An everyday journal and an apparently blank cassette. Originally created for a Delta Green green box.

There’s this story I heard, about a friend of a friend – you know how these things are. We’d heard these stories about his brother, that he’d gone missing about a month ago, and his parents were tearing their hair out in worry. The brother had gone to collect his brothers belongings from the house he’d been living in. The landlady had piled all his belongings into the back of a cupboard, or something. A bunch of paintings. A whole pile of books. Some CDs.

Anyhow, my friend’s friend apparently finds this sealed package amongst the items. DO NOT OPEN it says across one side. Yeah, you can see where this is going already, right? He opens the package up and there’s this hardback notebook, you know, the type you find in any stationery store. And a cassette. Of course, he’s curious about the cassette, but who has anything to play them on nowadays. He slips it back into the package and starts to flick through the book.

It’s a journal. It’s his brother’s journal.

He starts to read through this book, which has got about a couple of days dedicated to each day, starting from not long after the guy last saw his brother. It’s pretty deep stuff, and the guy is a little bothered about how sad the guy appears to be. Apparently a friend has died, and it’s all been a bit too much for him, but he’s dealing with it. Still, over time he seems to be getting better, he starts to get into his art and stuff – in fact the entries become more dreamlike and weird.

My friend’s friend is concerned, of course, and wants to know what happened to his brother, so he skips to the end. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious clue about where he is, but it mentions that he’s headed into the big smoke, he’s been hanging around at some parties and stuff and having a great time. But it doesn’t give any clue as to where he might have gone.

Then this guy clocks the date of the final entry. It’s yesterday’s date.

He goes a bit crazy, you know? First he thinks it’s a prank, then he starts questioning the landlady. He’s freaked out. His brother’s been missing for a month. What’s going on here? But she can’t answer him, and finally he heads off home, crest-fallen.

That night he listens to the tape. And it confuses him even more. From the very beginning, when the player bleeps at him as if it’s an answer machine, followed by a an automated voice telling him when the message was left. Then there’s silence. Well, you know, not silence, there’s background noise and stuff, but no-one speaking. There’s the sound of sobbing, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t hear the thing. Anyway, this voice starts speaking, and it’s the brother. He starts explaining how he can’t deal with what’s happened, what he’s responsible, and that he must end it all. A minute or so of apologies, pleas for forgiveness. Then this gunshot sounds, and there’s a slumping sound. Seconds later, the message ends, an automated voice stating that there are no more new messages.

The gunshot freaks my friend’s friend out, sure. But apparently what really freaked him out, rflecting on the message, is the automated voice, telling him when the answer machine message was left. In one week’s time. Seven whole days into the future.

He was going a little crazy before, but now he’s hysterical. Can’t sleep. He doesn’t dare play the tape again til the morning and it’s blank, like someone just taped over the whole thing. In desperation he starts flicking through the pages of the journal for clues, but he finds nothing. Except one thing.

The final entry in the journal is yesterday’s. Another day has passed and another entry has been written.

It gets a little mixed up about here. My friend’s friend went a little nuts. He felt there was nothing he could do but watch, day by day, as a new entry was added to the journal, entires that seemed suddenly to spiral down into deep depression and extreme melancholy. Finally there was a clue. The name of a venue. But the date, by then, was the date of the answer machine message. And by the time he reached the venue, somewhere where his brother was due to perform in some performance art piece, his brother had blown his brains out across his dressing-room wall.

The final entry appeared the next morning, naming the person it held responsible for his sudden decline. The person who had played that cassette, one week ago.

My friend’s friend got rid of the book then and there. Gave it away to someone to burn, to dispose of, to never fuck up someone else’s life.

And that person, in return, passed it onto me.

Do want a look?

Crunchy Bits:

There are no hard and fast rules written up here, but the original idea here is that the book is essentially a blank book until handled by someone wanting to find information about the previous owner. The journal then summarise the previous owners daily thoughts every midnight. Or at 3:33 AM, if that’s more your style. It then retraces a history back until approximately the last time the reader saw that person.

The tape too is blank, unless listened to by someone who has read the book (and obviously, in order to have read the book you need to have attuned it to someone first). Once read the tape attunes itself to the same person, but essentially instegates their suicide. The playing of the tape means they will commit suicide in seven days. The tape plays back their final thoughts, which usually include the revelation of who exactly played the tape.

A few variables:

The person the book attunes to may become aware of someone reading their thoughts or playing the suicide tape.

The book might only attune itself to a previous owner who has made the mistake of reading it and attuning it to someone else.

The book might attune itself on a loved one of the reader, rather than the previous owner. Although, as in the case of the story, this may be the same person.

The journal rarely mentions itself, or the tape, amongst it’s pages.

People who own the book often throw themselves into life, hoping to avoid the fates of the last victim. Along the way they often pack the book away somewhere, only to be dug up again when people try to work out where they’ve gone.

No-one knows what happens if you write in the journal yourself. Theoretically you might be gain some limited control over the attuned persons thoughts and actions, although the book will eventually attempt to rewrite itself in the next available space.

Writing in the book would mean the attuned person registers, to some degree, as the writer. And they could not be swayed from the story written for them.

Writing in the book might, possibly, be used to prevent the suicide normally brought on by the tape.

The tape and book can never be permanently parted. Even if one is destroyed, another blank book or tape will appear. Possibly, if both are destroyed simultaneously, the ‘curse’ would end.