Goals

University life can be overrated and underwhelming, simultaneously. Those cinematic frat parties turn out to be another wasted Friday, and every meal in the cafe becomes the same amalgamation of some brown stuff here and red stuff there. Danny had his fill.

"Hey!"

Damny turns around like prey searching for danger.

"Sorry, I didn't know you spooked easily. We're going to the cafe after chemistry, wanna come?" a voice whispered from behind.

He replies, "Uh no, I… um… gotta head to the book store and get some planning done for the weekend."

It is his eager-beaver, but slightly neurotic, classmate Amethyst. "Cool," she replies. "You should check out this store around the corner. I just found it and their prices trump the bookstore. Here, I still have a card from the last time I went." She hands him the card.

Danny slings his bag properly from one shoulder to two, as he gestures for an awkward goodbye.

He reaches the storefront and scans the outside for signs of life. A sign on the door reads 'Pandora Books'. The 'Open' sign just below it flickers.

"Pretentious, but okay," he mutters to himself as he pushes his way inside.

The store is ornate. The carpet boasts deep hues of gold and regal purple with complex geometric patterns. There is a cascade of shelves and bookcases carrying stones, tablets, books, feathers, and bundles of unpronounceable, unrecognizable talismans. Danny is engulfed in confusion.

“Need some help?” a woman with lavender hair pinned up with feathers calls from the right.

“Uh yeah, I’m just looking for a notebook.”

“Got a hitlist you plan to create?” she replies jokingly.

“Just some planning… for school…” He clears his throat and asserts, “Planning for school.”

She glances at him curiously. “You could just use your phone for that, right?”

“Eh, I’m more of a pen to paper kind of guy, you know?”

“Sure, back right corner. That’s where we keep the good stuff.” She gestures to the corner of the store where one overhead light creates a tranquil, studious ambience and her sleeve of bracelets generate a harmonious ring as they clang at her wrist.

Danny subtly creeps down the aisle, careful not to awaken any beings beneath the floorboards. Once he arrives at the bookcase, the bountiful spines of crisp little notebooks send his heart into overdrive. He thumbs through the lot, searching for one that has the perfect thumb-to-surface feel, all the while scanning the multitude of colors and ornate designs that adorn the backs and fronts of these intricately bound pages. His hand stops. Of all the ornery, he’s caught by a simple black notebook. His thumb falls into the indentations on the spine spelling out ‘E SPEBUS AD VERITATEM’. He pulls it from its resting place, takes it to the counter and hands it to the ethereal woman.

She studies the notebook. “Hmm, spebus ad veritatem. Good choice!”, she smiles.

“Well, I only took two years of Spanish so…”

Her eyes smile more than her lips. “Here, good luck.” She hands him the book without taking his money.

“But I—”

She ushers him out, her bangles chiming his exit melody.

When he arrives at his place, he drops his bag, closes the door behind him, and tosses the notebook on the desk. He turns to pull a pen from his bag. When he glances back at the desk, he notices the notebook is open.

“Hmmph.”

He sits at the desk contemplating where to start, tapping the pen repeatedly against his pursed lips. He puts the pen to paper scribbling ‘GOALS’ and gives it an assertive underline that traverses the page. He writes:

Get the degree

More money

Be more gangster

He lets the pen linger over the ear of the ‘r’. The ink then drips from the pen, saturating the paper. He touches the dime sized puddle and it ripples. He examines the pen tip and stares back at the paper. The spot stretches and grows. It bubbles, bowed and concave like the throat of a toad. Danny knocks the book from the desk and is startled back. Upon hitting the floor, the notebook opens to the goal list with the spot sunken into a vortex.

The spinning and gravitational waves pull Danny to the floor. He braces the floor with his forearms, like a kickstand. The chain around his neck is fully perpendicular to the floor and his whole body is being pulled towards the book. The forces become too much to overcome and he’s pulled headfirst into the blackness of the notebook. It closes.

There is complete darkness. Silence, until the faint sound of sirens in the distance begin to get louder and closer. Danny's proprioception begins to return.

“What are you closing your eyes for?!” comes screeching into his left ear.

He opens one eye and quickly realizes he's in a car too old for him to name; sandwiched between goons. The scene startles him so much that he opens the other. He grabs for his own body.

“What’s a matta with you kid?!” The taunt slices across his face in a cinematic, 1950’s, New York accent.

Danny’s eyes juggle up and down and left to right. The driver appears barely able to control the jalopy, the man in the passenger seat grips the dashboard, and Danny sits sandwiched between two more men. All four men are in matching monochromatic suits and perfumed by sweat, hair grease, and other indeterminable scents. His eyes dart to the side mirror where a police car is trailing but not moving nearly fast enough to catch up to the jalopy.

From the front he hears, “Hold on to this!”

The passenger throws a bag into Danny’s center mass. By reflex, he grips the bag, suturing it to his body. The thug in the passenger seat rolls down the window and pulls his torso through the opening, one hand gripping the hood while the other death grips a tommy gun. Danny’s eyes double in size.

“Keep it straight, you idiot!” the thrill-seeker yells.

The driver jerks the wheel, slinging everyone left and right. The paddy wagon closes distance with the renegade vehicle, and a barrage of bullets whiz and zigzag from the front to keep the coppers at bay. Danny’s shoulders connect with his ears like a turtle entering its shell. The car picks up speed, recklessly maneuvering from side to side. Thump! The car hits a pothole, throwing the shooter from the car, and his body becomes a rolling pin tumbling down the street.

“Damn potholes!” cries the driver. Instantaneously, he loses control of the car. It veers wildly, dovetailing forward until its momentum is halted by a light pole.

“Everybody out! Kid, you take that bag and run down that alley. Don’t look back,” warns the driver.

The thugs open their doors to allow enough space for Danny to squeeze out. They pull firearms from their oversized coats, and a shootout ensues. Ducking, Danny dashes down the alley with mouse-like precision and speed. He turns the corner and rams his back against the wall to catch his breath. His heart is beating out of his chest as he hears the ring of gunfire in the background. He slinks down.

The little black notebook he thought had been left in his room peeks out of his right pocket. He skulks down, holding the bag in one arm while he reawakens the other just enough to pull out the notebook. He opens it with one hand, frantically flipping back and forth through the pages. He shakes it vigorously. He stands up and throws the book on the ground. The sound of footsteps come running towards him. A jolt down his spine stiffens his back and raises the hairs on his neck. He begins to pounce on the notebook, river dancing on the soiled pages.

“Take me home!” he commands the book; instantly, he is again pulled into the dark abyss.

Danny is dropped from the ceiling of his dorm room. He lands belly first, still gripping the bag, then groans in pain and rolls over on his back. The book falls from the ceiling onto his chest, and he hot potatoes it across the room. It lays dormant. For a second, he glances down at his hand and notices that it is resting inside the black bag he’d been swaddling. He opens the bag fully. Money, lots of it, bundled in the bag. He shuffles through the stacks. He does a mental count. One, two, twenty stacks of $1000 bundles. He looks up in bewilderment. The door knob begins to turn. He jumps up like lightning to throw his weight against the door.

“Hey, Danny! We heard the dean wants to award you your degree early. Open up!” a familiar voice on the other side of the door.

He clears his throat. “I can’t talk right now. I’m not dressed!” his voice is filled with nervousness.

The shadow of the footsteps disappear as he braces himself against the door, sliding down until he’s seated with one leg extended on the floor. He stares straight ahead blankly, then glances at the bag, at the book, and back at the bag, thinking: what the fuck?