Fate Drops By

I'm thinking about fate. Or, rather, Fate.

It came up in conversation the other day and I began to wonder about it. I guess I believe in little bitty fates. But complete and total predestination? "Thou Cannot Stand Before The Will of Heaven"? The thought that something, once set into motion, has an inevitable and foregone conclusion that we really have no say in and nothing to do with?

If I were a believer in Fate, then right now, right this very second I think I could very well be staring at my own. Circumstances, desires, plans, and people, perfect people that have come together at the right time and the right place that you think would have no other conclusion but one. The One I Want Them to Have.

Or is that yet one more example of human arrogance? It's Fate because it worked out the way I wanted it to. But it's Bad Luck if it doesn't.

Whoa, and don't even get me started on the whole if I think I recognize it as Fate, then does that jinx it in some way, causing the universe to hiccup and stutter a little to the left just out of spite? train of thought (that was just one tiny railcar, trust me).

And what is Fate like? There are 'the Fates' of literature.

The Goddess of Necessity, Themis, brought forth three lovely daughters, known as The Fates. All living things must eventually submit to these divine daughters of Zeus and Themis. Their names are: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Life is woven by Clotho, measured by Lachesis and finally, in a very literal sense, the thread of life is cut by Atropos. They laugh at our feeble attempts to cheat them because they always prevail.

Ha. Ha.

In a way, when I think of Fate in tangible form and feature, I think of a lone woman. Not the young woman/crone/hag phase thing. But one beautiful woman. And I wonder what she'd be like if I were to wake up one morning with her looming over me. Because she'd have to be good AND evil, right? Fate is not always kind. Fate shows you what could be, then snatches it away. Fate gives you the perfect thing at the imperfect time. Fate drops an amazing bomb and changes your life, even if you don't want her to. Your destiny is here! It's wondrous! Oops, no it's not.

She'd have wings, I think. Black and sleek and shiny, covering her completely and opening at a thought to show bronze skin looking like warmth and comfort. Soft and full lips hiding a caustic kiss. Long silvery hair laying like a river across her shoulders, each strand a smooth perfection which only to the touch would reveal themselves as stinging nettles. Her graceful fingers would end in curved and polished claws so sharp that even the most gentle caress may lacerate. Even sincere and careful, the tracks of her affection would be written in her lover's blood.

Like all heavenly creatures she would be capable of love and fear as well as wrath and pride and sometimes it would pain her to be hated for what she is. She would shed her loneliness in diamond bright and deadly tears.

Fate, with a heart that beats, harboring desires, like any other heart. Loyal to those who seek intimacy with her, denying no one and loving her enemies as dearly as she loves those who search her out.

Is this the Fate that I am to meet?

Or is it just a set of happy little unexplainable coincidences that will all come to naught, in the end? Serendipity? No meaning these random flashes, although they seem so clear, interlocking so tightly into this puzzle. So effortlessly I can hear them 'click' into place and feel the weight of their presence with every breath I take. It would seem like such a waste for it not to be destiny, a waste of such painfully perfect pieces all lined up and waiting for the final act.

Which is it? What will it be? Will inevitability or coincidence be left standing when the curtain drops?

I'll have to get back to you on that one.


May 22, 2004