[ WP ] While cleaning your attic , you find a book explaining the meaning of life for each person individually . You can not believe yours . What do you do ?

First time, please do n't hate it. 
 
 I always understood love hate relationships because of cleaning. Cleaning my home was the only thing that caused both emotions. Running? Love. Painting my nephew ’ s room a terrible color because my sister-in-law wants it? Hate. My nephew? Love. Cleaning was an evil I did with excitement for the result, which was a version of my home I expect to see in the new heaven and earth. 
 
 Every year I sweep everything, floor, scrub every tile, check all my clothes, and rearrange my bookshelf. Finally finished with my bachelor ’ s of communications, I realized I would almost certainly never need those textbooks again. Here ’ s like… almost a thousand dollars in paper paperweight I thought, rather fond of the “ paper paperweights ” oxymoron. 
 
 Finding yet another paper based product in the garage ( cardboard box ), I loaded the textbooks in and headed upstairs. The hallway has a rather unassuming attic entrance towards the far end, and I ’ ve never before made an excuse to go up. My jobs paid for tuition instead of enough crap to need an attic. Great, the dust from opening the door is gon na make me sweep again. 
 
 The light of course, had not worked since the Soviets were a threat, and the free flashlight from my credit union illuminated only a few degrees, despite its bulk on my key ring. I set the box of communication methods down in some random corner that was unlikely to make it a tripping hazard and was about to turn the pitiful fluorescents off when I saw a box directly behind the door, supporting it from slamming against the floor. Not wanting to close myself in the attic, I managed to drag it down the ladder into the hall with one arm. It was a light box, but unusually large. 
 
 The corrugated brown paper was so old, it disintegrated instead of ripping open, brown dust settling on the contents, covering the triangle left somewhat intact in my palm. The dust settled and I thought there was some encyclopedia taking the entirety of the box. There aren ’ t any ridges between volumes. 
 
 I ended up flipping the box upside down, breaking the other side in, and pushing the book out from the edges where it was until just recently snugly ensconced. It must have been a 2 by three feet, at least, but it wasn ’ t very thick, maybe about the size of a Bible. The brown cardboard dust matched the actual cover almost perfectly, and would have remained unnoticed had not the angled light betrayed shadows splaying across the world. I was so thoroughly confused by the thing, and I thought it was the odd size of it until I realized it was blank. 
 
 Just… entirely blank. No author. No title. No publisher or year, or anything except for the text that made the bulk of the pages. And the first page made no sense whatsoever. I couldn ’ t begin to understand it, the characters were entirely alien to me, with a stark, beautiful contrast between straight, thick lines, and thin hairpin curves. It was like two distinct people had to have written half of each symbol. As I flipped through, the characters blended, becoming more uniform, evolving. By the middle of the volume, it was something Asian, but still not anything I could understand. 
 
 By page 509, there were smatterings of Latin, or Greek, or French, which I understood. Names and events I could translate, but it didn ’ t make sense for another 40 pages, until most of the entries were in modern languages. 
 
 “ Francis Cassavant – November 26, 1947. Suicide because of guilt, war, and anger. ” A name, a date, and a cause of death. Over and over the pattern emerged, becoming more frequent than the ones I could not understand or translate easily with my phone. Was every entry like this? 
 
 I was shocked. I kept turning pages, but the sensation of the aged paper crackling and escaping my fingers became numbed. The names and dates were nothing, but the causes were all bleak. The most natural cause of death became a tragedy with a few simple words added on to it. “ Arthur Glennon – Dec 25 1999. Aborted in second trimester. Would have taught English at MIT. ” 
 
 The dates are getting closer and closer. I feared how recently this book might have been edited. I moved in 5 months ago, so the list stops before March of 2011, right? 
 
 They didn ’ t. 
 
 At least a hundred thousand people died today. And it kept going, into tomorrow, and next week and year and decades. My name is in this. I knew it must be. I didn ’ t care about the logic of a book predicting fate, I had already seen entries for people I knew. The teacher in middle school who died of cancer. The uncle who took me hunting for the first time, and carried the kill because I couldn ’ t even lift him. 
 
 Hours after dragging the cardboard coffin down, I found what I was looking for. 
 
 “ Andrew Clemente – August 1 2040. Car crash with semi – at fault. ” 
 
 Right below were 2 other English entires. 
 
 “ Ally Clemente – August 1, 2040. Car crash. ” 
 
 “ Andrew Clemente II – August 1, 20104. Car crash. ” 
 
 I was shaking and crying. I hadn ’ t even met this Ally yet, and now I didn ’ t want to. I never want to see her, or my son, because I know that I will by their undoing. I don ’ t care about the joy of marriage or fatherhood. 
 
 
 
 And I kept telling myself this. Every day I would renew a vow to not fall for Ally, to not be married or have a son, but every spring I check and the names don ’ t change or go away. Every day I think that I ’ m going to live the rest of my life unhappy, because I know I hurt the people I ’ ll one day love the most. 

