Fill In The Blank

I open my ears before my eyes, as the screeching gears of the city bus came to a halt. I had been asleep at the stop for some time, without even realizing it. I grab my camera bag and wrap the strap around my shoulder.

I lock eyes with the driver as he slams the door crank forward, opening the doors. I step onto the bus and look around its interior. The reddish blue hues of seats are something my eyes were not adjusted to.

I’ve never been here before.

I continue walking towards the back, marching forward. I finally sit down on one of the cracked, peeling seats. I look to my right and see a woman enamored with a little, black notebook. Her hands glide through it almost robotically. Her long, black hair falls at her side, as wind from the window brushes it to and fro. My eyes sparkle in the dim light of the bus, as I glance at her. Oddly enough though, she never looks up from the notebook.

The bus comes to another stop, and she rises from her seat, notebook in hand, and walks off the bus, towards the street. She looks up at the window for a few seconds and my eyes meet her’s before she disappears into the afternoon city bustle. The rush of emotions she made me feel... were they of admiration, or familiarity?

My stop comes soon after. I grab my bag and trek off the bus. I’m met with a plethora of noises. Cars screamed their horns. People bit at their phone screens. Workers slapped the earth with their big tools.

I clinch my bag with my arms as I walk through the shattering sounds. The towering buildings perched over me, making me feel like a lost child in adult’s clothing. I have lived here for so many years and I still feel trapped within this concrete labyrinth.

As I walk through the streets, my body passes by an art shop, but my eyes stay pasted on one of the canvases in the window.

It’s a painting of an open road. Long trees arched about while greenery shined with with the bright sun. Warming brown fences lie across the scape. I could see cattle living freely among the shrubbery.

It was beautiful.

The bottom of the painting had the signature of the artist.

Nóelle.

It was a pretty name. The country it is based on is written beside that.

Sweden.

I stopped looking at the canvas and kept walking down the street.

I pull out my camera and look through the lens. The sun’s light married the reflective buildings, causing a stunning picturesque frame in my view. I snapped the photo, capturing another memory. Although I already had many pictures of the park down the road, I still feel like going there again today.

I head towards the park and find my favorite bench that overlooks the city basin. The ripples in the water slowly paints the still picture I take with my camera. Birds hover throughout the sky. Children indulge in the joys of laughter. I snap a few more pictures before the burning in my eyes begin to speak to me.

This spot always makes me so sleepy.

I don’t think it would be so bad if I just closed my eyes for a few moments. I slowly close my eyes to stop the burn, and before I know it, I am in a deep sleep.

I am awoken by the forced, hushes of two men in dark clothes. They seem to be arguing with each other. I try to listen closely while also making myself inconspicuous in the night.

“Crap, man. What the hell are we gonna do,” one of them says.

“We can’t keep this. I told you that,” the same one continues.

“What do you mean we can’t keep this? Do you not understand what we can do with this much,” the other says, getting in his face.

“We don’t have a choice. Don’t you get it, man? This is her game. We’re just players in it.”

One of them leans on the bridge beside them, looking down at the water below. He sighs.

“Yeah, you’re right. We can’t afford to deal with this anymore. We gotta get outta here.”

They both run to the parked car and pull out a black gym bag. They throw the bag over the bridge and run back to the car. The next thing I know, I am alone with a bag floating in the basin before me. I slowly get up and walk over to the bag. It’s floating a few feet from the shore, so I grab a branch to pull it towards me.

I consciously unzip the bag and see money.

A lot of money.

The sight nearly melts my eyes, like ice cream out of a waffle cone.

This can’t be real.

I zip the bag back up and scan the area in a 360 degree motion. I grab both bags and head to my apartment.

I hail a cab that passes by and give him the directions to my place.

The entire way home, I am vice gripping the the gym bag as if it contained my heart.

“Have a nice night,” he says as I slam the back door.

I jog to my stairs and make it to my apartment door. I rip out my keys to throw them through the door, until I see someone in the corner of my eyes.

It’s her.

The woman from the bus is lended over the railing of my apartment, facing the moon. And just like I saw her before, she’s writing in the black notebook, this time, a little more vigorously. I turn to her to speak, but then I feel the weight of the cash pulling me towards my door.

I have no time to talk right now.

I fish out my keys and push them into the door and lock the it behind me.

If this was a movie, this would be one of those obnoxious montage scenes.

I lock all my doors.

I slam the bag on my living room table.

I close all the blinds.

I open the bag all over the table and watch wrapped bills splatter about.

I count them. All of them.

I count them nine more times until I feel absolutely certain that I’ll probably have a heart attack soon.

This is it.

Twenty-thousand dollars.

I sit on my couch in front of the money to let it all marinate, like A-1 sauce.

I have lived here all my life and have never seen anything like this before. My photo op jobs are at a few thousand at the most. But this...this is insane.

But what if this is blood money? Or, what if it’s tracked? Should I pick up the phone right now and call the police? There’s nothing at all about this that seems right.

I pack all the money back up into the gym bag. I am taking this straight to the police station first thing in the morning.

No “ifs” or “buts” about it.

I mean, It’s the right thing to do, right?

The following day, I wake with burned eyes and a headache, like a hangover.

I stayed up all night glaring at the same black spot on my ceiling.

I grab the bag from under my bed and methodically examine it once again to make sure everything’s all there. Then, I prepare myself for the bus.

My eyes are bloodshot and my brown hair looks a mess. I slowly go through the motions of getting dressed and then I head out toward the bus stop.

Both of my bags are wrapped tightly around my body as I stand as straight as a 2x4 until the bus pulls up.

It’s the same one from yesterday.

I hop on and it feels like every eye is latched onto my bag. It feels like they all know and they’re waiting to get their cuts.

I sit down in the same spot.

To my right is the same woman for a third time. And what do you know, she’s writing in her little, black notebook.

The bus continues through the city as thoughts dash through my head, like a race horse.

Yes, I could definitely turn this money in. Even though my brain knew that was the right way of handling this, I couldn’t but think of other options. This is far more than enough to just...

Get away.

I could see the world.

No more suffocation in this city.

No, I have to do the rig-

The bus stops and the woman beside me gets up and looks at me, smiling. She places her notebook in her bag and leaves. But as she walks past me, the notebook falls out of the side pouch of her bag.

I quickly pick it up to let her know, but I don’t know her name.

“Excuse me,” I muster, but the sounds of the exhaust masks my voice. I see her walking down the street.

I look down at the notebook...

It has my name on the front.

I cautiously open it up and my mouth drops, like the bullet of a pistol at 200 yards.

“Jacob will ride the bus at 11:57. He will see a woman with black hair sitting next to him.”

I flip through the book.

“He sits at the park. His eyes will become heavy.”

I keep flipping, my hands sweating profusely.

“He clinches the bag of money while sitting across from the woman. Will he stay or will he leave?”

What. Is. Going. On.

Everything I did or will do is here in this book.

Is...any of this real at all?

“Everyone, please welcome the winner of our twenty-thousand dollar contest, Miss Nóelle Creare.”

The audience claps as the young artist walks along the stage, towards the center couch.

“Nóelle, this story is simply amazing. It kinda reminds me of that one movie, the name escapes me right now.”

“Thank you sir, I really enjoyed writing it.”

“Well, I’m sure I’m not the only one here that thinks this, but what inspired you to write something like this? Or, I guess I’m asking, why did you write it the way you did?”

Her face grows blank and she looks directly into the center camera.

“I didn’t have a choice.”