The Notebook That Ruined My Life

I've never felt something inside of me break so much as it did that day. The pain, the shiver down my spine. The sadness pulling away at me. I felt fragile. Broken. Why do things hurt so very much?

I run my fingers along the carefully stitched quilt, barely feeling the soft fabric. I hear voices. The same voices I'd heard that day.

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

That day was the worst day of my life. There is no easy way to say that, to sugar coat it. Every waking minute I feel the tears gnawing at my insides just waiting to be released. I was waiting to go crazy. Lose my mind. Find a loophole in the ways of the universe, and slip through it.

Just like the book.

………............................................................................................................

Tossing and turning in my little square bed was proving to be inevitably difficult. With the white quilt my great grandmother used to own draped over my legs it was comfortable enough. That is, if it wasn't for the size of the bed in comparison to the size of me. My feet stuck helplessly off the end like the top of a ladle sticks out of a pot, and my head rested on the square of memory foam that I called a pillow. Though frankly, the bed was the same thing, a square of tough memory foam. It barely even jostled when I moved. I sighed, not wanting to face the impenetrable level of hardships that Monday wrought, nor the level of exhaustion that Monday night developed.

Nothing good ever happens on Mondays. It's simply a rule of life. A rule of the cruel, cruel life we lead.

I slip slowly onto the floor, and adjust my fuzzy, blue, bathrobe over my shoulders, pulling my socks up so high that they almost touch my knees. I get weird looks all the time for my "eccentric" morning garb, but I don't care. I do have pajamas, but this is just more comfortable. All of the people in the diagonal beds next to me lay sprawled out, still asleep. Some of them haven't had showers in weeks, and just can't get a decent shot at life. Others are just leeching off of the hospitality of the city out of pure laziness. I'm somewhere in-between. See, my story starts off in one of the many California suburbs.

When I was twenty-six. I left, or more so, was forced to leave. I'd been involved in a divorce, with my husband of two years. There's no big story to it, just the usual millennial one of us not getting along well enough. We'd grown apart, and we both wanted to see other people. Of course, my family, being extreme Roman Catholics, politely disagreed with my divorce, but when I met someone with the intentions of remarrying, they completely lost it. They disowned me entirely, and I left their neighborhood, with the intention of becoming a successful editor. Turns out that actually requires a college degree. So, I became an assistant to a writer. Quite a boring job if you ask me. And not a great one for my income. I spiraled from there, eventually losing my job to the next fresh-faced teenager, and ending up here, barely scraping up enough to live by. Okay, that's not entirely true. I actually haven't even lost my job for three days, and today I'm going to an interview to apply for another assistant position.

I grab my duffle bag of clothes and stumble across the floor, slipping into the bathroom. I emerge with my robe bundled up in my hands, dressed in a black jumpsuit, and feeling professional. Jeff, the local hobo (he's always here) is standing outside. He mumbles something under his breath about "women these days", and pushes me out of the way, before heading for the men's bathroom on the right.

I huff, and brush out my ink-colored hair, before pulling it into a swaying ponytail, and bouncing out the door. It's not a far walk to the multi windowed building that houses the editing company, but as I reach the pavement, I start to feel the tiring feeling that comes with Monday. I sigh, and crack my knuckles, avoiding the hunger that rumbles in the pit of my stomach. It's only seven o'clock, but the smells of food dealers are making me nauseous. One to the left of me is icing fresh cinnamon buns, another on the right is flipping omelets that ooze with yellow cheese. I try to ignore the smells, but before I make it halfway to the building, my reserve is depleted at the smell of cooked breakfast sausages. I fumble in my pocket for a few coins. Fifty cents per sausage is actually incredibly cheap, but for me, it feels like I'm giving up my livelihood. I can only hope the sausage exceeds my expectations and fills me up somehow. All of the other foods are over budget.

I walk up to the white stand where a short man with beady black eyes and yellow skin is grilling three sausages at the same time. He smiles at me and says something in a language I don't understand. It's quite possible he's just cussed me out and I'll never know. I point at one sizzling sausage and hand him the two quarters. He nods excitedly and hands it to me wrapped in a napkin.

It's not very big, barely the size of my finger, but it tastes nostalgic. I bite into the soft sausage and grease bursts into my mouth, as well as the natural ‘grill’ flavor, and a seasoning that makes my eyes water. I devour it rapidly, but my stomach still aches. Unfortunately, the only coin I have is a penny and the San Francisco streets don't offer many, if any, options for that.

The sun is hot on my back, and makes me feel even more tired than I already am. I glance around me at the streets littered with people of all, colors, shapes and jobs. In fact, I'm so focused on a starch looking man in a business suit trying to maneuver through the homeless, that I don't notice the black object on the ground. My feet bounce, my body jostles, and I fall on the ground, on top of the small black object, barely catching myself before my face slams into the pavement. I moan, and slowly get up, ignoring the laughter from the others around me. "Oh, shut up." I hiss at two teenagers that slide by me on their skateboards, lost in laughter.

I brush the dust off of my pants, and collect the item off of the ground. It's a thick, black bound book. The texture on it is weird, almost like snake scales, and fish skin combined. It’s what I imagine dragons would feel like. There are swirly gold accents marking the corners, and there's a large number 7 on the front in the same color. It shimmers in the light ever so gently.

My curiosity is piqued as of to who would lose something so beautiful. I flip the cover and open it to the first page, walking ahead as I do so. Page one is a gold lettered journal entry, and by skimming through the thin notebook pages I see the same tall writing marking a different name at the end of each page. After the very last page, I find a check. I stop walking, and pull it out from between the page and the back cover. After reading the number at the very bottom, my jaw drops and my arms hang limply at my side in surprise. Somebody lost a check for twenty thousand dollars, and it’s one check that I have no problem cashing.

With that particular string of 20,000 I can't quite remember what I do. The first few days I rent out an apartment, and resort to eating gourmet food on the sofa while reading through each of the journal's pages. Each page has a new name at the bottom, and a new date at the top, but the subject never changes. It's always about the book. Throughout that blurry week I had a nagging feeling I should get up, get a job, and do something before my money runs out. But twenty thousand dollars is a lot for one person and I felt that it would never run out.

I ordered delicious food every day, lounged about in fluffy sheets, and read the stories of the people that had come in contact with the book. They date all the way back to the 18th century, and tell tales of the wonders of the replenishing check book. A few entries talk about the seventh sin, greed, and the longing for money, but they all stop abruptly, some even mid-sentence, and have a name signed at the bottom in loopy, gold handwriting. Some call it the replenishing check book, others call it a money basin, and others call it things in many different, possibly unknown dialects.

After my money runs out, in one month exactly, I flip to the back of the book, with a steadily beating heart, hopeful that the words about the book replenishing checks are true. Much to my pleasure I find another check for the same amount. For three years, the pattern goes on. And on. And on. Never ceasing until I start to write my letter. The only person I've trusted with my secret notebook, my best friend Nica, leans over my shoulder as I finish the last sentence, and start to sign my name at the bottom. "Talia...." She muses as gold lettering takes over my own and my name is signed in loopy cursive.

"Wow." I breathe, but before I can say much more, a bright, golden light shines, and Nica and I stumble backwards into the dresser behind me. My eyes burn and water, so I have to cover them tightly with the back of my hand. When the brightness flashes away, we open our eyes to find that the book is no longer sitting on my desk, in fact, it's gone entirely.

For days I searched, hoping and hoping that the book would reappear, that my riches would return, but they never did. Now, it's been seven weeks, and I've laid in bed, distraught at the loss of my riches. I can't move, can't do anything. My life feels pointless. I barely eat what Nica shoves down my throat, before falling into a deep sleep where I relive variations of the loss of the book over and over and over. Forever and for eternity to dampen my life until I die. Maybe even then will the book continue to haunt me.

....................................................................................................................

Jessica brushes a strand of curly red hair out of her blue eyes, and smiles up at her mother. She's only two but she can understand the pain that her mother has better than anyone. Ada is raising a child, while she's still one herself, and she has no way to do it. She's at a loss for money, with no one to care for her anymore. Her family disowned her, kicked her out, and now she lives underneath a bridge in western Europe.

"I'm hungry." Little Jessica whimpers, rubbing her stomach.

"I know and we'll-" Ada is interrupted by a bright light shining behind her. She turns to find a little, black notebook, lying on the ground, beckoning to her.