Lincoln, Nebraska

There it sat. A little black book. Perched upon the precipice of the porch railing. Innocuous, in and of itself, save for the simple fact that I live alone and a mere two minutes ago had been sitting on the porch watching the storm clouds gather in the distance, with no little black book in sight.

I cracked and then took a sip of the beer I had just gone inside for, refreshing. Nothing better than a cold beer on a hot, humid summer day. Especially after spending all morning laying down new grass seed on the dead spots in the lawn. Damn the neighbor's dog. I contemplated urinating on their lawn in revenge, again. I craned my head left and right looking up and down the street for any sign of someone who may have left the book. No one in sight; "Suspicious", I thought, my conspiracy theorist mind kicking into overdrive.

My pocket vibrated, startling me, temporarily distracting my focus from the little black book, the intrigue of where it had came from, and the naggling passive aggressive urge to break the seal on the neighbor's Kentucky Blueglass. I looked down and pulled my phone from my pocket. An emergency alert; the thunderstorms were expected to be bad. A flash flood alert for the evening. "Great," I thought to myself, "there goes all the new grass seed". That's the thing I've learned in the last few months about living in the Midwest, you never know when there's going to be a thunderstorm in the summer.

The wind starting picking up and I could see large drops of rain starting to dot the steaming hot pavement in the street, vaporizing into a mist on contact. I took another sip and headed toward the railing to grab the little black book before the rain and wind claimed it for themselves.

The contents made no sense, at least to me. There was a series of scribbled diagrams, blueprints of some sort it appeared, along with pages and pages of mathematical mumbo-jumbo. The kind of math that's more letters than numbers. I was even more suspicious now; what exactly was this book and why was it left here.

"That'll be 17.59" Imoya said to Jessie. Jessie pulled a jumble of bills and coins from his front pocket, placed them on the counter, fumbled through until he found a twenty, then handed it to Imoya. Imoya open the register and counted back his change. She thoroughly enjoyed whenever she was able to give back forty-one cents in change; a simple swipe of a single quarter, dime, nickel, and penny was the highlight of what was otherwise a mundane day and made her smile. She was quick to wipe the smile before looking up and handing the change to Jessie lest he think the smile was directed at him. "Fifty-something year old men are gross", Imoya thought to herself as she handed the man his change, "they always think a smile is more than a smile".

Jessie left the store, pack of cigarettes and little black book in hand. "This is gon' be great" he posited to himself, "that crazy neighbor will lose his mind."

Twenty minutes later Imoya's next customer came in. Life in the middle of nowhere two hours outside Lincoln, Nebraksa was slow. Locals and truckers, none of whom were ever very interesting or polite. It didn't help that Imoya had to wear a name tag; the number of "I'm a what?" or "Hi Oya" jokes she had heard may have outnumbered people in the town. Imoya was glad to see this customer; a sweet old lady who came in everyday for her daily pack of coffee cakes.

Jessie pulled into his driveway, a dust cloud flying up as he pulled off the asphalt and into his dirt driveway. "Can't that fool Derek see that his grass is dying from this Nebraksa heat and not my dog?" he grumbled. Derek had yelled at him as he was leaving the house this morning accusing his dog of killing his grass. Tons of hand-waving, one finger gestures, and threats to hurt his dog.

Jessie had had it with this man. From what he had heard around town, Derek (who had just moved here from Maryland a few months back) had come here because he had problems with the law back home. Jessie had gone over to introduce himself when Derek moved in; they had a few beers before Jessie politely excused himself when Derek started rambling about "inside jobs", "government microchipping", and "hanta virus". Within a week Jessie and Derek were feuding, all driven my Derek's delusions and fast temper. And now Jessie's dog was being accused of killing the man's lawn, had he never heard of "brown season" and "green season" in Nebraksa? Jessie flipped his irrigation system on as he walked into the garage. It was going to be so much fun to fill this little black book with drawings of UFO schematics and nonsensical calculations and leaving it on Derek's porch. He picturing Derek going crazy thinking the CIA had dropped it on his porch. Jessie went inside and started writing in the little black book.. He'd drop it on Derek's porch later that afternoon.

As the little old lady walked up to the counter saying hello to Imoya she bent down and picked up a bill off the floor. "Here dear, I think someone must have dropped this on the floor." "Thanks" Imoya said laughing as she took the bill from the lady, "must have been the last guy, he was spilling money all out of his pockets trying to pay."

Jessie was watching out the window as Derek came outside and spotted the little black book. He grinned when he saw the Derek's look of bewilderment upon examining the contents, although he knew his wife was going to be unhappy with him egging the neighbor on, "just leave him alone and we won't have any more problems" she'd say; she hadn't believed him when he told her he had seen Derek urinating on their lawn the other week.

Imoya was getting ready to close for the day. She'd emptied the garbage, cleaned the coffee pots and counted the cigarettes. She was halfway through counting the lottery tickets when she noticed that the 5X ticket was on number 005. She thought back to the $5 that the old lady had handed her from the floor. "5, 5, 5, too perfect". Imoya purchased the ticket, figuring she would bring in another five dollar bill tomorrow to give the man if by chance he came back looking for it, although she suspected he wouldn't. Imoya stuffed the ticket into her back pocket, finished counting the rest of the tickets, rung herself out for the 5X and locked up.

It was still pouring out as Imoya ran to her car. Her umbrella was useless as two of the prongs were broken and it just flopped around in the wind. She fumbled with her keys, unlocked her car, and got in, half drenched. She sat down on a wet seat, she had forgotten to roll her window up when she came in this afternoon. "Maybe this will help clean the ketchup stain off the seat" she laughed to herself. She quickly remembered about the 5X ticket in her back pocket and took it out, placing it on the passenger seat. She found a coin floating around on the floor (a nickel none-the-less) and scratched the "Match to Win" numbers. 3, 5, 16, and 21. "Oh another 5, that's gotta be a sign".

In the first row Imoya uncovered a matching 5. She left the prize amount unscratched as she usually did. She liked to scratch the prize amounts last if she won. There were three more 5's in the next row. Another 5 and a 5X in the third row. "Wow, this was a good ticket to buy" Imoya thought to herself, "it's got to be at least $100." There were no more matches in the fourth row. Imoya started scratching the prize amounts under the winning fives. $2000, $2000, $2000, $2000, $2000 x 5, and $2000. Imoya screamed, pounding on the steering wheel in her joy.

Down the road, Jessie's dog heard a horn faintly going off in the distance, ran to the window facing Derek's house (and a mile away, the gas station where Imoya was celebrating in her car) and started barking. "If that man is pissing in my yard again..." Jessie said to his wife. She rolled her eyes at him.