Free Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) by R. M. Ridley

stabbed at his noodles, annoyed by the lack of leads or answers he had.
    Usually he had something to run down, some clue or sign, but Wendell’s case had left him barking up empty trees everywhere he turned. Every time he thought he’d caught a glimpse of the perpetrator, it turned out to be nothing but the flicker of light as bird shit landed on his shades.
    They finished the meal in silence and Bao took their plates away. At Jonathan’s request, he brought another small pot of fresh tea to the table with the bill and, as always, cellophane-encased fortune cookies.
    Jonathan refilled each of their cups, picked up the bill, and slid one of the cookies towards Wendell.
    He hadn’t thought about the action; it was just an automatic gesture. If he had thought about it, Jonathan would have chosen the same course of action. He just would have been better prepared for the outcome.
    Jonathan ripped the plastic from off his own cookie, broke it in two, and pulled the two pieces apart, popping the half that didn’t contain the paper fortune into his mouth. He chewed the lightly almond-flavored dessert and then took a sip of his tea.
    He took out his wallet and, as he rummaged for cash, asked Wendell if he had ever participated in a séance, performed a tarot reading, played on a Ouija board, or even attended a psychic fair.
    When Wendell didn’t answer, Jonathan glanced up and the look on his client’s face stopped him cold.
    Wendell held the cookie in his hand, but to look at his face you would have thought it a writhing asp. He seemed to neither possess the power to peel the wrapper from the cookie, nor the fortitude to fling it from him.
    Wendell’s eyes betrayed the strain under which his soul labored.
    The man had been happy living his mundane and boring life. He’d had routines, schedules, and known quantities. All of it had changed overnight and his mind had dealt with as much as it was willing to process.
    By opening the cookie—a cheap confectionary and staple of North American culture—and finding another fortune of death, tailored specifically for him, Wendell would be pushed beyond the rational.
    He had come to the point where, with one action, there would be no returning to his old life. This was the metaphorical straw. The humane act would have been to take the thing away, but Jonathan didn’t. What mattered at this junction was the outcome, not the procedure.
    “Open it, Wendell. Get it over with.”
    Lamenting his fate with a single sigh, Wendell’s shoulders sagged further, something Jonathan hadn’t thought possible.
    Wendell pulled the plastic wrapper apart and shook the fortune cookie onto his hand.
    He stared at it for a moment before closing his hand around it, crumbling the confectionary coating. Opening his hand, Wendell allowed the cookie pieces to fall onto his saucer and, without reading it, passed the slip of paper to Jonathan.
    He accepted the fortune, but saw, even having forgone reading the message, just anticipating its content had Wendell shaken up. The man’s eyes had once more gained the lost look that haunted them when he first came to Jonathan’s office.
    Jonathan schooled his face to show no reaction as he lowered his eyes to read the message. Printed on the strip of paper was the statement: ‘Even the most resolute man reaches the end of their journey—yours is near.’
    Jonathan put the paper on the tabletop where it curled in on itself. He picked up the half of his cookie from which the end of his fortune poked provocatively.
    Jonathan tugged the paper free and pushed the uneaten portion aside, no longer interested in its sweetness. His fortune read: ‘A strong person understands how to withstand substantial loss.’
    For a moment, Jonathan accepted the possibility that this fortune, too, had somehow been tailored for him alone. He wondered if whatever had affected the fortune in Wendell’s cookie had also impacted those around it.
    Usually what he got in a fortune cookie