'No, you're not insane.'

The words written in faded pencil sure made me feel insane, as they had been the words I intended to write when I opened this second volume of 'Windmill Construction Through The Ages.' I bent the book across the worn spine to read the rest of this hidden line.

'Hello star child!' it read. 'Hello new me. Hello beautiful, innocent redeemer. I want to tell you so much, so please find my collected notes in the pages of 511.712094'

The number held no significance to me. I thought it might be some sort of code that only I would know the answer to, so that no unsuspecting windmill-construction fanatic could accidentally stumble upon my past self's secrets of the universe.

But no. It's the Dewey Decimal system. And as the first librarian I asked for help pointed this out to me, I felt like a complete idiot in two lifetimes. The librarian showed me exactly where to find 'Children In The Early Anthropocene.' It looked to be some incredibly niche topic on the study of historical geology. The book made a cracking sound as I freed it from the bottom shelf, as if it had become a part of the library from so many decades without moving. I could barely keep the pages from falling out of the old binding for how weak the spine had been worn.

Retreating with the book to a private corner of a study room, I pulled the hardback covers wide apart and found a sort of confession written out one line at a time in the hidden margin between the pages.

'Your name was once Arthur Bishopp. I'm sure it's a pleasure to finally meet yourself. If you're lucky enough to be reading this, you must have found one of my many notes left behind in what books I imagined would interest your young mind. Tectonic Tides of Pangaea vol. IV, I suspect?

'I knew you'd retain my love of the sciences. You must be such a gifted child in your school. I bet all the teachers ask where your brilliance comes from.

'Me, dear child. It comes from me. Think of me as your true father, for you are the product of my devotions to study. Not only have I lived my life to the utmost of karmatic benevolence to ensure a favorable rebirthing, I have crammed my head so full of knowledge that it has become entwined with my soul. You did not need to learn from a teacher that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the right angle sides. You knew it instinctively. The teacher needed only to remind you.

'I imagine you will be able to accomplish great things for human kind with these blessings I have bestowed upon you. Be sure not to take all the credit, but you probably need no reminder. We always have been a very humble person.

'Since you are obviously ingrained already with my same love of knowledge, for proof in having found this book at all, and are primed by my studies to absorb all collective knowledge at their first encounters, I see no need in imparting any key scholarly teachings here. Instead, I will give you the best of all personal advice I've collected after fifty-seven years travelling this earth, as I'm sure it will pertain to you still.

'Don't let others interrupt you.

'Don't suffer fools.

'Don't cast your pearls before swine.

'Don't eat with your mouth full.

The advice carried on and on, one line per a page, for what looked like at least a third of the book. I stopped reading and closed the book.

Everything was beginning to make sense in my life. I was not born a genius, as Arthur Bishopp had expected. I did not scour the library as a child looking for the latest volume in the series about tectonic plates. I sucked dirt.

This man was the reason I had been born into a hard life of squalor, to a mother that could never afford rent and a father who walked out after the birth of my third younger sister.

This man is the reason karma saw fit to give me a body that couldn't run too fast without risking a complete shattering of my lower vertebrae.

This insufferable man, and his god awful list of life advice, gave me colitis.

Even now, in my sixty-eighth year of life, I have zero scholarly interests. I only picked up the book on windmills because I liked the picture on the cover. I can't believe that my same consciousness shared the same mind as such a self-righteous know-it-all. What vanity! Assuming he would pass on such a genius that I could better human kind with my knowledge of tectonic plates.

Despite the proof for my theory of reincarnation, discovering this text has turned me off of the whole concept of leaving behind any words of wisdom for my future self. If Arthur left me anything at all, it must be the vanity for thinking my current self could ever know better than the next iteration of my soul.

I'm not going to make some child live in the past for my sake.

I dunked the historical geology textbook into the library's toilet before slipping it into the trash. Then I prayed that the memory of what I read would not outlive me.

​

**********

I'm somewhat new to the sub, but this is day 16 of my streak. If you want to see more of my submissions like this, they're collected at r/FarFetchedFiction

Thanks.

He browsed the shelves of historical research that had sat untouched for decades, the last patrons of these tomes were likely the professors that authored them. Here they sat undisturbed in this catacomb of knowledge.

He checked over his shoulder for no other reason than guilt. He knew what he was to do would be selfish, but it was the only way for him to be sure. He could not go through the remembering again, life was just too hard without the comfort and peace of the knowing.

A dense volume on hellenistic historical events called out to him. He slipped it from its place. He held it between his wrinkled fingers turning to the page number that matched his birth date. The dried paper, yellowed with age, rustled with each turn of the page until the spot was found.

"It won't work." Written in his own hand in red ballpoint pen next to the page number. His initials and today's date accompanied the note.

A cold shiver of terror ran the length of this spin to the end of his toes. He put the book back as fast as his decrepit muscles would allow and picked up the one next to it.

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. STOP!"

Filled every lage of the record book written frantically in red ink overtop the printed material.

He dropped the book to the floor. Its weight met the polished marble floor with a resounding crack. He hobbled from the aisle, his gold handled koi fish cane clacked in cadence with the hard soles of his shined shoes.

He turned into another aisle at random. The first selection was too obvious. Of course he had done this before, he had made so many of the same choices, why wouldn't this be the same? Random. That's the ticket.

He pulled a book from a shelf of mathematical theory,

"You aren't meant to know." Was written in the familiar red ink on the inside of the cover. He flipped to the next page.

A hand clasped his shoulder. The breath left his body. He frozen in terror as the strong hand turned him round.

"You're not ready." The voice commanded.

He lifted his eyes from the book to his assailant, it was him. Himself. A younger man. A different man by age alone.

The blade pierced his diaphragm just below his sternum. His heart pumped his blood in pulsing gushes cascading to the marble floor. A bloody pool formed around his polished loafers. His cane fell to his side. The man embarrassed himself, holding him dearly in his last moments he whispered a final command.

"Try again."

"What the fuck?!" were the first words that came out of my mouth when I saw that note between the pages of that shady book. It had details about me and my life that wasn't exactly accurate but at the same time... they were? On the surface, it seemed like random stuff written on a piece of paper as a joke but deep down I had this weird feeling that this was more than that. "Can I help you?" said a young, well-dressed lady from behind. It seemed like she was pretty experienced because of her confidence but she also looked as excited as a newbie starting a new job. "Uh- yeah, do you know anything about this book?" I asked curiously. "Well as much as I can tell you, it's quite an old book, and contains contents about ritualistic stuff, if you are into that" she laughingly replied. "It seems so because I'm taking this home!".

Two days had passed since I first picked up that book. I didn't have much time to find out anything about it. in fact, I had completely forgotten about that book until I saw it sitting on my desk, just waiting. "Hey, there new me! If you're reading it, congratulations! You, or should I say WE made it and quite luckily found this note. As much as I can say, there are secrets you need to find out yourself. And say hi to Martha if possible, I have really missed her. Perhaps, she will give a second chance to someone who has been reborn!" Martha, that was what snapped this feeling of deja vu in me. I'm pretty sure there's no Martha that I know of, yet it sounded so close to home. A weird mix of happiness and guilt. Was this just some sort of prank and I am going crazy? Or is there something more to this? Whatever this is, I'm in for a ride!

​

(This is my first time on this subreddit so sorry if my writing sounds weird to you hehe)

I was sitting in the library stacks, perusing one of my favorite volumes, when Douglas McCloud walked in. Doug was quite wealthy, and reasonably healthy, especially for a man in his late sixties.

Despite his hardy constitution, however, Doug was well aware of his age, and had become more so in the past few years. This led him, as it leads many men in that phase of life, to consider his final destination, and seek answers about where his last steps would lead him.

Of all the options advertised, Doug liked reincarnation best. Other theories involved everything simply ending, or a life of ethereal bliss that sounded far too trite for him to accept. None of that nonsense, thank you very much -- only reincarnation would do, for Mr. Douglas McCloud.

Indeed, it was his belief in this concept that led him to the library that day. Doug hadn't arrived to seek further knowledge of the beyond, however. He'd come to send a message, to himself. Or rather, the self he would be when he returned for his next helping of mortal existence.

It was a feat that he believed he could pull off, thanks to his possession of a substantial amount of currency. No, not money, though he also had plenty of that to spare. Doug had also shifted a substantial portion of his assets to the currency used in the reincarnation business: karma.

Doug liked the idea of karma. It was mathematical, like economics, and economics were something he understood very well. Do more good than bad, and ultimately, you get a proportional upgrade on your next go-round. This appealed to him more than other methods of retiring one's moral mortgages. He'd always resented the idea that he should have to feel bad about about things he'd done, or enact some sort of transformation in himself, in order to account for his mistakes. What good did that do for anyone, anyway?

As he saw it, if he embraced the idea of karma, he didn't need to feel bad. He just needed to pay a fine to the Universe for his misdeeds, and move on. Moreover, as he saw it this gave him much more freedom and flexibility, since the morality of any individual action mattered very little compared to the totality of his karma summed up when he ceased his mortal operations -- and his considerable resources would allow him to impact that total dramatically.

For example, his fondness for attractive young women, both those who traded privately, and those who offered their charms for sale directly on the open market, would have been seen as a vice by most, or least as rather excessive. But, as he saw it, he did nothing in his interactions with one or two dozen women per year that wouldn't be utterly karmically obliterated by the one or two dozen women's shelters he funded, which aided many thousands of women during that same year.

His dearly departed wife might not have seen it that way, he had to admit, but then, she'd known of his proclivities, and she'd still stayed with him until her death, so even she must have realized that he did her far more good than he did harm.

The one thing that bothered him was starting over from square one -- he'd earned a lot of important skills, through hard experience. Even now, if he had to start over from nothing, he felt confident he could parlay those skills into a comfortable retirement, in only a few years. His reincarnated self, however, though he could expect to have the benefit of more favorable circumstances as a result of his good karma, would lack all of that valuable knowledge.

There was nothing he could do about it, directly -- all the sources he'd read agreed on that, sadly. But, with enough good karma, his reincarnation should be more inherently enlightened, which should in turn lead him to seek more knowledge about the universe and his place in it. Doug hoped that this search would lead his future self here, to the library's peerless selection of rare books on religion and philosophy. Inside the most obscure of these volumes, Doug would conceal notes with important information his future self would need to know, and invaluable life lessons gained from Doug's own experience.

It would be an extremely lucky coincidence if his future self found these notes, obviously, since this future-Doug wouldn't remember putting them there for him to find. But Doug felt that with the amount of good karma he was accumulating for his next life, extremely good luck was something his future self was practically guaranteed.

When he went to place his first note, however, he found something he didn't expect: there was already something pressed between the pages of the rare, esoteric volume. An ancient, yellowed envelope, signed "To my future incarnation -- J.D. Rockefeller"

To his amazement, Douglas found that the letter from the past that seemed to be meant for him, it described the successful businessman he'd become, and expressed confidence that he would possess the wisdom -- and the luck -- to both find and comprehend the letter left by his past incarnation, the famous tycoon John David Rockefeller. And like the letter Doug had planned to leave in the very same old book, it contained instructions and ideas from a man of the past to his future incarnation -- some of which he wouldn't have thought of, nor even dared considered.

He wasn't completely credulous, of course. He'd think it over, and later he'd quietly hire a team of discrete experts to authenticate the less supernatural parts of the letter. It was, they would conclude, Rockefeller's handwriting, for a start. But the part that established the letter's bona fides also mentioned secrets of the old oil baron that could still be, and later were, authenticated. They were things that only Rockefeller himself could possibly have known.

But that night, still wide-eyed in wonder and excitement, he'd just fled from the library, taking the wondrous letter with him. I smiled, as I watched him go.

Of course, handwriting can be forged, if you have the skill. As for the secrets in the letter, well you could also know them if you were there when they were hidden away.

And I had been there, with Rockefeller -- him, and a lot of other men and women, over the years. Sometimes, while I'm hanging about, I make a suggestion or two. And sometimes, they listen. But I'm always close by.

I'll stick especially close to Doug, from now on, as he follows the instructions I've given him. And when his time comes, I'll be the one to show him out, and escort him to his destination.

I hope he likes surprises.

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The old man stood there shocked and began cheering with proof that he was correct. One thing he forgot though was this library barely existed 50 years, it would be improbable for his past self to be here when he himself only moved to this small cottage town after retirement, and that his grandson, a boy of 11, knew of his plan and followed him here to mess with him.

The boy planned this out by putting a note in his grandfather’s favourite book: tales of Don Quixote and waiting for him to do the same. The note had 2 sides one read as the note from his grandfathers past life and the other was the grandsons signature with a smiley face drown next to it.

When the elderly man heard snickering, he saw his grandson attempting to hide out of view. He flipped the note around realizing he was pranked. The Elderly man, always one in high spirits laughed along side his grandson. They continued their day trip around the cottage town picking up artisanal candy, bread, cheese, and some fire crackers for the evening.

While his grandson is a prankster, the elderly man always enjoyed having his family visit

A chrysanthemum? No. He squinted, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes turned into talons. What kind of flower is this? The book trembled silently in his grasp as the old man looked at the faded paper stuck between the pages.

A flower. The hidden note had nothing more than a shakily drawn flower on it, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember what kind of flower it was. Chrysanthemum. There that word was again. If not that, then what else could it be?

His eyes slowly found the righthand corner of the page, where the number 617 looked back up at him expectantly. He had flipped to this page, but why? All he knew was that his throat itched. Wait, is that all he knew? The sudden realization of his own confusion caused an even sharper reaction in his esophagus, and he reached up to the pull on the turtleneck which felt even tighter around his neck.

The crinkle of paper stopped his hand halfway, and his eyes widened in shock. Another piece of paper, similar to the one with the picture of the Chrysanthemum hidden away on page 617, was held in his other hand. With a start, the old man flipped the newly discovered note over to find another picture of a flower drawn on the front of it.

“Chrysanthemum.” The word escaped his cracked lips before he even knew what he was saying, and just like that he recognized the flower. Now this, this one, is a chrysanthemum. An artist had clearly created the beautiful flower, colored deeply pink. But then what was the flower in the book? His eyes turned back to the pages.

Now that he looked at it again, the flower in the book looked sad. Nothing like the one in his hand. Colored a somber shade of blue, its petals drooped, and it leaned heavily as if pulled downward. He felt a pang of regret, and a memory tugged at the back of his consciousness. It stayed just out of his reach. He gently ran a weathered hand over the image, then without thinking turned to the next page.

618. Moving as if in a dream, he slid the picture of the Chrysanthemum in between the pages. As he let go of the image, he felt an immense release, and with a surge of inspiration started turning back the pages further than he had before. Another flower, this one burning red and angry. He felt his heart beat faster, and his shaking hands continued to turn pages as fast as they could. Pictures of flowers were tucked in between every page. Purple, yellow, green, bright, dull, small, large… every type of flower imaginable lived between these pages.

Before long he found himself on page 1. Reincarnation. The only thing living on page 1 was the single word. And with that word, he remembered.

“A flower,” he whispered. “One flower for each life. Some of them memorable, some of them forgettable. Yet all in the same place, in the end.”

He closed the book and slid it back into the bookshelf in front of him. After a moment, the old man’s face contorted into a confused grimace, and he looked around indecisively. More moments passed, and he began to hobble toward the end of the aisle. A sea of bookshelves, each one packed to the brim with books, flowed outward in every direction. He wandered aimlessly, leaving the book behind. Until next time.

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