Time. Hidden. Prison.

Swarmed among strangers—

Screeching rails drowning my thoughts

I, at last, find peace.

I write haikus on the subway.

Making sense of the world five, then seven syllables at a time.

Constraining life’s chaos into thin lines, like a General ordering disheveled troops.

I’m not sure when I started. Only that I can’t remember before I did.

I can’t remember a lot of things.

But I do remember a lot of the wrong things.

I do a lot of the wrong things. I look up when others look down. People don’t like that. They sneer at me beneath furrowed brows. Turn their backs as if I’m undeserving to glean their sight.

As if I’m undeserving to be seen.

That’s why I started writing.

Bees seek only peace.

Their sting marking their own death;

Yet how we fear them.

My words help me from muttering out loud. They hide my gaze when my stare betrays me.

My words don’t judge me. They embrace me for who I am.

They look back at me, with care.

Maybe this is why I noticed the man with the black notebook.

He too, was writing. He too looked up at his notebook, then down, at his phone.

Was he like me? He didn’t look like me.

His trained gaze peered through full-moon spectacles that perched on his nose like a gymnast on a balance beam. Seemingly precarious; resolute in their grip. His shoes shined, impervious to dirt. His coat flowed long but light, like how cream spreads through osmosis in coffee.

I’d seen coats like his in the magazines. The ones I can’t afford.

The ones I wouldn’t buy even if I could.

They’re not meant for me.

Why do moths chase light?

Seeking warmth they’ll never touch.

Blind to those like them.

The man with the black notebook takes a pen out of his pockets, unscrewing the cap with his lips while holding the book in one hand— intimately familiar with the practice of recording the world’s information. He begins to write.

I am staring again. I can’t help it.

He is staring. Not at me, not at anyone. At his lap.

Why does he have a phone in his lap?

Why would he need to copy down what’s already recorded?

If precedents are to be followed, modern society would dictate transferring physical notes to digital safeguards is the correct direction—not the other way around. The omnipresent “cloud” has been designated as steward and gatekeeper to our deepest secrets, protecting us from our own physical fallibility.

Our phones are the safe deposit boxes of our memories.

Yet this man with the black notebook was copying his thoughts down—onto paper.

Did he not trust the cloud? Or the gatekeepers that promise to never peer, yet always maintain the keys to do so.

Or did he want to forget? Was digital eternity too permanent for his message?

He closes the book. His pen enters his pocket in one swoops as he smoothly tucks the black notebook underneath his arm in one smooth motion.

He gets up. I get up.

It’s his stop.

It’s my stop.

Is it my stop?

We’re now half way through the tunnel. I’ve been here before, but I can’t remember when. In twenty steps we'll hit the turnstiles. Now fifteen. In ten steps his beautiful, long trench coat will get stuck in the gate—for just a moment. And just for a moment, a man who looks like he's from a magazine with shiny shoes and perfect pens will be out of sync as he turns to pull his fabric free from the metal traps of the underground world.

For just a moment.

Before he disappears up the stairs.

And I continue straight ahead.

...With his black notebook. Tucked under my arm.

Stars travel lifetimes

To be just inches apart,

Yet they never touch.

I don’t consider myself a thief. Much like how archaeologists don’t think of themselves as grave robbers.

I’m only exhuming truth. People never give that voluntarily.

I’m only seeking what truths the man with the black notebook trusted only to the silence of paper.

I’m at my favorite bench. Well, one of them. My favorite bench in this part of town.

I sit down like a beggar before a buffet. I’m ready for a feast.

The book opens smoothly, like the first cut of a knife into a soft cake. It opens like a door hinge that’s been well oiled. Its pages flow like silk; the binding virgin, and unstretched.

The pages, blank.

I turn them one by one, daftly as to not let two stick together and force me to count from the beginning. But there’s nothing but thin black lines and white paper yet uncolonized by another’s thoughts.

I turn nearly every page in the book. 186, 187, 189. My fingers start to fray.

And then, hope. Ever so subtly, ink soaking through the backside of the paper.

I turn the next page slowly, as to let the light soak through the thin sheet, previewing the spoils of my labor, before finally revealing my prize. Three lines scrawled down.

Time. Hidden. Prison.

Slaves. Resist. Freedom. Smiling.

Embrace. Body. Chains.

My heart quickens. The bad feeling is wrestling its way into my stomach.

Did I write this? Was I imagining things again? I’ve been doing so well. The Doctor even said so.

When did I see the Doctor last? Was it last Thursday? Or is next Thursday—and it’s been a month already? I’m 8 pills till empty which means I’m four doses before my refill which means it’s the second Tuesday of the month, unless I skipped them again on Saturday.

I gotta stop skipping them on Saturdays...

No!

I have been doing good.

I am doing good.

The man was real. The notebook is real. This is real.

Besides, this isn’t my handwriting. The letters are too square. The spacing is uniform.

A rich man wrote this. I think.

Three bold lines underscore the paper just below the words, each one carved deeper.

“DON’T FORGET THIS!!!’

Funny. Even in a conversation with ourselves we can still find a way to argue.

My mother used to write in capital letters like this.

My mother used to talk in capitals letters like this.

This couldn’t be me. I want to forget.

The notebook is real.

It has to be.

But he’s nowhere to be seen on the subway. I look for him every day for two months. The same train, the same time, the same subway car. Then every subway car. Then all the time.

I spend whole days waiting by his turnstile. Waiting for a moment.

And he never comes.

I wish I’d never taken the book.

I always wish I’d never take the book. But I always do.

I’m so tired of being me.

Our scabs heal quickly,

If we could just stop picking—

Why does it feel so good?

Wanda said my problem is I’m obsessive. I’m like a dog who digs for a bone, only to dig deeper when he can’t find it. She said arguments with me were exhausting. Like being at court.

Ironic.

Dr. Bring says I’m “habitually compulsive.” My mother said I’m just like my father.

I make anagrams with the words. Twelve words become a hundred, then a thousand. Their letter twisting and wrapping around each other in infinite matrices until pronunciation ceases to have meaning. I start seeing them everywhere.

Billboards. Late night commercials. On the backs of old cranberry juice cans.

I hear them on the subway announcements.

I start writing them everywhere.

Time. Hidden. Prison.

On spare napkins in my pocket.

Slaves. Resist. Freedom.

Why did the man with the black notebook enter my life?

Smiling.

On the condensation on my window.

Embrace.

Why won’t he leave?

Body.

On my sleeping room wall.

Chains.

I haven’t been to the doctor in months.

What do they mean? His words.

My words?

I’m beginning to lose track.

What did he look like? Was he old, or young? Was his hair straight, or curly?

Did he even have hair?

I haven’t the faintest idea.

I’m in the bad place. I don’t want to be back here again.

I wish I could just leave.

I wish I could just...forget.

Then I see it.

The words. His words. In plain daylight.

Well, not his words as many would recognize them. They don’t share the same letters.

But they feel the same. Like when you have a dream and know who the people really are underneath their faces. I could recognize these words no matter what letters they hide behind. I know their cadence. Like when jazz singers cover Christmas songs and you know the tune even though the whole melody’s changed.

Except now all the words were together in one line together, all twelve of them:

Witch Collapse Practice Feed Shame Open Despair Creek Road Again Ice Least

They rattle inside my brain like a chorus to a song played too many times on the radio.

A blue sign is plastered inside a window, with sterile corporate lettering

I read it.

“Interested in Cryptography? Understand How Seed Phrase Generators Protect Your Wallet In the Cloud”

The cloud. The one the man with the notebook was hiding from. This must be it.

I walk in.

A man who smells like he’s hired to be there greets me. I know he’s being paid because he looks like he enjoys my presence.

I pull out the black notebook and show him the words. He calmly nods in knowing approval.

“Oh nice! I see you already have your seed phrase.”

Come on words, speak. Lift off the paper, damnit.

“Seed...phrase?”

“Oh yes, of course. Your seed phrase is your randomized list of twelve words that grant you access to your digital wallet. I’m assuming that’s what you’re showing me? It’s great you wrote them down, we always encourage people to do that so they won’t forget or have theirs stolen online. I’ve never seen anyone organize it like that though, is that a haiku? Such a clever way to remember it!”

My eyes are stuck open. My ears are ringing.

“Seed…phrase?’

My mouth is full of molasses. My feet have become tree roots.

The man is looking around. His paid for smile is beginning to fade.

“Yes...um, do you need a refresher on how it works?”

My body floats to a computer terminal. The man shows me where to type and my fingers mouth words tattooed in my brain. I see them enter a white box before the man taps the keyboard and they disappear.

Time.

Hidden.

Prison.

Slaves.

Resist.

Freedom.

Smiling.

Embrace.

Body.

Chains.

I stare at the screen. Lots of numbers and words I’ve never seen, and then one I do.

“Account: Roger Daniels”

My name. I'd forgotten what it looks like.

“Oh my...wow. That’s a lot of cryptocurrency you got there. Did you start this account a while ago? I’m so sorry I really shouldn’t be looking at this.”

The man turns away. I look where his eyes were.

“Account Balance: $20,0000.”

I’m hit with a ton of bricks. I remember now. The man with the black book. He looked like he belonged in a magazine because he was in a magazine.

The one that was left on the subway seat. The one I picked up.

He said if you were never good with money to invent your own. I was never good with money so I bought his instead. Almost ten years ago. All the money I had at that time.

All $12.

Now $20,000.

I breathe. For the first time in months, I really breathe.

I can remember. I want to remember. I’m not crazy.

I can finally find peace.

Memories hold time.

Dreams hold our future, and words—

They build the present

I’m throwing this notebook in the trash now.

These words belong to whoever finds it.

I don’t need them anymore.