Image of a Black Notebook

There is a little black notebook in front of me. I don't know what's in it, and I never will.

There is a little black notebook in front of me. It's where I keep the names of all the people I've hunted, all the bounties I've ever collected. I've just collected the $20,000 bounty for hunting down the vicious Eryka, the murderous pirate hiding out in the Eastern Faults. I didn't find out that she was my sister until after I was told to come back with her head on a pike. Now what do I do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. It contains a list of names, each name a person I must kill. But I'm just a kid and I only killed that horrible man out of self-defense. I didn't want to get involved. But they're paying me so much money to do it. My friends and I must work together to figure out who is behind all this, and I still have to take a math test tomorrow. Now what do I do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. It is empty, because it is my task to fill it. I am a god, a brand new one, and I am supposed to be writing my own scriptures to deliver to the universe I will soon create. I will earn 20,000 lives to put into my new universe if only I can accomplish this task. But I have Writers' block. Where do I begin? When does the universe begin, and when does it really start to matter? What do I do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. It is my journal. It's where I practice writing in French, where I write my feelings about that new girl in school, where I talk about what I want for Christmas (hoping my parents will snoop around and find out), and where I try to sort out all the crazy ideas in my head. The notebook is covered in blood. My hands are covered in blood. I just need to get into the safe in which my dad keeps his thousands of dollars, so I can get the hell out of town and spend the rest of my days outrunning my past. God, what have I done? The safe is locked. What do I do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. Somehow, the alien managed to write out several words in English. "Help," "Stop," "Who?" and "Why?" He wrote his name, too, but I'd need four tongues to say it. His pained cries tear through my headphones, and watching through the monitor, I can make out his Lovecraftian guts spilling over the table. The experiments were brutal. It wasn't worth all the money in the world, let alone a few thousand dollars. I turned to look at you, but you've laid your head down on your desk, concealing your frightened face. What will you do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. I wrote my suicide note somewhere within the endless notes, the random scribbles, the silent conversations. Next to it, I will leave $20,000 for my wife to use when I'm gone. It's the money we were saving to move to Singapore, where our children would be safe. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Evangeline. I don't have a choice. What else am I supposed to do?

There is a little black notebook in front of me. I am sitting in the pews of an empty church, choking on the sound of my sobs tearing out of my throat. Everyone is already gone. The notebook contains the truth about the Organization and the truth about my lifelong faith. I pray to God, begging him to forgive me. It's all I can do.

There are dozens of little black notebooks in a pile in front of me. I'm about to burn them, and all the secrets that my father, the pirate captain, left behind. There's nothing else I can do.

There are thousands of little black notebooks in front of me. Every single story laid out before my bleeding eyes. Dreams of money we might never have, nightmares filled with dread and mystery and sorrow, tales that seamlessly fade between creation and reality. Every word chosen with the utmost loving care, every thought gently placed before the eyes of the Great Beholders. I can't do this anymore.

There's a little black notebook in front of me. The pages beg my mother to forgive me. They're filled with stories and ideas and fears and everything I've ever loved, everything I've ever cried about, everything that has ever been created with good intention but tenderly hidden away. Somewhere within those pages is a single idea worth thousands of dollars and more. This is it. This is the end of everything. The death of pirates. The death of gods. The death of half-written people that will never be named. This is where I live: in a space and time far after the death of the universe.

I reach for my little black notebook. Twenty thousand stars surround me, twenty thousand lost ideas. Nothing is left but this notebook. I hold it in my arms, imagining home.