No Contest

I am a Terma, someone who finds treasures from long ago by religious instinct.

You are born Terma. It is not a vocation or skill that can be learned or honed. It is more of a declaration by one or more gods to assist humanity by revitalizing the lost knowledge of the past.

When it is time to reveal that knowledge, I am drawn to it, no matter where it is to be found. I can’t resist the feeling I get when the path is genuine. It is like being obsessed about a location or historical event. Once at the location, I clear my mind, then follow the persistent yearning! I rarely have any idea what I am yearning for, I just end up at a location where my intuition naturally guides me to the object in question.

Personally, I believe I was chosen because of my strong moral values. I know these treasures are not mine to keep but must be made public for the benefit of mankind. This tasks me further to ensure the objects make it to their intended destinations as, at times, there are other influences out there who would rather not give humanity this knowledge, hence the purpose of my deployment.

I have always been fascinated by the occult. I actually learned to read by pestering my elementary school teacher into teaching me the words from a Greek mythology book that was three years beyond my current education level. A few years later my sister who was seven years older than me got her hands on a copy of Francis Barrett’s “the Magus”!

Back in those draconian times, finding any meaningful literature on real magik was rare to say the least!

From that point on I knew what real magik was and suddenly, the knowledge found me! I ran into the works of the Golden Dawn, the O.T.O., and the A.’.A.’. !

One day I was driving through a small town close to where I lived and noticed a old book store as I drove by. I would say without a doubt this is where I realized just how real magik is and just how dangerous it can be in the hands of the uneducated.

I got my first concrete yearning as I drove past that store. All these visions of rare books and possibly an old book about magik I hadn’t already read. I started frantically looking for a way to turned around and go back. It felt like I knew there was something there and if I didn’t buy it, I would never see it again!

Scanning bookstores of occult tomes had become a specialty of mine by then but this time was different. The occult section was kind of Puritan. I could tell the owners were old fashioned and probably burned anything that looked remotely occult oriented. Lot’s of kiddie stuff by my standards. Normally I would have lost interest and left LONG ago but I found myself searching the entire store aisle by aisle, book by book. I was about to leave because I could tell the owner was getting uneasy about me being there so long when I saw them. Aleister Crowley’s entire “Equinox” including “the Blue Equinox”! The magnum opus of magik for all magikusers!

Instead of being put with the occult books the owners must have mistaken it for an encyclopedia set and placed it in amongst them. The price was an incredible deal but it was still quite a bit more than I had on me. I turned around and went to ask the owner if he would let me lay it away and noticed a sign with large letters saying “NO LAYAWAYS!!!”! I looked at him and it looked like he was going to kick me out of the store!

It was about a week until payday, right after I had spent most of my money on my nephew’s birthday gift!

If I left it there someone would surely buy it!

I decided the best thing to do was drive home and try to pawn something and come back the next day.

On the way home I realized I didn’t really have anything the pawnbroker would want to buy except for maybe my car but I couldn’t sell that! By the time I got home I had already pretty much given up on ever see the magnificent treasures ever again. “At least I got to hold them.” I thought. “I am truly going to be miserable forever!”.

I grabbed the bills out of the mailbox and plopped down on the couch intent on drowning my sorrows in Spaghetti-Os and social media trolling.

As I looked through my bills I noticed a letter from Vocal.Media. I had entered a contest on a whim a few months earlier and had more or less forgotten about it. I opened up the envelope and there was a check for $20,000 inside! At first I was skeptical figuring there was some kind of gimmick, you know? This kind of thing had never happened to me before so I was kind of in shock!

The next day, I called in sick to work and went straight to the bank to cash the check. I almost fainted when the clerk asked me what denomination of currency I required! This was a life changing moment for me. I needed some time to take it all in!

I decided to grab a bite to eat and think about things a bit. One thing was for sure, after I ate, I was going straight to the bookstore and buying those books! Wait! I better just go straight there before someone else lucks out and buys them! I was too excited to eat anyway!

It was a short drive to the bookstore but time seemed irrelevant then. I remember thinking of all the things I need to spend money on and all the things I want to spend money on. I came to realize what fools play this all is at about the time I showed up at the Bookstore.

The owner instantly put down what he was doing and gave me the cold hard stare. I felt like I was in a bad western television show or something!

I made a beeline for the last known place I saw the books and YES(!!!), they were all there!

I grabbed the first book and...

...The old grouch out drew me, “HEY! You have to buy the whole set Sonny Jim if you want any of those! It’s a matched set like the rest of these books in this section and I ain’t breaking them up!”

“I fully intend to buy them all sir”...

...”Fully intend my dead granny’s prosthetic leg! We don’t take nothing but cash here and no volume discounts either Tulip! Ya get it! ‘Volume’ discounts!” he chuckled.

Again he had beaten me to the draw!

I assured him I had cash. He stepped back wringing his hands and smiling like he was really please with himself and left me to carry 11 books up to checkout unassisted.

At this point his snide smile started to get under my skin!

“You know, I could have used a little”...

“That will be $120 today Forrest! Getting all them that cheap is almost shoplifting boy! Now pay up and get out of here before I call the cops!”!

Even though the price was clearly marked $93, I decided to try and get out of there before he had drained me of capital or my dignity any further!

I wrestled my way out the door to the sound of the old guy giggling at my struggle. He had offered me no bags or assistance. He just seemed to be fine with watching me struggle out the door and over to my car. I got all my treasures carefully tucked away...

“YOU DROPPED THIS JELLY BELLY”!

He somehow had snuck right up behind me and scared me half to death! I flew around in a rage to finally let him have it when I saw the book for the first time.

It was a simple black notebook which was definitely not a part of the set I bought. I remember, I went to tell him it wasn’t my intent to purchase the book but when I saw it I felt drawn to it in a very unnatural way. I would come to know that feeling well in the future as this story unfolds!

“Are you gonna take the book or just stand there with your mouth open Wonder Womb Man?I got a business to run!”.

I put the book in the car and turned around to give him a piece of my mind and he was gone! Even more unnerving, the bookstore was now just an empty lot!

I quickly checked the car but only the black notebook remained! I checked my wallet and all the money was there including the $120 I had given the owner.

What just happened I wondered. It seemed I was losing my mind!

I just sat in my car for hours, it could have been days! Who knows at this point! I was in a coma of fear. It seemed I could no longer trust my eyes or my mind!