I was finished at round four, but I decided to do the last prompt any way.
A book is your future.
***
Not all that glitters is gold.
***
The end will be written in scarlet letters.
***
Her fingers traced the gold-colored braids that were set into the book's cover. It was brown leather the color of a brown paper bag, the kind of brown paper bag that might've been used to protect the book. But it wasn't a book that would need protecting.
"And all I have to do is put this note in a mailbox?" she asked languidly, her eyes wandering across the gilded cover. In red, inset letters, it was written with Regarder À L’avance.
She said it as if it were the easiest thing in the world, to put that letter, one she hadn't even read, into the hands of another. But it wasn't just a letter. The contents of that letter would change a man's life forever. Change a relationship in his life forever, in fact. He would read that letter, the letter telling him things he didn't know about his wife. Those things would lead to a series of decisions, ending in him deciding to walk away and not make any more decisions, ever.
<But that's another story for another day. >
But she didn't care. The simple slip of that letter would give her everything she wished for. It was just a simple task standing between her, and that book.
The black hood nodded.
It was cold today. Her breath created fog and her neck was warmed by the scarf knotted around her neck. Her heels clicked noisily on the pavement. The book was safely in her pack, the note safely clutched inside her mittens.
The streets weren't busy as everyone was either sleeping or at work. She looked left to right as she lighted the steps to the townhouse. She pulled off her mitten and pulled the note out. She smiled. Then, kissing it for luck and dropping it in through the mail slot, she jumped over the steps and onto the sidewalk and tore down the avenue.
She heard her own giggle of glee, heavy breathing, and shoes hitting the pavement as she made her way to the BART station, but she didn't hear the flap of the mail slot metallically echoing into space.
***
She thought that book would make her happy. She thought it would get her all of the things she ever wanted.
She read the book voraciously; page after page. But those days, the ones that she read…
She became unable to control her life. It spun out of control, faster than she could let out a cry.
She regretted ever visiting that dark, dark place.
***
"Please return all items to the library shelf when finished."
***
