Pandemic Blues

Eliza trudged her way to the mailbox one damp, cloudy, miserable Monday. Three hundred days and counting, the world had been isolated because of the Pandemic of 2020. She and her partner, Matt, had a nice house tucked away on a large lot behind some zoned businesses. They were fairly secluded and had been able to ride out the Covid-19 virus pretty well thus far.

Today Eliza felt down. She had the midwinter blues; no job, no hope of a job in the future, and no real money coming in. The Government was doing its best, but sitting around watching their debts grow larger was depressing.

She reached the collection of silver mailboxes down the street from her home, and turned the key into box number 23. There were the usual ads and coupons that came every week, but there was also a smallish, thin parcel with her name on it. Eliza felt a thrill of excitement, the kind that comes with receiving a package – any package. That delicious feeling of something new that could possibly change your life, or at least enhance it.

Eliza walked quickly back to her house and breathed a little sigh of relief to be back on her own turf. The Pandemic had caught everyone by surprise, no one thought it would last as long as it had, almost a whole year so far. But Christmas came and went, and now it was a New Year. Eliza wanted this year to be more noteworthy; more productive than the last year, so she had purchased a notebook.

A Little Black Book.

Writing did not come easily to Eliza and Matt; they were both Dyslexic. It had been an uphill battle to get through school, but with a lot of help from friends and family, they had both actually graduated college. The couple had plans and dreams like everyone else, and were on their way to achieving some of them when the Pandemic hit. After a year of uncertainty and extraordinarily little progress in the curbing of the disease, they were tired of it all and wanted, no- needed- a little luck to come their way.

It was now 2021, a new President had been installed, change was in the air, and Eliza was determined to create an exceptional year for herself and Matt. The first step was the notebook.

Eliza had never been one for making lists and writing down her plans, but writing resolutions and goals was a step toward making them come true. At least that's what everyone said.

Back in the house, Eliza opened her package. She felt the firm, rough-textured surface of the book, opened it up and breathed in the new, pristine paper smell. She flipped through the pages looking at the different months and stopped at the page that had the current date on it, January 21. Eliza paused and tried to think of something to write. After vaguely looking around the room, tapping her teeth with the pen, and shifting her position three times she finally put the book down with a sigh. Maybe she would be able to think of something to write later. She left the notebook on the coffee table and went to fix herself a cup of tea.

Much later, Eliza sat down again, and picking up her pen, she tried to think of something to write in her new notebook. She opened it up to the first page, carefully printed her name on it and turned back to the page that showed today's date. She stopped short and blinked. There on the page, in neatly printed letters were the words: “buy a lottery ticket.” Eliza frowned and looked around the room. Matt had been tinkering in the basement all day and hadn’t even come up for lunch. There was no one else around so it was impossible for anyone to have written the note. She was pretty sure the message hadn't been there before. It was even stranger because she and Matt didn’t usually buy lottery tickets. Both of them felt it was a waste of time and money.

Eliza gave up on writing for the day and spent a restless night wondering who could have been playing a trick on her.

Mornings were Eliza’s special time, she woke up early and spent those quiet hours drinking her English Breakfast tea, checking her email, and browsing the internet. Matt always slept later than she did, so her time alone in the mornings were golden. The cats, Tabby and Blackie were snoozing in their baskets, they didn’t like the winter cold and were content to wait a bit longer to go out.

With a sigh, Eliza decided she simply must write something for the day in the little black book. Filled with determination she opened the crisp pages and turned to Tuesday January 22nd. Eliza’s heart gave an uncomfortable thud as there on the page was the same block printing, only this time it was a little bit bigger script. It said: “Buy a Lottery Ticket.”

Eliza was beginning to find this disturbing, especially since the only other person in the house insisted he had not written in her notebook. It occurred to her that perhaps the Moleskine company had put it in as an incentive for people to write. Eliza was dubious about this idea, but she honestly couldn't think of a better reason for words appearing in her notebook as if by magic.

She checked the other pages carefully and found nothing else in the notebook. Eliza tried to ignore it and began making a grocery list on the page underneath the sentence.

Shopping during Covid-19 was a complicated affair. The optimal day and time had to be chosen, trying to second-guess the rest of the population in order to find a minimum of consumers in the store, was becoming an art form. Masks must be worn; sanitizer should be applied liberally and often.

In the beginning days of the Pandemic, Eliza followed the recommended advice of the day; which included sanitizing the purchased food, showering, and washing her shopping clothes. It was such an all-consuming affair. she felt exhausted and uninspired to do anything else for the rest of the day. As the year ended, Eliza no longer continued such extremes, but it was still taxing to go out, so she only shopped once a month.

Grocery day was approaching, January 23rd. Eliza toyed with the idea of buying a lottery ticket, as the notebook suggested, but rejected the notion. She was reluctant to spend their resources on something that was such a long shot.

The following morning, Eliza paused before opening her little black book. For two days there had been a message there, as if by divine intervention. Slowly, she opened the notebook to Wednesday, January 23rd. The sentence “BUY A LOTTERY TICKET!” was there on the page in even bigger print and had an exclamation mark at the end.

Eliza stared at the words in disbelief. That decided it. Afterall, the punchline of that old joke is true “you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket”. She threw caution to the winds and resolved to buy some kind of lottery ticket the next day when she went shopping.

Eliza went to her usual grocery store, carefully masked, making sure she was always alone in each aisle, and hurrying past other shoppers if she needed to get by. There was a small amount of anxiety that accompanied grocery shopping during the time of Covid-19, that had been absent in the past. It was too bad too, Eliza used to enjoy grocery shopping, now it was just a chore.

After going through the checkout stand, Eliza pushed her cart over to the Customer Service area. Studying the vending machine with the many choices of tickets, she was momentarily overwhelmed. Which one? The message in her notebook hadn’t been specific, so she was unsure of which to choose.

Eliza finally decided on a scratch ticket that cost 5.00, more than she had ever spent on a lottery ticket. It had a jaunty castle on it and proclaimed that you could win $20,000 dollars. She decided that the odds were better of winning something with a scratch ticket than with the Lotto; she hoped that the notebook would be content with her choice.

There was hardly any traffic anymore, another byproduct of the pandemic, so it didn’t take Eliza long to return home with her purchases. After putting away the groceries and thoroughly washing her hands, Eliza sat down to scratch her ticket.

The directions said if you match your numbers to a number down below the line, you win that prize. Eliza paused, there is always that breathless moment when you feel that anything is possible and the chance to win is just as much your right as anyone else’s.

Eliza slowly scratched the numbers one by one; she told herself not to feel too disappointed, after all, she had never won anything more than a free ticket in the past. Finally, there was one number left to scratch, and so far not even a two-dollar win.

Carefully Eliza scratched the last number, then looked at all her numbers against the winning ones. Wait, was that a number 23? Yes! She had a number 23 and there, the last number scratched, was a 23! The same number as the date, the same number as her mailbox. What was the prize? She could hardly believe her eyes; she was seeing $20,000.000!

Wait, better check, it might be $200.00. But no, she counted the zeros and it was indeed 20,000.00! Even after she paid the taxes on it, the amount left would be amazing! Eliza felt dizzy at the prospect of so much money! She felt so grateful and thankful and excited she couldn’t wait to share it with Matt.

Eliza hadn’t told him about buying a ticket, she was afraid he would think she was wasting their money on a pipe dream. However, Matt was an extremely supportive guy about everything she did; she needn’t have worried. He was delighted, and praised her instincts in choosing the right ticket.

That evening they celebrated and discussed what the best use for the money would be, it was a pleasant exercise and Eliza slept well, dreaming of their good fortune.

The next morning when Eliza awoke and sat down with her notebook and tea, she was a little disappointed to find nothing on the current days page. No sentence waiting for her on day 24. But she was grateful for whatever magic the notebook had worked on her behalf, and on the empty page Eliza wrote:

“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!”