Jacob's Luck

For Jacob, most of his days are for lack of a better word, blah. He wakes up every morning at 6:30 am, takes a shower and brushes his teeth. After that, he takes his sweet time as he gets dressed, dragging his feet and barely able to get on his shoes in time to make it out of the door by 8:15 am. Then, on his way to work, he’d stop by the gas station ad pick up a cup of coffee. This was his routine almost every single morning. Not today though. Today would be the day Jacob’s luck would change.

******

While walking into the gas station to get his daily cup of dark roast, Jacob was caught off guard by an older homely looking woman walking in his direction and calling his name.

“Jacob! Jacob! I need to speak with you!” said the woman as she approached him.

Instinctively, Jacob responds, “I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t have any spare change.”

The woman, now smiling, says to Jacob, “No sweetheart, you don’t understand. I don’t want anything. I have something for you!”

As she stops in front of him, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out what appears to be a little black notebook. Jacob, not knowing what to expect when she reaches in her pocket, flinches, and puts his hands up to protect himself.

The woman puts the notebook into his hands and pulls his hands down slowly.

“You don’t have to be afraid my dear, its your turn. Take this and do what it says!” she tells him. “You deserve this, it’s your turn.”

Confused, he accepts the book as the woman walks away. As he continues into the gas station, he looks back towards the woman, who is now fading in the distance. Before placing the notebook in his pocket, he hears her voice as if she is standing right next to him: “It’s your turn!”

Shortly before lunch break, Jacob reaches into his jacket pocket for his car keys and suddenly remembers that he has the notebook. After rushing to get to work and with all he had to do once he got in, he couldn’t believe he let the oddness of that morning slip his mind. Once he got to his car, he decided to thumb through it to see what was in it. After passing the first few blank pages, he finds what he must do. Written in red ink, 7 pages deep, are the instructions Jacob is supposed to follow. This simple line of text is the only thing written in this small notebook. The line says: Write your phone number on this line____________.

Not sure if he missed something, he flips through the notebook again. Nope, he hadn’t missed anything. Those words are all that’s there. Now, even more confused than he was earlier, Jacob drops the book into his passenger seat. He was disappointed. He didn’t know what to expect before opening the notebook, but he somehow expected more. He then decides just for the hell of it, he’d write his phone number on the page. Reaching into his glovebox, he pulls out an ink pen and jots his number down on the line as instructed. He then closes the book and drops it and the pen back down on the passenger seat. Just then, his phone starts to ring.

Jacob pulls his phone out of his pocket to answer it and sees that it is a call from a private number. He never answers those calls, so he continues to let it ring. Somehow, instead of going to voicemail like it usually does, he continues to ring…….and ring…….and ring, until he decides to silence it. For some reason, it doesn’t work and keeps ringing. Jacob then answers the phone and immediately regrets it.

“Hello Jacob. I was expecting you to call earlier.” Jacob froze. The voice on the other end was the voice of the woman he’d encountered earlier. A chill went immediately up his spine. Could this be real? Of course, it couldn’t! How did she get my number? Wait, how did she know my name earlier? What in the hell is going on? As Jacobs mind and heart raced, the voice on the other end of the call resumed talking.

“As of 8:34 am, you have been in possession of the notebook. All you have to do is be in possession of this notebook at 8:34 tomorrow morning and you will be rewarded.”

Jacob, now afraid, didn’t know what to say. How do you respond to that?

“What do you mean rewarded?” he said after finally mustering up enough to speak.

The old woman said, “Rewarded with riches beyond your dreams”.

Jacob replied, “And all I have to do is still have the notebook?”

“Yes.” the old woman responded. “It’s that simple! Bye!”

The call ends, leaving Jacob with more questions than answers. What riches? How will I get my reward? Why me? Is anything ever that simple? What does he do now? Terrified, Jacob decides to take the rest of the day off from work and retreat home to guard his new prized possession. This proved to be more difficult than expected.

3:22 PM

Jacob puts the notebook on his nightstand for safe keeping. As he goes to his recliner in his living room, he starts to think about the possible riches coming his way.

6:14 PM

“Time seems to be passing by quickly!” Jacob thought to himself looking up at the clock on his cable box. He then got up to go and check on the notebook in his bedroom. Still there.

8:40 PM

Jacob decides to go and get the notebook to keep it with him. As he grabs it to head back into his living room, he hears a strange noise in the distance. After entering the living room, he grabs the remote to mute the tv. The sound is coming from the kitchen. It’s the refrigerator motor.

“Haha!” Jacob laughs to himself. Less than twelve hours to go.

1:30 AM

After what seems like seconds, Jacob looks up to see that it is now a nice ways after midnight. He decides to go to bed to help the time go by faster. After turning his tv off, Jacob notices what sounds like voices in the hallway near his apartment door. Normally, his building is quiet this time of night, but then again, he’s usually asleep so maybe this is normal. On his way to his bedroom, he goes to look through the peephole to see what’s going on.

Just as he leans his head to the door to look out, the door crashes in and hits him in the face. Falling to the floor in pain, he screams as the door falls on him and 3 masked and armed people rush in, demanding the notebook. Looking up to see the barrel of a shotgun pointing towards his face, Jacob closes his eyes and lets out one last cry for help. As he does, he feels someone grab his chest and yell his name.

“JACOB! JACOB! JACOB!”

As Jacob opened his eyes, he found himself sweating, lying in his bed, being shaken by his girlfriend.

“Jacob! Wake up! You’re having a bad dream!”

“Wh…wha….what happened!” Jacob said, short of breath and distraught. “What is this!”

“I don’t know!” she said. “You were tossing and turning at first and then you just started screaming. Are you okay?”

Heart still racing, Jacob was still relieved that it was all a bad dream. As he sat up in the bed to catch his breath and calm down, he let out and audible sigh. As he wiped his face, his girlfriend got out of the bed and makes her way to the door.

“This is kind of a rough way to start your birthday, isn’t it?” she says as she walks out of the room.

As she re-enters the room, she throws a gift on his lap and says, “Happy Birthday Handsome!”

Jacob, now calm and relaxed, muttered “Thanks babe.” As he hurriedly opened his gift. Pulling the wrapping paper back, couldn’t help but gasp as he saw what was inside: A small black notebook. Looking up into her eyes, she looks back at him, smiling.

“No need to thank me.” She said as she giggled. I know you like to sketch from time to time, so I got you a little book so you can keep all of your little doodles together. Open it up!”

Opening it and flipping past the first few blank pages, he reaches a page with a small envelope with his name on it. Opening that up, he reveals what looks to be a gift card. As he looks up at her again in shock and mutters out the only words he could get out: “Thanks.”

“Like I said, no need to thanks me. I know you like to stop at the gas station and get a coffee every morning on your way to work, so for the next month, its on me.” She says, “It may not be riches beyond your wildest dreams, but its all I can afford right now. Just make sure you remember to activate the card first. Just flip it over and do what it says. I hope you enjoy it. You deserve it!”

She was right. It wasn’t riches beyond his wildest dreams, but it was more than he could ever ask for. She was more than he could ask for. Thinking to himself, he wondered how he could ever be so lucky.