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Prompt: At a Chinese restaurant, your character opens his fortune cookie and reads the following message: "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing."...
Character: Scott Nelson
Setting: Sacramento, California
A Grave Monition
There are two things I hate about my family. The first is the unnecessary flatulence that emanates from my older brother. The second is the even more unnecessary tendency the entire family has to embarrass the youngest son. Namely, me.
I love my family. We’re the warmest, happiest bunch you will probably ever see in Sacramento, California. All 13 of us are fun, bouncy, and livelier than active yeast cells in warm, sugary water. And if there are only two things I hate about all thirteen of us… well, that’s a pretty great compliment.
But still. Is it really necessary to bring up the date (the stone fruit, not the romantic engagement) incident every year at Mom’s birthday?
We’re here at the House of Chang feasting on moo shu pork and beef that tastes like chicken and possibly human suffering. It’s Mom’s fifty-fifth birthday, and, as resident mathematician and brother Matt pointed out, “her tenth fibirthday!” (which so happens to be portmanteau for fibonacci and birthday), so we’re celebrating with a good dose of Chinese food. And, if I will have anything to do with it, we are not staying long enough for Megan to mention the yogurt incident, like she does every year.
Fortunately, the waiter-slash-manager guy is quickly approaching with a bill and a platter of fortune cookies. This is usually because the waiters can never find a moment in which we sit still long enough for them to count our heads. On the pro side, we have fifty or so cookies and fortunes to indulge ourselves in.
All around, there are noises of plastic wrappers being torn and cookies being cracked.
“Happiness is an activity,” reads Jon. “No, it’s not. It’s an adjective.”
This is quickly followed by exclamations of “Joys are often the shadows, cast by sorrows”, “My learn-Chinese word is drunk. Is that a problem?”, and “Fortune cookie wrappers are really a great waste of plastic”. I rip my wrapper open, throw it into the cellophane pile that’s rapidly growing in the center of the table, and carefully crack open my fortune cookie. A friend of mine has told me that if your fortune cookie has no fortune, you should prepare to die the following year. I’m sure the fortune cookie factories get a lot of crap about that.
But my fortune cookie did not disappoint. In it was a long rectangular slip of paper, but as I pulled it gently from the cookie casing, I noticed it wasn’t the filmy kind, the kind blue-and-white fortunes are usually printed on. It was thick cardstock, almost like a wedding invitation. I wonder what my friend would say about that. Was I about to get married? To whom? And when??
I looked that the lucky number side first. “6, 66, 666, 6666, 6666666666”.
This was weird. Only a month ago, I went on vacation to Australia, and I was told that 6 was generally their unlucky number.
I looked at the line above it and read my learn-chinese word. “Danger- 危险 (Wéixiǎn)”
This, plus the cardstock, plus my chain of unlucky numbers, made my eyebrows dip a little lower down than usual. Everyone knows fortunes in fortune cookies are made by some philosophical writer guy who’s lucky enough to get hired by a factory to write stupid sayings. But what was up with mine?
Curiously, I looked at my message. My eyebrows went up when I found, “Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.”
I started laughing a little. Why was I so nervous to read that? I bet the factory puts that message in every millionth message, like jackpot, you’re going to die. What a Professor Trelawney wannabe.
It’s actually a great way to gain credibility. In fact, I should start advising that to the company I work for. Put a little scare in some of the website posts, and, well, people will start paying attention.
From all the reaching and shuffling, I can assume we’re probably going in for seconds. I grab another fortune cookie and sit back down.
This time, I don’t take my time. Shkafdljjfal! goes the wrapper. Crack! goes the cookie. I pull out my fortune, and-
“Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.”
I look around the table. Has anyone else seen these messages? I’m starting to get a little angry. These words could really scare someone. These words could cause life-changing decisions. It’s not funny to tell someone they’re not safe in the home they live in.
But it looks like everyone else is having fun. I mean, from all the laughing and intense storytelling going on, it certainly doesn’t look like anyone else has gotten death warnings. In fact, it seems that Katie has gotten a message saying “You need a mint. Bad.”
I shrug, and, seeing how terrible my fortunes have been, I go for a third one. Third times a charm, or something like that. I open up a cookie while munching on my last one and-
AGAIN??!? What does this mean??
Gina sitting beside me seems to find my silence and quick mood changes very perplexing. It also seems like she’s been trying to talk to me for the past minute. Quickly, I ask her to open up a fortune. She looks at me weirdly, says “Okay..?” and opens one up.
“Your infinite capacity for patience will be rewarded sooner or later.”
“Is there a reason you asked me to open a fortune?” she asks.
“Social experiment?” I reply.
That’s weird. So obviously I’m the only one getting these messages. I pick up the message I must have dropped under my seat. As I pick it up, I freeze.
The paper has changed. It’s back to flimsy, slightly shiny paper. And the message on it reads “You will make a name for yourself in the field of photography.”
Almost frantically, I reach for the slip I left under the rim of my plate. It’s changed too. The learn-chinese word is “Watermelon- 西瓜 (Xīguā)”, and the numbers are “1, 5, 6, 12, 16, 37, 42.” The message is another typical fortune cookie sentence.
I snatch another unopened fortune cookie from the table. Mom looks at me weirdly, but I don’t particularly care. I open up the cookie, not even bothering to eat the cookie itself, and yank out the paper.
“Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.”
I lean on the back of my chair, and look around the diner. “Scott, are you okay?” asks Mom. “You’ve been opening up an awful lot of fortunes.”
Gina beside me winks and tells Mom, “He’s conducting a social experiment.”
Mom looks a bit confused, but she says, “Interesting,” before turning back to listen to Mia’s news on her baby. Gina looks toward me, smiling, and I instinctively cover up the fortune I just opened.
I didn’t need to bother. That one had changed as well.
This was getting weird. Beyond weird. If I had a meter for weirdness, the pointer would surpass the top level and head straight towards “creepy”. Either some dark magic was targeting me or I was in the middle of a well-orchestrated joke by my family. I mean, I’m not moving to Los Angeles or Seattle or anything just because a stupid fortune from a fortune cookie is advising me to. Right?
But something did feel off. What was going on with the whole paper changing thing? Why were my fortunes changing? Why was I the only one getting these messages??
THATS WHEN I GOT HIT BY A PLANE AND DIED. THE END.
(PS. This is Nargles posting Quibbles's story, since her stories, for the most part, are pretty awesome. Haha, did you like the ending? Quite spontaneous, yes? Hopefully she won't notice :P)
(PPS. Hello. This is Quibbles. Why is my story on the blog????)
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