The Deserving Desire

Closing my tired, red eyes after working all night, it was 2:20 am. I was exhausted, well that was an understatement. Trying to sleep without worrying about the next day, working in the concrete boxes built to tower over every other corporate building, serving coffees to businessmen when I’m half asleep, organizing days off for them, to fit with their co-workers when I haven’t had a day off in 4 weeks.

Organizing the schedules so they can fit in their family for lunch, and their girlfriends/boyfriends before dinner, watching them take advantage of the reliant, and consistent.

I hated this job, and working for Anchormen Industry, but it is not my place to speak, and I don’t have the privilege to quit, I needed this job. This life gave me a different deck of cards to play. If I try hard enough, maybe I’ll bluff my way into another reality. I just need to work with what I already have, so I survive, and my family survives with me.

Pulling the blanket over my head to block out the streetlights that peek through my blinds from the bedroom windows, feeling the soft, warm covers on my cheeks, with the lavender smell imbedded into the blanket, from the washing liquid I used every week, I finally start drifting off to sleep. Maybe my dreams will be kinder to me.

Waking up to the sun glaring in my eyes, once again, with the golden glow still tinting my eyes.

My alarm had been going off for five minutes already, wondering if I’d have the energy to drag my feet over to the desk to turn off the constant buzzing ring.

Stumbling out of bed over to the desk, a foot length away. I slammed my hand on top of the alarm box, before yawning long enough to catch a breath I didn’t know I needed.

Adjusting my eyes, rubbing my left eye with my right hand in a fist, while I stretched awake, then felt around my desk for my glasses. I feel the arm off one side to my glasses and recognized the curved part as the end. I pulled them over my nose onto my face, fixating my eyes to the scenery of my bedroom, before I turned slightly to the right to look at my reflection in the distant mirror in the bathroom above the sinks, across the hall.

Dreading the lady who looked back at me in the mirror, messy hair, bags under her eyes, the light in her eyes is dying. How badly do I wish to not be her?

It's 6:15 am, I was about to run late for work if I didn’t hurry up now. Running downstairs to cook breakfast for mum and my son Isaac. I yell out to Isaacs room "wake up we need to go!"

I started making Bacon and eggs on a piece of bread, cut up into quarters, just the way they like it.

Smelling the aroma of the eggs as they sizzled on the pan before I took off the last bit of eggs to add to the plates made with bacon and buttered bread.

Serving a plate to the end of the bench where a stool lived underneath it, “Isaac! Eat before it's cold” I voiced across the hall towards his bedroom.

"I'm coming! " I hear him yell from his room as foot steps stumbled towards the kitchen.

I grabbed an apple from the fridge and bit into it, holding the apple in my mouth, as I served mum her food as she sat up in her bed with the fragile smile she puts on, as every day.

Gently mum spoke in a weak voice “I’m blessed to have a daughter who cares for me the way you do.”

“We are blessed to have you here,” I answered pulling the apple out of the clench of my jaw, chewing the remaining pieces in my mouth.

Kissing her on her forehead, and replying to her smile with a smile back, I ran to Isaacs's room, “It’s time for school, you have 5 minutes to be in the car.”

Grasping the filled garbage bags, tightening the drawstrings to close the top of the bags, I noticed a small Black notebook sitting in the kitchen bin.

No title, name, logo, author, not a scratch on it.

“Isaac! Is this yours?” I questioned muddled, looking over to him grabbing his bag while pulling his shoe over his left foot. “No what is that?” He responded curiously.

Knowing my mother can’t walk, I asked her if it's hers, before rushing out of the door. She looked just as confused as I did while falling back asleep. I contemplate to myself, where did this come from? Then leave the house.

I immediately dismiss myself from daydreaming, I don’t have time to dwindle on such things. I put it on the benchtop to deal with on another day.

After dropping Isaac at school, I glare at the passenger seat and notice the reflection from the sun reflecting a glare on the seat next to me, it’s the little black notebook. How did it get here? Maybe my son picked it up on the way, Odd though.

I grabbed the notebook and took a quick look inside.

The notebook read:

“The book of deserving desire.”

Nothing else, all the pages were blank.

I flipped through the rest of the book confused then realized I was about to be late for work, so I put it in my bag then drove around the corner to the building block that held the corporate building my boss owns.

As I walked into the security check downstairs of the building, I realized everyone was leaving.

Puzzled and unsure of what was happening, I rushed over to the desk and question the security as to what was going on?

“Everyone has been let go, the company has gone bankrupt” he stated while packing up his belongings.

“Best to clear your desk before someone else does.” He claimed.

My heart started pounding, sweating from every angle, my head started to spin. I sprinted up the stairs to my office desk, going through my belongings, I didn't know what to do. How was I supposed to go buy mums medication this week, how will I pay schooling for Isaac? I sit down in my chair, now belonging to an emptying office, and cry to myself with the grief of letting everyone down.

In the corner of my eye, I see the little black notebook on the desk, a little scared and perplexed, I go through my bag to see the notebook wasn't where I put it once again.

I picked the book up from the desk and flip through the pages once again, but this time the book read:

“The book of deserving desire. The truth will be written by the sincerest one”

I picked up a pen, put it on the page, and sat, wondering what it meant, if I should even write in this book? I was curious nevertheless, and a little frightened. My life was tumbling apart, and I couldn't stop thinking about the lives I have let down, I start to weep, a teardrop hits the paper, and soaked into the pages.

More writing appeared...

“The truth has been written, and so it shall be”

Nervous, I closed the book, pulled myself together, and hoped I didn’t just create WW3. I packed all my belongings and carried them down the stairs into my car.

I drove home thinking about ways to tell my mother of the news, how to break it to her, how I could fix it before it affects our lives when we run out of money to pay for the bills, medication, fuel, school, food. My heart aches.

I pulled up and see mum opening the front door, running out to me. How is this possible? She’s too sick?

I glanced at her in shock, and thought to myself, “she doesn’t look sick? How is THAT possible?”

She ran to the car and explained how she felt better than she had in her life, asking why I was home, she looked in the back seat and saw the boxes from the office, opened the door and picked them up, tells me to come inside and talk. I immediately get out of the car and grab the boxes of her, explaining that I can’t let her carry the heavy boxes I just struggled to carry to my car, let alone let her carry it inside for me. I was still confused as to how and why she was acting this way.

When we got inside, I braced myself to tell her the inevitable, she just looked at me, as if she had lived to know the future. “my daughter, things will be ok” she exclaimed.

I just nodded at her, knowing she already knew what just happened.

I hugged her, tight, and long, I went to let her go, but she didn’t let go, hanging on to my arms as if she hadn’t hugged me properly in years. I guess she hadn’t. She hadn’t been able to since she got sick.

We finally let go, and she asked to sit down, we both did, and she started explaining to me a dream she had that day, about a book that gave her energy back. One minute she was exhausted by all means and then she began to state that her head was getting clearer and before she knew it she was back from the semi-unconscious state she had been in since she began to get sick 4 years ago.

I went to get the book from my bag and ask her if that was the book she had seen in her dream. She stared at me in awe, recalling I showed her earlier that morning but she wasn't able to recognize it. I open the book to see if another message had been displayed since the last, and see nothing, I look through the pages frantically, as the words written before had disappeared. To my surprise, the book started flicking through the pages on its own, faster and faster.

Suddenly it stopped, and the book fell to the ground with one final message written in the middle pages, open on the floor. “If goodness comes from you into this world, good shall come home to you”

A day went by, and nothing had happened, I spent the whole day applying for jobs, in any area I could.

I picked up Isaac from school, when a woman approached the car , asking if I was Isaacs mother. I assured her I was, but questioned her why she was asking. She explained to me that she had noticed I worked for the office of Anchorman Industries, that she was sorry for the closer, and if she could help me in anyway. I smiled and responded half jokingly that I needed a job. She looked at me then smiled, explaining she could help, " I work for a lovely old man, he is currently looking for a receptionist, and assuming you worked for Anchorman, you definitely have experience. I'm the recruitment director, and Id love you to be apart of the team."

I sat, shocked, trying to take a breathe, not knowing how to respond.

She continued "opening salary is $20,000 quarterly. You can choose how you get paid, monthly, quarterly, It's up to you."

I stuttered a shaky "Thankyou, yes, thankyou, that would be unbelievable."

She excitedly stated while pointing to an address on her phone," great! come to this address at 9am tomorrow morning sharp, excited to have you on the team"

How did all this happen? I still have so many questions to ask, but no one to ask.

Was it really the book?

Where did it come from?

How was that even possible the book could of done this all?

What do I do with it now?

Written by Elizabeth Myers.