Black Book

Garrett and Charlotte walk down a busy New York City sidewalk, laughing. Their coats are pulled tight against the chilly fall air, and Charlotte wears a brand new orange and green striped scarf that flows behind her as they walk. It matches her freshly dyed orange hair.

“Seriously though, what do you think that guy was on?” Garrett chuckles. He gestures his thumb over his shoulder at the bodega they had just visited. The front counter had an assortment of strange pills for sale, including one brand called “Tiger-burn” whose label had shown a middle-aged man holding a bottle of the pills with one hand and lifting his shirt with the other, revealing his well-defined abs. A tattoo of a tiger spread across his stomach, obviously superimposed over the image. The model’s expression is what they laughed at now.

“I don’t know. This-” Charlotte mimics the crazed, wide-eyed smile, pretending to hold an imaginary pill bottle, “-screams ‘Help they have my family’ to me.”

“You’re totally right! Someone should really do something. Call the cops and get this man some help.”

Charlotte mimes a phone call, “Hello? 911? I’m calling for a wellness check on the Tiger-burn guy?”

“Yes, officer, the one with the really cool and real tiger tattoo on his sick abs.” Garrett says into his own mimed phone.

The two laugh again, garnering a raised eyebrow from an elderly man in a frumpy, old suit walking by.

A growl brings Garrett’s attention to his grumbling stomach, “Speaking of sick abs, how much further to this Japanese place?”

“Just another couple blocks.” Charlotte assures him, “The tempura is to die for.”

“Ugh you’re just going to give me another reason to move back, aren’t you?” He sighs.

She gives him a coy smile, “Maybe. But I know you won’t, Mr. MIT. Too busy trying to crack the mysteries of the universe.” She says the last part with a flourish of melodrama.

He smiles, “Somebody’s gotta do it. One of my professors thinks I’m onto something with my time travel idea since it relies on consciousness instead of physical space. She says it has merit if you’re trying to travel forward, but doesn’t know how it would translate to traveling backwards. It’s all theoretical anyway.”

Charlotte throws her hands up, “It’s all beyond me either way.” She stops and looks around, “How about this. If you figure out how to travel back in time, you come to this exact spot. That way you can just tell yourself what to do!” They stop in the middle of the busy sidewalk and wait. She looks around excitedly, and Garrett can’t help but join her. Nothing happens. Nobody appears in a flash of light or with a fanfare of sci-fi sound effects. Just the endless city bustle.

“There ya go.” She says with a shrug before moving forward again.

Garrett looks down, slightly disappointed. But the chances that he would remember this moment specifically however many years from now was unlikely. Still…

He glances at his watch. The digital display reads 11:34am. November 22nd, 2023. A honk at a nearby intersection draws his attention. The offending car has already moved on, but he sees the signs at the intersection read “Hicks St” and “Ramsen St.” Then he sees the man standing just a few feet away, not moving with the crowd.

He’s a ragged, older man with an unkempt, greasy beard and stringy gray hair poking out from under a dirty old hat. His jacket is a thick, grime-green trench coat with assorted stains on it. He wears a tattered scarf that looks almost as old as him. He looks up from the book he’s reading with an expression of terror. Right at Garrett.

“Oh boy.”

The old man’s eye twitches and he slowly looks down at the small yet thick black book in his hands. With trembling hands, he closes it, scratches the cover, and moves forward to offer it to Garrett.

“No thanks man. I have to find my-” He tries to move past the grungy man but finds the book shoved into his chest.

The old man leans close and the sticky scent of unwashed human and cheap liquor surrounds them. With tears starting to flow from his eyes, the old man speaks in a hoarse voice, “I almost have it. You said something different this time Forward is clean. Too clean. Backwards is hard. Can’t have two Garretts. Just you. You’ll get it. I almost got it. You’ll get it this time. Nobody reads ahead.” He grips Garrett’s arms and shakes him, “NOBODY READS AHEAD!”

Garrett rips himself free in a moment of panic, pushing the old man back. “What the Hell?” He runs, leaving the screaming man behind. After a block, he stops, breathing hard. New York City had its stereotypes, but that sort of thing had never actually happened to him before. He thought about calling the police, then thought better of it. Instead, he took a moment to look at his new book.

It’s plain, with a series of gray rectangles on the cover nested inside one another until they’re too small. The two largest rectangles have a scratch in the top right corner. It’s rather clean compared to its previous owner, with a fresh bend in the bottom right corner from a recent drop. It’s warm to the touch. Gross.

Curious, Garrett opens to the first page.

Inside, he finds handwriting remarkably similar to his own. It says, “As I read the book, I was struck by how familiar the handwriting was. What was this book the homeless man had given me? Wait, these are my thoughts! Dread began to run down my spine, but the thought was interrupted by Charlotte calling from ahead.”

“There you are!” Charlotte yells, snapping his attention away from the book. He turns around to see her walking towards him. The chill running down his neck grows as he looks back down at the book.

“Holy shit the book was narrating my life. What was it? How did that man get it? The questions were almost too much for my mind to handle. Then, I had a thought. An urge to turn the page and read further ahead. The old man had said not to read ahead but the temptation was too much.” Garrett stops reading and takes a shaky breath. His thumb slowly slides under the page. He can’t resist. He flips forward a couple pages and begins reading halfway down the page.

“I had eaten too much, but Charlotte had been right. The tempura shrimp was amazing.”

“What does it say now?” Charlotte asks from across the small, wood table.

Garrett looks around and finds them in a small, shiny restaurant sitting at a booth. In front of him sits a few empty dishes and Charlotte watching him with wide, curious eyes. He sets the book down, “When did we get here?”

She raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“We were outside a second ago.” He looks at the empty plates covered in tempura crumbs. His stomach was uncomfortably full. “The last thing I remember is reading ahead then here we were.”

“Huh. Are you feeling ok?”

Nausea flashes over him. He manages a weak “No” before bolting away from the table as quickly as he can.

The bathroom is clean the way only a new restaurant bathroom can be. Fortunately, Garrett was able to make it to the toilet before he ruined its spotless shine. After depositing the half-digested shrimp tempura in the sparkling porcelain bowl, he lurches to the sink and washes out his mouth. He catches a glimpse of himself in the brand new mirror. His complexion is pale, even for him.

“Nobody reads ahead,” He echoes the old man’s words at himself. Something is very wrong with that book. There is a part of him that wants to understand it, to figure out what is going on. He’ll have to be careful.

He exits the bathroom, not feeling much better, to see Charlotte picking up the book and flipping to somewhere in the middle. He moves to say “Wait!” But suddenly finds himself in a dimly lit bedroom.

The room is a mess, strewn with thick textbooks and endless notes in frantic handwriting. A desk overflowing with loose sits against the wall next to an open door. The hallway beyond is dark, but a light from the next level down reveals the shadow of a bannister just at the edge of his vision. A window on the far side of the room has the blinds drawn shut, but orange light still seeps in through the slats. Outside, he can hear the endless ambiance of a big city. Among the clutter on the desk is a floating, white orb about the size of a basketball with a computer keyboard sitting in front of it. The orb doesn’t move, just hovers with a tiny white light blinking on the surface facing Garrett. Only two surfaces in the entire room are clear of paper: the half-made bed with gray sheets and a small table in the corner decorated with photographs and draped with a faded orange and green scarf.

“It’s that book.” He thinks, “What the Hell is it? Who was that old man?” His gaze falls on the black book sitting on the desk, nestled among the notes, and he takes a step back. The book looks the exact same as it did in the restaurant. There is a moment of heavy stillness as Garrett stares at the book, unblinking. Then his eyes drift to the pictures on the small table. The pictures are mostly of a woman with bright orange hair, smiling and laughing in each one. One photo is a snapshot taken at a family picnic on a carpet of orange leaves. The woman is there, wearing the faded orange scarf. She’s with two little girls who couldn’t be older than ten and a man that looks like Garrett’s dad without the beer gut. His heart sinks and he looks down at his hands. They’re rough, weathered, and shake slightly under his gaze.

“I have to go back,” he whispers. He picks up the book, walks out of the bedroom, and leans against the bannister. He can see the illuminated floor below him, a nice foyer littered with shoes and jackets. The light below flickers from another room like a television, but he doesn’t hear any noise. He flips the book open to the first page and reads aloud, “As I read the book, I was struck by how familiar the handwriting was. What was this book that homeless man had given me? Wait, these are my thoughts! Dread began to run down my spine, but the thought was interrupted by Charlotte calling from behind me.” He looks up, but he’s still in the house. He reads it again. Then again. Then again. Nothing changes.

With a yell of rage, he throws the book over the bannister, “GOD DAMN IT!” The book lands on the first floor with a thud.

“Dad?” A girl’s voice calls from downstairs.

He freezes, hand over his mouth. He presses himself against the wall opposite the bannister.

“Is everything ok?” She asks. Her’s is the voice of a teenager, probably no more than fourteen years old.

Garrett stays frozen.

“What’s this?”

That snaps him out of his paralysis, “NO!”

Garrett stands on a busy sidewalk. There’s a chill in the air appropriate for early autumn. A gust of wind begins to lift his hat from his head but he reflexively catches it. Fatigue takes his body all at once, and he can feel his breathing become harder. His thoughts are suddenly muddled, like the one time he and Charlotte snuck his parents’ vodka and drank far too much.

“Where am I now?” The city looks like New York; Hell it looks like the street he was on just five minutes ago before he ran into that old man. He looks around and sees the street signs at the closest intersection. Hicks St and Ramsen St. The book is in his hands. He’s at the end, the final page. All that is written is “11:34am. November 22nd, 2023. Begin next trial.”

He turns slowly and looks up from the book to see himself staring just a few feet away. With a quick movement, he scratches the third rectangle on the cover and steps forward.