Meant To Be: The Cruel And Beautiful Strings Of Fate Have Caused Our Paths To Cross On This Four-Way Crosswalk

Hello again, stranger.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How life works. Despite meeting mere moments ago, our bodies are now locked in an ancient ritual, performing a primal, carnal dance that’s encoded in our genome and is older than humanity itself.

No, not sex. I’m talking about crossing the road.

Let’s rewind. It was a busy day at the intersection of Westwood and Le Conte. Cars, buses, and all other manner of road transportation were waiting eagerly to continue to their destination. But, of course, they couldn’t, because the lights were red. All of them. And like clockwork (well, not really, it’s actually a digital timing circuit), the little walk man popped up, and all eyes turned towards center stage. The main attraction had just begun.

I was at the southwest corner, crossing diagonally to head to class. You were coming from the southeast. To what end, I’m still not sure. You had a Ralphs bag, but it was empty. Why would anyone carry an empty Ralphs bag? I was so busy puzzling over this that I didn’t think to slow my pace, to anticipate your trajectory and course-correct, and as we both approached the center point, the crux of that black tar square, your life line crashed into mine, and I’ve never been the same.

In the nights since our rendezvous, I often lie awake, thinking about what could have gone differently. Crunching the numbers, calculating the cascading possibilities of the millions of little actions that led up this. What if I left a moment earlier or a moment later? What if you’d actually bought something at Ralphs, and the weight of your groceries had slowed your pace? What if I stepped on a butterfly on my way over and set off an increasingly hair-raising series of events that led to an epic, “Final Destination”-style death? What if, what if, what if…

But don’t you see? It was meant to be! Out of the billions of possible outcomes, this is the one that happened. The strings of fate puppeteered us together, to shuffle awkwardly in the center of the road for much longer than necessary, for a reason. The universe wanted us to step to my right, your left, then step to my left, your right, then for you to give up, stand still and let me weave around you. The fault, dear stranger, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are fast walkers.

Anyways if ur reading this hmu lets have some fun im sooo lonely ahaha