Fortune Cookie Writer
By: Savanna Macri
"Fortune cookies aren't even Chinese," I read aloud, grinning slightly to myself as I sent the message into manufacturing, and I began to laugh.
It was ordinary to include fun facts into the process, but I suppose with many of my messages, they are anything but fun--at least, not to the receiver. To me, the distributor, it was like standing at the entry of an amusement where truth and reality splashed together in neon lights and swirling cheers.
'Just follow procedure,' they had told me upon first arrival last year. 'Follow the script. Something inspirational. Something to make people happy.'
Do you mean, "Something bullshit?" I asked teasingly in my head, and I found the most enjoyment with it, my time well spent with mockery and self-amusement, though I was certain that maybe at least one person who find it just as meaningful, far more than a simple "You are as bright as the sun" kind of foolishness the others will receive. With every one I sent, I thought of a whiny child, complaining that his or her quotes wasn't pretty or happy enough. I imagined the typical scowls, the tossing of the fortune, and I imagined the hands fishing back into the bowl to receive a better one that actually gave them that disgusting false self-satisfaction that another one million people also received.
What a shame, I always thought. I never put the same message twice. You get mine, you truly are one of a kind, but perhaps that note is actually reminding you are just a human who will eventually fall away. How ironic.
I chuckled to myself and flicked my eyes to the back wall where Rear Window played, one of the only movies I ever brought into the miniscule office.
I typed. Soon, the most enjoyed movie right now is going to be forgotten.
Sent!
I smiled as Jimmy Stewart looked out his window, holding those classic binoculars into the apartment across the yard.
I typed. Chances are, someone has watched you in your hotel room before from a different hotel room.
Sent!
It was a real joy to know no one ever proofread these fortunes--who would ever have time for that? And besides, the most common ones were always just that; the most common ones, like a cardboard cut-out of a sun with a small fan being used to simulate a breeze. Pathetic.
I typed. Imagination is just a desperate attempt at satisfaction.
Sent!
I imagined whoever would receive that fortune would freeze for about two seconds, wallowing in pity and pain, and I did in fact find humor in it. How so many people actually cared about what one slip of paper told them, even pinning it to their wall or taping it to their mirror to look at every day. Reality hurts, doesn't it? But oh, in the world of sushi and cupcakes, who gives a damn, the sun shines all day with rainbows that magically appeared, and you hope to gain a fortunate fortune.
I suppose that was my goal; to prove to these people how words on one scrap of paper are worthless.
But that thought always tripped me; I tried to prove how words on one scrap of paper are worthless and yet, my message of that proof came on one scrap of paper.
Talk about ironic.
A groan slid from my throat as I rolled my eyes, just barely passing a glance at the crisp hollow shell of the cookie on my plate, the only thing I always left untouched.
Certainly, while delicately, I put my fingers over the keys, they did not dance or scatter.
Because, deciding, I did not type.
I left the next note blank.
Sent!
