Confessions of a notebook owner

“This is too good to be true”, she thought to herself, “There must be a catch”

She looked again at the special wrapper on the cover of the little black notebook she had picked up in the book shop and it definitely said that you could win $20,000 in a writing competition. All you had to do was write a short story about someone suddenly getting that amount of money. It seemed simple enough and there was so much she could do with that money but what was the point? She never won competitions.

On the way home on the bus she daydreamed about spending the money on a holiday for the family once the pandemic was over, everyone deserved a treat, especially after being apart all this time. Maybe she could even treat herself to a new car and stop taking the bus. It was a nice feeling to plan for the future, even if it was all just a fantasy. Plus, what was the point of a lovely new notebook if you didn’t write some secret plans in it?

That night, as she lay in bed, an idea started to form in her head. Had she really come up with something which could help her get the money? It was so unlike her but it would be worth it if she could do it.

She spent the next day typing up a short story to send in for the competition, all about a quiet, shy woman reaching the end of her tether with her bullying boss and poisoning him to steal the $20,000 from the safe he kept in his office, which no one knew she knew the combination for. She was graphic in the details, taking great pleasure in describing his gruesome, painful death and taking out all her frustrations on the page. In truth, it was a very therapeutic process, although she scared herself a little at how much thought she seemed to have given to killing another person. She’d never really been one for watching serial killer programmes or reading about murderers but thought that maybe now she should pay a bit more attention.

Even after sending away her submission for the competition, she still kept writing more and more elaborate death scenes for her boss in her little notebook. Anything to stop her finally exploding at him and losing her job. She was sleeping better and feeling better than she had in a long time and all she could put it down to was writing her feelings down instead of bottling them up. Everyone always said that is was the best thing to do but she’d never tried it before as it felt a bit silly. Now she was well and truly converted.

She kept herself occupied with writing in the weeks she was waiting to hear back about her competition entry, her daydreams moving on from her boss to anyone who annoyed her, however slight. If someone got too close in the supermarket, the notebook would find out later that they tripped and were crushed to death by a stack of shopping trollies rolling towards them. If someone got her coffee order wrong, the notebook would show how they had a freak accident with a coffee grinder.

Two months of writing later, she received an email about the competition. It thanked her for her submission but sadly, she had not been successful. ‘Stiff competition’, ‘Try again next year’, ‘blah blah’, she thought as she read it. Even though she had been sure she would not win, she still felt a slight pang of disappointment at the knowledge that she hadn’t won the $20,000. It had been a nice fantasy while it lasted but she would just have to carry on with life, and work, as normal. After all, she still had her notebook to keep her mind occupied when things got too bad.

She went in to work the next morning and tried to be as positive as she could but her boss made it so difficult. He had been having stomach pains recently which made him even grumpier than usual. As soon as he walked in, he started nit-picking at every little thing she said or did and trying to put her down in front of everyone else as always. She was determined not to let him get to her this time so she left the room without saying a word but came back with a spring in her step and a glint in her eye.

“Coffee?” she said, smiling sweetly as she handed over the mug.