The Hidden Treasure

Slowly walking down the dimly lit hallway, this place seemed so familiar, yet so foreign to Jack. This place that used to be home, was now just another house. This place that used to be filled with love and laughter, tears and pain, and all the emotions in between, was now nothing more than a memory of a past that never was, and never will be again.

This present reality would never even have crossed Jack’s mind, had you mentioned it to him a few short weeks ago. Everything changed on that fateful day when he found a small black book under the floorboards of his creaky old house. The book was covered in dust, and the worn, cracked leather, with torn, faded pages, made it seem older than the house itself.

Jack had found himself in a difficult position over the past several years, due to a series of choices along the way, paired with losing his job because of a global pandemic, had led him to accumulate over $20,000 in debt. No matter how many angles Jack looked at his situation, he couldn’t see a way out. He needed a miracle.

The money wasn’t his only problem. Jack’s ever-growing hopelessness and unwillingness to ask for help, had driven a wedge between him and Kate, his wife of 3 years. The lack of communication, the constant fights about seemingly small issues, the walking on eggshells around each other every day was approaching a breaking point. They needed help, and they needed it soon.

They had just ended another nuclear fight, because Jack had forgotten to turn off the lights in the living room, and they were already behind on their electric bill. Kate stormed off, slamming the door behind her. Jack, defeated, walked up to their room to curl up in their bed, and sleep away from his worries.

As he climbed under the covers, he stared into the crackling flames of the fireplace beside his bed. Watching the dancing, rhythmic lights, he remembered how he and Kate used to be all those years ago. He missed her smile and her laughter, it seems like it had been an eternity since he last saw the sparkle in her eye. That same sparkle that had drawn him to her all those years ago. As he was reminiscing of days long past, his eyes drifted towards the hearth, and he noticed one of the floorboards looked slightly darker than the rest.

Remembering the words of his uncle, who had sold them the house, he recalled him saying there were rumors that the previous owner had hidden treasures beneath in the house, but no one had ever found anything.

Wondering what he might find, he got out of bed and tapped on the board, he was met with a hollow knock, which piqued his interest even more. He traced his fingers around the edge of the roughly hewn oak, searching for somewhere to pry it up from. He gripped the corner of the board with his fingertips and felt it gently lift away from the floor. Inside he saw an empty space full of dust and cobwebs; pushed up against the floor joist he saw a little black leather-bound book that had seemingly been in there for hundreds of years.

Jack’s palms were sweaty, and shaking in anticipation, as he slowly opened the book. Could this be instructions on how to find the long-lost treasure he had heard about? Could this be the change in luck that he so desperately needed? His excitement quickly waned after he opened the book, flipping through the torn, weathered pages, each page seemed to be filled with only a list of dates, some were crossed off, but many others were there.

Frustrated, Jack threw the book across the room, it hit the wall with a resounding thump before landing on the floor. The impact made a page fall out of the book, and at first, Jack paid it no heed as he returned to his warm bed, but then he saw this one was different. This page had something written on it. His curiosity got the better of him, so he got back out of the bed and walked across the room, the rough floor creaking beneath his feet. He bent down to read it. The page said: “There are times in our lives that we wish we could change, cross out a date you wish never happened.”

Now the dates made a little more sense, but Jack was still skeptical about what a small little book with crossed-out dates could do, other than reminding him of times he had failed in his life. Nevertheless, he found himself flipping through the book, looking for the date that he was sure started his string of bad luck. Jack had made a poor investment, losing thousands of dollars in a move almost 5 years ago, August 24th, 2015. He misread the market, everything plummeted; by the time everything settled, he had lost upwards of $10,000, missing out on a huge opportunity the following day when it all came soaring back. In the years that followed he tried to gain his money back, but failed time and time again, which led him into the debt he was currently in today.

“If I could get rid of that day, everything would be better,” Jack told himself, as he crossed out the date in the book. He waited a few minutes, and nothing changed. “Stupid book.” He muttered as he threw it to the ground. He climbed back into his bed and pulled the covers over his head, and drifted off to sleep.

He woke up the next morning thinking how foolish he was to think that crossing out a date in a book could ever change anything. As he groggily sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, he looked around the room. His room was different, yet somehow vaguely familiar. He recognized a poster of his favorite band from long ago, and the empty pizza box on the floor reminded him of his bachelor days from the distant past. Confused, he looked at the date on his phone- it was August 25, 2015. All the memories came flooding back, this was the day after he had made a poor investment choice, and he missed out on making tens of thousands of dollars in profit.

Nervously, he logged in on his computer and checked his investment accounts. Just over $10,000 was still there! Remembering that the market came back the next day, he purchased as many stock options as he could, and placed his orders to sell the next day! This was the luck he had needed so desperately, and he was so excited to tell Kate. He went to pick up his phone to call her, and remembered yesterday was the day he met her. He went to a local pub after the market closed to drown away his sorrows with cheap beer and liquor. He remembered he had seen this gorgeous bartender with a sparkle in her eye. Her smile had made him forget the horrible investment he had made earlier that day.

Quickly, he got dressed and drove to the local pub. It was crowded with many other investors that had lost money the day prior, and even more today. He squeezed his way through the crowd and made his way to the bar. He was met with a smile, and the bartender asking what she could get him to drink. It wasn’t her smile though, someone new was behind the bar. Jack asked, “Where is Kate? Is she working tonight?” The bartender said, “Sorry, her last day was yesterday. She had been talking about leaving for a while now. Yesterday was crazier than usual here, and that was enough to make her finally move on.”

The news hit Jack like a freight train. The next day he sold his options and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, but the joy was short-lived. What good was all of this with no one to share it with? Jack spent the next several years of his life searching for her, but she was never to be found. He eventually purchased the same house, hoping that it would make her reenter his life somehow, but she did not. This house was nothing more than a reminder of things that could have been, and the reality that would now never be.

He walked through the halls, and could almost hear her laughter echoing through the empty space. He finally resigned himself to a life without her and curled up into his bed falling asleep to the sounds of the crackling fireplace.

When he awoke, staring into the now smoldering wood in the fireplace, he realized this was all nothing more than a dream. He scanned the room quickly for the little black book, but it was nowhere to be found. Had he imagined all of that? He looked at the floor near the fireplace and saw the board that he remembered prying open not too long ago.

He needed to know if the book was there. Jack got out of bed and pulled the board up from the floor. Inside he saw dust, cobwebs, and tucked in by the floor joist an all too familiar cracked leather-bound book. He grabbed it and frantically flipped through the pages until he came across the one he was looking for. There in the middle of the page was the date, August 24th, 2015. He breathed a sigh of relief, the date was still there, and it wasn’t crossed out! But what did this mean? Was everything back to normal? As he sat there pondering he flipped to the last page of the book and it read, “Each moment has the potential to change your life forever.” Just as he finished reading this, he heard the door downstairs creak open, and some familiar footsteps. Jack glanced at the little black book one more time and tossed it into the fireplace.