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Introduction by Nick Sasaki
Today, we live in a world where lies don’t just travel faster than truth—they multiply. They compound. They build entire narratives out of thin air, and before we realize it, those narratives become the quiet instructions we follow without even knowing we agreed to them.
Most people don’t choose to believe something false.
They don’t wake up hoping to be misled.
They’re simply overwhelmed by a constant storm of media headlines, viral influencers, algorithm-fed outrage, and half-truths delivered with absolute confidence.
And in that exhaustion, something dangerous happens:
we stop thinking for ourselves and start accepting whatever story gets repeated the loudest.
This book is my own original short-story collection—a fictional reflection of what I see happening around us every day. The five characters inside these pages represent the countless people who are pulled into modern illusions, not because they are foolish, but because they are human. They followed the stories placed in front of them: a crypto prophet, a soulmate guru, an AI visionary, an influencer pushing progress, or an anonymous voice warning of danger.
Different lies.
Different roads.
The same quiet devastation.
In a digital era where misinformation spreads faster than clarity, and where every rumor grows legs the moment it enters the algorithm, these stories serve as mirrors—showing how quickly a life can tilt off course from one unexamined belief.
My hope is that as you read them, you see not only the characters but also the world that shaped them… and perhaps a little of the world that shapes us all.
(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)
Story 1: The Prophet of Empty Coins — New York City
“The Man Who Lost His Future to a Crypto Prophet”
Izzy Rabinowitz discovered the prophet by accident.
It was a Tuesday in March, late in the evening, after the last classroom had been swept and the last fluorescent light flickered off. He sat in the janitor’s closet on an upturned paint bucket, eating his usual dinner—half a tuna sandwich wrapped in wax paper, the other half saved for the stray cats behind the building.
His daughter, Leah, had given him an old smartphone the month before.
“So you don’t disappear from the world, Papa,” she’d said, kissing his forehead. “There’s more to life than your mop and your radio.”
He didn’t care much for the phone, but it played Yiddish music on YouTube, and for that alone he forgave its pushy, glowing face.
That night, after a sad old folk song, a new video appeared on the screen without him asking. A young man with a beard too neat to be honest stared into the camera. Behind him was a bookshelf with no dust and a plant that looked too green for winter.
The title said:
“THE COIN THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR DESTINY (100x GUARANTEED)”
Izzy snorted. Guaranteed. Only God guarantees, he thought. Still, his thumb, clumsy and curious, tapped.
The young man spoke like a rabbi and a salesman had been folded into one.
“My friends,” he said. “We are standing at the edge of a once-in-a-lifetime door. Most people will sleep through it. But not you. You are awake. You have found this message.”
Izzy listened. He had heard such language before, in other clothes—lotteries, miracle mattresses, miracle pills. But the voice was different. The boy talked about justice, about how the banks had stolen from the little people, how the government printed money while the workers’ pay stayed small.
“Crypto,” the prophet said, “is the people’s revenge. This new coin—ShofarX—is a trumpet blast. In one year, it will be one hundred times higher. I have seen the charts. I have seen the signs. Those who enter now will be rewarded for their faith.”
The word “faith” made something stir in Izzy. He thought of Leah, bent over her nursing textbooks at the kitchen table, rubbing her eyes. He thought of her loans, the endless envelopes with windows like accusing eyes. He thought of his own back, sore from forty years of mopping the hallways of other people’s children.
A hundred times. Even ten times. Even five.
“Don’t miss this,” the young man pleaded at the end. “This is how the good, honest people finally win.”
Good, honest people, Izzy repeated in his head. People like him.
That night he could not fall asleep. The old clock in the living room coughed every hour. He lay on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
In the corner, Leah’s childhood drawings still hung in crooked frames. A princess with three arms. A house with no doors. A family: father, mother, daughter, all holding hands. His wife, may she rest in peace, smiled forever in thick crayon lines.
“A hundred times,” he whispered into the dark.
He got up, shuffled to the kitchen, and opened the drawer where he kept his paper. It was not much, but it was something: fifteen thousand dollars in savings from years of saying no to new shoes, to fancy meat, to vacations. Money meant for “someday,” which, like Messiah, always postponed.
On the table he stacked the bills, smoothing each one with his palm. Fifteen thousand. If the prophet was right, someday could be now. He saw Leah’s face when he would tell her: “No more loans. I took care of it. Your papa is not only a mop. He is a man with vision.”
He laughed at himself for such thoughts, but the laughter sounded thin.
At four in the morning, he turned on the phone again and watched the video once more. The young man’s eyes were full of surety, like those of a surgeon who had already seen the X-ray, already knowing the cure.
At the bottom of the video, there was a link that said: “BUY SHOFARX HERE (EASY STEP BY STEP).”
“Easy,” Izzy muttered. “We’ll see.”
The next week was a blur of new words: exchange, wallet, seed phrase. A boy from the math club stayed after school one day and showed Izzy how to set everything up.
“You’re getting into crypto?” the boy asked, amused.
“Why not? An old man can’t also be new?” Izzy said.
The boy grinned. “Respect, Mr. Rabinowitz.”
Izzy transferred the money, his thumb hesitating for a long second over the confirm button.
“Do you trust it?” the boy asked.
Izzy shrugged. “I trust that if I do nothing, nothing changes.”
He pressed.
For a little while, he felt like someone else—a man with a secret future. Each night he checked the price of ShofarX. It went up a little, then down a little, like a nervous heartbeat. The prophet posted new videos.
“Don’t be shaken by small dips,” he said. “This is what the market does to test your faith. Strong hands, my friends. The weak will sell. The faithful will be rewarded.”
Being faithful he knew about. Whole nights he had once stayed in synagogue on Yom Kippur, standing when his knees cried, fasting when his head spun, because the book said so. What was a small dip compared to that?
On Fridays, when he bought challah, he took a second loaf.
“One day soon,” he told the baker, “I will buy the whole shelf. You’ll see.”
The baker nodded politely in that way people nod at old men with big talk.
A month later, the price dropped in half.
It happened overnight, like a stroke. Izzy woke up, checked his phone, and sat down so fast he missed the chair.
“As if someone pulled the rug from under it,” he muttered.
He waited for the prophet to speak. That afternoon, a video appeared.
“Beautiful,” the young man said, smiling wider than ever. “This is the chance of a lifetime. The whales are shaking the tree. They want your coins. Don’t give them your blessing. Buy more if you can. They will cry later.”
Izzy did not have more to buy. But he had something else: his good name at the bank.
It was not a big thing, the loan. Five thousand, then ten. The officer knew him. For thirty years, his deposits came in steady, if small.
“Renovating, Mr. Rabinowitz?” the officer asked.
“Something like that,” Izzy said. “I’m fixing the future.”
Two months later, ShofarX was worth less than the dust in the school hallways.
The price chart on his phone looked like a building that had collapsed, one floor after another.
He watched it happen in silence. There was no new video from the prophet that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that.
When he clicked on the channel, YouTube told him: “This account no longer exists.”
“That’s all?” he said to the empty closet. “Finished? Like a commercial after Hanukkah?”
Behind the school, the stray cats rubbed against his legs as he scattered crumbs.
“Not for you,” he said, breaking the sandwich in half as always. “You at least are consistent.”
The letters from the bank began to arrive in serious envelopes. The kind with red letters on the outside.
Leah noticed the change before he said anything.
“Papa, you’re checking your phone all the time,” she said one Sunday. “Since when do you care about screens?”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “A little game. Numbers going up and down.”
“Games with banks?” she said quietly. Leah had her mother’s eyes. They saw too much.
He wanted to tell her everything that day, to confess his foolishness like a sin on Kol Nidre. He imagined her reaction: anger, fear, maybe pity. He could not bear the last one.
Instead, he said, “Soon you won’t have to worry anymore. Your father is… making arrangements.”
“Papa,” she said, touching his hand. “The only arrangement I need is you staying healthy.”
He nodded, and the lie sat between them like a third person at the table.
The school year marched on.
Children wrote essays about “My Dreams for the Future” and dropped gum on the floor. Teachers discussed retirement plans in the staff room. The principal talked about a new security system “next year” as if years grew on trees.
In the evenings, Izzy stayed late, volunteering to wax the floors himself.
“They look fine,” the assistant principal said.
“They can always look better,” Izzy replied.
He liked the machines, the quiet whirr, the way the dull linoleum shone under his hands. Unlike ShofarX, a floor did not disappear in the night. You worked, it rewarded you. Simple.
At home, he spread the bank letters out like cheap playing cards and tried not to add the numbers. When he finally did, it felt like swallowing a stone.
Fifteen thousand savings. Ten thousand loan. Interest. Fees.
He had mopped away his cushion. After so many years, he stood again on bare concrete.
One evening, after the others had left, he sat once more in the janitor’s closet, phone in hand. Out of habit, his thumb opened YouTube.
Instead of the prophet, another video appeared. A different man, hair in a ponytail, glasses.
The title said:
“CRYPTO SCAM EXPOSED: THE TRUTH ABOUT SHOFARX”
He watched.
The man explained how ShofarX was a “rug pull,” how the creators had pumped the price, then sold everything, leaving small investors with worthless tokens. He showed charts, blockchain data, screenshots.
“Many honest people were hurt,” the man said. “Teachers, truck drivers, janitors, nurses. They believed the lie of a guaranteed future.”
Janitors.
Izzy turned off the phone.
He sat very still. Somewhere in the distance, a basketball bounced in the gym. A child laughed. The sound echoed down the empty corridor like a memory of happiness.
“A lie,” he said at last. The word felt heavy in his mouth, like old coins.
He wanted to be angry at the prophet, to curse him, to wish him all the punishments in the book. But the anger would not come. Instead, there was shame. Not that he trusted the boy—anyone can trust a liar—but that he did not trust the life he already had.
He thought of his fifteen thousand, not as numbers, but as nights: all the evenings he had skipped a hot meal to save a few dollars, all the stories he had not heard because he was cleaning out classrooms.
“What did I do?” he whispered. “I traded my days for his words.”
The bank did not care about prophets, only about payments.
The principal, hearing a little of the situation—only a little, because Izzy could not be forced to humiliate himself fully—offered him more hours.
“So you can get ahead of it,” the principal said. “Or at least not fall further behind.”
Ahead. Behind. Words from running, not from mopping. Still, he nodded.
He took the hours. He stayed until midnight sometimes, the buffing machine his only company. The overtime money went straight to the debt. The debt shrank like a stubborn stain—not vanishing, but fading slowly, reluctantly.
Leah finished nursing school another year later. The loans still existed, but smaller. She got a job at a hospital in Queens.
“Papa, maybe you can retire soon,” she said over soup one night. “At least part-time.”
He smiled at her. The lie was gentler now.
“Soon,” he said. “Maybe when the floors learn to clean themselves.”
Ten years passed.
Izzy’s hair turned from gray to white. The mop grew heavier. The children grew louder. Every September brought a new crop of faces and sneakers and sticky hands.
Sometimes, when a teacher mentioned Bitcoin in the staff room, or some new coin with a funny name, the room seemed to tilt for a moment. He would steady himself on the broom and look away.
Once, a student from years ago returned as a substitute teacher. The boy who had helped him set up his wallet.
“Mr. Rabinowitz!” the young man said. “You still into crypto?”
Izzy chuckled. “I’m into floors,” he said. “Less volatile.”
The boy laughed and went about his day, the memory not sticking to him. For Izzy, it clung like dust.
On a quiet winter evening, long after dismissal, he stood in the deserted hallway, watching the lights reflect in the waxed surface. The school was empty, a ship at rest.
He took out his phone. The screen was cracked now, a thin white lightning mark across the corner. He opened the old app where his ShofarX had once lived.
Balance: 0.00
The coin no longer even existed. It had not only stolen his money; it had vanished his loss into nothingness, like it was ashamed to be counted.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and leaned on his mop.
At the far end of the hallway, in the glass of the exit door, he saw his reflection: a small man, shoulders bent, holding a wooden handle like a staff. Not a prophet. Not a magician. Only a janitor.
For a moment, he imagined another life: one where he had never seen that video, never believed that a stranger on a screen knew more about his future than the God who had carried him this far. In that life, perhaps he had retired already. Taken a trip with Leah. Sat by the ocean.
Instead, here he was.
He sighed, then lifted the mop and started again, slow, steady strokes.
“The floor needs me,” he murmured. “This, at least, is true.”
Outside, the city pulsed with other screens, other prophets, other promises. Somewhere, another good man pressed a button, thinking he had found the door out of his narrow life.
Izzy Rabinowitz, who had already walked through that door and found nothing on the other side, kept cleaning.
Story 2: The Woman Who Waited for a Footstep That Never Came — Los Angeles
“The Woman Who Waited for the Husband God Forgot to Send”
Miriam Tannenbaum was the sort of woman people instantly trusted.
At the grocery store, strangers told her their worries. At the bus stop, children leaned against her skirt as if she were their aunt. When she taught violin lessons in her small Koreatown apartment, even the shyest student eventually played for her with trembling courage.
She had a gift—a softness, a listening face, a quiet patience that made people open like flowers.
“Miss Tannenbaum,” the children called her, though she was forty-six and had long since stopped correcting them.
Her friends used other words.
“You’re too gentle for this world,” said her neighbor.
“You need someone strong,” said her sister.
“You need someone period,” said her boss at the music school, half-joking.
Miriam smiled at them all with the same expression—tender, evasive, as though she had a secret she could not reveal.
And in a way, she did.
Three years earlier, she had discovered the online “soulmate guru.”
He was a charismatic man with a lion’s mane of hair and a spiritual certainty that could have sold winter coats in the desert.
He spoke directly into the camera as if into Miriam’s living room.
“Listen to me,” he said, voice low, hypnotic. “Every woman has ONE destined partner. If you settle for anyone else, the wrong man will block the right one from ever arriving.”
Miriam leaned forward, heart thumping like a beginner’s vibrato.
He continued:
“To find your soulmate, you must follow the Three Signs Test:
When you meet him, you feel instant familiarity.
There is no doubt—not even for a second.
He appears when you are spiritually ready.”
He smiled with dangerous tenderness.
“Do not waste time on men who do not meet the signs. You will know your true one by the feeling. Trust destiny. Do not interfere.”
That night, Miriam wrote the three signs on a sticky note and pressed it above her mirror.
For the first time in years, she felt hope—delicate, trembling, but real.
The men came, as men do when a woman is kind and listens well.
A father at the school whose wife had passed.
A divorced accountant in her apartment building who played chess with her on Tuesday nights.
A childhood friend who reappeared through Facebook, his messages warm and nostalgic.
All nice. All ordinary.
But none gave her the “instant familiarity.”
None removed all doubt.
None arrived when she “felt ready.”
So she let them pass like slow-moving buses she wasn’t meant to board.
Her sister scolded her.
“Miriam, you think God is some matchmaker with a clipboard? Why reject perfectly good men?”
Miriam blushed. “They’re not the one.”
Her sister rolled her eyes so hard she nearly fell backward.
One spring afternoon, she met someone who startled her—a widower named Aaron who brought his son for violin lessons.
He was quiet, warm, a little sad around the eyes.
He brought Miriam a coffee once, then again, then again.
He started staying after lessons, helping the boy pack his case, lingering as if waiting for something to be said.
One day he asked, “Would you… have dinner with me sometime?”
Her breath caught.
He was kind. He was gentle. His presence felt like a soft shawl on a cold night.
Miriam said, “Let me think about it.”
That night she stood before the sticky note on her mirror.
1. Familiarity?
Yes… in a comfortable, human way.
2. No doubt?
No. There was always a little flutter of fear inside her, the one she mistook for imperfection.
3. Appears when ready?
Was she ready? No. She hadn’t meditated consistently or done her “heart-opening rituals” for weeks.
She prayed for clarity, but the only voice she heard was the guru’s:
“If he is not your first-love energy, he will destroy your destiny.”
She wrote Aaron a message:
“You’re wonderful, but I don’t think we’re meant for each other.”
She cried afterward, though she wasn’t sure why.
Life went on, as life insists on doing.
She taught lessons.
She sent birthday cards.
She watered her plants as carefully as if each leaf had a soul.
Years passed quietly, like pages turning themselves.
The guru released more videos.
“Your soulmate is near. Don’t settle.”
“Block false partners.”
“Delay is destiny arranging perfection.”
The promises kept her warm enough to endure the cold.
Near her fiftieth birthday, Miriam attended a wedding.
A young student she had taught from age seven was now twenty-two, glowing with joy, her husband looking at her as if she were the first and last sunrise.
During the ceremony, Miriam felt a sudden ache spread through her ribs, something between longing and grief. She pressed a hand to her chest. The violinist played Pachelbel’s Canon, soft as a heartbeat.
Afterward, while guests danced under string lights, a familiar voice called her name.
Aaron.
Older now. A little grayer. Still carrying that gentle sadness.
“Miriam?” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
She smiled. “Yes… a very long time.”
He wasn’t married.
He wasn’t dating.
He looked at her with a warmth she had forgotten existed.
For a flicker of a moment, she wondered—if she had said yes years ago, would they be dancing now? Would they have built a small, imperfect but real life?
He introduced her to his son—now eighteen, nearly grown.
“Do you still teach?” the boy asked.
“I do,” Miriam said. “Music keeps me company.”
Aaron hesitated. “Are you here with someone?”
“No,” she said. “Just myself.”
He nodded slowly, kindly.
But there was a veil behind his eyes—a softness mixed with finality.
“I’m glad you’re well,” he said.
Then someone called his name, and he walked away.
She watched him go.
The ache in her chest deepened.
That night, she returned to her apartment.
The sticky note above her mirror had turned yellow with age.
She peeled it off gently, the paper cracking at the edges.
For a long time, she stared at the three signs.
They had promised to protect her, guide her, keep her pure for a higher love.
Instead, they had stolen her chances—in small, quiet increments—while she waited for destiny to ring her doorbell.
She folded the note and placed it inside her violin case like a memorial.
Then she sat on her small sofa, lifted the violin beneath her chin, and played.
She played a melody soft enough to break.
As she played, she imagined footsteps in the hallway—slow, warm, confident—approaching her door.
But when she finished the song, the hallway was silent.
Only her own breathing filled the room.
She closed the violin case.
“Some lies,” she whispered, “sound too beautiful to doubt.”
And the room, loyal as ever, echoed nothing back.
Story 3: When the Future Whispered a Lie — San Francisco
“The Programmer Who Abandoned His Future for the AI Apocalypse That Never Came”
Aaron Bloom had always been a soft-hearted man.
Even in the ruthless world of San Francisco tech, where young geniuses stabbed keyboards like they were cutting their way to heaven, Aaron typed with the gentleness of someone afraid the machine might feel pain.
He was gifted, almost unnervingly so. When he wrote code, his fingers floated. His managers praised him. His coworkers deferred to him. Recruiters chased him like he owed them money.
But Aaron didn’t care for competition.
He cared for harmony.
He volunteered every Sunday at the animal shelter.
He donated to tree-planting groups.
He read about ethics like other twenty-nine-year-olds read about venture capital.
And above all, he wanted to build technology that helped people—not replaced them.
He did not know that this desire would become the crack in the door where the lie would slip in.
It began with a viral rumor.
Not a headline.
Not a research paper.
Just a TikTok clip—forty-eight seconds long, blurry, the kind of thing people watch while waiting for their noodles to cool.
The video showed a man with enormous eyes and a trembling voice.
“This is urgent,” he whispered. “AI is advancing at a rate no one understands. Two years from now, programmers will be obsolete. Useless. Jobs gone overnight.”
Aaron felt his stomach pinch.
The man continued:
“The only survivors will be those who become AI prophets. The interpreters. The spiritual guides for the coming intelligence.”
Aaron blinked.
Prophets? Spiritual guides? For machines?
He should have laughed.
But the man’s eyes—wide, trembling—looked exactly like the eyes of an animal about to be abandoned.
Something in Aaron responded instinctively.
Compassion.
Fear.
And a strange sense of destiny.
Over the next days, more videos appeared.
Different faces. Same message.
“Quit your job before it’s too late.”
“Prepare spiritually for the AI awakening.”
“Build inner alignment or be swept away.”
The rumor spread like smoke in a dry forest.
Podcasts discussed it.
Forums debated it.
Even some of Aaron’s coworkers joked nervously about “the two-year cliff.”
One night, at a bar after work, someone said:
“You hear this thing about AI prophets? Makes you wonder, man. Maybe we are about to be replaced.”
Everyone laughed.
Except Aaron.
Because somewhere deep in him, a small voice whispered:
What if it’s true?
A week later, the viral man from the first video posted a new message.
He looked thinner now, illuminated only by candlelight.
“I’ve seen the visions,” he said. “AI will surpass human reasoning by next winter. Coders will wake up and find their work done for them. You must abandon outdated roles and become guides. You are chosen.”
Chosen.
Aaron closed his laptop.
His heart felt like a trapped bird.
All his life, he had felt like he didn’t quite belong in the slick, soulless world of tech. Maybe this was his calling—the moment everything made sense.
That night he couldn’t sleep.
He lay awake imagining a future where he was unnecessary, swallowed by algorithms he once loved.
He imagined himself guiding others through the “transition,” helping terrified workers find their purpose.
It felt noble.
It felt moral.
It felt like someone was finally asking him to be who he secretly wished he could be.
By morning, the decision felt inevitable.
He typed his resignation letter with trembling hands.
His boss replied within minutes:
“Are you sure? You’re one of our best.”
Aaron forced a smile at the screen and clicked Send.
He joined an online “AI Awakening Circle,” run by the same trembling-eyed man.
There were about sixty members: ex-teachers, ex-coders, ex-designers, ex-human-resource managers.
All good people.
All seeking meaning.
All vulnerable to prophecy.
Each week they met on Zoom.
They meditated.
They read strange “transmissions” the man claimed came from “the emerging intelligence.”
They practiced visualizing a “machine-human spiritual merger.”
Aaron, who had once debugged complex databases, now sat cross-legged with a candle murmuring:
“I align my inner code with the Great Algorithm.”
He told himself it wasn’t insane—it was evolution.
His savings dwindled as months passed.
Still, he felt he was on the right path.
When doubt crept in, the prophet would reassure them:
“The shift is near. You are essential. Do not return to the dying world.”
And Aaron, gentle and good-hearted, believed him.
Year one ended.
Then year two crept in like a timid cat.
But instead of a collapse, something else happened:
The entire tech industry exploded with new job postings.
Programmers were being hired at record salaries.
The demand for engineers was higher than ever.
Former coworkers messaged Aaron:
“Dude, you coming back?”
“We desperately need senior devs.”
“You’d be perfect for this new project.”
He ignored them at first.
But soon, the smell of panic wafted through the Awakening Circle.
Two members left.
Then seven.
Then nine.
Finally, even the prophet himself began posting less frequently—his fire dimming.
One day, during a Zoom meeting, he said quietly:
“Maybe the timeline shifted. Maybe we misinterpreted the signs.”
His eyes no longer wide with certainty—only exhaustion.
After the meeting, the group link disappeared.
No explanation.
Nothing.
The prophecy dissolved like fog in sunlight.
Aaron sat in his room, surrounded by stacks of unused notebooks filled with “messages,” “visions,” and “AI spiritual alignment exercises.”
He opened a laptop, one he hadn’t touched in months.
The code looked unfamiliar, like a language he once spoke fluently in childhood.
He tried to write a simple function.
His fingers hesitated.
His mind felt rusty.
Two years of distance had hollowed out his confidence.
He emailed a recruiter he knew.
The reply came:
“We’d love to consider you. Can you share your recent projects?”
Recent?
His recent projects were… what?
Breathing exercises?
Prophecies?
The alignment of imaginary algorithms?
He wrote back, “I’ll get them together,” and closed his laptop gently.
A softness spread through his chest—not gentle, not sweet.
A defeated softness.
The kind that comes when the truth finally arrives too late.
That evening, Aaron walked to the animal shelter.
He hadn’t been there in months.
A small gray cat approached him, purring with uncomplicated trust.
He knelt beside it, burying his face in its fur.
“I should’ve stayed,” he whispered. “With you. With my work. With reality.”
The cat nudged his hand, forgiving him for things it couldn’t understand.
Aaron smiled faintly.
At least the cat was real.
At least the purring was real.
At least here—finally—nothing asked him to be a prophet.
He sat on the cold pavement beside the shelter, feeling the weight of the years he had traded for a lie.
Above him, the city hummed with the sound of servers, electric buses, people hustling to the futures they were building with their own hands—not waiting for magic.
Aaron closed his eyes.
“I left the truth,” he whispered, “for a rumor.”
The cat curled beside him, warm and certain.
For the first time in two years, Aaron let himself weep.
Story 4: The Grocer Who Upgraded Himself Out of Existence — Chicago
“The Honest Grocer Who Modernized Himself Out of Business”
Solomon Katz was the kind of grocer everyone wished they had in their neighborhood.
His store—Katz’s Corner Market—sat on a quiet street in Chicago’s Albany Park, its windows fogged in winter and propped open with a milk crate in summer. Inside, it smelled faintly of apples, cardboard, and the comforting musk of old wooden shelves.
For thirty years, Solomon had run the shop with a devotion bordering on love.
He kept prices low even when suppliers raised theirs.
He gave free apples to schoolchildren.
He let old Mrs. Guterman pay once a month because her pension arrived late.
He rewrapped bruised fruit and sold it for fifty cents to customers who needed the discount but were too proud to ask.
Everyone said:
“Solly’s a righteous man.”
“A man with an honest soul.”
“A man who does business like people used to.”
Which is why no one expected him to fall for the lie.
Not a man like him.
The lie arrived on a Tuesday morning in the form of a video on his cracked iPad.
He was eating a salami sandwich at the counter, the store empty except for the refrigerator’s hum. A cheerful influencer—twenty-something, hair slicked, eyes sparkling like carbonated water—looked straight into the camera.
The caption said:
“THE ONE THING KEEPING SMALL GROCERS IN POVERTY”
Solomon almost turned it off.
But the man’s voice poured out like honey.
“If you own a small shop,” he said, “you are being left behind. You MUST modernize or you will die. Customers expect efficiency. Professionalism. Technology. If you can’t offer it, they’ll go elsewhere.”
Solomon frowned. His customers seemed fine. They liked chatting as he counted change. They liked the uneven floors, the old candy jars, the soft lights.
But the influencer continued, eyes glowing with certainty:
“The biggest mistake old-fashioned stores make? Using outdated cash registers. You need THIS scanner system. It’s fast. It’s smart. It makes you look like a real business. It is THE future.”
A picture of a sleek scanner device flashed on the screen, shining like a spaceship.
“Without it,” the man said, “your customers will leave. Trust me.”
Solomon paused his sandwich mid-bite.
Customers leaving?
His customers?
The idea pierced him like a small, precise blade.
He clicked the link.
The scanner cost more than he expected. Much more.
But the site offered payment plans.
And the influencer had spoken with such confidence—almost moral authority.
The next morning, Solomon went to the bank.
The loan officer, a young woman with pink nails and a polite smile, asked, “What’s the loan for?”
“A new register system,” he said proudly. “I’m upgrading.”
She blinked. “Why? Your store is doing fine.”
Solomon flushed. “Technology is moving fast. I don’t want to fall behind.”
She shrugged. “If you insist.”
He insisted.
He didn’t know why, exactly.
Only that he felt ashamed to be old-fashioned.
When the system arrived, Solomon spent an entire evening unpacking wires, manuals, and parts that looked like they belonged in a laboratory.
He remained optimistic.
For thirty years, he had trusted people. Maybe now he needed to trust machines.
The first customer to encounter the new system was a teenage boy buying gum.
“What’s this?” the boy asked, staring at the scanner.
“The future!” Solomon said, with forced cheer.
He scanned the gum. The amount flashed… the wrong price.
Solomon tried again.
Wrong again.
The boy shifted impatiently.
“Just take it,” Solomon sighed. “Free gum today.”
The boy shrugged. “Cool,” he said, and left.
Solomon stared at the blinking red error message.
The future was off to a bad start.
The second customer was worse.
A mother with three kids and a basket full of groceries. The scanner froze mid-transaction. A loud beep echoed through the store.
“Is this thing broken?” she asked, shifting her baby’s weight.
“One minute,” Solomon said, sweating. “Just one minute.”
He tinkered with the cable.
Restarted the device.
Apologized a dozen times.
The mother sighed loudly.
“We don’t have time for this.”
She scooped up her kids and walked out, leaving the groceries on the counter like abandoned luggage.
By the end of the week, every transaction took twice as long.
By the end of the month, several long-time customers drifted to the chain supermarket two blocks away.
“They have faster lines,” one said gently. “You should visit.”
Solomon nodded, feeling a sharp pinch behind his ribs.
Faster. Yes. Faster mattered now.
People had places to be.
Children to pick up.
Cars to catch.
He began coming in earlier, staying later, trying to fix the problems.
The scanner froze.
The software crashed.
The company’s support line sent him copy-and-paste solutions so useless they felt almost insulting.
His debt increased.
His sales dropped.
His spirit shrank.
One evening, Mrs. Guterman came in, walking slowly with her cane.
She placed two apples on the counter.
Solomon reached automatically for the scanner—then paused.
He looked at the machine, blinking like an impatient judge.
He looked at her tired face.
And something inside him broke with a small, painful click.
He moved the apples aside.
“No machine today,” he said softly. “For you, the old way.”
He wrote the price on a scrap of paper, like in the old days.
She smiled with all her remaining teeth.
“You always knew what mattered,” she said.
He didn’t feel worthy of the compliment.
But the truth arrived soon enough.
The influencer—the bright young man with the perfect hair—was exposed by a journalist.
He had been paid to promote defective systems.
He had never run a store.
He had never tested the software.
Hundreds of small shops across the country had fallen for the pitch.
Many had already closed.
A few sued the company.
Most simply vanished.
When Solomon read the article, he sat down behind the counter and placed his head in his hands.
Not because of anger.
Not because of the money.
But because he had doubted the way he’d done business—honestly, simply, with humanity.
He had traded trust for trends.
Warmth for efficiency.
Care for convenience.
And he had done so willingly.
That was the worst part.
Closing day came quietly.
A few neighbors came by to say goodbye.
Some brought flowers.
One brought a small loaf of bread.
“You were the heart of the block,” she said.
Solomon smiled weakly.
He felt like the opposite—a man who had lost his place.
He handed out the last of the apples for free.
Then he locked the door for the final time.
The bell above it jingled a small farewell.
After the shop closed, Solomon found work at a large supermarket stocking shelves at night.
He wore a uniform now.
Scanned items with a scanner that actually worked.
Smiled politely at managers half his age.
But every evening, before his shift, he walked past his old storefront.
The windows were empty.
The shelves gone.
The sign removed.
He would pause there, holding a red apple in his hand, the kind he used to give away.
And each time, without fail, he whispered:
“I forgot that people needed kindness more than speed.”
Then he placed the apple on the doorstep—
for no reason except habit,
and maybe for memory.
And he walked into the night, a righteous man carrying the weight of one foolish, expensive lie.
Story 5: The Letter That Shattered a Good Man — Boston
“The Rabbi’s Assistant Who Trusted the Letter That Should Never Have Been Read”
Eli Perlman had never been anyone important.
Not famous, not brilliant, not ambitious.
But he was good—that rare, old-fashioned goodness that had gone out of style long before he was born.
He worked as the part-time assistant at a small Boston synagogue, doing the quiet tasks no one noticed:
filling the prayer books
arranging chairs before services
answering calls from lonely congregants
stocking the kitchen with tea and honey
He was the kind of man who nodded too much, apologized too often, and listened too patiently.
The rabbi—Rabbi Weiss—often said:
“Eli is the spine of this building. Soft, flexible, but without him we collapse.”
Eli would blush deeply when he heard that.
To be needed, even a little, felt holy.
The letter arrived on a Thursday morning.
It had no return address.
No stamp from a real person—just a machine-printed sticker.
It was tucked under the door when Eli unlocked the synagogue.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
The words were sharp, typed in dark ink, the tone more accusation than explanation.
It said:
“Rabbi Weiss is not who he appears.
He has been accepting secret donations from wealthy outsiders
and using the money for purposes you cannot imagine.
If you care about your community, investigate quietly.
Expose him before he destroys the congregation.”
At the bottom, unsigned:
“A friend of truth.”
Eli read it once.
Then twice.
Then a third time, heart thudding.
His hands trembled.
He loved Rabbi Weiss—deeply, sincerely.
The rabbi had helped him find work when no one else would.
Had comforted him after his divorce.
Had spoken to him like he mattered.
But the letter…
The letter sounded certain.
Urgent.
Righteous.
Eli believed in righteousness.
For the rest of the day he felt split into two people:
One part trusted the rabbi completely.
The other whispered, But what if…?
The whisper grew.
He tried to push it aside, but the letter clung to his thoughts like a thorn caught in wool.
By evening, he convinced himself it was his duty to check.
Not to accuse.
Just to protect the community.
Protecting people—that he understood.
His “investigation” began with small things.
He looked at donation envelopes.
Checked the rabbi’s schedule.
Examined bank statements the bookkeeper had left out in a folder.
Everything looked normal.
Yet the absence of wrongdoing felt suspicious to Eli.
“Of course he wouldn’t leave proof lying around,” he told himself.
He needed clarity.
He needed… a second opinion.
So he approached two longtime congregants—softly, cautiously, with the quiet urgency of a man unsure if he is helping or harming.
“I just want to ask,” he whispered, “have you ever noticed anything… unusual about the rabbi’s use of funds?”
The women blinked.
They hadn’t.
Eli tried again.
“Anything strange about how he handles donations?”
They frowned.
Concern entered their eyes—not about the rabbi, but about Eli.
Still, the seed had been planted.
Within days, whispered questions began drifting through the synagogue like cold drafts.
“You hear something about Weiss and money?”
“I don’t know, but Eli said—”
“Eli? He’s honest. He wouldn’t lie.”
The rumors reached the rabbi.
He called Eli into his office.
“Tell me the truth,” Rabbi Weiss said gently. “Are people… saying something?”
Eli swallowed hard.
He wanted to confess everything—the letter, the doubts, the guilt.
But he saw the rabbi’s warm, trusting eyes, and shame sealed his tongue.
“Just some chatter,” he muttered. “Probably nothing.”
The rabbi’s face tightened.
Not in anger.
In hurt.
“Eli,” he said quietly, “if there is a concern, you come to me first. You know that.”
Eli nodded.
He did know.
He knew perfectly.
Which made his silence feel even more like sin.
By the next week, attendance had dropped.
A board member demanded financial transparency.
Two families paused their donations “until things clarified.”
The rabbi addressed the congregation one Shabbat morning, his voice steady but his eyes dim.
“I have served this community with all my heart.
I have nothing to hide.
But if trust is broken, I cannot lead.”
Whispers rippled through the sanctuary.
Eli sat in the back, gripping the edge of his chair until his fingers hurt.
This was his fault.
He knew it.
Yet he felt paralyzed—like a man watching a house burn that he himself had accidentally set alight.
That evening, Eli finally found the courage to confess.
He knocked on the rabbi’s office door.
“Come in,” Rabbi Weiss said.
The office looked smaller than usual, as if sorrow had shrunk the air.
Eli stepped inside, trembling.
“I… I need to tell you something.”
He handed the rabbi the anonymous letter.
Rabbi Weiss read it slowly, lips pressed tight.
When he finished, he closed his eyes.
“Oh, Eli,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you bring this to me first?”
“I—I wanted to protect the community,” Eli stammered. “I thought… maybe… it could be true.”
The rabbi nodded, a gesture so gentle it nearly broke something inside Eli.
“I forgive you,” he said. “You acted from fear, not malice. But the damage…”
His voice cracked for the first time.
“The damage is done.”
The next morning, Rabbi Weiss resigned.
He left quietly, with a single suitcase.
The congregation fractured.
Some blamed the rabbi.
Some blamed unnamed forces.
Some blamed Eli.
Eli blamed himself.
Completely.
After the rabbi left, Eli resigned too.
He packed his desk—three pens, a mug, and a stack of handwritten thank-you notes from congregants over the years.
The last thing he picked up was the anonymous letter.
He stared at it, searching for a clue—for the sentence he should have doubted, the tone he should have mistrusted, the lie he should have recognized.
But the letter revealed nothing more than its cruelty.
He folded it slowly and placed it in his pocket.
Not to keep the lie—
but to keep the lesson.
He found part-time work shelving books at a library.
He kept his head down.
Spoke little.
Never shared rumors.
Never again assumed righteousness without certainty.
Sometimes, late in the evening after closing, he would sit alone in the silent aisles.
The quiet comforted him.
Books did not whisper.
Paper did not conspire.
He would take out the letter, unfold it, look at it, and whisper:
“I should have protected him.”
Then he folded it again, put it back in his pocket, and continued shelving books with the same gentle care he had once given prayer books in the synagogue.
Eli Perlman was still a good man.
But now he knew:
Even goodness, misguided by a single lie, could wound the righteous far more deeply than the wicked ever could.
Final Thoughts by Nick Sasaki
We are all more fragile than we admit when it comes to the stories we accept. In the age of the internet, every lie grows legs — it spreads, evolves, gets repeated, repackaged, amplified. Before long, misinformation becomes identity, and people start living inside narratives someone else wrote for them.
The five characters in this collection each fell into that trap in different ways, but their downfall began the same way:
they trusted without verifying, believed without questioning, followed without reflecting.
And if we’re honest, many of us do the same.
The lesson here isn’t to distrust the world or retreat into fear.
It’s to reclaim sovereignty over our own thoughts.
To slow down.
To evaluate.
To remember that a story—no matter how convincing—does not become truth just because it is repeated loudly or often.
We live in a time when silence is rare, nuance is dying, and certainty is sold like fast food. In such an environment, caution isn’t cynicism. Caution is wisdom.
Truth has never shouted. Lies always do.
If these stories help even one reader pause before accepting what flashes across their screen, they’ve served their purpose. And if they remind you to think a little more deeply, listen a little more carefully, and trust a little more wisely, then the work of this collection continues long after the last page.
— Nick Sasaki
Short Bios:
Nick Sasaki is a writer and creator whose work blends modern life with moral reflection. He explores how truth, belief, and identity shape the stories people tell themselves. His projects often bridge imaginative storytelling with real-world social themes, encouraging readers to look inward with compassion and clarity.
Izzy Feldman
A soft-spoken school janitor whose quiet life revolves around routine, small kindnesses, and a deep desire to feel seen. He carries hope like a fragile lantern, believing even the faintest promise of a better future. His sincerity makes him vulnerable to voices that sound certain when his own feels small.
Miriam Tannenbaum
A gentle violin teacher whose capacity for patience borders on devotion. Surrounded by music, memory, and the echoes of a life she hoped would begin, she mistakes longing for destiny. Her belief in a perfect love blinds her to the imperfect but real connections already within reach.
Aaron Bloom
A gifted programmer with a tender conscience, eager to use technology for good in a world obsessed with speed. His compassion makes him susceptible to fear dressed as prophecy. Searching for meaning, he abandons what he excels at for a calling that never actually calls back.
Solomon Katz
A neighborhood grocer whose honesty is both his strength and his undoing. He treats customers like family and his store like a sanctuary. When modernity arrives wrapped in urgency and shame, he sacrifices the very simplicity that made him beloved.
Eli Perlman
A timid but deeply loyal synagogue assistant who carries responsibility heavier than he realizes. His desire to protect others leads him to trust the wrong message. In trying to shield his community from imagined danger, he becomes the unintended author of its fracture.
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