I used to open the fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants just like everyone else. You know, you read the fortune, if it even is a fortune anymore and not just some pithy bit of half-wisdom. “You will succeed in business,” you know, that’s how fortunes used to read, and you didn’t really believe it. I never knew anyone who did, but it made you feel better, gave you a sort of buzz. Everything’s going to be okay. I don’t know why. I don’t think anyone really believes those things, not really, but we like them. Never met anyone who didn’t like them. Well, no, one time there was a guy at a business meeting. He was a Christian and said he thought the fortunes were superstitious and he didn’t much care for them. I thought that was real funny. Back then I did.
I don’t open fortune cookies anymore.
It’s stupid, I know. I’m a sophisticated guy. If you knew who I am, dug a bit on the Internet, you’d figure out I’m no slouch. I’ve made a lot of money, I’ve been all over the world, I’ve got some famous people’s numbers in my phone. You’d recognize their names if I mentioned them. So I’m busy. Addison’s busy, too, always was. She’s independent. We used to share each other’s electronic calendars. She can tell you everything I’m saying is true. I wouldn’t make this stuff up.
The first time–the first time I noticed, at least–was about two years ago, September 24. I know the date because it’s still in my calendar, 1:32 pm on September 24. It said “Dip tie in coffee.” Sitting there just like it was a meeting or a video conference. I saw it that morning, probably around 6:30, when I was looking over my schedule. I stared at it. I thought maybe Google was testing something, or maybe it was one of those weird celebrations or obscure events they’re always making a big deal of. I don’t know. It irked me, but I had to get moving, traffic was worse than ever with the end-of-season construction, and Addison insisted on trying to talk to me. I forgot about it.
Later that day, guess what? Boom. Idiot move, somehow the end of my tie dropped into my coffee. It’s never happened before or since. I didn’t even make the connection at first, I was so mad at myself. I didn’t verify the time, but I’m sure it was 1:32. I’m sure it was.
Then it just started happening. Not all the time, just enough. 7:37 am – Answer wrong number. 6:19 pm – Finish fifth coffee. 1:51 am – Get up to relieve yourself. 2:20 pm – Open umbrella before downpour begins.
They were all like that, idiot things, like telling me when I’d get a papercut or that some guy would honk at me or that my computer would reboot for an update. Stupid stuff, stuff no one cares about, stuff you don’t bother telling anyone about because it just doesn’t matter.
It freaked me out.
I thought at first it might build to some horrifying revelation, like a car crash or cancer or downsizing. Even when Addison and I started going through major stuff, nothing. That I’d fumble my keys at 7:01 when unlocking my door, yes, but not that she’d left to stay at her mom’s for the weekend.
What is it that knows the most mundane events of my life? I keep trying to figure that out. Maybe it’s some glitch in the Matrix, maybe it’s A.I. and the surveillance state…I don’t know. It makes no sense. Maybe a future version of myself is leaving me coded messages. If so, future me is way smarter than current me.
I think about these things at night. A lot. More than I want to admit. What madness would possess a man–a being–to fixate on such useless, worthless details? Why am I being stalked? Is God watching my every move?
There is one fortune cookie message I remember. You never remember them, really, do you? They just blur together. But it was a Thursday, at the Chinese buffet down on Jackson. I remember because it was the first date we took after our honeymoon. Addison had General Tso’s, like she always does, and she laughed when she opened her fortune. She handed it to me. You’ll be lucky in love.
“Guess I am,” she said, grinning.
I don’t remember what we talked about or when the buffet went out of business or even why exactly we stopped listening to each other, but I remember that stupid fortune, and I remember it was 12:43 at night the first time she arrived home after a business trip, and I remember that she beat me by 105 points at Scrabble one time. Her old phone would stay at 3% battery for more than an hour, and then die. There was a way she jangled her keys I could pick out in a crowd.
At some point, I stopped noticing these things. I stopped paying attention. It’s just what happens, sometimes, right? Things happen.
But that’s what really gets me, I think, what keeps me up at night. I think deep down, I don’t really worry where the messages come from.
I worry that someday I’ll open the fortune cookie, and it’ll be empty.