The Turning Page

I sit there, staring at it, just like I had been doing for the past hour, and nothing has changed—it’s still a little black book lying on the counter, with an envelope sitting next to it. Not altogether threatening, but it had been on my doorstep when I arrived home from work, my full name on the package label, no return address.

Weird.

I bite my lip and then reach for the book again, rereading the first page:

I have a challenge for you.

It’s called the “Turn the Page” challenge.

All you have to do is keep doing whatever challenge is on each page. Just keep turning the page.

You can use the money for any of the costs that you incur.

Or you can take the money and just continue on with your life.

Doing the same thing over and over again.

Go to work to make money to pay for a house that you barely live in so you can do it all over again the next day.

Live with the numbness.

Live with the boring routine.

Keep wondering what the point of all of it is, why you do what you do, and if any of it is really worth it.

Or you can turn the page.

That’s it.

How could anyone possibly know those things about me? I was literally just thinking about this last night! How is that possible?

It has to be a scam, right?

I sigh and grab the envelope, peeking inside at the blank check.

Yep, it’s blank, too. No name, no address, no phone number. Just a check for $20,000.

It’s very possible that, once I deposit the check, then whoever sent me this will have access to my bank account and drain me.

Then again…

I could open a new bank account just for depositing this in it…

I could do it.

But did I want to?

I mean, what would make someone keep turning the page if they could quit anytime? If there’s $20,000 that they could just…take?

I am curious, though.

So I do it.

I turn the page.

Deposit the check.

Of course.

Scam. I knew it.

But I have a plan that should protect my account, so the next morning I take it to the bank. My banker kind of gives me a strange look when he sees it but I just try to look really innocent and like I’m not into drug-dealing while he deposited it.

It works!

I’m $20.000 richer!

I’m a little shocked. It’s real. The book is in my passenger seat and, when I get back in the car, I pick it up and stare at it, still confused, still disbelieving that any of this is real, and that’s enough to make me turn the page.

Go to a crowded place. Bring headphones.

Well. Thank goodness it’s Saturday. I have a whole day to fill with these random shenanigans.

I go the park, which is always crowded, but especially is on a Saturday morning. Sticky kids, tired moms, committed joggers, relaxing businessmen, flirty teenagers, sweet older couples holding hands while they walk…they’re all here this morning.

I turn the page.

Pick a song and start listening.

This is the most bizarre thing I have ever done. It’s so easy, too! $20,000 to listen to music? Why would anyone say no? I turn the page.

Dance.

Oh. Uh…in public? With everyone looking at me?

It’s funny. I used to be a dancer. I was a ballerina but then, when everything happened, I stopped. Dancing just wasn’t fun anymore. It didn’t make me feel…free. It just made me feel more trapped.

I haven’t danced since.

Not because I haven’t wanted to, I just…

It’s scary.

I feel it, though. That thing in me that stirs when I hear a good song. My foot is already tapping, my hand already starting to feel the music.

It would be so easy.

And so hard.

I’m not one to back down, though. And I want it so badly.

I dance.

My muscles strain and my bones creak as I force them into positions they thought they got to forget.

People stare.

It’s okay.

Because I feel something. I feel something.

When the song ends, I remember I’m in a park and there are people and I feel a little embarrassed.

Mostly, though, I feel just a little freer.

I turn the page.

Go to the airport and get on the next plane leaving.

I go.

I am going to Michigan, which…what’s in Michigan? But I’m guessing that, whatever the book is after, it’s not the destination.

I’m sat next to a little old man who has this golfing hat on and, as soon as the plane takes off, he starts drinking like a fish. Bloody Mary’s of all things. Gross.

I open the book to the next page.

Talk to the person next to you.

I hesitate. I don’t do that. Even before, I didn’t just go up to random strangers and talk to them. I feel anxious and think about just skipping it.

But I remember how it felt to dance. Somehow the book knew. It was right.

Maybe it’s right about this, too.

“Uh, hey,” I say.

The man doesn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t hear me.

“Hi!” I say a little louder.

“You don’t have to shout!”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want?”

I shrug. I feel awkward and I can tell I’m starting to blush. I swallow hard and push through. “Just saying hi.”

“Oh. Hi.”

Nothing more.

“I’m Meg.”

He glances at me. Then he clears his throat and shifts in his seat. Maybe he figures I’m not going to give up so he’s just going to give in.

“Phil.”

“Where are you going, Phil?”

“Where we’re all going—Michigan.”

“Why are you going there?”

“I’m visiting family.” A pause. “You?”

I grin and shrug. “I don’t really know.”

He nods at me knowingly. “To be so young.”

“Is your family excited to see you?”

“Not really.”

“What?”

“I’m going to visit my daughter and grandsons. She hasn’t talked to me in seventeen years. It’s a surprise. I may be coming back home tomorrow.”

“What happened?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it.

His mouth tightens.

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning even redder and stumbling. “I shouldn’t have asked, I…”

“We had a fight. A big one. When she was a teenager. She left. I’m trying to make amends. I’m not the same guy I was back then.”

I’m quiet.

He orders another Bloody Mary.

“I have anxiety. And depression,” I tell him. It’s the first time I’ve said those words to anyone.

He stares at me.

I shrug. “It got really bad a few months ago. I pretty much just stay home. Don’t go a lot of places. Lost all my friends. Barely see my family.”

He doesn’t say anything. I didn’t figure he would. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy to waste words or pretend to feel sympathy.

I shrug again. “Everybody has their stuff they’re dealing with. I hope I’m not the same person I am now in seventeen years. And I hope that nobody holds this time against me by then.”

We land.

I open the book and turn the page.

Go to the nearest fast-food restaurant.

It’s McDonald’s and I go in before I turn to the next page.

Pick five random people in line and pay for their meal. Don’t say anything about it.

I go up to the counter and tell the cashiers I will pay for the next five people’s meals and then order a sundae to eat while I wait.

A family comes in—a mom, a dad, two little girls in dark braids and beads in their hair. Maybe twins. They play a hand game while they wait for their parents to order.

“It’s taken care of,” the cashier says and I watch as their faces go from suspicion, to confusion, to happiness and joy.

The same thing repeats with the next four customers—the old lady with blue eyeshadow and orange sandals with a dog in her purse, two teenagers carrying a basketball and talking about some girl, a guy in a suit talking a mile a minute on his phone (who hung up when he heard the news), and a grandma with four grandkids.

The book tells me to go home. I do, and for the next month, I follow exactly what this little black notebook tells me to do.

I play guitar on the street for money.

I give out water bottles to homeless people.

I put on a puppet show for the kids at the library.

I learn how to do karate and speak Spanish.

I travel.

I meet people.

I talk to my neighbors.

I scream at the top of my lungs on the roof of the tallest building in my city.

I create a parade with animals from the local shelter. (All of them got adopted.)

On and on and on the list went and, as I did each thing, checked off each item, turned each page, something was changing—I was living. There was more to being alive than just existing and this book was helping me do that. The way I had been living? The mundane, boring, exhausting way I had been doing it? It was gone. It was over. Everything was brand new.

Then it happens—I reach the last page.

Congratulations!

You’ve reached the end.

Now what?

You have the money.

You have the book.

Now it’s up to you what you do with it.

Keep it, toss it, throw it away.

Or…

You can keep the page turning.

I know what to do. It’s so obvious and how did I not see it before?

I get an empty envelope and write a blank check for the amount in that special account and set it to close once the check is deposited. I put the book and the check in a package, pick a random address in a random city, lick a stamp, and take it to the post office.

The old me would never have done any of the things that book asked me to do.

But the new me?

Well, I do a little dance on the sidewalk as I make my way home.