One night, he opened the book to the final page. There was only one question left.
A) He was running late.B) He liked the bitterness.C) He was subconsciously preparing for a funeral. Handbook of Multiple Choice Questions
Arthur began to sweat. The "correct" answers were starting to feel like a cage. He looked at the woman he had married—the woman from the bus stop—and realized he didn't know if she loved him, or if he had simply "selected" her. One night, he opened the book to the final page
Arthur, a weary grad student, found it tucked behind a row of encyclopedias. When he opened it, he didn’t find facts. He found a question about his own morning: Arthur began to sweat
Arthur looked at the ink. He looked at the life he had built, which felt as thin as a sheet of paper. He didn't pick A, B, or C. Instead, he took a pen and drew a messy, jagged at the bottom of the page. Underneath it, he wrote: Whatever happens next.
He spent weeks with the book, "answering" his way into a better life. He chose the right investments (Option D), the perfect apartment (Option B), and avoided a minor car accident (Option A). He was the master of his own destiny, one letter at a time. But the questions grew increasingly narrow.
In the dim, fluorescent-lit archives of St. Jude’s University, there was a book that didn't belong. It was a thick, leather-bound volume titled the Handbook of Multiple Choice Questions , but it wasn’t filled with history or science. It was filled with lives.