The 38th List

12/12 Short Stories in 2017

1/12

word count: 1500 words

prompt: The List

The 38th List

“You know that feeling like you’re being watched?” the cashier asked, handing Cameron his receipt.

“Yeah, sure.” In fact, he felt it right now, a prickling at the nape of his neck.

Cameron wheeled his trolley to the car, keeping an eye out. It would be waiting for him somewhere. On the ground, left in the bottom of another trolley, maybe even tucked in the bottom of one of his grocery bags.

Sure enough, as he was pushing his empty trolley into the cart return, there it was: a small square of green paper. Cameron always knew one when he saw one. He could go months without getting any message at all, but then it would happen. The prickling at the nape of the neck, and then, minutes or hours later, the note.

It had been snowing, but the snow in the car park had melted. The note was stuck to the wet asphalt. He peeled it carefully from the ground and lay it out in the palm of his hand. It was a woman’s handwriting this time. She had used large loopy letters, and green ink. She’d probably dotted her i’s with hearts when she was younger. Butter, she had written, milk, eggs, TP. And then, across the bottom, the following: “The universe is a large place, Cameron.”

Cameron had no idea what it meant of course. He never did. All the messages he got were like this, a little esoteric, a lot snooty. When he had been younger, he been very impressed by the ideas. In his 20s he thought they were very highbrow. Now they just pissed him off. What the hell was this supposed to mean?

Still, when the universe sends you messages is best not to ignore it. Cameron did with this note like he had done with all the others, he placed it gently into his wallet and took it home.

Cameron’s scrapbook was looking a little rough around the edges. It had travelled with him all over the world, after all. It had been all over Canada and had backpacked through Europe. It had even seen Japan. It had lived in houses and apartments and, for three weeks, a yurt. As Cameron opened it to paste the latest note in, Rob walked past the bedroom door.

“You got another one?” he asked. “Let me see.” Of the family Cameron had left, Rob was the only one who gave a damn about Cameron’s lists. He had at any number of theories, the most common one being that of the two of them Rob deserved mysterious notes much more than Cameron did. 

“Van! Remember I told you about Cam’s secret admirer? He got another one!”

Van was Rob’s latest girlfriend and one Cameron actually liked. She poked her head into the room, said “Do you mind?” to Cameron and when Cameron shook his head in she came.

“It’s not an admirer,” Cameron told her.

“You think I pay attention to him? Can I see it?”

Cameron handed her the scrapbook. Van looked around for a place to sit, then perched precariously on the edge of Cameron’s dresser. She smiled a bit at the drawing on the cover and asked Cameron how old he been when he started it.

“About 11,” Cameron said.

“And you kept all of them?”

“I kept them in an old shoe box for a while, then I got the scrapbook for a birthday present. Had no idea what to put in it so I put in those.”

Van open the book. The first list had been written on the back of a receipt, an inch and a half wide and six inches long. What had been purchased on that day in 1975 Cameron couldn’t remember. He had glued it face down on the scrapbook because what he was interested in was what was on the back. It was written in a sharp slanted cursive and black ink: dog tag, dentist, cleaners and library. And then, sideways up the length of the receipt, the following: You need to pay attention to this, Cameron. And it had been underlined. Twice.

Cameron had been eight years old. It had been his name that caught his eye. It never occurred to him that he might not be the Cameron meant for the note. By the time he was old enough to wonder just who was meant to get these messages, he had received so many of them that it was clear the intended recipient was… him.

The second list had come to him when he was about ten. They had moved to another town (Dad told them he needed to start over), and at the new library Cameron had picked up a comic book. When he opened it a piece of paper had slid out. This time it was an untidy child’s scrawl, in crayon. It was a list of names, probably invitees for a birthday party. And then Cameron’s name in that same scrawl: 

“For your eyes only”, it said.

Van flipped through the pages. After about the fifth list, Cameron said, he had begun adding places and dates. There were only three weeks between the seventh list and the eighth. Both had come from the parking lot of the L&M grocery store in Markdale. There was quite a wide gap between the eleventh and twelfth, almost six years, and then a run of four lists over a period of thirteen weeks when Cameron was backpacking through Asia.

“Wow, Laos?” Van said, turning a page.

“I will never forget that,” Rob said. “He totally shit a brick over that one.”

“What would you have done?” Cameron said. “Like I was being freaking followed.”

“And today’s makes number thirty-eight,” Van said. She read it. “Any idea what these mean?” Van’s finger was resting on a purple dot resting under the ‘u’ of universe.

Cameron looked at her blankly.

“Well,” Van said, “they all have it.” She pointed at the list ahead of it, a message dated last year and labelled “toilets, big brother, Toronto”. There was a dot under the ‘o’ of ‘I’m keeping an eye out, Cam.’ And prior to that, a Christmas shopping list, pretty extensive, the page torn from a monogramed notepad. In red ink, Cameron was admonished “you be careful.” The dot was under the ‘y’.

“Holy crap!” Rob said. “I never even noticed that before, did you?”

Cameron took the sketchbook from Van. He flipped through the pages. He had looked at these lists hundreds of times throughout his life, and today he was bloody well seeing them for the first time? Every single message had a purple dot.

Cameron’s heart went loud in his ears. He stared at the glued and scribbled on pages, twenty-five years of a mystery meant for him alone. Truth was, there was no need for him to write down where he had found the lists. He remembered each and every list he’d found. There he would be, minding his own business, and the feeling would come, then the message. Over the years, he had begun to think of them as notes from a kind of guardian angel. Not that he was religious at all, no way, but for the messages to have followed him from town to town and then from country to country? What other explanation was there? What else could possibly make up for the disaster his life had been since his seventh birthday?

“Oh, my God,” Van said breathlessly. She snatched the sketchbook from Cameron’s hand and opened it to the last page. “I think I got it.”

“Got what?”

“It’s a message,” Van said.

“I kind of know that,” Cameron said impatiently. “I’ve been getting them all my life.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean all of them, together, are a message. See? The last three lists have dots under the letters y, o and u. That spells “you”. Got a pen?”

Cameron dug through the drawer of his bedside table pulled one out. He handed it to Van and she began flipping through the pages, scribbling letters down. When she was done, individual letters were strung across the page.

“Well?” Rob said. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

Van added slash marks to the letters. A small crease appeared between her brows. “Well that’s stupid,” she said.

Rob grabbed the book from her and took a look. Cameron read over his shoulder. Van’s printing was homicidally neat. No wonder Rob liked her. Cameron read the message

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rob asked. He directed the question at Cameron.

“How the hell would I know?”

“It’s addressed to you.”

“They’ve always be addressed to me. Doesn’t mean I know what they’re about.”

“Someone’s having you on,” Van said, but she looked freaked out.

Robert read the message out loud, as if that would help clarify the meaning. “If you’re reading this, Cameron, they’re already with you.”

Cameron felt a prickling at the nape of his neck. He was being watched.

 

Thanks to Mia Joubert Botha and writerswrite.co.za for setting up 12 Short Stories in 2017.