Lucky Me

The year is 2020, the entire year the world has been basically on lockdown. There was a new virus that spread faster than anyone was able to contain it, creating a new pandemic. With the world being on lockdown in multiple states, countries, and continents, people were lacking in money. There were many advertisements offering money for simple things. One of the main advertisements being a story written about a little black book.

I myself haven’t been doing very well, but I couldn’t say I’m worse off than anyone else. I make just enough to get by, to take care of my bills and eat. One of the days I wasn’t working I went to the park to spend some time by myself. While there I decided to read for a while. It started to get late and as I was leaving my foot hit something as I was exiting the park, it looked like a book, so I picked it up.

The book was small, and black, I brought it home with me, deciding to open it there. When I arrived at my house I was greeted by my mom, I hugged her before going to rest for a while and read the little black book. It was very small in all measurements, except it had many pages. I opened it, and as I read it I realized it was a story of someone coming into a large sum of money through a little black book, similar to the one I held in my hands. I was near tears, as one of the many advertisements called for a story of such details. I thought it’d be best to use this story as my own to hopefully win at least one of the prizes to help to take care of my family better than I already attempt to at least.

I rushed to hide the book somewhere in my room. I decided not to share this with my family until the right time because I didn’t want the word of the book to get out, or to get their hopes up. The story was truly amazing, it had many details relative to our current situation as a society, but it was a truly fictitious story as far as I knew, or as it is in relation to my life. I had work the next day so I rested before deciding what to do next with this story.

The world was still on a downward spiral, some countries were doing much better than others as they were on full lockdown, while others were not. The same thing couldn’t be said about the United States because they weren’t so United, some states were in full lockdown or phase one as it’s been called while others were nearly free to do as they pleased, or phase three, others also being in phase two. Those traveling between states and other areas causing a spread and phases two change and people to lose work.

The loss of work another reason for me wanting to submit the story as my own. I feel guilt in doing so, but there is also no way to find the writer, it being left in the park. I make enough to get by as I wrote before, but my mother doesn’t work at all because she isn’t well, and the restaurant industry has been shut down and reopened multiple times in my area of Louisiana. As of now there have been no changes, and we are still in phase 2, though hopefully it will remain that way. Tomorrow, after I work, I’ll be entering the story of the book online to hopefully win at least one of the prizes. The advertisement states that we have until the March of the new year to enter, if I don’t enter before then, I’ll have no chance of winning anything. It’s currently mid December, so entering tomorrow will leave plenty of time for my entry to be read. I only hope the judges believe that this story, whoever wrote it, is as amazing as I do.

Before leaving for work the next morning, I hugged my mom and told her of the book. She had no idea what I was talking about, I showed her the advertisement, and explained the book and what was in it. She read the book, and she seemed to agree that it was possible that we could win, but knew as well as I did not to get our hopes too high. I left after we talked about it at around 6am, and arrived to work for my scheduled 7am. I would not be able to leave until 2pm and the book would have to be pushed to the back of my mind until that point.

When the time came for me to finally leave work, I was excited but I was able to contain it very well but I’m sure one or two of my coworkers noticed, choosing not to ask. I finally arrived home and began to retype the story I found in the little black book on the website of the advertisement after signing up and entering my information. The story could be as short as 600 words and as long 1200, this one likely fell somewhere in the middle. I took a break when I was nearly finished to calm down and eat something because I hadn’t yet today. I notified my mom of what I was doing before going to finish. I continued where I left off near the end, finishing quickly, before reading the entire story over again to check for mistakes. With no mistakes found I quickly submitted it.

I only entered my story on December 23rd, and the contest ends at the beginning of March. Three months until we’d find out if we won. The 1st place prize is $20,000, and they get smaller as they go down. My mom and I both hope to win the first place prize, but we’d be happy with any of the prizes. The story was honestly extraordinary, and I believe that the judges will be able to see that.

It feels like it was just yesterday that I entered the story I found in the little black book online. Today is February 28th, and it’s 9pm currently, tomorrow we’ll find out the winners of the contest. We still have hope that we can win, but we know the reality also. My mother has already gone to sleep, and I will too soon. I’m very nervous though so I’m finding it difficult to sleep.

The next day I woke up and rushed to my phone hoping to find out who won and who won what prize. I wasn’t sure for a moment how they would be contacting us, but I remembered entering my email then, so I hurried to check my emails. I slowly scrolled through my emails hoping to see something from the advertisement company. My heart stopped when I saw an email from the company, I slowly opened and read what it said. I wanted to cry with happiness as I slowly read it, “Hello Alyssa James, you have written to our company to win a prize for the short story ‘Little Black Book’, we are happy to inform you that you have been chosen as the first place winner and will be receiving $20,000 for your story”. I cried with joy and ran to tell my mom before contacting the company directly, I hope others are as lucky as I have been today.