[ WP ] You have just purchased a new 2015 calendar from the bookstore . When you open it at home , you find a date already circled . It has your name written on the day .

I know I'm supposed to wait for the new month before I check out the pictures, but I just ca n't help myself. Every new calendar I get, I just have to flip through and look! This year, I'd gotten the National Geographic one; they always have the best photos. 
 
 July was a tiger, crouching in a snowy forest. I was admiring the vibrant colors when something on the actual calendar page caught my eye. A red circle around my name on July 24th. *My name? * I wondered. *How did they know my name? * I flipped through the rest of the calendar looking for some explanation, but every other page was blank. *Must be one of my coworkers playing a joke, * I told myself. But the calendar had still been wrapped when it arrived; the cellophane was right there, crinkled up on my desk... 
 
 I asked around, but no one in the office would admit to it. I showed them the calendar with the red circle; they nodded, but looked concerned. I called the store; they said that the calendars had all come in a box from the distributor and no one had opened any of them. I even called National Geographic! After an hour of being transferred back and forth like a hot potato, every department I talked to told me that they'd never heard of me and that no one had circled my name on July 24th. 
 
 I shrugged it off. Maybe some weird coincidence. 
 
 January's animal was a giraffe. I hung the calendar up on my wall and tried to enjoy it. But I knew that under that giraffe was my name, written on July 24th with a red circle around it. 
 
 February was an orangutan, swinging through the lush jungles of Borneo. But I could only see the red circle. 
 
 March was a bright, tropical bird perched on a branch with a too-blue sky background. I could n't take it anymore. I tore the calendar off my wall and buried it in my desk under stacks of papers that I'd never get through. I thought about destroying it, or burning it, but something inside me decided to keep it. Who knows why? 
 
 Even with it off the wall, I could n't stop thinking about the calendar. What was July 24th? Why me? 
 
 April and May passed, a rhinoceros wading through tall amber savannah grass, and a sea turtle swimming through crystal clear tropical waters. I began concocting wild scenarios in my mind. Maybe I was some huge contest winner! Maybe I was caught up in some spy ring unknowingly! Maybe it was some doomsday prophecy! My friends and family gently encouraged me to start visiting a shrink about it. 
 
 I quit the job in June, the month with a playful red panda climbing to the top of a tall pine tree. It was just too much to be in that office. But as much as I hated it, I could n't leave the calendar. Part of me had to know what it was for, and why it had been marked like that. I traveled, visited family, picked up one hobby after another. Anything to take my mind off of it. But no matter what I did, July grew closer. 
 
 Finally, it was the month of the tiger. In a strange way, I started to look forward to it. Maybe it would be the worst day of my life, but at least it would be over. My psychologist started to get worried about me. I'd showed him the calendar, but he did n't think it was a big deal. He thought I'd drawn it there myself and invented this fiction that it came to me like that. Eventually, I just stopped going. It was n't helping the anxiety anyway. 
 
 On July 23rd, I drove to Washington D.C. I guess I figured that the only possible answer might somehow come from National Geographic. I called friends and family, saying goodbye. They pleaded with me to come back, to see Dr. Mason. They tried to tell me that it was all in my mind. I hung up on each of them as soon as they started on that again. 
 
 I showed up at the National Geographic headquarters around 7 AM, waiting, though I was n't sure what for. I was a jumpy, nervous wreck, clutching the calendar in my hands like it was a bomb that would go off if I dropped it. I shrieked like a banshee when a little kid accidentally bumped into me, sending him running to his mother sobbing. 
 
 *Something will happen*, I told myself. 
 
 Tour groups came and went, visiting the museum. Employees went out for coffee, then for lunch, then for coffee again. Security guards gave me weird looks and whispered into their walkie talkies while glancing at me out of the corner of their eyes. 
 
 The sun started to set, and everyone left for the day. I sat on the curb outside, happy that I had n't been struck by lightning but somehow empty. Months building up to this day, and for what? 
 
 I returned back to my hotel, pulled on a bathrobe, ordered room service, and watched a movie on pay-per-view. I locked myself away from the world and zoned out. 
 
 11:59. `` Last chance,'' I told the calendar. It just sat on the table silently. 
 
 The clock changed, and it was July 25th. Nothing had happened.
