A Blank Prank

As James got off the elevator and approached his desk at his corporate job, he was surprised to see that his tools and belongings were packed tightly into a small, overflowing cardboard box.

“I understand… thank you.”

Was all he could say upon hearing that he was fired from his job. James wasn’t a particularly smart person, nor was he charismatic, or handsome, or hardworking. He was below average in just about every regard, which he felt was the root of all the problems in his life. His girlfriend of three months had left him for someone else, his parents recently made the decision to stop supporting him financially, and, as of today, he had been fired. After saying his goodbyes and collecting his box of belongings, he turned in his ID badge and exited the tall office building to which he had dedicated the last five years of his life. Rather than retreating home, or calling his parents to break the news to them, he decided to carry his belongings five minutes down the road to the local park where he ate lunch every single day by himself.

He saw that his favorite bench was being partly occupied by a plain-looking woman deeply immersed in a book. What first drew his attention to her, was the fact that she seemed to be as unremarkable and plain as he was. James approached the bench and dropped his box of office supplies onto the middle portion of the bench, and proceeded to sit himself on the left side. He let out a deep sigh, and leaned back, tilting his head up to face the sky. Throughout this entire dramatic display, the woman next to him kept her attentive gaze fixed to the book she was reading. James stared at the sky for hours, or minutes - it was hard for him to know. He thought about a lot of things. He thought about what his plan was now that he lost his only source of income. He thought about how he would inform his parents of the news and how they would probably insist that he go back to living with them. But most of all, he thought about what a disappointing path his life had taken. Typically, unremarkable people who want more out of life will work hard to overcome their deficiencies. Or, they’ll specialize in being charismatic, and charm their way into the fulfilling, happy cracks of life. This is what it means to survive as a human. If one lacks in anything, they work to improve in that area, or ditch it completely, and play only to their strengths. James had done none of this, and the consequences of living this way had become the most obvious at this stage in his life.

After some time, he snapped back to his nightmarish reality, and raised his head to look at his surroundings. As always, the park was a large and peaceful patch of greenery, planted right in the middle of an ugly, grey metropolis. He scanned to the left and saw children playing, while parents watched them from a distance. He scanned to his right, and saw the same woman, still sitting there, immersed in her book. Then, he looked forward, and stared at the wide expanse of green grass in front of him, with the occasional coming and going of little birds, children, and leaves being blown by the wind. Lost in a trance fueled by grief and confusion, he was eventually snapped out of it by the sharp, loud sound of a book closing. He looked to his right, and saw that the woman had finished her book. Tears from both eyes were streaming down her face, as she stared forward at the wide grass, smiling. The tears kept coming, and her smile grew wider and wider, until it seemed like she was about to burst from excitement. Before James could even think to say or do anything for her, she took a long, deep breath, and said:

“Wow. I get it now….”

She stood up, set the book on the area of the bench where she had been sitting, and left her hand on the cover of it for a few seconds. As if saying goodbye to a dear friend who she thought she’d never see again, she took her hand away from the book slowly, and walked away without ever looking back. James watched in confusion as she walked away. When she had eventually disappeared out of the park gate, into the sprawling zoo that was the metropolis, he slowly turned his gaze to the book with curiosity he hadn’t felt in a long time.

What piqued his interest wasn’t the idea that the woman read some amazing novel with a moving story. Nor was it the fact that she, for some reason, left this book behind. What peaked his interest was the enlightened look she had upon closing the book.

Had she just read something that changed her life?

Did the content of the pages convey something to her that helped her understand something she never understood before? Something that would lead her to a better life - a better version of her?

With these thoughts running through his mind, he stood up, maneuvered himself around his box of work belongings, and sat on the woman’s side of the bench. He looked at the cover of the book and saw that it had no title. It was a simple book with a hard, dark blue cover. It wasn’t very thick, from what he could tell, it was about 50 pages in length. He picked up the book, took a deep breath, and opened it to the first page.

Blank.

He flipped to the second page,

Blank.

Third, fourth…

Blank, blank.

He flipped through the entire book, looking at each of its yellowed, old pages. He flipped the book upside down, diagonal, sideways, and every which way, only to come to the conclusion that the entire thing was completely and utterly…

Blank.

Confused and slightly annoyed, he came to the conclusion that there were three possibilities that could explain this:

1. The woman was crazy. She was in a worse mental state than even he was, and that’s all there is to it.

2. It was a prank.

3. There was something about the book that he just couldn’t see. Something he wasn’t able to understand.

Wanting to believe that reason #3 was the most likely, he took the book and tossed it into his fashionable new bag (the severance box from work). He figured that if possibility #1 were to be true, he didn’t have much to lose by taking the book just in case. And even if it were possibility #3, his sense of pride was at an all time low, so a juvenile prank would have little to no effect on him at this point. In other words, James was desperate for a way out of his current life situation.

He went home that night and pondered the secret to the blank book. He thought that there had to be some trick, or secret that he could use to unlock the true meaning within it. If there was any chance that this book could lead him to a point in his life where he felt as enlightened and resolute as the woman in the park, he would do his best to figure out the secret to it. After staying up all night trying things like google searches, holding the book’s pages over a lamp, then over a black light (which he had to purchase that night at a supply shop), or praying to God for guidance as if he were the next prophet, he had almost given up. He realized that he had one more option that he could pursue to learn the secrets of the book. He decided it was time to consult his best and only friend, Ro.

Ro was a philosophy major in college, but dropped out, blaming governmental conspiracies. Since then, he was engaged in a multitude of online communities, became a moderator for the Internet's second most popular anti-work forum, while also becoming well-versed in Japanese culture and communist ideology. Ro was a man of many interests and taste. Thus, he was the smartest person James knew - a beacon of wisdom. He waited until the late afternoon, which is typically when Ro woke up, and dialed his number into the phone. It rang for a while, and just as James decided to give up on the idea and hang up, Ro answered.

James explained everything from the beginning, informing Ro about how he was fired, his time at the park, his experience with the woman and the book, and all of the things he tried in order to unlock its secrets.

“Well, what do you think? What should I do? Since the blacklight didn’t work, I’m considering-”

“Stop”, Ro interrupted. “Do you know how dumb you sound right now?”

“Uh…”

He wasn’t sure how to respond, but knew that he was always appreciative of Ro’s wisdom and constructive advice. Ro sighed, as if disappointed with how ignorant his friend was to the reality of things. Ro spoke again while eating what sounded like potato chips:

“Listen, your search for the answer is meaningless. You say the book has 52 pages, and that it’s small with a blue cover. That the words are invisible and the woman you saw at the park was able to have some sort of grand revelation. But what does any of that even mean to you? If the book is 52 pages, or three pages - if the book is green, rather than blue - if the person you saw at the park was an old man, or a four year old kid. None of these details caused your work termination, nor were they the result of it. You think the book has some sort of meaning, when in reality, it couldn’t be more meaningless. If that lady had a comic book, or a takeaway menu for Francesco’s Italian restaurant, or even a nude magazine, you’d convince yourself that those were significant and mystic too. Hell, they’d probably have more meaning than some book with no writing on the pages, at least they have SOME content in them. That book won’t save you. What will save you is a revolution. The government, along with these multi-billion dollar companies are plotting to…”

He began to tune out what Ro was saying, spending the little ability to focus that he had in order to think of what Ro said slightly earlier. He tuned back in towards the end of Ro’s speech, only to catch the last few words of what he said:

“Or… you’re being pranked”.

James hung up the phone and gathered his brain power to think about Ro’s words. He was still a bit unclear about a lot of things, but he slowly began to come to a conclusion in his head. He still strongly believed that there was indeed some secret text written inside of that mysterious book - that there was some message still to be uncovered. This, he was still strongly convinced of. But another thought kept circling his mind:

“What could be written in this book that would change things for me? Even if all the secrets and tips to being a successful, happy man were written in there, wouldn’t it still depend on me to make it happen?”

If he understood one thing from Ro’s ramblings, it was that the hidden text that he believed lied within the book most likely would not have saved him from his pitiful, unfulfilling life. He felt a strange sense of comfort at the thought of this. For years, James had let life carry him in any direction, hoping that he would eventually wash up somewhere hospitable enough for him- somewhere with a charitable entity that pitied him enough to allow him to exist in that space. But with this new realization that the contents of the book would still rely on him to execute, he understood that he was powerless. At the same time, he had all of the power.

James returned to the park the following day, with a slightly more determined look on his face than usual. With the book in his hand, he approached the familiar bench on which he would always eat lunch and, occasionally, sulk. He carefully placed the mystery book down onto the old wooden planks of the bench, on the exact spot where the woman once sat. He stared one more time at the bland book long and hard, wondering if there was any final trick or method he could use to uncover the mystery at last. Nothing came to mind. He understood that he was too small-minded, too lacking in ingenuity, too unapologetically subpar to crack a code as grand and life-changing as this one. But, as a result of this, he finally felt that he had an idea of what he needed to do next. Everything depended on him, and he wanted to get to a place in life where he felt comfortable with this idea. Where he could say without a doubt that he was ready for the contents of the book, no matter what they may be. James thought that the book would return to his hands someday, one way or another. In the meantime, he decided that he’d leave it on that bench for some other Nobody to find. With his face set and his posture straighter than usual, he left the bench and headed for the park entrance without looking back.