The Practical Guide

Elias loved the corner booth of his local coffee shop, mostly because it gave him the best vantage point to watch people react to his reading material. Today, the thick paperback sitting on his table was titled: Time Travel for Beginners: A Practical Guide.

He bought all his stationery from Not-Books. The concept was brilliant: high-quality, lined journals perfectly disguised as deeply questionable literature. They were his favorite way to mess with people. Last week, he brought Vegan Dracula to a corporate budget meeting. The week before, he sat on the subway aggressively taking notes inside a book titled How to Fake Your Own Death. Strangers would glance at the covers, their eyes widening in shock, while Elias secretly just used the blank lined pages inside to draft his grocery lists and track his work expenses.

It was a harmless, hilarious inside joke.

He flipped the Time Travel journal open to a fresh page, jotted down a quick reminder to pick up his dry cleaning, and left the notebook on the table to grab his Americano from the pickup counter.

When he returned a minute later, the notebook was exactly where he left it.

He sat down, grabbed his pen, and looked at the page. But the lines beneath his dry cleaning reminder were no longer empty. They were filled with his own messy, unmistakable handwriting.

Elias frowned, leaning in closer.

10:14 AM: The barista drops a glass pitcher.

Elias blinked. He didn't remember writing that. He checked his watch. It was exactly 10:13.

Crash. Elias flinched. Behind the counter, the barista was apologizing profusely over a shattered glass pitcher, iced coffee pooling across the floor tiles.

Elias’s heart did a slow, heavy thud against his ribs. He looked back down at the lined paper.

10:15 AM: A woman in a yellow raincoat bursts through the front door, crying.

The little brass bell above the cafe door jingled loudly. A woman in a bright yellow raincoat hurried inside, wiping fresh tears from her cheeks as she rushed toward the restrooms.

Elias stopped breathing. He stared at the fake gag journal. The joke wasn't funny anymore.

His eyes darted to the bottom of the page. The handwriting there was different—it was still his, but rushed, frantic, the pen pressing so hard into the paper it had nearly torn through the page.

10:17 AM: Do not look up. The man in the gray suit sitting by the window finally realizes who you are. Leave the notebook. Get out the back door. Now.

Elias froze. He could feel the sudden, heavy weight of a stare from across the room. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He slowly closed the cover of Time Travel for Beginners.

And he ran.