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Take Notes

The 104

By Emily StephensonPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
1

I’m a little old for the game in which you choose a raindrop and watch it race the others down a window pane, but, since I forgot to charge my phone all day, I’m playing it anyway, the drops turning orange, red, then green, as the bus braves slick streets on yet another miserable evening.

Most other passengers have long departed, popping their umbrellas as they headed home to hot meals or cold cuts, or met friends at the stop, a cheeky wine in their mind’s eye.

Me, I’m still 14 stops, 28 minutes away from my own drab threshold, where my only welcome will be a cat bowl filled with the sting of Bandit’s gasping departure, leftover mac and cheese, and midnight apathy squatting on my spartan pillow.

Tonight was a bad night among many.

I served 21 tables and made $11 in tips, my plastered on “certainly sir” smile fading as I watched that one note and one coin fall into the communal jar.

My god, this seat’s lumpy.

I reach under my butt, aiming to smooth the back of my standard-issue ‘Burger Delite’ slacks. My fingers brush a jagged tear in the seat, and within it, a distinct shape, the corner of something.

Peering between my aching legs in the pale, amber streetlights that sweep by intermittently, I see the seat is, indeed, torn. No surprise there, this route’s not for royalty, but it’s what lies within the tear that sees me dig my fingertips into the thin sponge beneath the garishly patterned velour.

It’s a book; small, black, non-descript, but fat, as if pregnant with a hundred plans or a thousand thoughts. A woven, elasticised fabric band holding its careworn covers closed.

Tearing at the seat stuffing, I wiggle the book free, furtively glancing about, though I know it’s just me and the terminally disinterested driver now. Even the others who work the crummy fast food strip known as ‘the neon nausea neighbourhood’ don’t live as far out as I, where abandoned mattresses are hot property.

I run my fingers over the tome. Inside, the book is filled with delicate cursive, the kind where the tails of letters like “G” and “Y” loop back on their legs like ballet dancers. The ink is deep blue and the writing languid, like its author was in no great hurry.

“This” they begin, “is a journey and a journal, brief, because I am finally living.”

Brief is right. Each entry, dated, like a diary spanning several summer months, is mere sentences, each propelling me further and further from the bone-jarring rattle of the ancient bus.

“June 10. Sat in the sun and ate strawberries, still warm from the stem. The sunset was lilac and gold as I read in a hammock.”

“June 17. Climbed that mountain I could see from the window. Up close, it was greener, carpeted with wildflowers. Met a rabbit, napped in the grass.”

“June 26. Diving is something I’d only dreamed of, and the shafts of light through the aqua sea, something I’ll never forget.”

Our sharp descent into a pothole shakes me from this new world I’ve been sucked into. I realise my body and mind are torn; half stewing in bitter envy, half awed and inspired by this strange nomad’s adventures.

On and on I read, catching glimpses of the pages as the bus picks up speed and the frequency of the streetlights increases.

On and on as I walk the short block home, the brief entries sometimes illuminated courtesy of the council, sometimes thanks to a wary neighbour’s system for fighting the absence of gentrification.

“July 1. I wondered if the Eiffel Tower light show might be tacky, but, watching it from my bubble bath with charcuterie and a glass of red, it’s actually perfect.”

Stumbling into my hall, kicking off my worn boots, eyes glued to the page; I’m on autopilot as I slide solid pasta from the fridge into the sauce-splattered microwave.

This - this freedom, this adventure - this is what I want. What I need. What I dream of when I close my eyes in my too-small bed and feel like there is no reason to open them again. What I’m thinking of when I pace my kitchen, waiting for toast to burn as it always does, wondering whether I should, in fact, recycle tonight, or just expedite the planet’s (and my) demise.

I don’t taste the macaroni, but I voraciously devour this stranger’s life, page by page.

In late July, there’s dancing in the foam of Mediterranean waves and fireworks rivalling the late-evening sun for the sky’s attention. In August, bike rides through poppies and fairy tale castles rising up behind lakes.

I’m captivated but covetous, jealous yet in love. I’m diligently sliding the third lock on the door of my shoebox rental, frayed pyjamas on, porthole to the world in hand when, suddenly, the entries come to an end.

A blank page.

Two.

Many.

Then, a big chunk of pages, strangely fused together.

I flip past the bound section to even more blank pages, dozens, really, to the very last page, where, like an elusive contact lens you thought was lost to the carpet forever, sits a new paragraph in the author’s pen.

I’m embarrassed by my audible outpouring of relief, alone as I am. I must be more desperate for an escape than even I thought.

“This was a journal and a journey. Before it, I was in a dead-end job. My very existence, boring to me. I used to wish for something to give. Cry in my mouldy shower, beseeching no one in particular to either help me or take me… Sorry, I know that’s morbid.”

I shake my head, absently conveying to my invisible tour guide my encouragement, my empathy. A single, plump tear, as salty as it is self-pitying, plops onto the page before I can stop it.

“Then, one day, everything changed. I received $100,000, cash. And from that day on, I started to live, not merely survive. I travelled, I explored, I spent my youth on my terms…

But more than that, I changed direction. I realised that just as you can’t keep living Groundhog Day over and over, nor can you run. You must travel, but, you must also use travel as a chance to discover what will make your day to day a holiday.

When I realised what my great escape was, which future held my happiness, I had spent just $20,000 of my total windfall. I could have seen a hundred more moons over a hundred new cities, but I looked back at those days when no moon brought me joy, and determined instead to change my existence, not just my experiences.

And I decided to pay it forward.

The pages at the centre of this book are glued together, but hollow. Inside is a key to a safe deposit box and its details. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to take but $20,000 of the remaining cash and use it to turn your life around, however you see fit. Pivot away from the things that keep you up at night.

Of course, there is nothing stopping you taking the whole $80,000. You could.

But before you do, I must tell you this: I rode the 104, just like you, and so will someone else. Just like you.

Have fun.

Take notes.”

success
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