Little Black Book

I didn't find it on the street. It wasn't left to me by a recently deceased relative. It wasn't nested in a shrine hidden in nature. It wasn’t sold to me by a cryptic shop-keep in an unexplored part of town.

I found it in the box left by my front door.

If I had known what I was looking for before it arrived, I might say I found it online. When I clicked the order button, and entered my information in, I still did not know what I was looking for. In the uncertain time that passed between my order and it being fulfilled, I did not know what I was looking for, or that I was even searching at all. As soon as those three words entered my mind, I would say I didn’t know anything. I had entered a new state of being which did not have any relation to my life up until the point it arrived.

As soon as I opened the package I found the object of the hunt and with it, not a reason in sight.

Inside this package was an object formed so absolutely that only three words can come close to capturing the idea of what it is and yet those three words are forever infinitely far from a being a complete translation of the object itself. Those three words are "little," "black," and "book," in that order. They are the same exact words that came through me, entered my device, and arrived elsewhere, an array of little black boxes, capable of translating an idea into a neat package right outside my front door.

Unlike the mysteries of how these black boxes function, the box right inside my front door has always operated exactly as I know it should. When messes get made, they’re unmade. Nothing ever goes wrong that can’t go right, and if it does, that’s just part of the story. Life follows order, who’s order I do not know, but I had for a while recognized elements of the order and I lived my life within those elements.

The little black book was a new element. I am not even sure it subscribes to the idea of order, except as a canal that can be traveled to a destination. Surely order isn’t the only canal though. Despite the lack of postage and package to accompany this little black book, it is still on the move, perhaps with me as it’s vessel or it as my vehicle. Either way, we are attached, bound. One of us the paper, the other the cover, or is one of us the artist, and the other the art? Or am I mistaken in applying boundaries to an object that defies order?

The little details no longer matter. I was able to look past the little things in the world of order I once lived, little things like the price of this little black book. Little things have only gotten smaller, bigger things larger, and I more capable of experience no matter the size. It is this way now, because this little black book has brought me something big.

Twenty-thousand dollars big.

After all this time, I am still at the place I was when I first physically had contact with this little black book. I don’t know where this book will take me, however it has already taken me far beyond what I understand the limits to be of the box I live in.

I won’t spend any of the money. What could I possibly need in a world without order? There is no package that I have any need for the arrival of, not with this little black book. This money came to me like those three words, so it must go as the little black book that came of those. I am on a path now, or rather, I have left the path, with only the gifts of this little black book to show me the way.