What didn’t happen this week!?!
So much horrible stuff, that’s what didn’t happen.
Fate is a strange material, regardless of whether you think’s it’s real or assume it’s merely conceptual. Fate, as an idea, is stretchy and slippery—unmemorable like a dream. A true four-letter word, philosophically.
Is fate solid and sturdy? Or is something softer than anything Friedrich Mohs ever measured or imagined? Is fate a fog or a diamond? A law or a suggestion? A variable or an absolute? Does it matter?
ANYWAY: It’s interesting (at least it is for me), to imagine (to guess?) at what didn’t happen on our timelines, because those non-events can be as pivotal to our timelines as the events we know really occurred.
I mean, let’s just explore THAT, as an idea. Let’s pretend we’re omniscient narrators for a hot minute. Let’s look at that wins that we collectively scored because of things that didn’t happen—the white space around stories we tell ourselves.
WIN ONE:
A neighbor’s soap smells fancy. So three people didn’t die today.
They took an extra 30 seconds in the shower, just feeling fancy with their nice soaps, and by doing so, disrupted the flow of traffic just enough that a serious accident did not occur.
WIN TWO:
A nice lady did not adjust her bitch-face. That caused a robbery not to happen.
He was in line behind her at the bodega. He was just getting up the nerve to demand all the cash in the register but when she turned around, his fragile bravery wilted under the power of her effortless glare.
WIN THREE:
A man failed to pick up his dog’s poop. Now a baby will be born.
The baby’s not-yet-father abruptly side-stepped the abandoned turd and bumped squarely into the baby’s not-yet-mother, instigating a delightfully symbiotic 53-year marriage.
WIN FOUR:
A father did not assemble a bookcase correctly, ensuring that his family avoids serious, fiery injury.
The father didn’t use every bit that came in the flat pack box, and his toddler found and swallowed one of washers not placed between shelves. This washer was still in intestinal transit when the family reached the airport and prevented them from passing through the metal detectors at the security gate. The missed their flight on a plane with a faulty engine blade.
WIN FIVE:
A woman did not show up for a job interview, which made her dream job available to her.
Had she not overslept, she would have been offered and then taken a job that offered approximately half of the money, respect, and satisfaction of the job she secured a mere week later.
WIN SIX:
An elderly man did not wear his glasses, thus saving a younger man from bankruptcy.
The younger man couldn’t find a place to park as the older one parked his car in four at once. Unable to shop, didn’t buy anything that day: saving himself from a Rube-Goldberg set of overdraft fees that would have cascaded into a comically insurmountable debt.
WIN SEVEN:
A woman does not feel well. Her case of food poisoning results in the eradication of the Pacific Garbage Patch.
She came home from work early to find her cousin prepping several kilos of cocaine for distribution. She made him destroy all of it because he feared what would happen if she told his mother more than he feared any cartel. He fled to college and his research will change how plastics are recycled on a planetary scale.
WIN EIGHT:
A girl trusted her gut and did not let the stranger into her house.
Enough said.
WIN NINE:
Middle school sweethearts didn’t stay together, ensuring themselves ideal futures.
They each went on to find other loves and have children, and then two of those children will later meet and form a company that will support everyone in this theoretical situation until the end of time.
WIN TEN:
You didn’t listen to the people who told you that you suck. Future You is grateful, because you proved the bullies wrong many times over and made Future You possible.
Future You would love to stay and explain all the details, but Baby Hitler’s not going to get abducted and raised by well-meaning time travelers by himself.
Good job this week, everybody.
Happy time traveling (in the one direction we can).