The Morality Game

It had been a brutal day at work so far. Jack had been late to his morning meeting for no particular reason, except for lack of charisma and a caffeine deficiency. This led to him inevitably being chewed out by his boss, thus making himself the day’s honorary target for the loud, bulging man to take out all his frustrations on.

If any good came from the beratement it was that it at least broke up the numbing monotony of his job. Sitting at his desk on the thirty-fourth floor, surrounded by the metronomic sounds of keyboards and ringing phones day in and day out was a bleakly dull existence. But the corporate job that he had been climbing his way up in since college paid too well to leave.

His lunch break came not a moment too soon and he settled into the break room in a stiff chair with his prepackaged deli meat sandwich and coffee. His eyes wandered over to the current inhabitant of a dusty red couch across the room. Her name was Gloria. She was once again reading. Every week at lunch a new book was given the pleasure of her unwavering focus. He questioned the enduring conviction she had to what he saw as nothing more than a hobby. He had thought about asking her out many times. Perhaps someday soon he would work up the courage.

Jack had not been in a real relationship since college. Now thirty-two, he had become complacent, content even, with his lack of a partner. Or perhaps it had simply been too long, and he could no longer recall what it felt like to share a life with someone. Maybe you can’t miss what you no longer know.

The remainder of the day went by just like the rest, despite a few more pointed comments from the boss. Jack clocked out and hailed a cab back to his ninth floor New York loft apartment. To his surprise, there was a package waiting for him at his door. He looked to see who it might be from, but the thick manila envelope presented no return address.

Jack settled in on the couch with the small package and turned on the T.V. He had left it on the game show channel the night before so applause and a hefty “congratulations” filled the silence of his hollow living room.

After turning his attention back towards the mystery envelope, he carelessly tore it open to reveal the contents. A little black book lay tucked away, with nothing else. A notebook, he concluded after further inspection, bound with black leather. You could tell the notebook was not a new one, it was worn and as he opened it the pages were soft and stained, as happens when you find a particularly old book in the back of a used bookstore. Despite its apparent age, the leather holding the pages together was durable, having never lost its integrity in defiance of the many lifetimes it appeared to have lived.

Much to Jack’s confusion, the only writing that appeared in the book was a smudged list of names, each one was crossed out. He flipped through the pages quickly and impatiently, becoming bored by the seeming meaninglessness of it all, searching for a change in the pattern.

About two-thirds of the way through the notebook, a change finally presented itself. With just a general look he could see that the list had stopped halfway down this page. His eyes flitted to the last name. This one had not been crossed out. He stared at it for a long moment in surprise, for what he found was his own name written in delicate cursive staring back at him: Jackson Lee Lawrence.

Jack pondered what it might mean. The only conclusion he managed to come to was that somebody must be playing a practical joke on him. Surely that was it, though he couldn’t explain the eerie chill that snaked down his spine.

Letting his curiosity get the best of him, Jack opened his laptop. He began searching the names that were written. As he made his way through the catalog of names, an increasing sense of dread sank over him.

Finally, he reached the last written page. Hesitantly, his heart pounding and a sheen of sweat decorating his brow, he typed in the name written before his own, a woman’s name unfamiliar to him. The pit weighing low in his stomach dropped even further. His hands trembled violently as he tried to steady himself. The investigation had led Jack to the daunting realization that every person scribbled into this little black book was either dead, presumed dead, or missing.

“Oh, that’s too bad! Sorry about your luck pal,” chimed in the game show host in the background.

Jack sat frozen, unable to peel his eyes away from the glaring screen. On the monitor was the last social media post from the woman whose name had appeared before his in the book. It was a post from four months ago, a week before the investigation had begun into her whereabouts, an investigation that had led nowhere and would soon become a cold case. The post was simple: I’m sorry, Jack. RUN.

That last word seemed to jumpstart Jack back into action, and he began fervently making his way through his apartment, throwing random handfuls of clothing into his suitcase before booking the next flight to Vermont. He had a vacation home there and it was the only place he could think to go.

He took a moment to look back at his apartment before leaving. It seemed so lonely and cold, as if no one had ever lived there, as if nobody had ever made it a home. For the first time, he thought perhaps he never had.

~

He made it to the airport with time to think over his rash actions of the last hour. Surrounded by completely normal people, suddenly he felt ridiculous. He was nobody and he thought he was part of some grand conspiracy? Logic told him there was a reasonable explanation for it all, and yet…there was this lingering shift in the air…like his life was no longer his. He couldn’t shake the feeling that everything had already changed.

The plane departed soon thereafter, and Vermont greeted Jack with a downpour of torrential rain and a sea of clouds under the cover of night. In a tattered, black rental car, he made his way to the middle-of-nowhere vacation home. He had told his boss that he was taking a week’s worth of vacation days, days he realized he hadn’t even utilized in the last two years.

The house was quiet, as quiet and cold as the apartment he had so eagerly left, but with a substantial amount of dust resting over the place. Even so, a sense of calm fell over him. He felt safer here already.

Right on cue, as he began to allow his racing thoughts to stall a bit, a growl arose from deep within his hollowed stomach. Surely the only thing that would be open this time of night would be the convenience store down the road. Grabbing his wallet, he made for the door.

After taking inventory of the store’s scant food supply, he settled for a coffee and one of the cold, prepackaged sandwiches they carried.

The drive back to the house was a short one, but about halfway there a haze seemed to begin to settle over his head. Soon, the haze had heightened to a thick fog that seemed to slow down time. All he could manage to comprehend was the feeling of enervation as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Maybe sleep would bring him relief, he thought.

Jack barely made it into the driveway and out of the rental car before collapsing into a feeble pile on the ground.

~

A searing ache from his temple broke Jack from the sleep that had seized him against his will. Confusion set in as he attempted to adjust his dazed eyes to the jarring fluorescent lights. It didn’t take long for his disorientation to mutate into sheer panic once he took in the fact that he was strapped to a chair in the middle of a cavernous, empty warehouse. Hastily assessing himself, Jack found nothing wrong with him physically.

He thought to the night before, barely remembering the events that must have brought him here. It dawned on him that they must have drugged him somehow.

Before he could piece together any more information, a door across the room opened and three people in ornate masks, covered from head to toe in black, tailored suits, strolled in. Two had guns, and went and stood in the corners opposite Jack, facing him. The third person, who possessed a distinct air of opulence, stepped forward towards his hostage.

“Jack. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

The rag tied around Jack’s mouth prevented him from speaking, but he was sure his unadulterated fear spoke for him.

“Sorry about the whole gag thing, it’s just that I really don’t like being asked pointless questions. They make me…irrationally angry, sometimes.” A devious smile adorned his face.

“Listen Jack. You don’t have to be afraid of me. Nobody is going to hurt you unless it is of your own volition. Which brings me to the point of all this. You have a choice to make, Jack.” The man reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out the little black book.

“We can either cross your name out of this book right now and that will be the end of it.” He motioned his hand towards the two men with guns stationed behind him “Or, you can write a new name in the book, any name you’d like, and we will pay your way to a new life, far away from your old one.”

The man began to untie the rag that kept Jack silenced.

“It’s your decision. Just remember, Jack, no questions”

~

The sun shone brilliantly over the Brazilian coast. Jack sat back in his flimsy lawn chair and stared out at the wondrous site.

The man with the little black book had given Jack twenty-thousand dollars to move far away from his old life and start anew, along with a new identity. He had always wanted to live someplace tropical, so there he was. His old life felt like it had belonged to someone different as he thought back. He now worked at a surf shop that didn’t pay well, but gave what he needed, and he had used part of the twenty-grand to buy himself a small, cozy house that he had since made into a home.

But he often wondered about the name he had written in the book, what choice they had made with the sentence he had forced upon them for his own selfish gain: the road of moral ambiguity, or the selfless one. He also wondered about the woman who had written his name in the book. He hadn’t recognized her name, though she had clearly known him. He figured they must have simply met in passing, and in the moment she had chosen him. A game, that’s what it had seemed like to the ones who put him there. A never-ending game for their never-ending enjoyment. Of course, he would never really know the answers. No questions, the man had said.

A woman entered Jack’s view. He had seen her there many times before. And today, he had resolved that he would talk to her. As he approached the beautiful woman, a question plagued his mind as it had countless times since he had arrived there. It was an epically selfish question, one that always sent a decidedly sharp pang of guilt piercing through him, perhaps because he already knew the answer.

Jack could not decide if the little black book had really been a curse, or a blessing.