A box with a handwritten manuscript and a blank journal, and another with a silver necklace adorned with purple beads and a crescent moon as its base. A weird combination, and from who?

Clara rolled her eyes at the items after looking them each over and verifying no other contents were in the boxes. Well, she said, tossing the empty boxes on the floor. Maybe you have a secret admirer, or someone accidentally sent these to you. The labels don’t specify a person, just the box number. Perhaps they messed up?

Maybe. Kinda weird they used the PO address as a return, too. Can’t even mail it back to the sender.

I say, “Read the manuscript. You like mysteries anyway.” And the necklace—there’s totally a witchy vibe here. She held it out and placed it around my neck. It looks cute, too.

I guess. I’ll worry about this stuff later. I take the necklace and placed it next to the journal and manuscript. Let’s get this day going. We have bills to pay, remember? I pushed her towards the door, snatching her bag as I grabbed my keys and we were off for the day.

Did I clock more than 58,000 steps by 2 p.m.? Jesus, I need new shoes. My body is sore, and my brain is mush.

Clara left me around midnight after we finished her TA duties for the week and finally graded the last paper. I passed out sometime later, re-watching Age of Adeline and polishing the last of the vodka in my freezer.

The alarm screamed at me at 4am, reminding me that I really didn’t have time for sleep. Today is going to fucking suck.

I need to finish some work for Jack today. He sent me more hard copies to transfer to the digital space for his personal backup files. At least I don’t have dog walking today. Yesterday was an excellent day for gigs and tips.

But I still have $1500 to come up with by next week, so I can’t stop now. Maybe I can hop on Guru or Upwork and find a few more gigs I can knock out quickly and cash out.

I’ll just add those notes to my board. I scribbled across the dry-erase board I keep literally everything in my life on and grab the bottle of water from the desk, chugging back a few sips while I rummaged for the aspirin and popped a couple.

The sooner I get through Jack’s files, the sooner I can send him my time for the day and get this week paid out. He promised me an extra $300 if I could complete this other file box with this week’s load, so I’m going to do my damnest to try. His email said the new box would be arriving this morning, which means Martin will arrive with it at about 8 a.m. Plenty of time to make a good dent in these other 3 .

A.G