It all began on that excessively warm night last spring with that first goddamn fortune cookie. I even remember exactly what was printed out on it despite not remembering the other fortunes in such detail. “You will find a greater love from a current friendship,” it said.
Can you remember what your last fortune cookie’s little slip said? Did you even bother to open it, or did you just leave it on that little tray that your check and dinner mints came on?
Of course you can’t remember what it said, nobody can. Those stupid little slips of so-called wisdom and advice are pure crap. They don’t mean a damn thing, and even if you can make it somehow apply to your life, they still don’t tell you anything you normally don’t already know. So even if you do read them you end up forgetting them just as quick.
I should have taken the mints and left the cookies behind.

I might grow tired of the narrator's attitude before long, though.

as for theft - interesting. personally, I have more projects simmering than I can really write to my satisfaction - I'm not in the market for more ideas (now, if you could offer me the time to finish 'em all off, that I might be tempted to steal.) Most of the writers I know are in the same position. Nevertheless it is entirely your call - you are under no obligation to share your work with us! whatever you're comfortable with.

ok, then, the voice. The good thing is that it's very distinctive and real. But it's pretty cranky - if that's all there is, I might lose sympathy for the narrator. You'll have to give me a reason to care about him (he sounds like a guy) - it will take more than just a cranky voice to get through the story. Not so much back off the cynicism - I think keeping a strong distinctive voice is good- as show us that there's more to this guy than attitude.

I would call this speculative short fiction. The story is about a man who discovers his fortunes from the cookies at this restaurant are coming true. His first fortune is actually a good one (falling in love and marriage); the second gets him a better position in his job (but at the cost of his mentor's accidental death).

As things progress in a downward spiral he becomes more obsessed with learning his future to see if things brighten up. He becomes somewhat paranoid/schizophrenic as time progresses.

Each time he goes to this restaurant he notices he has the same waiter. He never mentions this to his wife (when she is there with him) assuming she notices the trend too.

The fortunes stop becoming predictions and start becoming suggestive. This leads to him murdering his wife.

In the end, he has changed places and is now trapped as the waiter in the restaurant serving the cookies with each meal. The previous waiter was a victim once just like him and had to find my protagonist and serve him the fortunes to escape.

Perhaps there's a mystical number - I'm not familiar with Chinese numerology, but there is undoubtedly a significant number - if the waiter can pass on X fortunes, the curse passes on.

Just off the top of my head. No doubt you can come up with something cleverer than that - sometimes the fastest way to see a good idea is to look at someone else's dorky ideas and say no, no, it's not like that at all, it's like this...

One thing: first paragraph, the character says that he remembers what his fortune cookie said, but then you interupt the story by talking about how nobody can remember what they've read out of a fortune cookie. Why not talk about how nobody can recall what their fortunes are, and then talk about how this became an exception.

Overall, I'm happy, and would keep reading.

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I am a little scared of posting full stories on any forums.

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