Chapter 72 — Another Lottery
The Curve of Time, Chapter 72 —— Another Lottery, in which Mica is given another lottery winner to write up.
Followed by some musings on coincidence.
Listen to full episode :
— 72 —
Another Lottery
“There’s no reason you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Mica’s assignment editor paused. “His name’s Charles Belfry.”
“He won yesterday?” Mica wrote Charles’ name on her notepad, this was the quid pro quo she’d signed up for.
“U-huh. Cheer up. Not only did he win the lottery, he’s an oil exec.” Zelda laughed. “Maybe you can connect the two stories.”
Twenty minutes later, Mica had a good picture of who Charles was, and the picture elicited a sigh. Whatever you had a lot of in life, you got more of. So the saying went, and never did it seem more true than in the case in front of her. What right did the super wealthy have to win the lottery? It violated every tenet of basic decency.
But, the more she thought about it, the more it felt too coincidental. Whether or not Zelda really believed there might be a connection to Zeno’s story, Mica’s journalistic spidey senses prickled, and she dug deeper.
Charles Belfry wasn’t just a fossil fuels big wig, he had a pension for yoga and mindfulness. Moreover, a social media post suggested that he too had attended a Santa Cruz meditation retreat last weekend.
A text to Dalton, confirmed the name of the retreat that Zeno had attended, affirming Mica’s hunch: Zeno’s and Charles’ meditation retreats were one and the same.
The corner of her mouth tipped up. She tapped her two front teeth with her pen. Intriguing. Alarm bells were ringing. Any air of the coincidental had just gone up in smoke. There was a fire here and the flames had clearly engulfed multiple spiritual devotees.
Was this another case of the lottery being an irresistible proving ground to the nascent time traveler? A way to check his craft? And, if so, was Zeno the only connection between Charles Belfry and Saskia?
Mica tracked down everything she could find online about the retreat, including images of a few of last weekend’s attendees. With her ducks lined up, she called the front desk at the retreat. “I’m writing a piece on So-Cal meditation retreats. I was hoping to get a comment from your guru. Amara?” It was a time-tested lure; what small business turned up their nose at free press?
And, as she’d hoped, Lucy, the woman manning the front desk, promised Mica that Amara would be delighted to speak with her in an hour’s time.
On a roll, Mica took another big swing. “Do you happen to know an attendee who has recently taken Amara’s workshop? Someone I could talk to?”
Lucy paused. Mica could feel her considering. “I probably shouldn’t, but I don’t think Molly would mind. She was so lovely.” She then furnished Mica with Molly’s full name and phone number.
Mica thanked Lucy and hung up. No sense pushing her luck at this point. She flipped her laptop open and searched “Molly Witherspoon”. The woman had been found dead——yesterday! A short article in the Seattle Times was even shorter on details.
∞
Saskia answered Mica’s call. “Why? What makes you think Zeno might have known how to slip in time?”
Mica explained that a certain Charles Belfry had just won the lottery, and that Charles had attended the same meditation retreat that Zeno had. She explained how she knew this, and that, moreover, a third attendee of the retreat had died mysteriously yesterday.
“Pockets of light are the shadows of an underlying mystery.” Saskia’s literary accounting elicited a smile and an unexpected chuckle from Mica. The moment of levity disarmed Saskia, who asked: “Hey, remember how we saw Zeno by my front door?”
“U-huh.”
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet, but I saw myself on my security camera too. When we were out on the rig.”
“When?”
“When I was in the change rooms. Before I dived to the wellhead.”
“You saw yourself? And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“I didn’t want to mention it in front of Wassily,” Saskia tried justifying her omission, even as she realized they’d shared a flight back to LA.
Mica said nothing; but her silence was a clear indication that she didn’t buy Saskia’s rationalization.
To fill the void, Saskia stumbled forward, describing how she’d seen what she assumed was her future self in her own front yard, and how it had given her confidence.
As Saskia related her story, she felt Mica’s confidence in her slipping away. “You know it was your future you——because?”
“I mean——”
“Not another you, like the one I saw on our first date?”
“I guess it might have been another me. But how would that me know I was watching?”
“How would she?”
Saskia guessed where Mica’s mind had run: Saskia’s mysterious double, and where she might be now. Saskia, herself, wondered if her double was gone forever. She felt guilty again, that she still had not admitted seeing her double too. “You know what I realized yesterday, as I left you?” Saskia tried switching to more comfortable territory. “You’re the one I choose to share my ability with. Not Wassily. Not someone at work. Not my mom.”
“You hadn’t seen Wassily in years.”
“——And it was you who pulled me out of my head. Encouraged me to act on it. To use my power for good.”
“What are you saying?”
Saskia sneezed and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry,” Mica apologized. “I’m feeling overwhelmed. There are so many strands to chase down.”
“You want me to fly to Seattle?” Saskia’s offer was as much a surprise to herself as Mica. She’d only just returned to the recycling center, hadn’t even checked in with Bossman yet. But the truth was, she shared Mica’s urgency. The implications of Mica’s findings might well be bigger than her, but they were personal too. “I could even go back a day or so and see what happened. How your third attendee died.”
Mica balked. She was nervous, especially given the agitation Dalton had described in Lizzie, the witness to Zeno’s death. But she was closing in on heart of the matter, even as it risked slipping away. She didn’t like the idea of Saskia leaving town again, but they were already physically separated and she needed to get to the bottom of what was happening. “That would be great. Look, I’ll call you after I speak with Zeno’s monk.”
Well, that was chapter 72, Friends, I hope you enjoyed it.
Thinking about the near misses and coincidences in today’s chapter has me reflecting on near misses in my own life. At least some of the near misses I’ve come to notice, subsequent to their passing. And this daisy-chain of incidents has led me to a proud dad moment that I’m experiencing right now.
The first link——one that I noticed years ago now——was that my wife and I had both very nearly ended up studying in Boulder Colorado (years before we actually met); a place that neither of us has any real connection to. Or, at least had no real connection to back then; now as a rock climber I have a few friends who are either living there at this moment or have lived there recently. Still, I haven’t climbed there myself. Indeed the only time I’ve ever visited was with my wife when we drove across the country a quarter century ago.
Interestingly, though, Boulder is the starting point of another coincidence that’s creeping up on me: My erstwhile grad school roommate, Brian, hailed from there, and Brian is now a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, where at the age of two I spent an evening in the local ER having my head stitched back together, after a friend of my parents inadvertently dropped an armful of firewood on my noggin. Making that connection all the more significant——and the reason for my proud dad moment——is that my youngest will be heading to Berkeley in the fall to start her undergraduate degree, in of all things … no, not history, but mathematics!
Some people would doubtless find inner meaning in all these coincidences. Me, I prefer to enjoy them for what they are: significant only by virtue of their coincidence, and as Saskia said: that their “Pockets of light are the shadows of an underlying mystery”. Like the half dozen lottery numbers that change someone’s life each week: mystical numbers? No. But I assume that most lottery winners would struggle not to ascribe meaning to their coincidental appearance and significance in their lives.
It’s funny how coincidence can bestow meaning.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
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