The Book
An Ordinary Trail, An Extraordinary Tale
Sarah’s eyes widened as she spotted the leather-bound tome lying in the grass. Intrigued, she picked it up, brushing off a few stray leaves.
She opened it with curiosity, but the book was blank. How it ended up on this secluded trail, which was not a typical route known to the locals, was a mystery. She flipped through the pages, confirming that it was a blank book waiting to be filled. A sudden idea struck her, and she decided to take it with her; a faint notion of using it as her journal began forming in her mind.
That night, before she retired to bed, Sarah opened the book and began to write. She inscribed her name, the date, and the events of her day. It was a simple act, yet it felt significant. A sense of pride swelled within her, having initiated a new habit on a whim. She closed the book, extinguished the light, and basked in the glow of her accomplishment.
The following day, the sun rose as usual, but Sarah woke up surprisingly tired. She had been active since she was a kid, and weekend hiking was a regular thing, so for her body to feel pain suddenly was unusual. Nevertheless, she got up and went on with the day. She met a few friends for brunch, shopped a little, and got a new pen for her latest journal, something she felt proud of every time she thought about it. That night, after wrapping up the day, she sat with her journal and the new pen. She was surprised when she opened it to find that what she had written the previous day had turned into a story referring to her in the third person, like “Sarah hiked at a regular stride until she stopped to pick up a book from the ground…..”. Her mind was racing to think if there was a plausible reason for how this would have happened. It was the same ink and handwriting; if she had to write it in the third person, this is how she would have written. Puzzled and doubting herself, she decided to turn the page and continue writing. As she turned, she noticed it continued, saying, “Sarah woke up the next morning with a slight body pain…” and stopped. The book seemed to hold a mysterious power over her words.
Sarah knew this was not normal since she had not touched the book the whole day, and there was no way anyone else could have written this. She resolved to continue writing and see what happened the next day. She wrote about her morning, brunch with the girls, and shopping. She also inserted a few fake entries, like ice cream at the local creamery and watching a movie at the theatre, to test the book’s weirdness. She closed the book and turned off the light. She couldn’t sleep that night as she constantly opened the book to see if it had changed. But her words remained her own.
The following day, the sun rose as usual, and Sarah had dozed off early in the morning. She woke up with a jolt as the thought of the book suddenly descended upon her, and she hurried to pick up the book. As she turned the page, it was there. It continued from the previous day, like a story about a character named Sarah. As she read through, she noticed that it had skipped her fake entries about going to the creamery and watching a movie at the theatre, as those events had not actually happened. Sarah continued to proofread the rest of the things, and she turned the page. It ended with the note, “The next morning, Sarah woke up with a jolt, not knowing that a call was coming her way to change her life.”
She turned around and looked for her phone. There were no waiting calls, and no calls had been missed. Her mind quickly thought of anyone she could call and tell them about this book, but slowly, she felt it might be asking for more questions and a slight chance of looking stupid. Nevertheless, she called her trusted friend, Valerie, and asked if she wanted to come over since it was Sunday.
She called Valerie, and the call got cut without any dial tone. She checked her network and called her mom, as that’s her usual Sunday morning routine anyway. Mom picked up, gave her some free-flowing advice, ridiculed her life choices, asked if she had any boyfriends, told her to eat and not diet, and then hung up the phone. Sarah would have said two or three words at the max. With the thoughts of the book looming over her head, she told her mom she would call later and hung up.
Sarah was on the fence about whether she wanted to keep the book. After many minutes of debating, she decided to head back to the woods where she found it.
She drove to the woods this time because she couldn’t wait to escape it. As her vehicle was approaching the path to the woods, she received a call. Realizing it was not actually connected to the car, she glanced at it and picked up the phone. It was her mom. The moment she answered the call, “Bam!” There was a loud noise, followed by multiple rounds of spinning, then hitting the tree on the side of the road and coming to a halt.
The car was totalled from the hit, and a truck ahead continued to speed. Sarah was stuck inside with the airbag deployed and tried to make sense of what had happened. She was bleeding profusely from multiple places in her head, and slowly, her eyes closed.
A few weeks after the local news and the social media had moved on from the accident, a jogger in the woods slowed down his run and stopped next to a leather-bound tome lying in the grass.
