The Fortune Cookie

I am a hero. No one, not even me, thought I had an ounce of heroism in me. But I did. Allow me to explain.

One day ordinary me is having an ordinary day following my ordinary routine life. Nothing ever happens to me. I go to work in the morning and come home at the end of the day. Nothing in between ever happens. My days are just ordinary.  No surprise that this day was just an ordinary Saturday.

I was going through my mail when I saw a color travel brochure that was advertising fun places to go for one’s upcoming summer vacation. It was full of pictures of exotic places and foreign destinations with strange-sounding names that were so very different from my ordinary existence here in this ordinary place.

I saw people being pulled along in the canals in gondolas in sunny Italy, the pyramids of Egypt carved out of stone that frankly looked fake to me, a shopping marketplace in Algiers showed all kinds of baskets and blankets and trinkets and many other things I couldn’t even identify.

I sighed and continued to thumb through the travel catalog. When I got to the final pages, I saw there was an 11-day trip to China. It talked of The Great Wall of China, something called the Forbidden City and its many museums. Then something occurred to me.

Me, ordinary me, decided I would do something (for me) extraordinary. There was a Chinatown right there in my city. It was a city within a city. I have passed through there a few times on my way to an offsite meeting or when I went to visit my aunt who lived on the other side of town. 

Chinatown seemed interesting and not so ordinary to me.

Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll do something very out of the ordinary for me. I’ll visit Chinatown, I thought to myself. 

And I’ll do something I’ve never done before. I’ll call for an Uber ride. I downloaded the app and arranged for a car to pick me up. The car arrived promptly. I instructed the driver to take me to Chinatown. The driver was very friendly and we arrived in Chinatown sooner than I thought. I didn’t realize it was so close, I thought.

I paid the driver and as I was getting out of the car, the driver gave me his business card. He explained that when I was ready, he would come back and pick me up for a lift home.

I stood on the sidewalk for a while, not knowing which direction to go first. I was in awe of the many people hurrying up and down the sidewalk, going here and there, coming in and out of the dozens of shops lining both sides of the street.

All the signage was in both Chinese and English. I started walking in no particular direction and found myself wandering in and out of the little stores. Friendly shopkeepers greeted me as I entered. 

There was a dizzying array of stores and shops and restaurants. Obviously, the residents had established their identities here in America while holding onto their native cultures.

I loved the beautiful Wishing Well placed right there in the middle of the shopping plaza. I even dropped a penny into the well and crossed my fingers, not even knowing what I was wishing for.

There was a scary-looking dragon mural and the main plaza was strung with red lanterns. I was shocked to see restaurants with glass displays of roast duck and pigs that seemed to be among the more popular eateries, as they were crowded with people this time of day.

I saw a big sign in one window reminding visitors that in September the neighborhood would host the Autumn Moon Festival, a Chinese tradition that celebrates the summer harvest.

As I walked along, I passed a very small Chinese restaurant. Odd, there was no one in there. Not a single person enjoying the cuisine. I decided I would go into this very nondescript eatery.

I took a seat near the window. Suddenly, a tiny old Chinese woman pushed the double doors open from the back of the restaurant and shuffled over to my table. 

“You want today special? Vedy, vedy good,” the tiny Chinese lady said with a slight bow and smiling broadly.

Since the menu was all in Chinese, with no English translation, I said, “Yes, the special sounds nice.” And I hoped it would be.

I was very pleasantly surprised when the old Chinese lady reappeared within a few minutes bringing a small bowl of piping hot soup that tasted both sweet and sour to me. Next there was a plate heaped with steaming rice, pork and peas and carrots. It was all delicious. Ordinary me had never had such delicious Chinese food.

When the old Chinese lady brought the bill, there was a fortune cookie wrapped in plastic that had been placed right on top of my lunch bill. 

I tore open the plastic and cracked open the fortune cookie. As I munched on the crunchy sweet confection, I unrolled the message inside.

I stared at the message. It was handwritten! I hadn’t eaten in a Chinese restaurant before, but I had seen fortune cookies in movies and on television shows before. The message was never handwritten, it was always typeset.

Even more strange than the fact it was handwritten, the message itself was strange and simple. It simply said: Help me.

Help me? What did that mean? What kind of fortune was that, I thought to myself.

I shrugged and stuffed the message into the pocket of the light jacket I was wearing. 

I waited and waited and looked around for the old Chinese lady to return. She never returned. So finally, I left the correct change with a tip on the tray with the bill and I exited the restaurant. I still had been the only patron in the restaurant. Not a single other person had come in to eat while I was there.

Once out of the restaurant, I crossed the street and walked back in the direction of the Wishing Well. Let’s see what’s on the other side of the Well, I thought to myself.

Suddenly, and out of nowhere, a car came racing down the narrow street at a very high rate of speed. Pedestrians had to jump out of the way and other cars honked their horns at the speeding car.

All of a sudden, the speeding car went out of control, slammed on its brakes and careened violently into that beautiful Wishing Well in the middle of the plaza. I had never heard such a loud and booming noise.

Everyone around was stunned and seemed frozen, unable to move. They were processing what had just happened.

Ordinary me didn’t even think twice. I rushed over to the scene of the crash. I was the first one there. I could see there was a young woman that had obviously been standing at the Wishing Well and had been hit by the out of control car. The young woman was severely injured and was bleeding profusely. 

“Help me,” the injured woman whispered in a very shaky voice. “Help me.”

I assured the injured woman I would get help right away. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone to call 9-1-1 and the message from the fortune cookie fell out of my pocket onto the pavement. 

It fell face up reminding me of its foreboding message: Help me. These were the very words uttered by the injured woman lying in front of me.

I dialed 9-1-1. Soon the ambulance came and took the young injured woman to the hospital. Ordinary me and my extraordinary actions that day saved that young woman’s life.

Ordinary me went back to my ordinary life. But I looked at my ordinary world differently. I felt different. I decided I would get out, enjoy myself more, invite friends over to my apartment, and go out to lunch or dinner with them. I appreciated life more.

A few weeks later, I decided I would go back to Chinatown and throw another penny into the Wishing Well and have lunch at that little isolated restaurant. The food was delicious.

I had kept the business card from that Uber driver. I called him and he delivered me promptly back to Chinatown.

Once I arrived, I walked up and down the street looking for that restaurant. I walked up one side and down the other, not once, but twice. I couldn’t find that restaurant. 

I even asked a couple of nearby store owners what happened to that little restaurant and described where it was.

The store owners said there had never been a Chinese restaurant in that location I was describing. That spot had been deserted and empty for at least five years. 

That little restaurant with the little old Chinese lady who gave me a delicious lunch and the sugary fortune cookie with its handwritten message had never existed.