The exquisite timing of fate

Today’s subject is fate. I know, I know, but Shakespeare and the Bible got it wrong so someone’s got to clear things up. If life were a game of cricket, you might think of fate as a bowler: however many runs we score, it will eventually scatter our stumps and send us back to the pavilion of dissolution.

But you’d be wrong. If life’s a game of cricket, fate’s a batsman. For the essence of batting is timing, and fate has exquisite timing.

You cannot define timing. It’s like one of those subatomic particles that ignore the laws of classical physics: we don’t know what it is; we know only that it is. And we know it by its beauty.

The day after Boxing

Day, and the dog and I are walking by a pond. The path follows the pond’s edge and there are birds and fish for me to watch, and for the dog there is simply the world’s wild surface, which never ceases to engage him. And in summer he likes to wade into the pond and stand, to let the water draw the heat from his flesh. We go to the pond most days.

Ahead of us two men, a woman and a little dog.

When the woman sees us she calls the dog and clips it on a lead and sets off at an angle away from us. I think of waving to her to say not to worry, that my dog likes little dogs but even as I do so my right foot, shod in a worn Croc, slips on a patch of mud and shoots to the left. In compensation I lean to the right and suddenly my centre of gravity is over water.

Now I am no subatomic particle so I obey the laws of classical physics. And if there is one thing the laws of classical physics agree on it is that if your unsupported centre of gravity is over water you have two choices. You must either support it or fall in. I did both.

To support it I thrust out my left foot. It sank into the ooze and slid away like the right. And down I went.

... if your unsupported centre of gravity is over water you have two choices. You must either support it or fall in.

My last thought as I went down was to hope the woman with the dog wouldn’t look around and notice. My first sight as I came up was the woman looking around. Seconds later the two men were running towards me, ostensibly to offer help but actually to get a closer view of my distress. I’d have done the same myself.

A pond’s bottom consists of rotten organic material, the stench of which is sealed by the water. But when a casual dog-walker hauls himself from a pond besmirched with the stuff from head to foot the seal is broken. One man put his hand to his nose, though he may also have been smothering laughter. The other man pointed out a floating Croc. I waded back in to fetch it.

I thanked the men for feigning concern, insisted I was fine, and, carrying my treacherous footwear, I called the dog and headed for the car.

And if you are wondering where fate comes into this, if you are thinking this is merely a tale of clumsiness, devoid of the exquisite timing that is fate’s cruel signature, I ask only how it came to pass, as I trudged back to the car, barefoot, drenched, stinking and dripping self-pity, that on the path ahead of me at the point where my left instep would land there was a bee.

It’s all in the timing.