The Journal Noir

Pheona was always broke. But every day she woke up early in the morning and trudged the bus ride to work in order to survive. They never treated her well, even after a decade of hard work. Even now she didn’t work full time, and she had never received much of a pay raise either.

    Her work was to do data entry for a small third-party company, called Xoniry.  It was a place most people left after a year or two. Mainly due to the rampant favoritism and nepotism. Only those chummy with the bosses were treated kindly. Every other employee's every move was scrutinized. In fact being  just human and having short conversations or getting coffee while signed in could get those not in favor with the bosses in trouble. 

     As for Pheona, most of the time they left her alone. Neither praising nor demeaning her work’s quality. That all changed the moment she would ask about or even mentioned receiving full time or getting a promotion. In fact, they would always shoot her down. The bosses would proceed to say the “reason” was that her work quality had been diminishing. Of course, it went back up the moment she stopped asking. She had now been sick of those excuses for quite some time. However, she knew she couldn’t leave without a plan and another job. And of course, Pheona was never a fan of burning her bridges, so to speak. 

      So that morning Pheona greeted her coworkers and sat at her cubicle to begin her usual workday. As her boss Merle wasn’t there that day, she relaxed a little and dared to speak quietly to her friend in the neighboring cubicle. She ate her lunch in the breakroom with her friend Lilly almost clocking in late from lunch that day. As the day dragged on it seemed to be just another ordinary day. But unbeknownst to her this was anything but an ordinary day. Today her life was going to change forever.

     She got on the bus home as normal, just putting her feet up and listening to her ipod. There didn’t seem to be anyone else on the bus, either. Pheona opened her eyes to look outside. She then looked next to her and suddenly saw a little black leather-bound journal. It looked like the one she had just bought from the renaissance festival, if not a bit more worn than she remembered.  I could have sworn that seat was empty a second ago. And I don’t remember taking my journal with me in the first place... it must have fallen out before I closed my bag. She thought as she looked curiously at the journal. She shook her head and opened her bag and put the journal inside it, shrugging whatever weird feeling she was having off. She continued listening to music, bopping her head to the beat of the songs as she waited to get to her stop.

    “ I’ve got a pair of ruby slippers that I don’t wear much anymore.

     But if I had the nerve, I’d click my heels and return to the wonderland I knew before.”

     This was the song playing as she recognized her stop. She rang the bell and said goodnight to the driver with a nod. As her dinner was in the oven, she took the journal out of the bag to put it away where it belonged. WHAT THE HELL? She thought as she opened up the drawer to find that the black journal she bought was still inside. 

          She sat down with the journal she found on the bus to see if it had a name inside it. She dropped it in shock as she saw the handwriting within it. The handwriting was her own. She knew she hadn’t yet written in the black journal she bought last year, so how could this be? 

    After a moment she examined the journal more carefully. And what she found confounded her even more. The starting dates in the journal were dated less than a year after this very date. If this hadn’t been in her own handwriting, she might not have believed this herself, but was this her future journal that somehow came back to her? How the hell could that happen? Of course it couldn’t. Had she gone insane? There was only one way to find out. So she opened the journal and read the first entry. It was dated 10 months to this very day. 

         April 11th, 2019

                  Dear Journal,

                           My first entry here is a bittersweet one. I say bittersweet because I will miss my coworkers. I am finally getting out of Xoniry. What am I doing now you ask? I am working for more money as a secretary. It’s a small company but one that seems to treat their employees well.  It’s closer to home too. Less travel.  I am going to miss Lilly and Shelly though. In spite of everything I went through they made my time there bearable. In spite of not looking for friends at work I at least had found two. But I know I need this. I finally will stop being overlooked. Tomorrow giving in my two weeks’ notice is going to be the best day that I’ve had for a very long time. I have a lot to prepare for so I shall write more later.

    She again shook her head in disbelief as she read the words. It seemed unreal. She would get a new job and finally be able to leave? This had to be some kind of cruel joke. She put the journal away and sighed, thinking no more of it. She had to eat and had to work the next morning.

    Months went by with her in having little thought to the odd journal she had found that day. Without thinking about anything she continued to look for a better job. It was business as usual.  Then one day she applied for a job on Monster one day as the secretary for a small business called Verticy. It was much closer to where she lived and she would make more money as well. 

      The usual process happened. She got called and scheduled an interview with the company. Three days later they called her and offered her the job which she gladly accepted. The date was April 11th, 2019. That night when she went to write in her journal she realized the one she was using was full. So she went to get the small black journal that she bought just for this eventuality. She wrote her first entry and then put the book away on her bedside table. She then prepared to go to bed and have the bittersweet conversation the next morning.

  It was then, only after she had fully written out her entry that it hit her.  As she lay in bed it nagged at her. She decided to find the worn black journal and read the first entry again. She compared it to the one she just wrote. As she did so her face turned white. This can’t be real. Pheona thought as she felt her heart racing. She took some deep breaths. If this means what I think it means I should probably read more...

  She read the next few entries. She looked and found an entry that she wrote saying that she was one number off winning a big prize for the local lottery. It wasn’t millions, but it was enough to keep her comfortable and pay for her to get her master’s degree. She wondered if that was why this was somehow sent back to her. Perhaps to make her goal easier somehow. She wrote down the numbers and date and decided she would buy the ticket.  She knew she was pulling a Biff from the second back to the future, but purposely not on his scale, She was going to make a wave perhaps but not a huge rift. After all this one time winnings would be twenty thousand dollars after taxes. That was just enough to keep her afloat as she did everything to achieve her dream. She was going to make this happen anyway...what harm could it be to try and make things a bit easier and get it done a little bit sooner? 

     The weeks went by for Pheona and the new job was amazing. She loved the people and even was getting paid more for doing less. She even got recognition for doing well! And no one got on her case for getting a coffee in the break room on the clock either. Then the day came for her to buy the ticket.

    She stopped in the morning at the local convenience store that sold the lottery tickets. She bought one with the exact numbers and she went to work. The next morning she woke up and searched for the numbers. She in fact had just won twenty thousand dollars after taxes. She danced around her living room in excitement and glee. She would finally have a better life. She would finally get out of poverty and stop living day to day. 

   She took a lyft to the lottery headquarters to get the money. She took the check and smiled, knowing her next stop would be to the bank. After that she could talk to the colleges about enrollment and not worry about the money. But just as she was about to deposit her money, life threw Pheona another curveball.

    Next to her in the seat of the Lyft was the black book. This time she was sure she hadn’t taken hers with her. And it looked much more worn than before. And this time there was a bright orange sticky note sticking out of one of the back pages. She wondered if this was more help. She opened the book to the page with the sticky note. What it said shocked her

      Dear younger self reading this diary,

       If you haven’t taken the money from the lottery yet, then DON’T!!! It may seem inconsequential as a small amount of money, but even this changed history. The butterfly effect. Everything you asked for came true. You took your classes and did so well you got an internship. And yes you ended up making more money. But the cost was great.  I wish I could give you more info but the original timeline has been erased from everyone’s memories. I cannot tell you specifics. But I can tell you there were things you were supposed to do, probably people you were supposed to meet. And skipping over these events has been catastrophic. Right now there is a civil war. The second one in our history.  I don’t remember what it was like before...but I remember things not being like this. Because of my masters in Science I’ve been one of the lucky ones. Employed and in the know. I wiggled my way into access to the controversial time machine. They made a small scale one for now, though no one is supposed to use it and no one knows if it even works.  It apparently worked before. I wonder if it still will. I send this in the hope it gets to you. The hope that it’s not too late.

Pheona blinked once more as she looked at the check in her hand. She did not speak as the thoughts in her head went around and around like a Ferris wheel. She stayed silent as she thought upon what to do with the check in her hands. Could she change the future with the future knowledge in spite of keeping the money? Or would life be better if she ripped it up? She didn’t have long to decide….