Substance of Dreams

At 2:06 of that morning I experienced death. It was swift: a car accident on the highway on a rainy day. A motorcyclist, mounted on a jet black bike with matching outfit, came around my left. They matched my speed for a moment, turning to look toward the center of my dashboard in the direction of a little black notebook before speeding up. I caught the semi barreling toward me out of my periphery just as I turned my head back towards the road and slammed on the brakes. The wheels did their best to grip the wet pavement but it was no use. I could feel the momentum of the car, completely out of my control, as it skidded recklessly toward the semi. It was swift.

The green luminescence from the numbers on my bedside clock read 02:06, about four hours before I had to be up. I decided to make my way to the kitchen knowing that as soon as my body woke me up I was up for good. These vivid dreams which felt so real I woke up drenched in sweat were not uncommon and I absolutely hated them. As I waited for the click of the electric kettle indicating the water was ready for my tea, I noticed a small black book on my kitchen table. I lived alone and was sure I hadn't left it there. My mind shot quickly to the thought of somebody having broken into the apartment. "No I for sure would have heard that, maybe I’m in a nightmare and I just thought I woke up?" I thought, pinching myself. The sharp pain proved to me I was awake and made me immediately regret it. “Eh, worth a shot,” I thought. I approached the table, ignoring the click from the kettle to examine the book. Its jet black cover contrasted starkly against the aspen tabletop but the cream-colored pages matched the table almost perfectly. I picked up the book and the first thing I noticed was how surprisingly cool it was to the touch, almost as if it had briefly been placed in the refrigerator. The front and back covers were both undecorated and had an ever absorbing quality to them, like not a single ray of sunlight made it back from their surfaces. As I looked more closely at the color, an image of the motorcyclist flashed in my mind and I recognized what I held in my hands as the book from the dream. I shuddered at the realization that somehow something from my dream had made it into the real world, losing my grip on the notebook as I did so. It landed open but face down.

I bent down to pick up the book and place it on the table. The lines on the cream colored pages were the color of a rich soil. A cloth ribbon, bound to the notebook’s seam at the top, lay on the right hand page. In the middle of that page written in the same intense color as the cover of the book was a single phrase: “Enjoy.” "Now that's strange," I thought to myself, as I bent down to pick up a pressed $100 bill which looked to be straight from the press and could only have originated from this book. Was this the thing this book instructed me to enjoy? I immediately noted the bills warmth, adding to the feeling that this was fresh off the press. After examining it further I determined it looked authentic. I leafed through the book, giving it a decent shake to dislodge any additional hidden bills with no success. I closed the book and set it down as I folded the bill and put it in my checkered pj bottoms to attend to my long forgotten tea kettle. Tea in hand, I sat down in front of the book, running my eyes over what I would have classified as an unlocked area of my table if not for the cream colored pages peeking out of the side.

I opened the book again, this time to the first page, trying to decide what this interesting notebook could be used for. Taking a sip from my tea, I turned to the bookmarked page thinking that maybe the hypnotizing “Enjoy.” might provide some inspiration. Not a single trace remained of the cryptic message but a $100 bill stood ready for harvest. I blinked my eyes twice, hard, to make sure my eyes hadn't deceived me, putting my tea down so as not to drop it. My mind and heart both raced as I carefully inserted my hand into my pocket. "What the hell is happening?" I thought to myself as I pulled out the previous $100. The $100 bill that was now in my hand had originally been in the book, of that much I was certain. I took this second bill out as well, much more cautiously than the first, almost as if disarming a bomb. I examined it, noting the warmth again, and decided it too looked authentic. Looking at both bills in my hands I was absolutely baffled but slowly warming to this possible reality. My original fear and apprehension were slowly being converted into curiosity and joy at the prospect of a magic notebook. This is the kind of stuff they make tv shows about! I placed both bills on the table, one on either side of the notebook and closed the notebook for a third time. I flipped to the bookmarked page and, just as before, a crisp $100 bill stood neatly in the notebook's seam. I smiled hard, I couldn't believe it. I spent the rest of the morning trying different things and came to the following conclusions:

1. Every single time I opened the book, a crisp $100 bill awaited inside.

2. Opening consisted of going from fully closed to two pages fully separating.

3. The bill was always $100 and always appeared in the middle of the book.

4. Bills could stack as long as they didn’t affect the opening condition.

After producing $6,200, a thought stopped me. “What if there’s a limit? Something this good has to come with a catch.” I knew that I didn’t fully understand what was going on and my curiosity and joy turned back to apprehension for a brief moment. “But what if there’s not a limit and this is how you can change your life for good?” My apprehension won out and I decided that from that day forward I would open the book only once per day. I continued going to my dead-end job but with a much happier attitude now as it felt much more like a choice I was making rather than something I HAD to do. Even opening the book only once a day netted me about 3 times as much as I made at my job per month. I did have some days when I opened it more than once, like the time I found out about the fancy gym one town over with a $600 sign-up fee and $300 per month subscription and thought, “Why the hell not?”

I reached my limit in June. Every time I pulled a bill out I added a tally on the first page. In my testing I found that only that first word disappeared and aside from producing bills, this operated much like a standard notebook. It was June 2nd, I opened the book to the bookmarked page as I sat drinking my morning tea. This had become my morning ritual. I would prepare my tea and give thanks for this book and its coming into my life. But this morning, instead of the usual bill, warm and pristine, there was nothing. I could feel my chest starting to constrict and knew the tears would come soon afterwards if I closed and opened again and saw nothing. I closed the book and took a deep breath. I could feel my eyes becoming warm as I opened the notebook once more. The bookmark was a blob through the tears building up on my lower eyelids but even through the tears I could see the bill wasn’t there. I touched the seam gingerly in the hopes that that might restore the book’s power. The characteristic warmth the bill left after being picked was no longer there. Even the outside of the book felt room temperature and in that moment I knew whatever magic had inhabited this notebook was gone. I flipped to the first page and counted the tallies. There were 200 in total, $20,000 from a strange little book.

For weeks I continued the ritual, preparing my tea, giving thanks to the universe for the notebook and opening it to the bookmarked page and every time the same thing: two blank pages, full of opportunity to capture the joys and sorrows of being human, jot down a quick phone number, or make a list of things to work on for myself. On mornings I hadn’t immediately closed the book after taking the bill, I would look at these pages and be reminded of nature and our interconnection with this world. Now, that feeling was all it could give me.

I tried lots of things. I recalled the feeling of light not escaping and wondered if maybe it was solar powered, stupid I know, but it would only be stupid if it didn’t work. I would leave it in spots that got a lot of sun without being exposed to the outdoors, primarily next to windows. Nothing seemed to work. All my life I had been sold this idea that money can’t buy happiness, meaning that feeling of joy, fulfillment, and liberation one feels at the zenith of their existence, and that much, I had determined was true. Money could however, buy food, housing, healthcare, and many of those other things which, arguably, are contributors to that happiness. It’s hard to be happy when one is so focused on the need to survive. Happiness is inconsequential in that existence but one must muster it in order to continue surviving. For a brief period, I no longer had to muster.

Three months had passed and I felt content, even on rainy days like today. I was on my way home from my last visit to the fancy gym. With only my regular work income, I could not justify continuing to pay the $300 a month although I sure would miss the steaming hot showers, the bidet, the sauna, and the on-call masseuse service: part of the reason I didn’t cancel as soon as the book lost its magic. As I drove, I thought about my luck and how I could not have imagined how these last seven months would have played out even in my wildest dreams. The sound of the bike registered at the same time as the bottom of my spine tingled with the beginning of a chill. I caught a flash of black in my rearview and before I knew it the motorcyclist was right next to me, looking toward the center of my dashboard at the little black notebook. That night seven months ago flashed in my mind as I processed the situation and the realization set in. Even though I knew what would happen I couldn’t react fast enough. I urged my body to react faster as I slammed the brakes. It was all I could do as I stole a glance at the clock on the dash: 2:06. “This has to be a dream,” I thought. I decided I did not want to see the end, I’d be awake in a few seconds anyway. I could feel the momentum of the ca-