Recipes - A Short Story

Sam’s eyes were burning. He didn’t even want to look at what time it was but he knew he had to keep going. One more he thought, one more then he would have to call it. He checked his phone and sighed heavily. The stopwatch on his official work app said that he had been going for 35 hours, 47 minutes straight, no sleep. At least he got all the energy drinks he could want and food was provided, even if it was bland and tasteless.

He sighed and looked at what was left and his heart sank again. Sam had no idea when this would end, but after only 6 months of it, he wasn’t sure if he could keep at it much longer. There were so many books on his desk, and on the desks of his peers. The converted hangar wasn’t designed for sound dampening and without headphones you’d go mad with the sound of thousands of pages being turned.

“Sam babe! What do you want for dinner?” Asked Jessica, his partner of 4 years. Before it all hit the fan 6 months earlier, Sam and Jessica had been married for 2 years, living together for 4. And they were expecting too. Sam thought he was ready to be a father, but the closer it got to the due date, the more nervous he became.

“I don’t know why you’re asking me!” Sam replied from upstairs. “You’re the pregnant one. What are you craving? I’ll cook!” He heard Jess ponder the question out loud with a big hmm and could tell she was thinking. It was the little things that made him happy. He knew Jess’ nose would be scrunched up in thought. He could picture it in his sleep.

“Could you make my grandmother's meatloaf?” Came the reply after a brief pause. “I have a book of recipes somewhere in the attic!”

“Sure thing darling!” Sam responded as he signed off of WoW. Pushing himself away from his gaming computer, Sam stood up and made his way to the attic stairs tucked into the ceiling above him. He pulled them down and ascended, using his phone as a flashlight.

Sam coughed and tried to wave the dust away, which rushed to meet him like a long known friend. Neither he nor Jessica had been in the attic too much since they moved in and used it mostly for things they didn’t know what to do with.The phone illuminated dust motes and a messy array of household items that don’t always serve a purpose, but you know would be amiss if that purpose came up and you didn’t have what you needed.

Rummaging through a few boxes, Sam found one labeled Jess’s things and began to dig. It was fairly easy to find the cookbook, since Jess was fond of scrapbooking and had large books packed away together so finding one labeled Grandma’s Recipes was a breeze.

If it’s meatloaf my wife wants, it’s meatloaf my wife will have thought Sam as he opened up the recipe book. To his surprise though, the book was empty. Blank page after blank page in the book.

Odd, he thought. Maybe this is one she’s hoping to fill up and she just hasn’t gotten around to it, Sam thought. Peering back into the box, Sam brings out a book labeled “Comfort Food” and opens it. This book is printed and published, so maybe the meatloaf is just a twist on a recipe from inside here

“Hey Jess?” Sam calls down into the house. “What’s with these misprinted books?”

“What misprinted books?”

“These books you’ve not unpacked yet!” Sam called. “They’re really, really old but nothing is printed on the inside.”

“Sam! I’m not walking up to the attic! Just come down here and show me!”

Sam put the printed book back into the large box and lifted it up. Taking care, Sam made his way down the flights of stairs and found his wife watching TV in their living room. With a grunt, the large box of books landed on the coffee table. Picking one at random, Sam picked one and opened it to Jess.

“See what I mean?” Says Sam as he holds the blank pages up. “This isn’t even the one I was talking about. Some kind of collection of misprints?”

“That’s odd…” Murmured Jessica. “I’ve never collected misprinted books. Misprint Pokemon cards yes, but not books.” She said as she picked out another book, this one labeled Christmas ‘22. What she saw didn’t catch her by surprise at all. Looking back at her were pictures of her family and of Sam’s family all together having a great time. But the captions she wrote on the pages weren’t there anymore. “Take a look at this babe.” Jess says as she hands the scrapbook over to Sam.

“Yeah, I remember you making this. It's our families. I’m not talking about your scrap books though, I’m talking about…” Sam cut short as he noticed the irregularity too. No printed words under any of the pictures. And he knew Jessica labeled everything in her scrapbooks. “What the fuck…”

Jessica pulls out another book, this one titled “Desserts to Die For” and opens it. The book had pictures of mouth watering desserts, but the recipes themselves were blank. Nothing.

“Maybe it’s because they’re just so old?” Suggests Sam. “Like, the ink faded on these old recipe books or something. This looks like it’s from the 60s.” Sam remarks as he holds up a small cooking booklet whose pages were turning brown from age and neglect. It too had no recipes.

“Fading ink?” Asks Jessica as she looks up at Sam who just shrugs. “I don’t think ink that’s three years old fades just like that. Plus, you and I have both read books that were incredibly old. We’ve been to Europe where they have books older than our country, we’ve seen it. So it’s not the ink.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point.”

Both Sam and Jess decide at the same time to investigate every book in the box. They dig in, opening books at random.

“What is with this box?”

“You’re the one who picked it.”

Jess murmured as Sam lays down the last book on the coffee table. “So we learned… nothing. Except every book in this box are misprints.. I’ll go grab another box then, give me one second.” 

As Sam leaves to go to the attic again, Jessica gets up from the couch and grabs a book that Sam was reading with his coffee in the morning.. She picks up the Terry Pratchett book and opens it. Unlike the books in the box, this book wasn’t misprinted or wrecked. “So this book is fine. Maybe just that box?” Says Jessica out loud as she pulls books off of her bookshelf to investigate. 

Moments later, a second box was placed on the floor beside the coffee table where Sam begins to hand some books to his wife.

More misprints. An entire box of old books that they had collected over the years but never really gave much thought too. Dollar store books, copies of books that they’ve already owned, books from friends that would never make their way back home, that sort of thing. All empty on the inside.

“Okay, something is weird.” Said Sam as he put a book down, looking at his exasperated wife who nodded in agreement.

“A whole box like this doesn’t just magically become misprinted. And the chances of every box in here being misprinted when none of us collect misprints is wild.”

“So what? We check all of our books to see if we’ve gone crazy and then we find there’s no actual words in them?” Asks Sam. 

“Well…” Says Jessica as she thinks. “So, two boxes in the attic were full of misprints, but the books on that shelf are fine.” She ponders as Sam walks over to the shelf to pick a book.

“Yup, good ole Pratchett. He doesn’t mess things up.” Said Sam as he put the book back in place. Curiosity though was never happy with one experiment, so Sam grabbed two more. “Weird…”

“What’s up? More misprints?”

“I guess so? This book is fine.” Sam said, as he holds the book up to show Jess. “Words, story, it’s all there.” The second book was opened to blank pages. “But this one is blank.” He said as he holds up Tolkien's The Two Towers. Picking up Return of the King to see, Sam was worried to find that, it too, was blank. “I read the Fellowship last month, but didn’t make it to the other books before we got too busy with Christmas.” Explains Sam as he passes The Fellowship to his wife. “I didn’t notice anything then, but these…” Continues Sam as he lays out the other two books in the trilogy. “These books are all from the same boxed set. So why is the Fellowship okay but the other two aren’t?”

“And you’re sure you made it through The Fellowship?”

“Yeah, right to the end. I picked up The Two Towers…” Says Sam as he picks up the book again and flips through it. “Wait… Jess, take a look at this.”

“What the… the first few pages are normal… but the rest of the book is blank?”

“And The Return of the King has nothing in it at all?”

He nods his agreement. “I know I didn’t finish The Two Towers, and I’m not sure where I left off before we got too busy, but… This first section does seem at least somewhat familiar.” Said Sam as he puts the book down on the coffee table, completing the trilogy of books. 

The rest of the evening was spent looking over all of the books in the house. Sam and Jessica were scared but curious about what they were piecing together.

“If I didn’t see it literally right in front of us, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Says Jessica as she lowers herself onto the couch, holding onto her stomach for comfort and stability.

Laid out before them were a collection of books ranging from how often they had been read over the past 2 years. 2 years is what they were able to remember from their reading history but it seemed enough to provide a foundation for their theory. They then had books that they knew hadn’t been touched in years and years.

The neglected books were completely blank on the inside. Sam’s yearbook, 20 years old and not touched in over a decade. No names, no captions, even the signatures on the inside were gone. All that remained were the pictures.

“At least a picture is worth a thousand words.” Sam joked nervously as he put down another book. Jessica was already texting some friends. “So, looking back, the books we just recently finished, completely fine… But this one…” Ponders Sam as he picks up a Bernard Cornwell book. “This is somewhat faded. I read it about 2 years ago when Vikings had a new season and I wanted to reread the book.” Jessica is distracted with her phone so Sam talks to himself. “My Goosebumps books from when I was a kid, completely blank. And laying these books out like this, I guess… Those books we haven’t read in a while are…”

Sam is cut off by Jessica exclaiming urgent news. “Stacey says her books are doing the same thing.” Jess hands her phone up to Sam so he can read the screen.

“I did what you said.” Read the texts. “Current book I’m reading, totally normal. But I grabbed an Animorphs book from elementary school, completely blank.”

“What the fuck…”

“I tried my new Lord of the Rings books. Completely fine too. I haven’t had a chance to dig into them but they were just published this year, special collectors item.”

“So the age of the story doesn’t matter, nor does it seem the publication date.” Jessica took her phone back and began her train of thought. “It can’t be that it’s just neglect that’s causing this? Can it?” Asks Jesssica as she looks up at Sam.

“Let’s just try and get some sleep. Maybe we’re all just really stoned or something.” Suggests Sam. Jess gave him a look that Sam knew meant she didn’t believe him, especially since she was pregnant, but she sighed and resigned herself to going to bed.

And that’s how it all started, thought Sam as he leaned back in his office chair to stretch the sleep and fatigue away. 6 months ago was now referred to as The Fade, when the world realized that neglected words written in books were fading away.

It was quick when the world caught on to what Sam and Jessica had discovered in their living room. A plane crash was the near literal wake-up call for all of Canada the next day. According to the black box, something on the plane malfunctioned and the pilots were both rookies. Cutbacks in training and bonuses to the board members meant pilots were being sent into the skies on very little training. “They always have the training manual” was the excuse from the airline's publicists. But the instructions had been neglected. The airline had relied on their computerized troubleshooting and the instruction manuals hadn’t been opened in years.

The rookie pilots had no idea what to do when their instruments went blank and, whatever they tried, it was too little too late. The plane went down and black box recording was leaked online. Everyone heard the pilots screaming to each other about blank instruction manuals. At first the company was sued for malicious negligence for providing blank training manuals but that was quickly dismissed once the world caught onto the dire situation.

Though of course, it wasn’t dire for all. A shocking number of people simply didn’t care that neglected books were being lost to history. “Wikipedia” has it all. “I just read on my kindle.” They all said. Or simply “I don’t read.”

But Sam cared, as did Jessica. And so that’s where Sam finds himself now. He always bragged to his nerd friends about how quickly he could read, and now it was his job. Preserving books, like some kind of fucked up librarian. He copied down what he could so others could read, but he knew that each book he read extended it’s life by a little at least so that’s what he did. There was only so much you could do after 30 plus hours of straight reading. He felt he was losing his mind, but he knew it was an important job. He had a daughter now and he wanted to raise her in a world filled with books.

And so Sam looked around his desk for the last book of the day. He had an uncounted amount of unopened books to choose from. Some personal diaries or journals from famous historical figures or people rich enough to buy their way into history, instruction manuals for basic machines, some fiction and more.

He found a copy of essays from a Harvard professor on the history of law and smiled. His ability to read quickly meant he got some of the better choices to read, though he still did his part in reading instruction manuals.

Sam drank from his aluminum can of caffeine and brought the essays under his desk’s lamp light. Then his eyes spotted a copy of Goosebumps. The first one in fact. Buried in a pile of loose books dropped off by a collector. Totally untouched but he could tell by the pages that it was an older version of the book. Not much time left for it at all.

Sam looked at the essays, and then he looked at Welcome to Dead House, the first Goosebumps book.

With a heavy sigh, Sam takes another drink and rubs his eyes. He digs in and begins to read because, in the end, we need to remind ourselves that we're more than just shadows on the wall.