All It Takes Is One Word

My word, superfluous.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I could have been stuck with a common word like "and" or "the" or "weather". Could you imagine, as a brand new parent completely sleep deprived and having to try to remember to not say such a mundane word within earshot of your brand new baby or else it will die? The heartache. The body consuming panic of realizing what you've done as your baby takes its last breath in your arms. . .

The only other person in this world that knows my word is my mother and I'd like to think that she will take that information to her grave. I've tried asking her what her word is, but she won't tell. I'm pretty sure dad was the only one who knew her word, but he's gone now. Who would have thought that during a job interview, of all places, a word like bugbear would be said? His heart stopped on the spot.

"Superfluous," I whisper into the early morning darkness that lingers in my room, clinging to the shadows. My hands are neatly tucked behind my head like a hard pillow. You can say your word. Read your word. Write your word. You just can't hear someone else say it. Strange, how the universe works like that. They call it assisted suicide when you tell someone else your word and ask them to whisper to you while you lie in bed or watch a sunset. It's usually an old people thing, you know since your word is the only way you can go out. I guess that's if you can even make it to old age. Most people are fortunate if they make it to twenty. Even fewer to having a family and watch it grow. Even less are blessed enough to make it to old age where their only escape is to tell someone else their word. I want to be one of them. One of the oldest people to ever live. Mom thinks it's foolish, but think of all of things you could see. All of the places you could go. The things you could do.

My alarm screams into the silence and I swing out an arm and slap it down on the clock to quiet it.

Time to start the day.

Graduation might be just around the corner, but most of my classes are during the beginning of the week which leaves me with plenty of time to work during the second half of the week and the weekend. The majority of that money goes to mom to help her pay the bills, but the little bit that I get to keep for myself goes into a jar labeled "life." It's the money I'll use to do all of the things that my elongated life will allow me to accomplish.

Quickly dressed in a pair of potentially clean (look and smell mostly clean) blue jeans and a bright cherry red Pik-n-Go shirt. I tug a comb through my bone straight hair to slick back the oils that have accumulated on my scalp over the night. Brush my teeth and I'm out the door with the sad excuse for a lunch that I made the night before.

Breakfast consists of a stale cup of black coffee from what little Mom left behind in the pot as I hurry down to the bus stop. As usual, the bus is running just a tid-bit ahead of schedule and I nearly miss it, but Mr. Murphy and I are cool and he waits for me. I exchange the extra bologna sandwich in my lunch bag for his time and plop down in my usual seat as I finish my coffee.

There is the regular company on the bus. The old lady who smells like prunes. The comic book kid. The over-worked mom. The old guy who oggles the old lady who smells like prunes. And Doug. There is nothing special about Doug. He's almost like a Where's Waldo. You'd never be able to spot him in a crowd even if you knew who he was.

But today there is a young gentlemen dressed all in black. He's got on one of them fancy suits that you only see in the movies. Probably costs a fortune. The kind of suit where they burn it and buy a new one if they get even the smallest speck of dirt on it. His shoes even reflect the sunlight whenever a stray streak makes it through the windows. The most peculiar thing about him is that he's got his face buried in this book, studying it like his life depends on it.

I know better than to stare, so I mind my own business. The Pik-n-Go is a good ten stops away anyway.

In three stops, the stranger gets off the bus.

In four stops, I realize that the stranger left behind his notebook. It's a little bit smaller than the spiral bound notebooks that I use for school and it's got a nice leather cover that's been worn down with use. Almost grey in the spots where fingers have traversed often.

In five stops, I slide over several seats until I'm within reach of the notebook. No one is minding me, so I quickly snatch up the notebook with every intention on turning it in to Mr. Murphy until an unexpected bump in the road and the journal burps open and I see what the stranger was studying so intently.

It's a list of names.

But more importantly, it's a list of their words.

I choke on a breath, feel it build in my chest as I flip through the pages and pages of first and last names and the one word that will end their world and then there is my name.

Veronica Larson -- Superfluous

A sudden desire to protect this book with my life floods through my system. No one can ever see this. No one. It may be purely selfish, but I can never let anyone know what I have seen here. No one can know my word.

No one should know anyone's word. Or at least not to detailed like this. No one should have this kind of power over other people.

With a swift shift of my eyes to either side to make sure I'm not being watched, I shove the notebook into the waistband of my pants. The top of the book digs into my rib cage and I try to breathe normally like nothing is out of sorts.

Mr. Murphy clears his throat and makes a point to look at me in the rear view mirror. It's my stop.

All throughout my shift, I can only focus on the little black notebook that's burning a whole in my locker like a dollar in my pocket. Despite my best attempts to ignore it, the book called to me. I couldn't not look through it. I know that Mr. Hendrick's, my boss's, word is fudge. And that Sally Harpers' word is confetti. And Rick Porter's word is gratitude. How have these people made it as long as they have?

I have this knowledge, but I don't want it. I wish I had never found that stranger's notebook. I wish I could have minded my own business.

Once home, I can't stop myself from sliding my fingers over the worn and faded notebook, opening the cover and teasing the edges of the yellowed pages. As I pour over them, suddenly a name begins to fade before it completely vanishes and leaves a blank line on the page. I flip back and forth between the pages, wondering what I've done until it dawns on me that that person has died. Someone has said their word.

An unsettling relief floods me at the knowledge that it was not me who said their word, but instantly replaced by a sense of dread at the possibility that it was the stranger who left the notebook behind. Is it possible that he memorized the entire book? No. That couldn't be. There were too many names. Too many words.

But there, another name vanished before my eyes.

And another.

I no longer want this power. I didn't want to know.

Rushing to the backyard, I pile a large stack of wood in the fire pit and use the notebook as the main kindling as I strike a match. I watch the flames roar, inhale the delicious smell of campfire and stand there until my legs ache, until there is nothing but embers and ash.

--

I yawn, swallowing in the sunshine as I roll over in bed toward the window and my face presses into something cool and smooth. My eyes spring open as my skin practically crawls off of my bones.

Lying next to me like a lover is the notebook.

I hold back a scream before throwing it across the room.

How in the holy hell is that thing still here?

I burned it.

I watched it burn.

It should be nothing more than ash now.

Carefully stepping over it, I hurry from my room, out into the backyard and stare, astonished, into the fire pit. It's completely clean. Like it never happened. Was it really a dream?

Back inside, I snatch the notebook up from the floor, hating myself for the growing urge to flip it open and peruse its contents.

Wood. Notebook. Match.

I intently watch over the flames. Standing there until the notebook has completely vanished into the charcoal, the acrid scent of melting leather singeing my nose, filling my lungs. I stay there until the heat has completely dissipated from the fire pit. I remain even when the sun has moved across the skin.

Body trembling with achy muscles, I drag myself back to bed and collapse onto the mattress. Blindly I reach back for the blankets only to feel the cool leather cover of a notebook beneath my hand.

The shrilling scream escapes my body this time as I crawl into the corner, my eyes never leaving the notebook.

How is it still here?

I rip each page out and put it through mom's paper shredder. I take the garden sheers to it and drop the pieces down the garbage disposal until it begins to smoke. I throw it out the window on the bus. I physically hand it to the garbage man and watch him place it into the back of the garbage truck.

Every time, without fail, I find it back on my bed. Waiting for me. Wanting me to turn its pages.

But its call is no longer appealing to me in the slightest. I'm more horrified of the powers of this notebook than anything else. I don't know where it came from or how it came to be, but there is a dark energy around. Something evil.

I've done everything I can think of to get rid of this notebook, but it clings to me like a leech. There is only one thing left I can think of to do and it is the most terrifying of them all.

On my way to my shift at the Pik-n-Go, there is the usual cast of characters on the bus. Sweat collects under my arms and at the nape of my neck with each approaching stop. My tongue is like sandpaper in my parched mouth despite drinking from my water bottle the entire time.

Then finally it's my turn.

I pull the notebook from my bag. The worn leather so familiar beneath my fingertips even though I've only had it for a couple days. It almost hums, like a calling, begging to be read. I tightly shut my eyes and set it on the empty seat next to me before marching toward the front and exiting the bus, hoping, praying that the next person who finds the book with use it powers for good.