Making the Unreal Real

Introduction

Henry met Eden for coffee to talk about a project he wanted to work on with her. A manuscript was shared in advance. He was trying to do something good but she was not interested. He asked her to write something with him but she said no. So nothing directly came of it. Later Henry would realize Eden was only an imaginary friend, if a friend at all. As far as their relationship would go, she might even have been an enemy. She would go on to hurt him and then disappear, never to be seen again, at least in the real world. Despite knowing it shouldn’t have mattered, Henry still only wanted Eden to like him. It was as if they were linked by some distant past that he couldn’t comprehend. As if only through working together they could undo damage done by their ancestors. Before she disappeared—and then even more so afterward—he would spend sleepless nights trying to understand this.

Around the same time as the coffee meeting, another friend of Henry’s would disappear. Emile had left for Montreal in pursuit of a doctoral degree in sociology. While away, Emile spoke only French and was as good as gone, too. Unlike Eden’s case, Emile’s disappearance was short-lived, although quite transformational. Emile came back a data scientist and programmer only wanting to be called the Armchair Bitcoinist. He was an investor with great online wealth, though he had little to show for it in the natural world. He lived in a cheap hotel for a short time and then moved away again. But his reappearance was meaningful in several ways. For one, he shared his cryptocurrency trading secrets and his path toward wealth. Henry didn’t want to earn a fortune this way and he didn't think he really would. He felt it was ethically dubious and fake, but he gave in and invested, too—telling himself that if he earned anything, and especially if it was a lot, he would give it all away.

Returning to that first meeting, Eden frowned while Henry sipped his iced Americano and pulled out a notebook. She said she was unprepared and hadn’t taken notes. It was a rare moment of humility. She didn’t like that feeling. After disappearing, she went on to take pictures of herself taking pictures of herself. She posted them on social media over and over again. And then she’d watch her phone to see how many notifications and comments she’d get. Her face was online, all over, but it was never enough. She’d always want more. It was an empty source of validation that eventually wore out her soul. She was very busy. And it was exhausting.

Before her disappearance, Henry met Eden one last time in person, to say goodbye. He didn’t want to do this because he would miss her. Henry’s sleepless nights and efforts to impress had failed. However, as an ever- hopeful last grasp, he gave Eden three simple gifts to remember him by. A copy of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a folder with a poster of Sam Cooke tucked inside, and a small black notebook, college ruled. These gifts stood for the simple future, future continuous, and future perfect. The gifts seemed quite wise, but they were not altogether understood, even by Henry.

Gift One

In The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, the protagonist’s girlfriend mysteriously disappears and he begins a quest to find her. On this journey, he befriends a young girl who endearingly calls him Mr. Wind-up Bird. They find a dried-up well in which he climbs inside. Once there, Mr. Wind-up Bird will not come out. The young girl grows frustrated and closes the lid and leaves. Mr. Wind-up Bird is prepared to die but is eventually rescued by another acquaintance. Deep down inside his soul, Henry knew Eden might do something like this to him as well. He loved her, but he thought he might love her only because she couldn’t love him back. And he suspected she wasn’t really on his side. She might likely close the lid on him, too.

Once Henry truly felt the fullness of Eden’s absence, he did indeed feel as if he were inside a well from which he could not escape. He had lost something important to him. Something that helped him move forward with life’s repeated challenges. But the Armchair Bitcoinist returned from his studies in Montreal and rescued him. They hiked to the summit of a nearby mountain range and into their lungs breathed thin, cool air. Henry was partially revived. The Armchair Bitcoinist mentioned the growth of his accounts and projected that a very large fortune was growing. Although the likeness between Mr. Wind-up Bird and Henry was uncanny, Eden never read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. She left it on a curbside with other belongings she no longer wanted when she moved away. Indeed, when Henry saw Eden’s reaction to the book when he gave it to her, he thought, “she’s not going to read it”. This was the future, but the simple future was no more.

Gift Two

Eden and Henry carried on with their interconnected fates. Eden gained strength while Henry was stuck and lost inside himself. Her legions of online followers grew. And her home country and local community flourished. A Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Eden was proud of this and celebrated. However, after Henry was rescued by the Armchair Bitcoinist and began to recover, the frequency of such celebrations waned. Their fates were inversely proportional. War broke out in Eden’s home country and cycles of hatred and violence returned and strengthened. Many feared for their lives and became displaced. Famine spread. Outsiders called this a humanitarian disaster. And it brought out distrust within immigrant communities and ethnic enclaves elsewhere because groups sided with different factions back home. Unity and national pride diminished. Meanwhile, the Armchair Bitcoinist had learned how to transform his cryptocurrency returns into real money, profiting in American dollars. Again Henry reluctantly followed suit.

Eden never looked at the print of Sam Cooke tucked within the folder, nor saw the inscription on the back which quoted from the song “A Change is Gonna Come”. She threw it in the trash, but a change was coming, it just wasn’t the change that Henry was looking for. The second gift was gone, but more change would come. It was the future continuous.

Gift Three

Unlike the first two gifts, the notebook had some kind of hold over Eden that she didn’t understand. It didn’t remind her of Henry like the other things. It was non-descript. No one would ever ask her where she got it from. Henry didn’t write on the inside of the cover, either, as he tended to do. When forced to think about it she thought that Henry gave her the notebook because of that first coffee meeting and her moment of not having been prepared. It was an uncomfortable memory and feeling. She’d like to forget it. Once or twice she thought about getting rid of the notebook, but she couldn’t. So it rested on a shelf in her living room, unused. But it was much more than it seemed.

Yes, in the middle of it, Henry had written an outline to a much bigger story—perhaps a million-dollar story, maybe more.

But hold on, it was not worth so much just because it was that good, although it may have been that too. The story began with a cabin boy who traveled on the Mayflower to the New World. His descendants would become whalers on the Cape and Islands of Massachusetts. Through their travels around the Horn of Africa, this family and their fate would become intertwined with another family that would guard the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. This bond would last for generations. However, after successfully resisting Italian imperialism, nationalistic ideologies would form and break the bond between the families. They would lose touch, but their fortunes remained linked by fate. Unknowingly, this would continue for generations until a young graduate assistant from one family and an undergraduate student from the other would meet for coffee about a project and manuscript in process. This meeting would end in failure, but a greater bond would form though with the transfer of three items: a copy of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a folder with a print of Sam Cooke tucked inside it, and a black notebook, college ruled. Within the notebook, there was a story—a great story that would include secrets from the Armchair Bitcoinist and access to several bank accounts, the first worth $20,000, and several others worth much more. Returns that Henry always wanted to give away.

Outro

Eden would keep the notebook, reluctantly unable to get rid of it. Nationalism would continue to grow across the globe. War renewed in the Horn Africa. Persecution, fear, and famine affected so many people just like Eden. But she was lucky compared to them. And then, in a moment of clarity, she would begin to empathize with Henry who seemed so sad when they knew each other. She has now tired of taking pictures of herself. She sensed feelings of regret and humility. She wanted to find a sense of equilibrium. And to work through her emotions she felt like writing some things down.

For the first time, she would truly open that black notebook. Just at the right moment. This would be the future perfect.