The note

It was late in the day and a vast vermillion sun was setting. The occasional darkest grey cloud, edged in brightest pink cast long shadows across the dry dusty plains that stretched, shimmering in the evening light, from the sleepy town to the far horizon. In the small café on the corner of Main Street, Sam sat alone, as he did most evenings. His habitual seat was at a table by the window, he nursed a large mug of steaming hot tea. Silently he watched the world pass by into the night.

Just another ordinary evening in his ordinary life. Sam had spent the day working at the hardware shop, advising which washer would fix what leaky kitchen tap and selling nails from barrels to old men with shaky hands, who’d really only come in for the nostalgic smell of glimmering paraffin heaters, warm waxed cardboard and dusty old pine floorboards. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, nothing ever did, and he’d long since resigned himself to the quiet routine of his existence.

But then, as he reached for the fluted glass and chrome sugar dispenser, he saw a slip of paper tucked beneath it. Curious, he unfolded the stiff, quality writing paper and read the message penned in elegant script:

"Meet me at midnight by the old oak tree on James Street Square. - E."

Although it would be an overstatement to say that Sam's heart quickened as he read the words, he was, nevertheless intrigued. This was, after all, a whole new thing. He couldn’t remember a new thing happening since the post box outside his house caught fire when he was boy. Who was "E"? And why did they want to meet him at midnight by an oak tree? His mind wrestled with possibilities, each as perplexing and insubstantial as the last.

He glanced around the café, but there was no one who seemed out of place, no one who might have left the mysterious note. And yet, there it was, a salver of secrets on pale blue Basildon Bond paper. A secret waiting to be revealed.

That evening, Sam found it was impossible to focus on anything. He went through the motions of his usual evening routine. He ate dinner and then washed up while listening to an ‘In our time’ podcast from November 1998 about the brain and consciousness. But his mind was elsewhere, consumed by thoughts of the impending rendezvous.

Finally, at five minutes to midnight, Sam slipped out and made his way to the James Street Square. The night was dark and silent, the only sound the rustle of leaves in the breeze. He hurried, hands in pockets, to the meeting place, and there, beneath the shadow of the tree, he saw her. Tall, willowy, beautiful.

She stepped out of the shadow and, bathed in moonlight, her face was illuminated by a smile that sent shivers down his spine. It was Emma, the girl he’d admired for so long, the one person in all the world he dreamed of. The woman he’d known his whole life, the reason he lived alone, the only person in town that he’d never dared to speak to.

They stood there beneath the stars, while Emma, in quiet seriousness, explained how Sam had always been the person she dreamed of but never dared say. They embraced at last and while they enjoyed the smell and touch of each other, Sam marvelled at the life-changing importance of that moment when he’d found the note.

And then he wondered what would have happened if some other man had found it before him.