Tails

So, it was a day like any other day, I was heading out doing my usual errands and I had a lot of catching up to do on my latest film project. I live in a highly active area and a popular part of the city where a lot of artists and students to the local university live. It is a great artist community that believes in the rights and freedom of all people. I moved here because it is an inspiriting place to live.

As I was leaving out the back of my studio it was still light but would dark soon, I noticed a man walking up the alley and he was walking and writing at the same time in a book that seemed to reflect a light. He did not even notice my presence it seemed. I had never seen this man around and in this back alley area normally only people who live in the area travel it. As I was driving out of the alley, I looked at my rear-view mirror and I could not see the man. I stopped and looked back to the left and right and it was as though the man vanished into thin air.

I went about running my errands because I needed to hurry and get back. I had an important meeting scheduled a little later to discuss funding for my latest film. We were close to obtaining the needed funds to start pre-production and I was extremely excited on hearing the ideas to raise these funds.

I went into the supermarket to get some vegetables for some stir fry I was making and to pick up a bottle of wine. As I was standing in checkout a man dropped a small black notebook on the floor in front of me and did not seem to notice. I said, “Excuse me sir, but you dropped a book”. He thanked me as he picked it up and mentioned how he did not realize he had dropped it. When I got up to the checkout clerk the lady said, “The man in front of you just gave me this money for your items.” I thought that was incredibly nice and that book must have been special I thought. Also, he almost left the exact amount of money and a penny more. Normally, I do not take coins back and tell them to keep it, but in this case, I decided to take the penny as a good luck charm. Pennies always remind me of the flipping coin game, tails is always my lucky side.

One more stop to make and I headed into the USPS to ship out a package. As the mail clerk started to weigh the package, she noticed that the zip code was missing a number. I told her I was in such a hurry I must have gotten distracted when writing the address out on the package. I asked to hold on for a moment as I was going through all the text messages on my phone to find it. Finally, I did and said here it is. The mail clerk proceeded to tell a story of even in today’s digital world she keeps a small black notebook of important numbers, addresses and notes. I thought to myself, what is the deal about a black book today. I agreed with her that it is a good idea to do that and went on my way to head back home.

I pulled into my driveway and was getting out of my car and my arms were full of bags. As I was opening the gate into my backyard I looked down and saw an interesting small black notebook that had a ribbon around it lying on the ground. It was dark but the streetlight shined upon it enough for me to see it clearly and it shimmered a bit. Then, the streetlight suddenly went out and there I was standing in the pitch dark. A neighbor’s dog began to bark and as he barked, I began rustling around all my bags into one arm that seemed to cause the dog to bark even more but, I managed to take my one free hand and bend down to the ground and pick up the book that I somehow could still see because it seemed to illuminate, and I thought perhaps there was something on the book that retained light somehow. I managed to make it into my studio, and I put the book down on the entry table and had to hurry to prepare for my meeting and make up the stir fry.

I finished up cooking, went into the bathroom and put a cap on and hopped in the tub to take a quick shower. I was soon ready just in time for the meeting as I heard a knock on the door. I let Bob, the Executive Producer of my project in and we sat at the table to begin discussing our film project and the funds we yet needed.

This project was my first film and to know that the funding was almost 100% there was exciting news. Bob said, “$10,000 and we are there.” He had raised $90,000, and as exciting as it was to know we had all of that, $10,000 still seemed like a lot of cash to me. It is not the easiest to raise funds in the Mid-West for films. I said, “Wow, as great as that sounds, I was hoping it would be less.” It took us sometime to get the $90,000 and I thought to myself, we will not be able to start in another month as I had intended.

This was also Bob’s first film as an Executive Producer so, we both were new at this and learning new things everyday it seemed in how the business works. I got up to crack open a bottle of wine and then noticed the small black notebook I had found still sitting on the table. As I was walking over to it, I told Bob, I found this book coming in tonight and forgot about it. I untied the ribbon around it and opened the book which had an envelope inside it and a note on the first page. It said, “The finder of this book may keep what is in it. There is more in it than what meets the eye.” I read this out loud to Bob, and he said, that is odd. I opened the envelope and pulled out a $10,000 bill. In shock I almost lost my balance and the I stood there for a second and Bob said, “Do you know what this means?” I said, “Uh, yeah, Bob I do, we got our funding.” He said, “No, dear, you just didn’t get your funding, what they meant by its more than what meets the eye is that it is a rare bill in mint condition. You doubled your funding with this $10,000 bill if not more. I am a collector of bills and this is in near mint condition and this is at least worth $100,000.” Bob was looking at the bill and I started feeling dizzy and before I knew it, I passed out on the floor. It was only for a second and I opened my eyes as I heard something rolling across the floor, I turned my head toward the sound and there came a penny rolling toward me and landed beside me on tails.