Cameras were
flashing, people nervously raised their hands to ask questions. Everyone was
excited about the book that now, for the first time, she was presenting. Her
novel was finally being published. She felt nervous and full of anxiety. She
couldn’t believe that those sound tapes she found 6 months ago had led her to
where she was now.
6 months before…
In the
underground, listening to her iPod, Jane thought about her new job. She had
just started to work at a newspaper. For the moment the only thing she did was
make coffees and run errands for other people, but she was desperate to start
writing. It was Sunday, so she got out at Broadway Station and went to her
favourite place in NYC. The same place where she went every single Sunday: the
Strand library. The perfect place for her, a book-lover, to be, surrounded by
18 miles of books.
Once there,
she walked around the different bookshelves wondering what stories might those
books contained. Then, she noticed that the classic books section was open, it
had been closed for months due to some reforms that were taking place. She
scanned through the bookshelves and a musty, square-shaped book caught her
attention. It was small and had a thick, red, leather cover. She leafed through
it and noticed that the back cover was cut at the inside. Jane opened the cut
and a small cassette tape fell from it. She looked at it; it was really
strange, what was that doing there?
She walked
around the classics section with the cassette tape on her hand, wondering what
it could mean. The cassette tape was black and had a square white label stuck
to it. The label didn’t have any song name written, just CXXIII, number
123 in Roman numbers. At least that’s how Jane understood it. She was walking
around the library when she noticed that in the classics section, the books
were numbered by roman numbers. Right away she started to search for the book
number 123 as the tape said.
She finally
found it. It was in one of the highest shelves. She had to stretch her arm to
reach it. Jane turned to the back cover to try and see if it had a cut as the
other one did, but it didn’t, there was no cut. She inspected the book over and
over again but didn’t find anything. But when she was going to put the book
back on the shelf, she touched something hard and squared. Where the book was
supposed to go, there was a cassette tape, but this time it had nothing written
on it. It was there, lying on a shelf in an enormous book store, in a gigantic
city, waiting, waiting for her, for Jane to find it.
She hurried
back home, and once she was there, she asked her neighbour Mrs. Rodgers to lend
her her cassette player so that she could listen to the tapes. Jane introduced
one of them in the player and pressed play. At the beginning, music
played, then after a few words, it stopped. The same happened with the second
tape, when she introduced it in the other compartment. First it was silent and
then it started to play.
Jane was confused;
she didn’t understand what all of that was about. Then, by mistake, trying to
stop the tape that was playing, she pressed “play” on the other tape,
and both of them started to play at the same time. It was like a conversation
between them, one played something and then the other one responded. They
played a few words and many numbers composed by the mix of many songs. Jane
wrote them all down, she had no clue of what they meant, but she was decided to
find out. After searching for those two words and seven numbers on the phone
guide, the newspaper and internet for hours, she finally obtained a result. Apparently,
according to Google maps, it was an address. The coordinates, number and name
of a street, which turned out to be in New York. She planned to go there the
following day, even if that meant that she would have to miss work.
The next
morning she got a taxi to the address the tapes told her. It turned out to be a
small, old, corner-book shop. She entered and saw that the books were “organized”
in piles all around the floor. It was very messy and it smelled like incense. An
old man with a considerably long white beard approached her and introduced
himself: - Hello, can I help you? I’m Mr. Johansson, the shop owner. Surprised
by the shop owner’s appearance from nowhere, Jane answered stammering. -Erm…
Hi, I’m Jane. I’m looking for some cassette tapes that might look like these
ones.
Mr. Johansson
saw the tapes Jane showed him and took her to another room of the bookshop.
Once there he opened a wardrobe and from a drawer he got a package. He turned
and gave it to Jane. She stared surprised at the package that was wrapped with
brown paper.
- I know
nothing about the package, but many years ago, a man asked me to keep it and
give it to the person that came and asked for it, as you did today. The man
seemed loyal and mysterious, so I’ve kept the package since then. Now it’s
yours.
Jane thanked
him for everything and back at home discovered the mysteries that the package
had to show. She carefully opened it, inside it there was a letter and a
cassette tape. Jane read the letter out loud.
Hello, my
name is Edward O’Donnel. If you are reading this I’m probably dead. This voice
cassette will show you why. It will tell you the story of my life.I decided to
tell my life story through my two biggest passions, books and music. That is
why I’ve hidden it through them, in music codes and in my favourite
novels.Sorry if it turned out hard for you to find this last tape, but I wanted
to be sure that the person that found them would be worth of knowing my story,
as well as intrigued and interested, so he or she would carry on looking for
the other cassettes. Please listen carefully and make good use of it, otherwise
please return the tapes where you found them. I truly believe in fate so I hope
that you are the right person to tell my story, Thank you!
P.S. Please
tell my wife Rosalie I will always love her and give her this package once
you’ve finished.
After reading
the letter Jane spent hours listening to the tape. She had finally decided what
she wanted to do with her life, which wasn’t running errands or making coffees for
her boss, but…
Today…
Jane took the
microphone and started to enounce her speech: - Thank you all for being here. I
hope you will enjoy my novel, which is about Edward O’Donnell’s life. This
story is an example of love, fraternity, unity and family values, in a dark
background of hard times and violent situations. Edward O’Donnell is a great
role model, and I hope that by this novel you will learn how you can go on with
your life, and find the bright side in the darkness of life.
Claudia Cardona, 4º E.S.O
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