The Unknown Manuscript.

I was rifling through the paperwork at speed whilst the rain battered the windows. Keep, maybe, throw. Keep, maybe, throw. Maybe, throw, throw, throw, keep, throw. Suddenly, I had cramp in my foot so stretched my legs out and tried not to roll around in pain and disturb my carefully piled piles of paperwork. How long had I been sitting here? Breathe in, hold, breathe out. I started to google ‘how to get rid of cramp’ when it started to subside. I had a feeling someone was watching me, you know, that sixth sense we sometimes have when it feels like someone is staring at you. I looked around, of course, there was no one. I was sitting on the floor in the study of my small, fifth floor apartment in which I lived alone. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a partner, I was too much of an introvert for that, I can’t imagine anything worse than going out, looking for someone to love me. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be, I tell myself when I feel lonely. So there was no one watching me, unless it was Batman, hanging from a web he’d made in silence on the outside of the building. Unlikely. I look out the window and notice it’s stopped raining. I restarted sorting. I was sorting because I had so many pieces of paper that truthfully had no more resemblance in or to my life. I have paperwork here from three jobs ago. I don’t need it. I’m running out of room, so I decided to sort it all out, keep the stuff I need - not a lot - and get rid of anything I don’t need. If I'm honest I found this sort of activity mind numbing, after a while you start sorting on autopilot, where you don’t really see or know what that paperwork is for, you see a word or phrase and decide if it stays or goes. I was on autopilot sorting when the next piece of paper was different. The buzzer goes, I stare at the piece of paper in my hand for a second then jump to my feet and go to the door phone. Nobody there. Strange I thought, then dismissed it as it was probably someone with the wrong door number. That piece of paper.  What was different about it? Was it the font? Yes - it looked like it had been typed on a typewriter, who even had a typewriter any more? What is it? 

I sit back down and start to read through the typed writing, the clouds gather outside my window and threaten to rain, again. The writing captures me, I’m invested by the second page, and at some point when I had forgotten that I didn’t even know what I was reading I stopped. Stared at the pages in front of me. Were these mine? I don’t think I have ever written stories, so it can’t be. So whose writing is this, and where has it come from?

I start a google search on my phone; first, I google the character’s names. I get a few options so on the back of a piece of paper in the throw pile, I write the author names or book titles down. Then I search the beginning of the plot, not so many answers this time, but a couple. I wrote these down too. Are there any that match? No. So that leaves me with no answers and an unknown text that I have found within my paperwork, within my apartment. 

When I’m sitting on the sofa later that evening, I can’t get the typed text off my mind. I am convinced it’s the start, or part of a book, and I know it wasn’t written by me - I don’t and have never owned or used a typewriter.  I have a bowl of ramen that I’m slurping and munching, whilst inwardly I am debating whether or not to post this on social media. Would that open a whole can of worms that I really don’t want? Or could it solve it? I can feel myself beginning to get overwhelmed by it all, maybe it’s nothing and I could just throw it out, but something tells me it isn’t and I shouldn’t. I hate making decisions like this. I message my best friend, who usually is gung ho and wants a piece of everyone’s news so I feel like she may be useful - she also reads a lot so may have read the book it eventually became, maybe.  

Sitting, staring at my phone, willing her to message back, checking the time every minute, sometimes twice in one minute. I flick through the channels on television, nothing is holding my attention, I am becoming obsessed. It’s raining again, and I only become aware of it when it starts hammering on the windows. What else have I missed this afternoon whilst my head has been within this text. I hope it’s worth it and start to feel a bit of an idiot for becoming so infatuated with such little information. 

Finally, she messages back;

‘’Hey, that sounds familiar… 

Can’t think who or what tho.

How many pages have you got?

Xxx’’ 

‘Oh my God’ so it is something. I burst and shrill with excitement, which immediately takes the wind out my sails because getting excited by yourself is never correct. I take a look at the pages, I have twelve pages in my hand. What if there’s more in my paperwork piles? I know I haven’t come across this font yet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any more in the piles I haven’t yet sorted through. I leap up and jog into the office. I start rifling through again, keeping the twelve pages on my desk, reminding myself of the font every so often when I think I start seeing it, but not actually seeing it. Another page! I knew it, oh my goodness there is more. Over the next twenty minutes I find another eight pages. Still only the first sections of a book but definitely the start of a book. They link. I keep going, and as I start to get tired, I start to sift through, I will do it properly tomorrow I decide. As I am sifting I come across what looks like a blank page. I shriek. The Title Page. A Boy About The Street by Tyler Sting. I clutch the title page to my chest. My missing piece - I message my friend a picture and say ‘’Found it!!’’ . I settled into bed and googled Tyler Sting, and read through his website. There isn’t a mention of this book, and I still have no idea how it got here, but I emailed him to say it’s here and that I would love to send it to him if he could let me know where to send it. Maybe one day he will get this story published, because from the bit I read, I would read the book, and shout it from the rooftops for others to read. I fall asleep with my phone in my hand and sleep deeply, dreaming of being at a book launch.