as if some unexplainable force was at play. A knot grew in my chest as I realized what I must do. It was simple enough, all I had to do was go back in my notebook and read what I’d written, but great doubt and fear bubbled in my chest to the point where the thought of reading it filled me with dread.

Late one night I decided I couldn’t take it any longer. How could I go on not knowing what I was writing in my notebook? I decided to take it down to campus to read. There was a beautiful Ash tree whose leaves turned a radiant yellow in the fall that stood beside the English building, which was a beautiful, archaic gothic structure of ornately carved stone from the late 1700s, named Lafayette. Between the Ash and the decadent building sat a wooden park bench where I’d go sometime to sit and admire the campus. I sat there below the yellow glow of the streetlight, and with a heavy heart I opened the notebook. The first page had my name and contact information, along with those three words Ann had written in them, this set me at ease a little bit. The second page was blank. So was the third, and fourth and so on.

It was as if my worst nightmare had become true. Hysterically, I flipped through the entire notebook, tugging at the pages and sometimes putting them close to my eyes to be sure I wasn’t missing something. There wasn’t a single word written on any of the pages. The entire notebook was blank. In complete hysteria, convinced that I had gone completely insane, I yelled like a wounded animal under the full moon, and hurled the notebook towards the Lafayette building.

The next day an English professor stopped me in the library.

'Are you Timothy Halworth?' The stout, gray-haired man inquired.

'Yes' I said, in a shaky voice, still distraught from the previous night.

'Well, I wanted to let you know that I found your notebook that you must’ve dropped leaving Lafayette yesterday, and I feel awful but I couldn’t help but read it. Usually I would only open up to the cover page for the information, but I was overcome with curiosity and read the first page… and then soon after I found myself sitting in my office having read the entirety of its contents. Well, being so awe-struck with the genius of the three stories, I brought it to my colleagues who judge the annual short-story competitions and asked them to take a late submission, and I’m happy to say that your stories won third, second and first place. I would love to sit down with you sometime and discuss your process, I really haven’t read anything like them. That last story brought me and all of my colleagues to tears. Anyways, you should be receiving a check in the mail for your prize money'

'What are you talking about?'

'Well third place was two thousand, second three, and first ten thousand so you should be receiving a check for twenty thousand dollars. I’m Professor Hardwick by the way', and with that he strode off.”

So that was the beginning of it all you might say. It launched my career and after that I never reread any of my stories, I merely had friends and loved ones edit it for a cut of the profits”

“Yes, he’s quite stubborn about it’, Ann chided "but I’m always happy to give his stories a quick once over for revision”.

After a few more questions and some more small talk the interviewer and his small crew departed. Before turning off the light that night Mr. Halworth reached into his bedside drawer and pulled out the little black notebook. Without curiosity he opened it for the first time since he had thrown it on that fateful night. Almost with relief, he found its pages blank, except for his contact information and those three beautiful words written in the neat, cursive handwriting of Ann: "I Love You". With a smile and wet eyes, he tucked the notebook back into his drawer, shut off his bedside lamp and with a soft voice told his wife he loved her before drifting into blissful sleep.