fate

Sacredness and profanity and prayers and wishes: they're all held together by the broken limbs of this dead tree, raking the night sky with its blackened branches. We are so small, the two of us. The tree and sky are so large and grand. We could fail so easily, fall before we've begun to rise.

An cinniúnt, is dócha: féach an féileacán úd thall atá ag foluain os cionn mo choinnle. Ní fada go loiscfear a sciatháin mhaiseacha: cá bhfios dúinne nach bhfuil a fhios sin aige, freisin?

If it be now, __is not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come__he readiness is all.

How incredibly far our lives drift from where we knew with all certainty they would go. How little today resembles what yesterday thought it would look like.

Thus was their relationship born on the swift kiss of a pun. Neither suspected what the other would become to each of them. Like phrases running wild in the Logos, they knew neither who nor by what mechanism nor for what reason they were whistled for (if they understood that they were whistled for at all). They were simply compelled to come together. Sophia was the question, and Blip was the answer. And vice versa.

He stares at me so darkly, so hungily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do", I admit.

I will always buy extra yarn. I will not try to tempt fate.

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

But some things, no matter how unlikely, are just supposed to happen. You know what I mean. Some things just smack of the future and feel part of an overarching rightness.

You want to know what I believe? I believe in fate, but I also believe in free will. Meaning, there's a path, but we're free to veer away from it. The only problem is that there's no way to know whose path we're following on any given moment. Our own? Our fate's? Other people are on their on paths, too. What happens when we intersect? What happens when someone else wipes our path clean, and we're left with no road to follow? Is that fate? Is that when free will kicks in? Is the path there, but invisible?Who the hell knows?

Fate. You could never anticipate it.

You are a Chosen Man. You are Parmenion, the Death of Nations. A hundred thousand souls will yousend to the dark river, screaming and wailing, lamenting their fate. It is right and just that youshould know your choices.

It seems to me further, that it is very odd that fate should leave so careful a trail, and spend so little time preparing the one that must follow it.

Anything can happen. But almost always, just normal things happen and people have happy lives.

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.

Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand.

If I'd been a cowboy, it might've ended well.Somewhere on the ramble, I'm sure I'd have to sellMy guns along the highway. My coins to the table To make a gambler's double, I'd double debts to pay.Prob'ly shrink and slink away, It mightn't've ended well.What If I'd been a sailor? I think it might've ended well.From August to MayFor a searat of man drifting through eternal blue, aboard the finest Debris.I might've called the shanties. From daybreak to storm's set, lines stay Taught, over rhythm unbroken.But, oh, there's a schism unspoken, a mighty calling of the lee.An absentminded Pirate, unaccustomed to the sea;To the land, a traitor. I think it mightn't've ended well. What might've worked for me? What might've ended well?Soldier, to bloody sally forth through hell?Teacher of glorious stories to tell?Man of gold, or stores to sell?Lover to a gentle belle? Maybe a camel;A seashell.What mightn't've been a life where it mightn't've ended well?

But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry (of life) will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge of the world that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.