Little Black Book

There they sit, bored on a cloudy day, scrolling through their Facebook for the 4th hour in a row. They were searching for any semblance of entertainment, having forgotten that they used to spend hours weaving webs of words into poetry. Then suddenly a “sponsored” picture of a black notebook with $20,000 emblazoned on it caught their eye. The photo caption said “Find this little black book on a bench at Riverside Park, write down all you observe and your contact info, if the observations you make are detailed enough you could win $20,000 in cash!” The only other identifying thing was a small mark in the bottom left corner, a simple yet memorable snake tied in a knot.

They do not know what to think of this, a note taking competition on a local park in a fairly plain American town? What could be the reason behind this? A publicity stunt for a local news organization? A bored local wealthy personality looking for notes on his lower class neighbors? Was it some outside nation trying to spy on normal American citizens to see how comfortable and complacent they have gotten? Or the opposite, is there unrest in the belly of this country that the ruling class are starting to fear? They decided it was worth waiting until later in the week, to see how many people came to the note book and the kinds of notes they took. After all they could just be overthinking, maybe some eccentric was looking for the right writing style to write his eulogy or biography filled with tales that most likely never happened.

Wednesday, mid day, they stroll down the street toward the park. It had never occurred to them just how many miles had passed under their feet up until that moment. When they were kids walking was second nature. Legal issues made it hard to get a license for a car so they walked. The mile and a half to the park went by fast, their thoughts had swept them there almost faster than they could register. The bench in the ad was located near the rivers edge, concrete creeping into nature one square at a time yet still called “preservation”. True to the add the little black book was there, odd how it did not appear weathered, having been out in at least one full thunderstorm. In fact, it did not look as if it had been disturbed at all since the photo in the add was taken.

They thumbed through it:

“Birds are out today, only a couple brave kids on account of the weather, another calm day in town… besides the thunderstorm.”- Charles K.

“The thunderstorm today seems unlike any I’ve seen in years I honestly didn’t think this notebook would be here, us small towners don’t put much faith in internet ads, I live across the street though, thought it was worth a gander.” Elizabeth M.

“I walk my dogs by the park a few days a week, happened to see the ad and thought I’d see if it was real, it has been a gloomy day, the weather is always intense in the late spring but this is something else. Not much action here today.” Carrie P.

It seemed everyone mentioned the weather, though oddly intense, it was far from the extremes they had seen here in their lifetime.

“We are so conditioned to thinking the things we cannot survive are nothing but wars waged against us,” they think, “we miss the fact they are the necessities for the things we call beauty.” There were only a dozen or so entries in a notebook that must have had enough for a hundred more.

“Man did they choose the wrong town to do this in!” They thought.

They checked their pockets for a pen while doing a spinning glance around. The thunderheads were lingering but seemed to be clearing , it seemed funny that they always cleared from right to left no matter the orientation, as if it was always meant to be easy for them to just reach out and stop time.

“Write that down you idiot!” They thought to themselves.

The park seemed more populated than what the other observers had seen. There were at least 2 families, 2 kids apiece, and 8 other children between the play structures. They had never realized the park had a mirrored theme, 4 play structures, each having slides and a path splitting them down the middle.

“It must look like a spider from the air.”

Looking a little harder they realized that the kids seemed to go down opposite slides at the same time, and climb back up at the same pace. Both sides a never ending mirrored loop: giggling kids, parents admiring their developing offspring, always taking too much credit for their achievement.

“Why aren’t you writing this gold down!?!” They thought.

The air was flowing, they could feel the pressure on their face but outside of the loop it seemed still, the river even seemed to be resting from its usual flow. Another spin showed the families eating picnics on opposite sides of the path from one another. They thought it odd neither family seemed to notice the other even with children the same age. The kids that were on the play set were all riding their bikes in 8 opposite directions, one almost riding right over their foot. They felt no change in the air even though the child’s shirt billowed.

Frustrated at the child, they wrote those final observations down, signed Sacha M. with a number and email, then dropped the notebook back on the bench, and walked back. Noticing at some point that all hints of the previous storm had vanished somewhere in their observational spins. The sun making everything seem so much less dramatic, so predictable and safe.

It took several days to register just how odd the events they observed had been, odd enough that when it did register they decided to go back to the bench and see if the little black book was still there. It was the last day of the competition anyways and they did not recall there being any limits on entries. Sure enough, there was the book, sitting just like in the picture seen almost a week ago. Now, the blackness of the little book seemed to be consuming the bench as if the cover and ink were seeping into the wood. Thumbing through the first few pages they noticed no change, but upon reaching their page they noticed there was a different entry:

“The storm is finally passing, only 3 children on the structure though, sad to not see families come here any more, seems like it has been years since this park has seen life fed by picnics and laughter.” -Kimberly T.

They thumbed through again wondering if they had just missed a page or two, but even though there were a number of short and rather dull observations all mentioning the storm that had passed days ago, their entry was not there. No sign of pages torn out and the inside cover marked with the same insignia as before. The passages before their’s were all still in ink, but no sign that Sacha M. had ever written a word. Stunned and defeated they let the book fall, bouncing off the bench and landing splayed out, pages down. Not noticing that everything had gone still, the brush of air shocked them. They looked about and there was nothing out of sorts, the park was empty, the path was more weathered looking than it had appeared just days ago. They turned and walked home, not bothering to pick up the book that had so easily forgotten them. They spent the rest of the day convincing themselves that it was rigged, that they weren’t crazy, and did write something in a little black book at the park. Sleep came fast even though they were restless.

Their eyes opened slowly, then they shot up suddenly, their room was not the same, their house was not the same. They did not understand, in a normal bed, in fact a normal bedroom with diodes hooked up to their chest, and a heart rate monitor. Were they ill? Was it all a coma? Was this home? Why were they so weak feeling? Their hand eventually stumbled on what appeared to be a call button and they pressed it. They started observing the details of the room, it looked oddly like a child’s room, stickers on the dresser, tacky bright colors, half finished art littered the floor. They were an adult though, they remember working for a living, in fact they had just started their third year at a tech development company and had received a promotion managing one of the many compartmentalized research projects.

They noticed a little black book on a chair next to the bed. I guess reality does bleed into dreams. They picked up the book and noticed the insignia had also been in his dreams. The insignia and the company as a whole didn’t make much sense, the company was simply called “Untitled” and the insignia was a realistic looking snake tied in a cartoonish knot. The projects they had been a part of over the last few years did make complete sense though. Research into making better batteries, faster communication via satellites, even quicker ways to desalinate water so everyone had access to safe drinking water. They really did like the idea of being part of something that was helping the world.

Upon opening the journal they were confused… it looked exactly the same as they had seen in their dream. Every passage was there, even the one that seemingly disappeared in their dream. What the hell was going on. They had never been to a riverside park, in fact there were no rivers nearby and the only park they knew of was in his company’s building complex.

Finally a white cloaked person came in.

“How are you feeling?”

“Where am I? I feel very confused and weak. What the hell happened?” They responded.

“What do you remember?”

“I remember I was a manager at Untitled, I was on my way to work, then I cut to my dream.” They said getting impatient.

“That wasn’t a dream…”

“What do you mean? I don’t remember how I got here, was I in an accident? This doesn’t look like a hospital!”

“Untitled has not been honest with you. I will need you to sign this before I tell you too much more. Whether you want to continue your work with us after this, is up to you.”

Too tired, they did not read much past “I promise to not talk about my work or experiences at Untitled.” They just signed, curiosity outweighing confusion and frustration.

The cloaked figure explained, “you were not a manager for us, in fact you were never an employee with Untitled, we procured you off a street corner where you were asking for money. We implanted that memory because we figured it would be more pleasant when you woke up. We are a tech company with many areas of R&D, you are part of a secret experiment. Several decades ago we discovered how to teleport data, almost instantaneously across the country. Soon after 3D printing was invented. Then biological printers were made for organ transplants. We went a step further: could a brain, with human consciousness, be printed and transferred?”

“Wait, this isn’t my body!?!” They yelled.

“No, this is a former employee’s body, your’s was a little worse for wear. You are the first example of us succeeding, none of your biology is original to your consciousness. You can learn more about what we do here, get a salary of $20,000 a month. Or go back to your corner.”