The Good Samaritan

As she lay there in her tiny apartment scrolling through her phone, the washing machine's high-pitched melody played the all-too-familiar tune announcing that the laundry needed to be changed over danced through the air. It, contrarily, had close to the same effect as nails on a chalkboard to her ears. She promptly procrastinated another 30 minutes before finally peeling herself from the comfort of the well-worn couch. She knew it wouldn't happen without her doing and accepted defeat. She picked up an empty coke bottle and her jacket on the way to the laundry room, tidying as she walked. All she could think about was how boring and mundane her life was becoming. Every day the same thing. Wake up, go to work, come home, cook, clean, distraction takeover until bedtime. She hadn't taken a vacation in years on account of her having $200 in the bank.

Every day seemed to look almost the same, with the exception of her muse. It seemed to come and go as it pleased. It was one of the few things that brought her joy. It was a sudden rush of ideas, potential, and feelings. Anything was possible when the muse was around. She took a little black notebook with her everywhere to catch these musings and collect them together. After years of use, the edges were well worn, and the black leather had turned smooth and shiny at the centers. She loved it, primarily because it had grown so comfortable in her hands.

She never shared what she wrote in the notebook. It was her way of communicating with the muse. Acknowledging it was there, she followed through on writing down everything was as if she was conversing with her higher self concerning direction in this life. Sometimes it was poetry, sometimes quotes, sometimes an idea for her dream house or clipart from incredibly inspiring images. Rarely did it look like a journal entry unless it was recording specific details of an idea. The pages of this notebook rarely met the wet ink of a ballpoint. She respected it too much for overuse. Other cheap composition notebooks were for her journaling and other notes. This one was the contents of her heart in paper form.

As she put the final bowl in the drain and let the water out of the kitchen sink, she headed to take a shower and get ready for bed.

"I don't want to go to work tomorrow," she thought to herself. Knowing it was inevitable.

"Iggy!!!" A loud voice screamed from down the hall. It was so shrill it cut through the silence of the office like a knife. Startling her out of her daydream and plunging her deep into panic mode, she wondered what it might be this time and if she'd filed those reports correctly or done something else to warrant such a loud shriek bearing her name. After a full 30 seconds of getting her bearings straight, she got up and ran down the hall to her boss's office. She worked at a tiny newsprint office as an administrative assistant to probably the vainest, most ignorant, privileged woman Iggy had ever met. She often caused friction all around the office.

Knocking on the door first and peering through the window, she hoped to see a face that was not angry. Relieved, it was not, and she saw the woman waiving her shiny red painted fingernails and mouthed "come in" without actually saying anything. Iggy wondered at that moment why people did that. She'd seen it done before many times. Why didn't they just say "come in"? As she contemplated the conundrum, her thoughts were interrupted by the same shrill voice, but this time decibels lower.

"Hello, Iggy," She stated condescendingly.

"Hello," Iggy replied, trying not to make eye contact.

"Listen, honey; I'm going to need you to put in a few extra hours this week. I need to get out of here. I…..I just need some space. I need you to schedule an itinerary and book a two-week trip to Morocco. Is that something you think you can manage?"

Iggy felt deflated, but regardless, she pulled her chin up and looked at her boss directly in the eyes.

Yes, ma'am," she said softly and quietly began to exit the room.

"Thank you so much, honey! I'm so excited to see what you come up with!" she declared as Iggy reached for the door.

That weekend Iggy decided to go for a walk in the park to reward herself for a hard week of work and not having a nervous breakdown. She loved to walk in the park and write in her notebook as people of all shapes, sizes, and colors walked by. Usually, she went unnoticed, but today an old man was sitting at the park bench and made eye contact with her waving her over to sit by him. She felt uncomfortable but did it anyway. He seemed like a nice man. As soon as she said hello, he promptly excused himself and said he was late for an appointment. It was almost 10 minutes later before she realized he had left his duffle bag on the park bench.

"Shoot," she thought to herself.

"Poor guy, he seemed so nice I really do need to try to return this to him" She opened the bag revealing more 100 dollar bills than she'd ever seen in her life. Her face turned pale. There was nothing else in the bag. No ID, no luggage tag, nothing. Except for thousands of dollars worth of cash. She quickly zipped up the bag and looked around. As usual, no one was paying any attention to her. She sat there for a few minutes, pondering to herself what her next move might be. Then, she got up, put the black book inside the duffle, and swung it over her bony shoulder. Things would be different for her from now on; she felt it.