THE MOMENT
Franklin flipped through the leather-bound journal twice to double-check; all the pages were blank again. He set it down and stared at the black briefcase full of cash on his kitchen table.
"Yeah, I'm gonna call that magic," he said. Franklin lived alone and he often spoke aloud so he didn't feel alone. The brown journal caught his eye as he walked home from work that day. Despite finding it in a ditch beside the road, the journal seemed brand new. The paper inside felt like high-quality paper, and all the pages were flawless, crisp white. He gave a cursory glance around to check for an owner, but he did not spot anyone that seemed to be missing anything.
Franklin journaled often when he was a boy, but he grew out of the habit as he made his way into adulthood. Now in his mid-40s, he often looked back on the things he wished he'd kept up with. Journaling was at the top of the list, and he'd been meaning to take it up again. Somehow, the money intended to reinvest in a journal always seemed to be allocated to other emergencies. He took the journal home convinced it was meant for him.
As soon as he walked into his small apartment, he walked to the kitchen and sat down with the journal and a pen. In his youth, he developed the habit of writing stream-of-conscious thoughts just to warm his mind up. The practice came back to him easily as he placed pen to paper without hesitation.
"I'm going to have Chinese for dinner," he wrote. Franklin usually occupied his walk home with dinner plans for that night; he tried not to plan too far in advance in case someone asked him out. Before he wrote any more, pressure on his bladder reminded him that he skipped part of his evening routine. He dropped the pen and headed for the restroom.
After flushing and washing his hands, he opened the bathroom door and was hit by a wall of delicious odors. He walked to the kitchen with his nose in the air and found an assortment of white, pint-sized containers. They were all open and each one was filled with one of his favorite foods. He glanced out the kitchen towards the door, but he could still see the chain attached; no one came in.
"Was this you?" Franklin glanced at the journal, then sat down in front of it again. He flipped to the first page, but the single sentence he wrote was gone. He wondered if maybe he mistakenly wrote it on a different page and flipped through the whole thing. "Alright, let's try this again," he said. He picked up the pen.
"I'm going to get some soda to drink too," he wrote. Then, he added another line. "And alcohol." Franklin assumed he could test the mechanics of it later. Right now, he just wanted to see if it worked, so he stood up and walked to the restroom again. He tried to spend the same amount of time in there, then he returned to the kitchen. A three-liter bottle of soda and a large bottle of rum now sat on the counter next to the pints of food.
"Okay," Franklin nodded to himself but decided on one more test. He opened the journal but did not bother sitting down. The first page was blank again, and he wrote, "I have a million dollars in cash." Then, he walked back into the restroom. While there, he pondered his next move in case his plan worked.
He walked straight to the journal, noticing a briefcase full of money, and flipped through the blank pages. Then, he decided it was magic. While running through his wishes in the restroom, Franklin realized that it was likely someone owned the journal before him. He didn't know what happened to them, but it was obvious that he could lose the journal at any point, especially with magic being involved. He wanted a way to safeguard his future even without it.
He hesitated for a moment just to be sure he had the right wording in mind, "I always have everything I need." He returned to the restroom and counted to 90. Then he walked into the kitchen.
He first noticed the dozen pints of food on the counter were gone, along with the soda and alcohol. He looked at the table and noticed the journal and cash were gone too. In their place sat a medium-sized plate of Chinese food next to 20-ounce soda, and a much smaller bottle of rum. He was slightly disappointed for a brief second before his hunger took over.
As he took his first bite, it struck him as odd that he wasn't particularly disgruntled. There was a lot more he planned to get out of the journal; but, he realized the journal only made things easier. He could still get what he wanted without it.
"This is nice," he said to himself as he truly enjoyed his meal for the first time ever.