The Little Black Book

Felicity wandered her usual haunt. Running her fingers along the base of her favorite shelves. Past Austen, Fitzgerald, Homer, Shelley. She was searching for some new old work to consume her unstructured hours, the time she had to spare between her job as a nanny and her second job waitressing on the weekends.

She's read most of the familiar names already, scoured their pages, and lived lifetimes amongst their chapters. She stopped and wondered what more could be gleaned from familiar words and already read scenarios.

Just as she passed the end of the classic literature section, her gaze halted to a dead stop on a small unmarked book hidden between Wollstonecraft and Woolf.

"What could this be?" she thought as she picked it from its oddly seated place.

She scanned the cover, flipped it on its back and marveled at its mysterious appearance. It looked from the outside to be in mint condition, never used. But its pages looked worn and yellow.

"Surely this is a journal someone has misplaced, perhaps I better leave it where it is in case the owner comes back to claim it." She thought as she hesitantly set it back to its snug nook. Before removing her hand completely or taking a step from the aisle a rush of curious excitement overtook her.

In an instant her mind ran wild with the possibilities that could be written in this little book. Perhaps the clues to a treasure trove, the hidden location of the store of lost ancient texts, the riveting details of an impassioned love story of the modern age, even a catalog of a fellow bibliophile's literary findings.

She snatched it up, looking side to side to ensure her solicitude. Carefully removing the gentle band that kept its pages closed, she peaked at the first page. Blank. The second, blanker still. Feverishly she fanned all the pages and found not a single trace of pen, front to back.

"How curious that something with pages so worn can be so unused." Her interest quelled, she placed it with finality back into position, quite convinced that it was used merely as a placeholder by the shopkeep, who in his withering age and untidy ways, could use a system of organization, however bizarre and random as that might be.

Resigning to defeat from the classics, she approached the counter, "Excuse me." Half surprised there was anyone in the shop the shopkeep dropped his small stack of books, shot, albeit slowly up, pushed his glasses to his eyes, and turned to face Felicity, wide eyed and silent. Felicity cleared her throat,

"What's the most popular book in the shop?" "Well, the most popular fiction is sold out and there's a waiting list about a month in the queue. You can add your name there to that clipboard if you'd like."

"No, that's okay. I think I'll go look at your bestseller's aisle. Thanks though."

Already back at his task of shuffling re-shelves, he didn't give so much as a nod. Felicity found him endearing even in this cold show of disinterest. Such is the way, when 3 years of solid patronage on her part, is nothing in the likes of the other locals who have been coming to this shop for 20 plus years.

"How could I be so young and so utterly out of touch" she thought as she uncomfortably wandered the unfamiliar section of the store. All the titles, bold and fast, seemed to jump out and yell in her face. Like merchants in the street selling novelties or sundry once in a lifetime goods.

It turned her off, to feel as though, unfamiliar as the works were, how little they held of subtlety. How if history might forget them soon, were they worth reading. When had modernity arrived? Is it even possible to write for an age at this place in time? To write, at least, what hasn't been written?

She shook this off as insecurity swelled her mind. In truth, she was uncomfortable with change, with the unfamiliar, with the sobering reality of the now. It was to her, so much easier to digest what was long gone, than to see all that was happening this instant when she had no say, in her young inexperienced mind at least, in how to address or fix or even accept it.

Someday she'll take on the task of engaging with the task made for the strong of heart and mind, that is, to be bold enough to write a story worth telling. For now she contented herself to return to her familiar romantic, time tested, sustained and quasi ideal consumption.

With visible relief she found herself again in the classic literature aisle. She snatched a copy of Bronte's Jane Eyre from the shelf and nearly tripped over the little item that lay on the floor at the end of the aisle.

It was that same book from earlier, the one with no writing and no visible purpose or owner. She stepped over it and glanced searchingly around the end of the bookshelf. The shop was as quiet as ever this Tuesday afternoon in July.

"I'll just bring it to the shopkeep, he probably misplaced it while re-shelving." She found him, curiously, where she had left him a few minutes prior, still slowly sifting through the piles of books. "I think you misplaced this sir, I found it laying on the ground over in the classics aisle." Without stirring from his task or gifting a glance, he knowingly retorted "No I think not."

"Well, I, uh, I'll just leave it here." "I don't keep a lost and found. You are welcome to take whatever you found as a keeper." And with that he swung around, held his hand out, in which Felicity mechanically placed her new companion, Jane Eyre. He wrung her out, and with a rip of the receipt and firm close of the register he bid good day and returned to his work.

She had too many notebooks at home already and felt little need for one that looked at once untouched and ancient. Ultimately happy with her odd souvenir she stuffed it into her bag and found her way back to her apartment.

It was, to her, a usual afternoon. She would gather a dinner for herself, wash all the worries of the day away in the shower, and read until her eyes wearied. Finally snuggled up on the couch with her cat, Charles, the fiery thing, she was once again content.

Before she's even set out on the journey outlined in her new book, her eyes start to fall, and the lines repeat, and so she retires to bed.

That night Felicity fell into a deep and wonderful slumber. Her mind whisked her away to places she had never seen before. She lived that night as though she were the author of her own story, and there were no rules she needed to follow, no places she had to be, just herself and the confines of her imagination.

She awoke that morning with an instant sorrow upon realizing that all she had experienced was left behind with the passing of the night. She reached for her bag that lay on her nightstand and searched for a pen and something to write on. She clasped the little book she had found at the bookshop and decided it would do well enough for a dream journal.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to remember all that had transpired in her sleeping life, readied her pen, and opened her notebook. The first page was full of ink, covered in words, with writing that looked familiar. She blinked in surprise and shuffled the pages. They were all full to the absolute brim with words. She began to read. And then she began to read faster. And then she laughed and looked around, hit her hands on the bed. Dropping the notebook she exclaimed “What in the world?!”

The little black book, previously an empty cocoon of worn out pages, was now filled with a detailed account of Felicity’s nighttime adventure. Moment for moment. From when she had first landed in her dreamworld, to when she met the Hero of the dream, to the great battle she fought in. The little book had captured every detail, the way the wind felt in her hair as she sailed the Brisken River. The way the moon glistened in her eyes when she passed the night talking with the Hero. How her legs ached and she fell in exhaustion after defeating the Villain in the Grand battle. It was all there, as though she had written it in her sleep.

She reached for her phone and called into work as soon as she could dial the number. This was a sign. This was the sign that she couldn’t wander through waking life any longer without capturing her dreams. She had to submit this story.

Felicity did just that, she spent all morning typing it out. She entered her story into contests, submitted it to publishers, showed it to her writing group. She never mentioned exactly how, seemingly overnight, she had managed to write the work she had been meaning to write for years. She didn’t quite understand how it happened herself. But soon enough she heard back, a publishing deal and a twenty-thousand dollar contract for her first work, plus five-hundred free copies to distribute as she pleased. Now she had only the details to work out.

Several weeks went by and Felicity’s apartment was an unrecognizable mess. Her desk was piled high with papers and her wastebasket full of unwanted ideas. Charles basked happily in the sun on his new cat post surrounded by his kingdom of toy mice. A stack of little black notebooks now sat at the ready beside Felicity's bed.

Felicity had decided to slip out for an errand before her new usual afternoon of phone calls and editing. She hadn’t been to the bookshop in weeks and thought it would be great to bring a copy or two of her own freshly published book. She exchanged words with the shopkeep and he offered quiet praise. He suggested she shelf the book herself over in the new arrivals section. She found the subsection of local authors and happily slid two copies of her book onto the shelf.

Before leaving she made sure to browse the classics, and when she was sure no one was looking, she took a small item from her coat pocket, and hid it on the shelf, right in between Wollstonecraft and Woolf. Her errand complete, she bid the shopkeep good afternoon, and went on her way.

In the quiet of the shop, no one heard the gentle thud of a little black book onto the carpet. And no one saw how the pages, once filled to the brim with ink, now lay open, worn, yellowed and blank, ready for the next great idea to find them.