alvin jones

by nick nelson

alvin jones lived in an old house on the outskirts of town. he never talked to anybody, or bothered anybody. he bought most of his food from farmers and food stands, and a few snacks at gas stations when he got gas for his ancient ford. he went to town once a month to draw out a few dollars from an account he had inherited, along with the house, from his grandfather, who was also an unsociable sort, and reputed to have been a bank robber back in the day. the bank account was never added to, only withdrawn from, and one day alvin withdrew the last dollar from it and disappeared. the house had been owned free and clear so the bank had no call on it but after alvin had been gone awhile it was suggested by some busybodies in town that the sheriff and the board of health go out and take a look at it, and they did, > they did not find any bodies or piles of rotting garbage, but they did find, in the attic, hundreds of old ruled school notebooks. the notebooks had titles printed on the covers, most of them sounding like adventure or detective stories, like “the mystery of the busted bozos” or “the shifting sands of saramanda” or “the darkest night”. but inside the notebooks the pages were filled with words in what was either a code, or codes, or an invented language. the sheriff pointed out that as no one had ever noticed alvin buying the notebooks, they might not have been written by him, but by the grandfather, or by martians or by anybody at all. miss greta johnson, of the board of health, thought the notebooks might be of some interest to research psychologists or folklorists, but nothing ever came of her suggestion. nobody ever attempted to decode the contents of the notebooks.