The Little Black Book

Her life was crumbling like the last piece of a soggy apple pie. She didn’t know what to do. Her boyfriend just dumped her for her best friend, Jessica, who had the longest legs in the world. No wonder he picked her. Now her and Jessica were not on speaking terms, which left her with her only friend, Fluffy. If a cat even counts as a friend.

Amber sighed and shivered at the chill of a late fall night. Toronto, always started to get cold at this time of year. She wasn’t sure where she was going. All she knew was that she needed to get away from her condo. Everything inside reminded her of what could have been.

She shoved her frozen hands inside the pockets of her mustard, burlap coat and kept walking. Something about being under the moonlight during a full moon had a calming effect on her. Even after all the chaos that had ensued in her life the last few days. Just then, her cell phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the screen.

Her boss- or her now ex-boss - Megan, texted her. The message read, “A box with your personal belongings will be waiting for you at the front desk Monday morning. You can pick it up at 9am. Save your goodbyes.”

Ugh, she really blew it this time! Amber knew there was no turning back. She wrapped a strand of her auburn, wavy hair behind her ear and plopped her phone back into her pocket without answering. What’s the point? She thought. Everyone already hates me. She walked towards High Park and decided to sit cross-legged under a tree. As the cold air bit at her skin, Amber was thankful she had chosen to wear her heavy, black trousers this morning instead of her thin ones.

With that thought in mind, she hugged her coat closer against her voluptuous body and started recalling the horrible events that took place at work earlier that day. She was in the middle of pitching an idea for an excellent story during a meeting when her coworker, Andy, piped up, “I’ve actually already contacted the creators of that brand and secured interviews.”

Amber doesn’t know what came over her, but in that moment she saw molten lava red. She shouted something about men always ruining things and bringing women down. All the hatred and resentment she felt towards her ex started spewing out of her like word vomit. Her boss tried to intervene, but Amber proceeded to call her unspeakable names and dug herself into a deeper hole.

She didn’t like her job anyways. Amber recalled the feeling of inferiority she always felt around the other writers at the office and how she had been wanting to quit for a while now, but was too afraid of the unknown. I guess in a way the Universe gave me what I wanted, she thought. She just never pictured herself ending up thirty, single, jobless and utterly alone.

Amber shook her head. These thoughts were doing her no good. She decided to close her long lashes and give meditation a shot. She had always heard about the wonders of letting go and resting your mind until it was void of all thoughts. She remembered saying she never had time for it. Yet, here she was, on an October night with all the time in the world.

Amber breathed in and out. In. Out. In. Out. When she finally started to feel her tense body relaxing, something brushed her right shoulder. She peered through one blue eye and then the next. A green, symmetrical leaf sat on the dewy grass near her shoulder. Weird, she thought, the leaves haven’t even changed colours yet. It’s too early for them to fall.

She decided to ignore the distraction and began concentrating on her meditation again. Amber was actually really starting to enjoy the peaceful feeling that was washing over her body, when suddenly she felt something land on her left shoulder. “What the--?” She said out loud, almost forgetting she was still in a public area. Another perfect, green leaf. Just then, Amber was being sprinkled with green leaves as if someone was standing over her vigorously shaking the tree branch.

She stood up, her attempt at meditating completely broken like the rest of the pieces of her life, and gazed above her head. That’s when she noticed it. There under the glow of the full moon, tucked between two branches was a little, black notebook. Amber looked around half expecting someone to come running up to her and scolding her for sitting under THEIR tree. Due to her bad luck lately, she wouldn’t be surprised. But nothing. Pure stillness surrounded her.

She reached up on her tippy-toes mentally thanking herself for the second time that night for choosing not to change out of her high boots and grabbed the notebook. She looked at it almost in awe. It had a soft cover with rounded corners and a thin, black elastic closure. There was nothing written on the front cover. No name inside the first page. More blank pages seemed to follow. Amber was perplexed. What was an empty notebook doing perched on a tree at High Park? She thought.

She sat back down on the grass while still peering suspiciously at the notebook. She started shaking it, but nothing fell out. She laid it on the ground next to her and decided maybe she should leave it there. However, a little voice inside her head urged her not. With a heavy sigh, Amber picked up the notebook again and began leafing through the empty pages until she stopped abruptly.

There in the middle of the notebook on a single page was a note scrawled in cursive writing. It read,

“If you are reading this, congratulations!

You have inherited $20, 000.”