I am recording here for you my final memory. I sincerely hope that you can read it.
I’d just started at the cafe and as a part of my training, I was being clued in to all the regulars. It seemed to be as much of the training curriculum as table numbers or side work, and great importance was being placed on it by the girl currently training me, Megan.
“Saturday morning is Mr. Frank. He’s a pain in the ass and he’ll nurse a cup of drip coffee at the corner table during the brunch rush and not give a fuck,” Megan continued on. “Doesn’t leave a tip either, the bastard.”
“Then there’s Ms. Blevins. She’s a daily. She’ll actually be here pretty soon,” she said, eyeing the clock above the bar. “She doesn’t say much but she’s been coming here for a couple weeks now and always gets the same thing. Bowl of the chicken soup and a croissant. She brings this ancient notebook and is always hovering over it. Tips decent. Oh, actually there she is now-”
The bell on the door chimed as the presumed Ms. Blevins slid in. She looked unremarkable at first. Mid to late 40s, I guessed. Straw blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and no matter the day, she was always wearing the same beige cardigan. Megan wasn’t exaggerating about the notepad either. The thing was definitely ancient - cracked at the cover and the pages were the color of yellow that made it clear that it had been white at some point. Megan sent me over because she said Ms. Blevins was an easy customer and a good one to start on.
“What can I get for you?” I asked, readying my notepad to take her order.
Her notebook lay open beside her, but it looked odd. There were various symbols and scribbles across the page in no meaningful pattern. The figure of a tree was drawn into the bottom corner with long branches stretching out across the pages. I felt a headache coming on purely from the strain of trying to take it all in. She raised an eyebrow at me when she saw where my eyes had fallen.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to pry,” I replied, flustered. All I knew is that I really didn’t want to keep talking about what I’d seen. The images began to blur when I thought about them too hard.
She continued to look at me as if she was studying me. After a long pause, she smiled wearily and closed the notebook with a finality.
“My usual, please.”
I hurried back to the kitchen, eager to sit down and shut my eyes that were now aching. Megan saw me collapse onto a stool and came over.
“Are you okay? Don’t worry I put her order in when I saw her come in. Did she yell at you or something? You look awful,” she said.
“No, uh, she didn’t yell,” I replied weakly. “I guess I just got a migraine or something. I was looking at her notebook and she caught me so yeah she might be a little ticked, but I think it’s fine.”
“Oh, that stupid notebook?” Megan rolled her eyes. “Did she give you the whole spiel about invisible ink and all that bullshit? If she’s so worried about a HIPAA violation or whatever maybe don’t do your therapy notes in a public cafe.”
“What?”
“Didn’t she tell you? I asked her one time why she always brings an empty notebook in here and she said it wasn’t actually empty. She’s a therapist apparently and writes notes at like a weird angle or uses weird ink or something so she can look at them in public without anyone else seeing them. I don’t know,” Megan shrugged and eyed me. “So… are you good? I’ve got another table for you. Also don’t hang out back here too much or back of house will get pissy.”
Megan had left but I stayed frozen to the stool. The pages clearly weren’t blank when I saw them and if those were therapy notes then I had no idea what kind of therapy she was doing. I spent the rest of my shift thinking it over while Ms. Blevins nursed an earl gray at her table, surreptitiously watching me. She hadn’t opened the notebook again since we talked. I tried to rationalize it, thinking maybe she had some kind of special shorthand or she was doing like a family tree or something, but I couldn’t shake the dizziness that seemed to overcome me when I’d looked at the page and all of its weird symbols and scratchings.
Finally, it was time to close and that’s when I saw that at some point Ms. Blevins had slipped out. She’d left exact change on the table - no tip. She’d also left the notebook with a napkin on top where she’d scribbled only “that which encompasses humanity” and nothing else. I still don’t know why, but I slipped it into my backpack and took it home with me that night. Maybe it was just so weird I couldn’t resist. Thinking back on it, I do feel bad now. Megan tried her best to train me and my shift wasn’t half bad, but I’d never step foot in that cafe again. Not since I’d gotten the notebook.
The notebook began with a letter that I will transcribe here. The beginning letter was as follows:
“Hello, if you are reading this letter then you are now in possession of this notebook. You
cannot get rid of it although you are welcome to try. It will continue to return to you until it finds the next link in its chain. Many cannot read this notebook and will not understand. It is foolish to get others to try. You have been chosen for a reason and that reason may only be known to you or known to no one at all. It is your duty to deposit your knowledge here. Your sacrifice has been recognized.”
I’d rolled my eyes the first time I read it. It felt so needlessly dramatic and over-the-top from the plain woman in the beige cardigan. I flipped to the next couple of pages and saw pages filled with cramped writing in red ink. It looked like it began with basic biographies of people - info like birthdates, blood types, favorite colors - then it devolved into more of the symbols and scribbles that I’d seen at the cafe. My eyes began to blur and the same ache that I’d felt before came back with a vengeance. Finally, I’d flipped to seemingly blank pages and my vision relaxed, but only for a moment. I felt a sharp pain in my palm and watched as words appeared on the page in red ink.
DOB 12-14-1989
BLOOD TYPE O-
FAVORITE COLOR GREEN
SOCIAL SKILLS INTROVERTED
ACES 9
I yelped and threw the notebook across the room where it lay flat and words continued to appear on the page. My vision blurred and eventually faded to black. I awoke the next day to the notebook lying in the same spot, but with pages upon fresh pages of new writing. I flipped through it frantically, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT
6 SEXUAL PARTNERS
WPM 97
LEFT HANDED
CROOKED SMILE
Seemingly inane information flooded the pages before me and the longer I looked at it, the more foreign the information became. I had the memory that maybe it was describing me, but the information no longer felt correct. Had that been me? I couldn’t remember. To be honest, I can’t remember now. The information has changed now. The pages are only ever filled with one repeating word or another.
SCARED
SCARED
SCARED
SCARED
TIRED
SCARED
SCARED
I can’t remember anything before that first day at the cafe. I can’t tell you my name or where I grew up or even what color my eyes are. I used to be scared, I think, but now I’m only tired. I think I’m done now, but it won’t let me go without more information. Do I have more information to give? It doesn’t feel that way.
Can you read this? Do you have information to give?