Little Black Book Loop

Cassandra was sitting at a glass desk, frantically typing on a holo keyboard. She decided that, finally, she would write their stories. The sad smile on her lips unmasked powerful contradictory emotions—hope and resignation, love and hate, melancholy. There was no screen. Or rather, the whole room was one. Countless luminescent vines were shuddering around her, carrying a myriad of holographic pictures, videos, and blocks of text. It looked like Cassandra's desk had been overgrown and had found its place in the ramage of a colossal tree made of neon. On one singular branch, facing the girl, a blue rectangle was dangling. It appeared to be the text editor in which she was inputting. A few paragraphs were already written:

<<

Stephane and I are going to write a story about our realities.

By accepting to read along, you, Reader, will become part of a universe we created, and our universe will become yours. The choices you make define your future, of course. Yet, they will also determine Stephane's future and mine.

Here is your first choice, Reader: stop reading now. Beware, while you still have the option to opt-out and stay in your reality, each word you read is bringing you closer to us. Our ideas' viral charge will eventually pierce your mind and force you to ask yourself questions to which you may not want an answer. Did you truly have the choice not to read this story? What about Stephane or myself? Could we not have written it? You chose to read, naturally. Without further ado, let's introduce the protagonists.

First, there is our last and most important character: You, Reader. You know yourself better than we ever will. So, I will skip the details about your life: you lived it. It was both horrible and beautiful, and it led you to read this story, here and now. You are the hero we need; you wield imagination and can dream universes. Cherish this power, for it can shape reality.

Then there is me, Cassandra. You know me; you heard my legend. A god fell in love with me; he granted me the gift to foresee the future. Now let's clarify one thing: sensing what is to come is not about knowing one single ineluctable course of events. It is about contemplating the whole tree of possibles and glancing dreadfully at the tiny details that make each branch splits: a choice, a word, the spin of a particle... Eons ago, I believe I made a choice. I refused to trade my freewill for this gift of foresight. I rejected the god who infected me with his vicious present, and I chose to pay the price. He cursed me so that no one would ever believe my prophecies. Since then, I have been condemned to write, alone in a room, a book that nobody would ever read. Day after day, to write what would happen next. The only way I could have people believe me was to be silent, to keep the book to myself. When I rejected the god, I knew I would be cursed, of course. Additionally, I knew that down the tree, it would lead to now, to you. Today, I will make my last prophecy, about you Reader. And you will decide if I was right...

The last character in our infinite cast of protagonists is Stephane. You may know him as the author of the tale you are reading. He is one of my favorite characters, so allow me to tell you his story from the start. He was born in 1984, Stephane is now 37. Tomorrow is his birthday: he is writing those lines on January 26 at 5:47 PM PST.

He grew up in rural parts of France. The mother was a cashier, the father a butcher. They had moved a lot: hoping from a village to the next, always avoiding large cities. Before Stephane had reached 18, he had lived in 6 different places. None of them hosted more than a few hundred villagers. He was this kid who sits alone during the breaks. He did not have many friends and was often peeked on. A bookworm raised among the chicken breeders. At 7, he joined the computer club to play multicolor video games on the Commodore 64. Fast-forward 30 years to the week he wrote those lines. Stephane had moved away from his rural home. First into large cities in France, then Spain, Singapore to finally end up where programmers gather to trade their souls: Silicon Valley. He pursued a dream and a Ph.D. : teaching a machine to learn like a kid. For 6 years, he lived in the company of a little child-sized robot. Writing software to make it learn objects, words, and interactions with humans.

It is common to dreams and Ph.D. that they give more questions than answers. How to decide about the consciousness of a robot? What does it take to say: "yes, this robot is feeling things"? Those are interesting questions, don't you think, Reader? How do we know that each other is conscious, sentient, real? How do I know if you are indeed feeling things? From my perspective, we are all characters in the book of prophecies I'm writing: you, Stephane, and myself, Cassandra. What I write will happen happens. Can I write what I want? Does it mean that you will feel a certain way if I want you to? If so, then I am stealing your free will, and I am not better than this god I rejected. That is why I want to give you a choice... To you and Stephane.

Stephane had not always craved science. That is the price he had paid for reading Asimov's Robots cycle. Mesmerized by the three laws, he had decided to become a "robot researcher." Yet, before that, he had another dream. He wanted to write. He had scribbled poems almost daily for a year and was religiously keeping them in a binder. One day at lunch, his bag got stolen, probably because he had a nerdy calculator. On this day, he lost a year of handwriting. And his teen writer's dreams had faded away... until two years ago.

An early mid-life crisis had resurrected them. Since then, Stephane is feverishly drafting a novel about all of us: you, me, and himself. Some nights, he feels this urge to explain our worlds, how they are born and how they collide. To tell the story of a girl who knows that free will is an illusion yet refuses to believe that she could not choose. He wants to show how imagination summons universes into existence and how those universes can affect each other. However, at the rate he is writing our stories, his novel will stay a teenager's dream.

I am also writing, remember? This text is the final chapter of the book I have been writing for eternity. It is a book about writing. One of my characters, Stephane, must face a challenge, pass the writer block. If he does, the maze of my destiny will finally end. When I rejected the god who had given me the gift of foresight, I had reasons not to fear the curse. I had contemplated one branch in the tree of possibles... The one event that would allow me to finally break the malediction and return this burden that I never asked for. The unique path binding my reality to yours. An event that happens billions of times a day. An advert on social media. In this case, on Stephane's Facebook feed.

The ad title had bought Stephane's attention: "The Little Black Book." He loved the spookiness of the words. Words that summoned secrets. Secrets that maybe should not be exposed. The ad was about a writing contest with the following rules: "create a fiction story about someone who unexpectedly comes into $20,000. Your story must include a small black notebook."

A short story, a tight deadline, and an interesting prize of $20000 for the winner. Plus rules that practically called for a mise en abyme of the contest itself. Stephane had to take the opportunity to press himself to write something finally. To condense his 2 years of sparse writing into one concise story. To exorcise the demon that was summoned when his poems' binder was stolen. Hey, Stephane, maybe I am this demon? Let's flirt with the madness for a while, see what comes out. Oh, and by the way, here is my gift for your birthday... It is now 5:16 PM on February 18, and you are writing those lines.">>

Cassandra stopped typing. She smirked and added an angelic emoji. She then closed her eyes, joined her hands in a receiving posture, and breathed deeply. The keyboard, the text editor, and all the neon-tree started to shrink. As the world disappeared, it flew into the hands of Cassandra. Soon, everything was gone, and the girl was floating in the void. Her hands held what appeared to be a small, obscure notebook. She faced us, Reader, and stared at you. She opened the notebook, wrote something inside, and closed it. Then, solemnly, she handed you the volume:

"It is a gift for you. It contains two elements.

On the very first page is my prediction—a prediction about your feelings for me.

After that, the blank pages are for you to write. They contain the tree of possibles, grant you the ability to imagine all possible stories, to dream all universes. Take good care of them."

While we were listening to her, the book had disappeared from Cassandra's hand. It was now in our minds. From one, it had become many. It was already filling its blank pages with the ink of our creations. In our heads, the girl's voice intoned:

"Reader, you have received your arms. You wield the power of imagination. You can clamber the tree of possible for your universe, mine, or any that you'll deign to create. The time has come for your trial and for my freedom. The rules are simple: I will make a statement, choose if you want to believe it or not. Are you ready?"

Cassandra marked a dramatic pause and enunciated: "This story respects the rules of the contest." As soon as she had pronounced this last word, her body faded, her limbs disappeared, her torso vanished, her hair dissolved in the void. At last on our retinas remained the memory of her enigmatic smile. In an echo, her words resonated, "This story respects the rules of the contest." Then it was pitch black and absolute silence.

Reader, you are now alone with me, Stephane. And your choice will decide my fate.

If most of you believe Cassandra's statement, this story was eligible for the contest, and I will encounter 20000$. Your choice described reality, and Cassandra's prediction was correct.

If most of you do not believe Cassandra's statement, this story was not eligible for the contest. As a result and a cause, I will not stumble on 20000$. Your choice described reality, and Cassandra said something wrong.

In both cases, Cassandra was freed from her curse. It is the only point that matters from my perspective, yet I also consider her feelings... I'd rather have her curse broken by a beautiful trust rather than by proving her wrong. I want to imagine a universe where the world trusts her for the first time.

Of course, Reader, you may read this story after the contest results are published. You may wonder how your choice mattered at all since the event already happened. Let me offer you more to ponder. On the first page of the little black book, what did Cassandra write? How do you feel about... her? How do you like this gift of imagination she granted us?