The Journal

The most exciting thing is always the next thing. The next day, the next week, the next year. Anything, but now. Now, has no possibilities. Now, is already known. Later, on the other hand, is full of them. Anything can happen later, but nothing can ever happen now. How stupid I was. If given the option, I would trade all my miserable laters for just one now.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon on a weekday when I got a text from him.

“Free?”

“Working.”

“Emergency. Will pick you up.”

“Everything ok? I'll be out front.”

Except he never showed up. I texted again.

“Everything ok? I’m outfront. Ready when you are”

No response. I waited thinking he was stuck in traffic. Maybe, he didn’t want to text and drive, or he was too upset about whatever horrible thing had happened to think about communicating. My thoughts raced. “What if he was hurt? Should I go to him? What if I leave, and we miss each other.” I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing, which reminded me of something he said to me once: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

“Wait?” I remember thinking. “What a miserable way to serve.”

He was always quoting stupid things like that. I think that particular time it was while standing in line at a checkout. Not that he was any good at waiting anyway. He certainly doesn’t mind making me wait now.

So where is he? Should I go back to work? Should I go home? A nap sounds amazing. I left work under the pretext of an emergency. What will I tell my coworkers if they ask what happened?

“Got stood up. Went home, napped.”

They’d be envious of that.

____________________________________________________

The gang and I had a standing appointment every Thursday night. None of us ever missed it. We never had to confirm. We always found a way to get together to drink, laugh, and live. I always looked forward to it the most, though I was usually the first to leave for the next thing. I hadn’t heard from him since earlier that day, but it didn’t matter. It was Thursday. I texted the gang, asking if anyone knew what was going on. They had received similar texts but also had been completely ghosted. We were anxious to head over to his apartment and finally figure out what was going on. I hoped he was ok. If I had known then what I would know later, I would never have entered that apartment. Something unimaginably terrible did happen.

We knocked, but there was no answer. One of us had a spare key. We entered. The apartment smelled like mung beans. It was dark. The air felt thick. No one said a word. No one turned on a light. No one had to say what they were afraid they’d find if they did. We looked around. The place was a wreck. No sign of him anywhere.

Had he left in a hurry?

Should we call his family? The police?

I thought I heard something.

Was that music?

Thank God. He’s upstairs listening to music. We went together. I coughed as I entered the room. It felt dusty.

Leonard Cohen was singing “I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes, and I guess he just never got warm.”

“Hello?” I said as I entered. “Are you ok? We’re here to see what's up.”

The song continued, “But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.”

I went over to turn off the speaker.

“How long have you had this song on repeat?”

I turned around. The gang was paler than I’ve ever seen living humans. I looked. As I did I felt the breath leave my lungs. The room was spinning. There was our friend laying on the bed. His skin sagged thin and wrinkled across the shape of his skull, dead with the look of a hundred years. He was hardly recognizable by anything other than his clothes. His arms were folded holding a black notebook to his chest.

____________________________________________________

It had been three days since. Each passed like a bad dream. I felt uneasy.

How could this happen?

I sat staring at the walls. I reached into my bag and pulled out a black notebook.

What’s this? This isn’t mine.

I opened it. On the first page it read:

“In case of loss, please return to:” and my name was written.

“As a Reward: $ 20,000”

I didn’t remember this notebook.

$20,000 reward? That’s a laugh.

I turned to the first page, and there was $20,000 in cash on a journal entry dated three days ago. The day that I found my friend’s body. My heart was pounding.

Should I report this to someone? There’s so much I could do with this money.

I then recognized the journal. It was the one my friend held with his ancient dead hands.

Had my friend found this money, leading to his death?

How did it get in my bag? What’s my name doing in it?

The first entry started,

“It was 2:00 in the afternoon on a weekday when I got a text from him.”

“Free?”

“Working.”

“Emergency. Will pick you up”

I threw the journal across the room. It wasn’t mine. I didn’t write that. The journal lay open. I picked it up again.

“Everything ok? I’ll be out front”

Except he never showed up. I texted again.

“Everything ok? I’m out front. Ready when you are”

No response.

Had I journaled the events of that day and just forgotten? Had I been that out of it? I guess it’s possible.

The pages contained a detailed account of everything that happened, just as it happened, from then until now. I turned the page. It was dated for the following day. I must have really been out of it if I wrote into the future. I skimmed the page before closing the journal.

____________________________________________________

The next day passed like déjà vu. Living in a dream I didn’t remember dreaming. A coworker tried to convince me to take some time off after what had happened last week. I had lunch. A meeting in the afternoon. It all felt familiar. What was I going to do about that $20,000?

That night I decided to make an entry in the journal. I opened it to where I left off. To my shock, I found that all the events of that day had already been recorded in excruciating detail. Today had already been recorded before today happened.

I turned the page. Tomorrow’s date. I read more carefully, taking notes. The next day unfolded as before. Déjà vu. I knew the coffee machine would be broken at work. I could predict that a coworker would invite me to lunch. I knew I was going to get that email at 4:59 pm. I became terrified.

How far into the future does this journal predict?

I was filled with an insatiable appetite to know. I was going to know everything. I wouldn’t have to wait the normal years of a human lifespan to find out. I was going to know now.

____________________________________________________

I didn’t go to work the next day. I locked myself in a room and poured over the journal, devouring every detail of every date that comprised all of next week. I flipped through it quickly. I skipped ahead an entire year. Still single. New job. A lot like the old job. I skipped ahead 5 more years. Finally, something interesting. Looks like I end up making more money.

Am I happy? What about my friends?

With every turn of a page came more questions and a more insatiable desire to know the answers. The changes were only obvious when years were skipped at a time. I flipped through years in a blink. Suddenly, I realized that in the journal I was old. I had grandchildren.

Grandchildren?

I had barely spent any time reading about my children before skipping ahead. I felt heavy. Everything I had wanted to know had been revealed.

What now? All this time I wanted to know my future, and now that I do, what is left?

I closed the journal. I saw that my hand appeared as if it were not my own. Both were ugly and withered.

What had happened?

I grabbed my phone.

“Help. Don’t know what’s wrong”

Then it occurred to me. The journal tells your life in exchange for it. This must be what happened to my friend. To know is to have lived. I knew, and therefore, had lived. Life had nothing left for me. My obsessive desire to see the ending had led me to it. I looked at the journal.

“But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.”

It occurred to me that turning the pages back might yet save me. I flipped back to the first page. There was the $20,000 still in the sleeve. Unused. Wasted. The value of now laid waste on the altar of later. I closed the journal and held it to my chest, knowing my fate was now.