Moleskin
By savannah Webb
You found the journal on the train.
It was made of moleskin and sealed with a metal lock. You brushed this mechanism with aching fingers and vaguely wondered what to do next.
There was a lost and found here on the train. You decided that as you left you would drop it into the cardboard box near the exit. The box full of items that would never be found or looked for. The watches that stopped time, and lonely gloves, never to find their partners. You looked down at the item you had planned to put there. It was such a lovely journal. It was small, and by the looks of the sides, well used and loved. it seemed a shame to cast out such a loved item to the land of freak-shows and forgotten treasures. And so it happened that as the conductor gave a guttural shout that your stop was here, you walked off the train. Your leather briefcase in one hand, and the found journal in the other.
That box was for lost things you convinced yourself as you click clacked down the narrow streets of your town. And this, you shook the journal quietly. This is a found thing. You found it. You did not know what made you keep it. But it felt as if it belonged to you. You thought for just a moment, that you could feel a heartbeat thrump from inside the locked covers. You gripped it tighter.
Once you had found your feet at the steps of your small home, you looked away from your thoughts, pulled out your keys, jingled until discovering the one you searched for, and entered.
You dropped your briefcase at the door, but held tightly to the moleskin journal in a clammy fist as you greeted your spouse and walked quickly to your bedroom. You sat quietly on the bed, your tired feet hanging off the side, as you turned the journal in your palms. You began to sweat. You tapped the moleskin with nervous fingers and nervous fingernails. You could hear the heartbeat again. It was growing louder and louder, but staying at the same pace. You dropped it hastily and left the room, on to other things. You ate dinner. You cooked dinner. But the orders seemed jumbled in your head. Your mind wandered up the stairs and into the journal. You were sure you could pick the lock. But for some reason you felt apprehensive of this simple act. Even now you could hear the heartbeat. It was tap dancing in your inner ear. Thrumming onto your subconscious and the background hum of the universe. Your spouse asked you what was wrong.
You knew. But you said you did not.
You did the dishes yourself that night. Your significant other had said something about a nap and you scrubbed furiously on the crusty plates with controlled fury and uncontrolled fear. You scratched the porcelain plates. You scratched at your thoughts. What could be in the journal? Who could be in the journal? Who’s thoughts and inner passions had been scrawled inside those moleskin covers? You slipped your hand as you rinsed the knifes you has previously used to cut fish, and a spurt of blood erupted from your finger and you dropped the weapon. You stared at this blood, the heartbeat still sounding behind your ears. It was ok you told yourself. The blood means you are alive. You also have a heartbeat.
An idea strikes you.
You pick the discarded knife up with bloody fingers. With purpose you storm up the stairs to the room the journal quietly beats in.
But you’re not alone.
Your spouse is on the floor. The journal is open on it’s back, floating, several feet above the ground. The moleskin is bleeding. The words, they are bleeding. The ink is bleeding into the carpet, the words becoming messy spills of blood. Tendrils of black are leaping from the bloody words and wrapping around your spouses throat. Your spouse struggles, and tears at this captor, but you only stare. They convulse, and die, as you watch. They die quietly. The journal shuts with a snap and quietly falls to the floor. Everything is quiet now.
You pick up the journal, and begin to walk. You don’t know where. After a long while you find yourself at a train station. You get on board the next train that pulls up, and cough on the coal in the air. You sit on the red leather seats, and place the moleskin journal on the seat beside you.
When the train stops, you stand, but leave the journal on that seat. It looks darker sitting there, like it was gathering shadows into it. You leave that beating journal, and get off the train. You’re in a new town and you’re new life. The journal is behind you, traveling the tracks far far away. It was someone else’s burden. And he knew he would never have to see it again.
You found the Journal on the train…
