The Little Black Book

According to quantum physics, when looking through a microscope at a subatomic range, protons are only visible when someone looks through its lens. However, when no one is looking - there is nothing there. That's the best way I can describe what happened to me three years ago…

On the day I finally had enough, I randomly left my job as a human resources coordinator and moved across the country. I needed a fresh start. Between breaking up with my fiancé, who I had been with for five years, and losing my mom to breast cancer, I knew it was time for a change. I didn't feel at home in Los Angeles anymore. I needed grit. I needed fast. I needed different. I needed...New York City.

I used the twenty-thousand dollars I got from my mom's will and rented a flat that I barely had room enough to turn around, and I loved it. One of my mentors that insisted he wasn't my mentor told me that the easiest way to reinvent yourself is to move someplace where no one knows you. That way, you can craft your own world on a blank canvas – no bias, no expectations. It's like being "a wise baby," he'd say.

On a Saturday afternoon, three months after settling in, I tried to find a better place to put my bright red couch in the living room. Since the living room doubled as my bedroom, feng shui was my best friend. I spent an hour rearranging my couch…only to end up moving it exactly where it first began. But then, of course, the floor was littered with bits of dirt, and other things that were behind my bookshelves and treasure chest coffee table.

I went over to my broom closet and opened the door. I would always grab the broom and close the door right away because, to be quite honest, that broom closet spooked me out. There was no light, and it had these old, wooden shelves that weren't evenly spaced and looked like a feather could cause a nail to loosen. I looked at the shelves' top and realized that I never cleaned up there. I brought my stepping stool over and peered up, but I couldn't see anything. So, I felt around, and to my surprise, I felt something. It was a little black book. There was vanilla tape around the book that read: DO NOT OPEN.

I briskly walked to the couch, holding the book with no name and wilted off-white pages. It was thick, at least four to five-hundred pages.

I thought; books aren't harmful. If I don't like it, I'll throw it away.

As I took off the tape, I felt a tingle surge through my hands. I almost jumped out of my skin! It was like a tiny thunderstorm coursed through my veins. I immediately threw the book on my couch. I was terrified but completely intrigued.

The book opened to the middle, and I could see my name, Scarlett Rose. I saw it several times as I looked on and picked up the book. I pointed my trembling index finger at the sentence and read, Scarlett ordered Chinese food and watched a video on how to use chopsticks. She fell asleep shortly after eating. I put my hand over my mouth in shock and continued, she was awakened by her boyfriend, Frankie. Frankie taught Scarlett how to use chopsticks, and they fell asleep together.

I shut the book so hard, you could hear the snap next door. My head started to spin...What in the? How could this book know these things? I opened it toward the end, page 467, and read silently, Scarlett caught her fiancé cheating today. She would have believed it was an innocent lunch if she hadn't walked in on them kissing over salad. She learned that day that not only was Justin lying about disliking salad, but he was also lying about everything that could be fashioned into his portrayal of solidarity. I gasped in shock; it even talks like me.

I turned the pages ever so slowly toward the last page. But, I was too scared to read it. So, I put the book down and walked over to the large mirror in my living room. This book made me feel like I existed in some other distant world. Did I unknowingly get sucked into some invisible wormhole in the middle of my living room!? I needed to look at myself and see that I was real, that I was me, and wasn't going crazy.

I opened my mouth and pried my eyes open with my fingers, then said out loud, "I am a normal person. This is just a crazy book – it said, do not open, and I'm the bozo that opened it."

Then it struck me…

I had an idea to hold the book up to the mirror. When I held it up to the mirror, the words disappeared! Vanished! Poof! Gone! Just like that. Then, when I turned it back to me, the words reappeared! I sat back down and read the last sentence on the last page aloud, She finds me and is thinking about throwing me away.

"What the?!" I shot right back up and tossed the book on my treasure chest coffee table. For the next hour, I contemplated if I should tell anyone. I didn't want to endanger someone I cared about possibly. So, I decided to keep the otherworldly future book to myself. Besides, who would even believe me!? Maybe a psychiatrist? Hello, Mr. Straight-Jacket...how are you?

The next morning, I woke up and walked over to the living room. I stared at the pieces of bound paper that held every secret, every regret, every triumph. It was all there! This little black notebook had a presence. I could feel its invisible eyes burning me to the ground. I felt like it was waiting for me to wake up. I opened it to what I thought was the last page, 547. But, the last page was now 703. Three more chapters were written. I gulped and picked up my phone to call out of work. I needed a day to process whatever I was about to read.

The French-press coffee was brewing. I tried to wrap my mind around the circumstance and all that had to conspire for me to find this book. The apartment I was living in was over a hundred years old. I knew I had a weird feeling when I toured. I thought it was just my quirky landlord, Mrs. Jenkins. She was a small, groovy elderly lady who wore sunhats in the winter.

I remember when she opened the apartment door, she said in a heavy New York accent, "I don't do background checks." She pointed to her heart and said, "This is my background check. I feel the energy. I know when somebody's a little – ya know?"

My coffee was finished. I sat down at my kitchen table and poured over every page, re-reading some pages six and seven times. It was fascinating; it was gut-wrenching. Seeing in perfect detail the days I would stub my toe, and who got me sick, and how I made it home after missing the bus. Then, I got to the part I could not bear to read once, let alone foresee in real-life…I took Justin back. I took him back, and we got married. OH. HELL. NO.

I slammed the book down in rage and screamed, "I am not taking you back!!! You broke my heart!! I am not taking you back!! Ever!! I don't care what this book says!!"

I heard the clouds break into a storm, but I had to leave. I grabbed my rain jacket, the book, and my keys and jetted out of the door. Mrs. Jenkins was at the bottom of the steps changing a light bulb in the ceiling. She looked down at me from the wooden ladder.

"You okay, doll?"

She'd never seen me upset. I looked to the side.

"I'm fine, Mrs. Jenkins. I'm just questioning some things right now."

Mrs. Jenkins laughed to herself and responded, "That's all you do at your age. You don't get answers 'till you're my age, and then, you die."

We both laughed, and I asked, "Do you know anything about who use to live in my apartment?"

She nodded her head. "Yeah, she was my longest tenant. Lived here thirty-years, then moved a block away – go figure."

I wondered if she knew anything about her, but right before I inquired, she continued,

"You know, my other tenants said she never left her apartment. Not even for groceries."

I grabbed my mouth in bewilderment!

"Do you know where she lives right now? Like, the house number? I think I have something of hers."

Mrs. Jenkins climbed down from the ladder and said, "I normally wouldn't give out someone's house and apartment numbers. But, this is me trusting you. Her name is Ms. Martha Brooks. She lives on 42 Swanson street. It's the next block up, next to the-the, you know that barbershop?"

I nodded, and she added, "Yes, so it's 42 Swanson. Her apartment number is number 307."

"Okay, you so much.", I said in a hurry.

"And she's definitely home. The woman didn't leave in the fall, okay?" Mrs. Jenkins laughed to herself, and I rocketed out the door to the woman who had to have answers.

Finally, after sprinting the entire way, I was standing in front of Martha Brooks' door. I knocked in the friendliest way possible – if that's even a thing. Then, the door opened. I stared at a beautiful, sixty-something mixed woman. She saw the book in my hand, and her eyes widened.

"Where did you get that book?" she asked in a serious English accent.

I answered, "It was at the top of the broom closet in your old apartment – and not only that, it's narrating the story of my life. Like a play-by-play story."

The woman could feel my concern and said, "Come in."

We sat down with tea, and she said with a soft smile, "I knew you would come. The book told me you would."

I shook my head in disbelief.

"But, you had tape around it that said, do not open."

She laughed, "I knew that would make you open it."

I sipped the tea and uttered in grief, "Ms. Brooks, how can this be? Do I have any free will at all?"

She chuckled and placed her hand on my thigh for a brief moment.

"Of course, you do, honey. But, don't take thirty years to realize it like I did. The book can't tell you the actual future in perfect detail because our choices screw that part up. But, the book does make predictions based on your history. And, if you don't change dramatically, those words become self-fulling prophecies."

Ms. Brooks looked up to the ceiling - deep in her thoughts, then back at me.

"Do me a favor? Because I didn't have the courage. I read that book every day and then got to the point where I couldn't live anymore because of the misfortunes it foretold. Burn the book, Scarlett. Live your own life. You read the next three chapters. Make better choices. Don't get back with Justin. Find yourself true love and be happy. I don't know where this book came from. But, I know one thing, I'm glad it came with you. So…burn that book, Scarlett. You hear me?"

I nodded my head, "I will. I promise. I promise I will."

Ms. Brooks exhaled. Her eyes glossed into the verge of tears…but she was happy, nodding her head in relief.

"And after you do, come back and visit me."

I burned that little black book and never looked back. I didn't get back with Justin. I'm married to the love of my life, Christoph. And, I'm writing my own story.