Sleep Easy

Kasia didn’t remember going into the wooded forest on the edge of her property, but when she woke up in a patch of moss covered in brambles and assorted fauna fuzz, she dusted herself off and tried to sort it out.

Sleepwalking had been a problem for her ever since she could remember, and the only consistency she had in sleep was her little black book. She had to tuck herself in wearing a housecoat with a wide enough pocket to keep a small journal and ink pen to leave herself notes. Mysterious notes to herself that she never could understand.

If she didn’t have the book to catch her notes, they only ended up slashed on her pretty blue walls.

“Count the Bills”

“The park’s founding father.”

“A bundle of the best.”

She could never remember what she had dreamt about to prompt such scribblings, but every few nights she would find her little black book filled entirely with the new sentence. Sometimes written over and over itself in a nearly unidentifiable scratch, sometimes in swooping script. Each page was completely filled by whatever gripped Kasia’s subconscious as she slept.

The messages had been coming less frequently as she grew older. It just seemed like she was always farther away from her house whenever she did sleepwalk. She carefully made her way over the small creek that marked the edge of her wide lawn and trudged through the soft dewy grass. She didn’t want to look at the book yet. It was too early to make herself upset over the message, whatever it was. As she strolled she checked in with her body. Did she have any cuts? Did she have any spots that hurt? Was there anything screaming in her muscles? Aside from her hair feeling stringy nothing seemed out of order.

If she hadn’t been looking down she may not have seen it.

A small, leather briefcase that reminded her of a doctor’s supply kit, nestled against the concrete steps of her small back patio, next to her raspberry bramble. She paused, looking over the wide expanse of her yard. She had read about packages being left in conspicuous places holding dangerous gifts, nothing she really felt like experiencing on a Saturday morning. Kasia turned her back door, made oatmeal for breakfast, took a somber shower, and came back to find the black bag in the same spot she had left it the hour before.

Perhaps she should have called the police, perhaps she should have tossed the bag into the garbage, but she decided to twist the bulbous metal clasp that held the two flaps of the bag together. Her face warmed, and her vision seemed to tunnel at the sight of neatly stacked bundles of bills. A small white note, scrawled in script she couldn’t quite place, simply read,

“Go back to the book, start at the beginning.”

She shuffled into her little cottage and nearly slammed the sliding door onto her cat Bunny’s tail. After sitting in silence for 30 minutes trying to quell the beat of her heart, she shook out her hair, cracked her elbows by punching the air, and sashayed into her bedroom.

Kasia was a woman who had fed bears spoonfuls of honey, pinned men to dartboards with a single well-placed toss, stared unflinchingly in the eyes of adversity. She could pull the black book from the pocket of her pink floral housecoat. After grabbing the book, she settled into the head of her small kitchen table and took a few deep breaths to calm the harsh pants clouding the bottom of the reading glasses she had snatched from her night stand.

She turned the smooth, supple cover of her well worn notebook, and her vision crossed at the scrawling on the first page.

“Count the bills.” The open mouth of the gaping bag smirked back at her. Her hand shook as she reached inside and methodically spread the stacks before her. Twenty in all. Kasia looked up at her own reflection in the glare of her glass sliding door. Whatever she started she had to finish. While the heartbeat rang in her ears, she winked at her reflection, gave herself an air kiss, and watched her reflection turn the page of the book.

“Take the 42 to Calloway.” She shut her eyes for a moment, and zipped around her cottage, grabbing her small red leather backpack off of the antique coat rack and shoving the stacks inside. Her essentials were already waiting for her, wallet and keys clipped together by a bee shaped keychain. Bunny perched atop her counter and silently wished her mistress good luck. Kasia pinched the cat’s chin, kissed her tawny head, and snagged her jean jacket.

The black book burned in the inner pocket of her jean jacket as she rode the 42 into the small village she called home. Mossy knolls and cobblestones bespeckled the flat asphalt and modern edges, giving the town the feeling of sharpness and roundness in one sleepy package. When Kasia stepped off the bus at Calloway, the book had seared into the soft side of her belly. She clenched her fist before flipping the opening page.

“One for the baker.” She looked around herself. A bakery with an older woman at the counter was directly across from the bus stop. Kasia made her way in, her stomach a hard knot from the oatmeal she had for breakfast. The woman nodded at her, and Kasia nodded back shyly, not knowing exactly how to leave one of the stacks of bills without the woman questioning her sanity.

“I’ll take a tea.” Kasia murmured quietly, and while the woman’s back was turned, Kasia swung her pack to scramble for one of the stacks. She slipped it onto the glass case holding delicate cakes and pastries, and tread softly to the door. When she turned the corner to the brick building, she heard the bell above the door chime. Kasia peeked from around the curl of ivy shielding her and saw the baker, tears streaming down her cheeks. The woman gulped, swiped at her face, and heave a sigh. Kasia grabbed for her book.

“The park’s founding father.” was next written in the book. Kasia lifted her head to find a small park down the street from where she was. As she stared at the scrawls she had made for herself, she noticed that the slope of the direction of her writing had come together to form the number 5 over and over again, larger loops in some areas to accentuate the number. She scanned the park for any type of bronze statue, a long forgotten historical figure immortalized by the town. Kasia trailed the circle of trail that surrounded the small expanse of grass, and finally rested on the oldest bench the park had to offer. Covered in a fine sheen of lichen, the bench was nearly crumbling as she sat. She sprawled her arms to take in the early spring sun, and her fingers reached a cool square of metal. Picking up her head, she read the little plaque.

“In beloved memory of our father Charles Ajax, founding member of the Otamat Ick bocce ball league.” Kasia rolled her eyes as she gingerly stacked the five small stacks on the rotting wood, and scoped out a different bench to wait. A jogger first spotted them. He paused, looked around him, and Kasia yawned as his gaze fell on her. He gathered the bills, and Kasia followed at a slow pace as he made his way into the center of the town.

The man was slack jawed as he entered into the finest jewelry store in the county. When he left, the bundles were gone, and unshed tears gave his grin a dreamy quality.

The day went on in silence from there, Kasia following the cryptic messages in the best way or interpretation she thought of, and person after person thunderstruck by their fortune. There were a few more pages that swooped to form different numbers. Nothing as large as the amount she had gifted to the jogger, but when she followed the bundles to their new owners, she realized that some had come at the best time.

She followed a mother to a daycare, and watched from across the street as she gave the bundle to a dumbfounded head teacher. She laughed with her pig-tailed daughter down the street as they swung their arms between each other.

A burly man with a mustache used his bundle to take his employees out for drinks at the local pub, laughing so hard that tears streamed down their faces. Kasia had a drink from the other side of the bar and felt like she was with them, there at the mechanic shop as they worked on cars for the village.

Finally, as the sun began to set and her backpack was as light as the radiant glow reflecting from the antique warped windows of her town, Kasia read the last note before her most recent entry.

“A bundle of the best.” She had travelled all around, her deeds leading her in a wide circle back to the bus station at Calloway. Kasia turned her face to the sun and squinted against the glare, straining to sort out what the book meant. When her eyes rested on a little flower shop, she grinned. It was finally her turn.

When she entered, she gave her cheeriest smile to the man reading at the counter, nodded politely at the small parakeets twittering in the cage next to the register, and stood in front of the long cooler holding the individual flowers. She pointed, and the man put down his book to slowly and silently gather a bouquet for her to bring home. She handed the final stack to him, and realized that there was a language barrier when he tried to refuse. His eyes widened at the small gift she presented, and when she placed the bundle on his bench, she winked and blew a kiss to his wrinkled face.

Kasia boarded the 42 bus from Calloway back to her little cottage, and as the final tendrils of sun set behind the crop of trees at the mossy edge of her property, she flipped to the final page of the little black book that had led her on an adventure today.

“Sleep easy tonight."