SARAH NADER HEART’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK SNAFU

Hello my name is Nare Ator and I'm going to use my super deep lusciously soulful voice to guide you through this story of money, love, revenge, envy, and other clichés tropes. Throughout the story I’ll have moments of omniscience which I’ll put into () you can skip over those but they will contain little bits of information that add absolutely no depth to the amazing journey we’re going on. Buckle up and get ready for a story of a lifetime.

SARAH NADER HEART’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK SNAFU: CONDENSED VERSION

As the weather dropped below 0° on a uninteresting and mundane Chicago night, smart minded people chose to stay indoors and enjoy their A/C heated homes instead of venturing out into flurry of snow and wind. “ Man I HATE this job” said Sarah Nader Heart, a stocky 6’2 African American- Swedish man, as his green eyes surveyed the grimy condition of the spedway gas station that he is entrusted with every graveyard shift Mon-Fri.

( My omniscience is telling me you wondered at some point why his name is Sarah, well his dad was a struggling comedian name Kevin H and his mom was a struggling singer named Ariana G. and they decided that they will make sure their first child’s name reflects both of their respective niches in some sort of way thus with the two parents decided no matter boy or girl they will give it the music themed punny name Sarah Nader.)

Sarah hates his job almost as much as he hates his name, but he's nonetheless a very diligent worker. He has the same monotonous tasks day in and day out. So he developed his own workflow the “Nader 6 step method ” as he likes to call it, a method that he feels to be the most efficient for getting through his shift as quickly as possible. It goes in this order

Nader 6 step method: spedway edition

1. Stock up the greasy hotdog rotator with more greasy hotdogs

2. Fill up condiments section so people can flavor up their greasy hotdogs

3. Sweep and mop the store knowing that people will track in dirty muddy snow 1 hour later

4. Clean the bathroom, actually more like step inside the bathroom, be utterly disgusted, and then leave it for the morning guy.

5. Fill up the napkins and windshield wiper water at each gas pump

6. Take out the all the trash

7. Find a little black book underneath the trash can…….

( hello your best friend Nare Ator with an omniscience moment, it looks like you figured out that there was a 7th step to the Nader '6' step plan, now your probably thinking that this going to play a role in driving the plot of the story, well if I told you your absolutely wrong , I'd be wrong. But the question now is how can a little black book become a plot device for one of the greatest stories ever well that’s the the $20,000{and 2000 word limit} question that we all want to know, lets find out)

Completely dumbfounded by the fact that someone would place a really nice black leather notebook underneath a nasty spedway garbage can, Sarah decides to pick up the notebook and bring it inside. A decision he's either going to rejoice or regret in the future. Once he finished taking out the remining trash bags, he posted up behind the register for the rest of the night he began to read aloud the contents of the notebook “Ecco un'opportunità del millennio, un'opportunità per mangiare tonnellate di cibo 110 volte … oh wait this is Italian? Thankfully I speak the language fluently let me translate this to English for no apparent reason, ahem …”

(OMNISCIENCE TIME! so real quick Sarah has a debilitating attraction to Italian women and he has no clue why, but because of his weakness he decided that he will learn Italian just in case he ever gets enough money to go to Italy and meet his future wife. Weird I know but hey, at the very least we get a translation because I don’t speak Italian)

“Here is an opportunity of the millennium, a chance to eat tons of food 110 times over, you'll be rich in money and iron. After you have had your fill you will clean up your mess and throwaway any waste. After you tidy up you get to have some fun spinning the wheels of fate. Will the wheels spin fortune or will they spin a watery demise.” As Sarah finishes reading the cryptic message found in the notebook a women walks into the store, he proceeds to store away the notebook and promptly stands up.

“Hello welcome to spedway how can I help you” he says to the women whose beauty and presence is completely out of place in the rundown gas station. She parts her fine raven hair from her face and says “ Hello this is weird question, but have you seen an leather notebook under a the garbage can around here recently” followed by a cute and innocent chuckle. Sarah who immediately recognized the accent and completely ignoring her question promptly asks “ARE YOU ITALIAN!?” taken back by this loud unexpected response to her straightforward question she cautiously responds with a simple “yes”. Sarah notices the fear in her voice and immediately snaps back into reality and apologizes and proceeds to hold up the leather notebook “is this the book your looking for?”. The girl’s eye widen with excitement and relief. As Sarah proceeds to hand it over to the beautiful women, he says “so out of curiosity I read the the paragraph in this book and it seems to describe The Bean in a really cryptic way, what’s that about?” that one sentence made the women stop her hands from grabbing the book and instead slams them onto the countertop to lift herself face to face with Sarah and she screams “ YOU FIGURED OUT THE RIDDLE AND YOU SPEAK ITALIAN?”

( time to use the power of omniscience to solve that riddle for you non-Chicago people, so the riddle says “opportunity of a millennium”, I think that’s a reference to Millennium Park that's a location in Chicago. Then “eat tons of food 110x over” beans are a type of food and The Bean weighs 110 tons and “you’ll be rich in money and iron” well The Bean is giant thing of metal I’m not sure if it’s iron but hey it fits the bill. As for the rest of the riddle I feel like we’ll learn more about that as the story progresses)

With a newfound interest for Sarah’s brain the women begins to explain everything to him. It turns out her grandfather Antione Popcornella was told he only has 24 months to live and the only living blood relative he has left in this world is his granddaughter who we find out is named Carmella. She then proceeds to explain that Antione wanted to give her the inheritance while he was alive. So her grandfather had his team put together a city wide notebook-scavenger hunt themed inheritance for Carmella. She explains the notebook in Sarah’s possession is book # 5 and the first 4 books were incredibly difficult for her to find because she is from originally from Italy, so not only does she have to decipher these super cryptic riddles, but she has to try to learn how they relate to a city she didn’t grow up in. After hearing Carmella's inheritance woes and realizing the riddles weren’t actually that hard, Sarah decided to offer his time to help Carmella complete her scavenger hunt. They both agreed to meet at The Bean around 1pm in the afternoon the following day.

“Popcornella why does that name sound so familiar to me” said Sarah outside next the bean surrounded by freshly fallen soft snow. “ciao!” echoed from the distance as we see Carmella approaching Sarah. Sarah lost his train of thought after seeing Carmella's beautiful essence radiating towards him and proceeded to walk towards her, while reciprocating her greeting with a wave. It was Carmella’s first time at The Bean so Sarah figured(schemed) that they might as well take some memorable picture first before they started looking for notebook #6. Sarah made sure to get some pictures on BOTH their phones.

After they had their fun the duo got down to business. They read the notebook for clues for where they should begin their search, “After you have had your fill you will clean up your mess and throwaway any waste. After you tidy up…. hmmm what if he put the notebook under another trashcan.” There were four trashcans in the vicinity so they proceed to look under all of them and underneath trashcan number 4 was a little black adult magazine that had no business being there so they threw it away.

(Just a shameless plug from your boy Nare Ator if you see trash in the city especially near a trashcan throw it away #keepthecityclean)

“Hmmmm no dice, ok lets think about this logically for a second he talking about eating right?”, Carmella nods in agreement.

“Now hear me out this might sound crazy, but I think that think like your grandad, so what if the waste he is referring too isn’t trash, but bodily waste. Since he has us at The ‘BEAN’ and beans make you go. you know… what if we are supposed to go into a bathroom and tidy up when were done.” Carmella ponder for a second on scale of 1-10 how crazy her grandpa was and then decided that Sarah was probably on the right mental track and that he will from now on her potentially crazy men list.

So they began the bathroom hunt of the century, they go from venue to venue entering bathrooms. They would use the time in-between to learn little factoids about one another. Apparently Sarah is in a music group(like mother like son ) and has a business consultant side hustle that’s starting to really take off. Carmella is a photographer and an aspiring fashion designer with hopes to have her clothes worn worldwide. She shared pictures that she has taken all over the globe and Sarah sang her one of his moms old songs Thank You, Flex. After searching for a while they found themselves at Italian restaurant called Acanto. The entered the unisex bathroom together, both slightly embarrassed, and to their surprise they found the 6th notebook. In this notebook there wasn't a cryptic message instead there were two checks for $20,000 written to Sarah and Carmella. As well as 4 tickets; 2 tickets were for a ride in the Centennial Ferris wheel at navy pier and two plane tickets to Italy again one addressed to Carmella and one to Sarah. They both looked at each other in confusion, Sarah stared at the notebook again and then fear flooded his face as he remembered why he shouldn't have gotten involved with THE LITTLE BLACK BOOKS

(Omniscience time, or at least what I would like to say but right now grandpa atione created a situation that even I the great Nare Ator didn’t expect to happen. Actually I did know because I’m the great Nare Ator. Alas I have seen how the story ends and its beautiful but due to the word count limit for competition purpose I felt I should leave it at the most suspenseful part and leave you wanting more. But don’t worry I'm giving you the condensed version and because I loved this story so much I’m going to give you a full version as well. So for now lets just wonder what will happen; are Sarah and Carmella related, what's the purpose of the Ferris wheel, how does grandpa know Sarah, what's waiting for them in Italy, where was the action and revenge you were promised, what else can we expect from THE LITTLE BLACK BOOKS)