A Sector In Time:

A Sector in Time: Completing the Circle

The Favorite Bench

On a deceptively ordinary day, in a truly ordinary city, an extraordinary little girl walks to her favorite bench in an otherwise ordinary park. She prefers this particular bench, over all others, because it has a magical property: whenever she sits on this bench, no one ever approaches her or talks to her, which results in the perfect condition for thinking and writing.

Today, however, the girl is surprised when she approaches the bench and finds a little black Moleskine notebook on it. Overcome with curiosity, she picks up the notebook and flips through it, only to discover that all of the hand-written words are spelled backwards.

Puzzled, the girl takes off her backpack and sits down on the bench to think. After a long moment of intense contemplation, she reaches into her backpack and removes her own Moleskine and a favorite pencil, and begins the laborious process of decoding the backwards writing. Once she's done, she recites the decoded story:

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A YOUNG WRITER WHO SAT ON HER FAVORITE PARK BENCH EVERY SINGLE DAY TO WRITE INGENIOUS STORIES THAT WOULD FOREVER CHANGE THE WORLD.

HOWEVER, AS THE YOUNG WRITER GREW TO BECOME OBSCENELY RICH AND FAMOUS, SHE BECAME DISTRESSED THAT HER OBSESSION WITH HOARDING NOTEBOOKS MIGHT SOMEDAY LEAD HER TO DO EVIL THINGS; THEREFORE, SHE DECIDED TO ATONE FOR HER UNCHECKED GREED BY COLLECTING ALL OF HER UNUSED NOTEBOOKS AND SELLING THEM BACK TO HER FAVORITE STATIONERY STORE.

KNOWING FULL WELL THAT MONETARY GREED IS JUST AS CORRUPTIVE AS MATERIAL GREED, THE YOUNG WRITER TOOK HER ATONEMENT ONE STEP FURTHER AND USED THE MONEY SHE RECEIVED FROM SELLING HER NOTEBOOKS TO PURCHASE THE WORLD'S RAREST NOTEBOOK FROM HER FAVORITE BOOKSTORE.

FOLLOWING THE TRADITIONAL RULE-OF-THREE THAT'S USED IN ALL OF THE GREAT FAIRY TALES, THE YOUNG WRITER SOLIDIFIED HER ATONEMENT BY LEAVING THE NOTEBOOK BEHIND ON HER FAVORITE PARK BENCH. HOWEVER, THIS ACT WAS FAR FROM BEING A SIMPLE ACT OF SELF-SACRIFICE; INSTEAD, IT WAS AN INGENIOUS MEANS OF COMPLETING THE CIRCLE.

Still uncertain about the significance of the story, the girl spends several long moments thinking about what this highly-coincidental tale is meant to reveal. Once her analysis is complete, she puts everything away in her backpack and walks out of the park and to her favorite bookstore.

The Favorite Bookstore

Upon arriving at her favorite bookstore, the girl walks up to the book buyer, slaps the little black Moleskine on the counter, and asks how much it’s worth. He quickly flips through the notebook, throws it back on the counter, and explains that he only buys books, not notebooks. She insists that the notebook must be valuable and pleads with him to reconsider. Without even looking at the notebook, he declines again while carelessly calling her a “young lady”.

The girl corrects the buyer by stating that she isn’t a lady and doesn’t plan on remaining young for much longer. For some inexplicable reason, he is shocked by this response, and carefully reexamines the notebook. Curious, he inquires how she knew she could come to this bookstore to sell the notebook. She explains that the story in the notebook revealed that she was destined to sell it at her favorite bookstore.

Unconvinced, the buyer expresses his doubts, especially because the writing in the notebook is backwards. Exasperated by his endless questions, the girl summarily explains that the backwards writing is a clue that implicitly suggests an alternate reality in which the events in the notebook are also in backwards order. Impressed by her reasoning, he calls her “clever”.

Annoyed, the girl retorts, “I’m not clever; I’m ingenious. ‘Clever’ is common; ‘ingenious’ is rare.” Then, she impatiently demands to know if the buyer is going to buy the notebook or not, and threatens to take it to her penultimate-favorite bookstore. Tenaciously reluctant to sell the notebook, he hesitates and asks her if she wants to change her mind and keep the notebook for herself. She flatly refuses his counteroffer and insists that he immediately pay her what she’s owed.

Without any further argument, the buyer capitulates, walks back inside the bookstore to his safe, unlocks and opens it, fills an envelope with two hundred-count stacks of large-denomination currency notes, returns to the counter, and places the envelope on the counter. The girl reaches up and peeks inside the envelope, and then orders him to count out all of the currency notes. Reluctantly, he painstakingly counts out all two hundred of them.

Being inexperienced in financial matters, the girl asks the buyer if that many currency notes is enough to buy some Moleskines. Laughing, he explains to her that she now has enough money to buy a lifetime supply of notebooks. Skeptical about whether or not his assertion is true (mainly because she thinks she'll need a tremendous amount of notebooks), she nevertheless picks up the envelope and stuffs it into her backpack. Without further ado, she walks out of the bookstore and to her favorite stationery store.

The Stationery Store

Once inside the stationery store, the girl walks down the aisle that contains all of the Moleskines and touches each one as she passes by, especially the vegan-leather classic hard covers. Speaking to herself, she intones, “Moleskines are like finished time-travel books in which the words haven’t yet materialized.” After temporarily satisfying her craving for Moleskines, she marches up to the shop keep and asks if the keep has every available Moleskine notebook in stock.

Without even looking down at the girl, the keep says “yes”. Cursorily satisfied with the keep’s honesty, the girl proudly states that she’ll buy one of each. The keep flatly disregards the girl’s request and claims that she can’t afford to buy the store’s entire inventory of notebooks. Condescendingly, the girl explains that she doesn’t want to buy all of the notebooks in the store; she only wants to buy one of every kind of Moleskine notebook. Unfazed, the keep matches the girl’s condescension by requesting that she come back with her mommy or daddy, and stop wasting the keep's time.

Defiantly, the girl declares the following: firstly, the keep doesn’t want to meet her father because he’s the most powerful crime lord in Tyrosh and he’s not very nice, especially toward people like the keep; secondly, she doesn’t need parental authority to make a cash-only purchase. Amused, the keep laughs out loud and continues to ignore the girl.

Cunningly, the girl takes the envelope out of her backpack, removes an entire stack of currency notes, and slaps them down on the counter. Dumbfounded, the keep gapes at the enormity of the currency-note stack and asks how the girl came to acquire so much money. Lying through her teeth, the girl innocently claims that she’s been saving her allowance all month. Silently mouthing the word “allowance”, the keep is awed by the possibility of any child receiving that much allowance in a single month.

Determined to get her way, the girl goes on to explain that a sizable tip is included in the giant stack of currency notes, but if and only if the keep gets busy filling her order, before she loses her patience, leaves the store, and buys everything with the computer instead. Without hesitation, the keep leaps up and rushes to fill the girl's order.

Within an hour, the girl is standing outside the stationery store with a very heavy sack of Moleskines (as well as a decadent new collection of fine pens) when she declares: “I have so much writing to do now, it’s scary.”

The Bench Revisited

After her shamelessly extravagant shopping spree, the girl decides to go back to her favorite bench to do some writing. As she approaches the bench, she discovers that a tall woman is sitting on it. Undeterred, the girl walks up to the bench, sits down next to the woman, and places the heavy sack of Moleskines between them.

The girl stares at the silent and melancholy woman, swings her large feet back and forth, and wonders what it must be like to live the life of an adult woman and have a grown woman’s body. The girl unexpectedly argues, “You’re the reason my feet are too big, aren’t you?”

Without turning her head, the woman corrects the girl, “It’s the other way ‘round. Your feet caused my tallness.” Once the woman finally turns her head, she looks down at the sack and complains, “You always have too many notebooks”.

The girl firmly disagrees, “No I don’t. I have just as many as I want to have.”

Now smarter than her former self, the woman refrains from continuing the argument.

After a long, silent moment passes, the girl thanks the woman for the money.

Surprised, the woman stares at the girl and wonders, “How did you know it was me?”

With unnatural confidence, the girl reveals, “Because the little black Moleskine was written with my own handwriting and I haven't written it yet; therefore, you must’ve written it and left it behind for me to find.”

Unimpressed, the woman clarifies, “No, I mean, why did you assume that I’d come back to the park and risk encountering you.”

Thoughtfully, the girl suggests, “Because that’s what I would’ve done. We aren’t all that different, are we?”

Grunting her dissension, the woman challenges, “You’d be surprised how much you’ve changed.”

After another long moment of deep thought, the girl tentatively queries, “Aren’t you going to tell me what to do, or not do?”

With a tone of absolute resignation, the woman quips, “Would it make any difference if I did?”

The girl probes, “What do you mean?”

Carefully rewording her original question, the woman postulates, “In other words, if I told you what you should do, would you follow my advice because it came from me? Conversely, if I told you what not to do, would you still follow my advice even if it seemed completely wrong at the exact moment during which it most applied?”

Without any thought, the girl bluntly replies, “No and no.”

With absolute finality, the woman concludes, “Then that’s why I’m not bothering to lecture you. You’ll figure everything out on your own.”

The girl ruminates for another long moment and shyly inquires, “Why are you sad?”

Taken aback, the woman denies, “I’m not sad. I’m just deep in thought.”

Holding her ground, the girl insists, “I think you look sad.”

Frustrated, the woman struggles to explain, “Life is complicated, in the sense that things will never turn out the way you want them to. If I look sad it’s because our lives are filled with many gains and losses, and it’s always easier to remember the losses. Also, living toward the possibility of new gains is painfully hard--sometimes impossibly hard.”

The girl allocates several long moments for the mental digestion of the woman’s insights, and then abruptly grabs her heavy sack of Moleskines and slides off the bench.

Shocked, the woman demands, “Where are you going?”

Surprised the woman doesn’t already know, the girl reminds, “I need to get busy filling these Moleskines.”

The woman wonders, “But I thought you always preferred to write while sitting here.”

The girl agrees, “I do, but you’re here, and I can’t concentrate in the presence of so much brooding.”

Stunned, the woman cries, “Oh! I’m sorry! I’ll leave you alone.”

Sympathetically, the girl acquiesces, “No, don’t worry about it. It’s obvious you need the bench more than I do.”

After taking only a few steps away from the bench, the girl turns around and concludes, “I’d offer you a more polite goodbye, like ‘until we meet again’ or ‘fare thee well’, but that seems recklessly silly, under the circumstances.”

Perfunctorily, and without another word, the little girl turns back around and walks away, leaving the tall woman alone on her favorite bench.