A Fateful Commute

Contrary to what the tales would have you believe, they are not gathered in a single location, only reached through great travail and sacrifice. Rather, they are scattered through the length and breadth of the Earth. Despite what you may have heard, they number not three, but hundreds or thousands. No one knows for certain, for no one has met them all. Few have even met one. To encounter a Fate is an event so extraordinary and unpredictable, such an incomprehensible rarity, one can only say that fate decrees the meeting of a Fate. If fate should smile on you that you encounter one, waste not the opportunity to pull that thread and consider yourself blessed, for you know not when—or if—such a meeting will happen again.

I was taking the 137 train on that fateful day. It was a beautiful autumn morning. There was a chill in the air, a carpet of red-gold leaves on the ground, and just enough bluster to make me grateful for the warm mug of coffee in my hand. I didn’t give it a second thought as the train squealed to a halt at the Forrest Lane station, although I did hunker away from the aisle as she doddered past, a black shawl drawn over age-bowed shoulders with a wide floppy hat covering most of a withered face and incongruently multi-hued knitting fiercely clutched in long, bony fingers. Of course, I did not recognize her nature, for such is the nature of Fates. That’s what makes them so hard to find; you can look all you want, but you never see them unless they want to be seen. She looked at me as she passed my seat, and I’ll never forget the moment her verdant eyes locked onto mine from under the brim of her hat. In that moment, it seemed as if black infinity opened up before me and contracted, endless possibilities distilled into a single, pure moment. Never have I felt such an intense vertigo, standing on the edge of undulating eternity. I became acutely aware of the finity of my mind and I desperately wanted to shut it all out as it inexorably crept behind my eyelids and wormed its way into my ears. Insanity beckoned.

When the world rocked back into steady reality, she was gone! I breathed a quiet shuddering sigh as the train juddered to life, simultaneously deeply relieved and horridly embarrassed that I would react so to a little old woman when the sound of her needles began clicking in ghastly rhythm.

Click-clack…click-clack…click-clack

I knew, deep in my soul, that she had chosen to sit behind me. The dread came back instantly and without resistance, for nothing had yet come to fill its absence.

I have often wondered whether I would have eventually suspected her true nature if she had chosen to not speak to me. Would I have put these feelings down to my imagination? Would I have even had that experience, if she hadn’t wanted to speak to me? I will never know, for I soon heard her voice creaking, as if boughs of an ancient oak were groaning before a biting winter wind:

“Whither dost thou travel?”

I daredn’t even turn my head to face her, but I could feel those terrible eyes boring into the back of my head.

Click-clack

How do I answer? What do I say? All pathways appeared to turn to mist in my mind, except for the one most unwise: the honest truth. The silence lasted seconds as it stretched to minutes, then to hours, onto eternity. My better judgment warred with my instinct, her knitting needles tapping out a horrid counterpoint to the frantic beating of my heart.

Click-clack…click-clack…click-clack…

The click-clacking cacophony finally shattered the last vestiges of my willpower and I no longer could resist the impulse to answer and lay my soul bare before this knitting-needle harpy. Even so, a nascent resistance formed, fighting the foreign instinct now threatening to override my mind.

“Oh, just…downtown…” I said.

“From whence dost thou come?” She croaked.

“Um…from the suburbs…” I said as I jerked my thumb behind me. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I couldn’t risk falling into those horizonless eyes again.

Again came the grave-shrouded voice; “Why dost thou go…downtown…”

“Listen…um…my exit’s coming up, and…” I prevaricated, before the staccato of her needles broke down the last vestiges of resistance in my mind.

“I have a job,” I said finally. “I work for Jameson & Folcourt. The injury lawyers?”

It still wasn’t enough. Desperately, my mind cast about for details to satisfy the crone’s rhythmic hunger. “I’m an associate at the firm;” I offered. “I think I can make partner in a few years, if things fall right. If I get the right cases. If I win them.” There was a silence then, broken only by the incessant click-clack of her needles, and then…

“What dost thou expect ‘making partner’ to do?” Her voice creaked like timbers in an old frigate during a gale.

Visions of wealth, power, and opportunity flew into my mind; “Oh, all sorts of things!” I say eagerly. “More money, more influence, more career opportunities!” Everything I saw I had dreamed before, yet it was all more vivid and real than it had ever been before. I almost felt I could reach out and touch them. Into my reverie her voice cut, this time as damascus-edged knife cutting through butter:

“What cases dost thou wish to possess, to obtain thy visions of wealth and power”

I suddenly felt an almost palpable blade writhing its way between my ribs. Fate hung upon my answer. Uncertain, I replied more cautiously; “Oh, you know…high profile ones. The ones you see in the news, that award some lucky fellow millions of dollars. Those are the ones that matter.”

The click-clack of her needles continued sharply, each tap a knife-edge in my mind as she asked; “What of thy current case? Is her case such as these?”

Her words conjured up images of the woman I had met the day before; I was seeing her again as clearly as if she were sitting in front of me on the train. Short dark hair framing her tired and beaten face, she had tearfully recounted to me her story, how she had met and grown to love her husband, how he was her Prince Charming, how their whirlwind romance led to a proposal on the Riviera and an eventual wedding in Tahiti.

She told me how he changed. She told me how he grew harsh with her, and domineering; How he took control of her finances and drove away her friends; how he isolated her, and then began doing worse…

In excruciating detail, she described how he abused her, how he raped her, how he beat her down when she dared show even a little backbone. She showed me (as much as was decent) the wounds she had received. She then told me that she was trying to leave her husband, but that he had convinced her doctors that she was insane and was trying to get himself appointed her guardian. With tears in her eyes, she asked me to represent her and help her get out of her husband’s shadow.

Now, I was as sympathetic to her plight as the next guy, but a man’s gotta eat, you know? She didn’t have much in the way of resources, and this would be a very difficult case to win. Her husband had covered his tracks well.

“Oh that case…I don’t know…it’s not exactly the kind of case I’m looking for…” I equivocated, as I could feel the crone’s eyes boring into the back of my skull.

Click-clack

“I mean…I need a case I can win, you know? Something that will put me on the map…”

Click-clack

I began to hear a puerile whine enter my babbling voice, as her implacable knitting broke down my mental defenses and jumbled my thoughts. “Besides, it’s not really what we do. Yes, I know, we’re “injury” lawyers, but we don’t usually handle domestic cases like this…”

Click-clack

“I mean…I’m sure she’ll find someone willing to take her case…and who knows. Maybe they’ll win! But I can’t really afford to take her on…”

Suddenly, the horrid click-clacking stopped. I broke out into a cold sweat, for all was deathly quiet behind me. The urge to turn around apexed, but my fear rose in equal measure, and I stayed rooted to my seat in terror. I don’t know how long that moment lasted. It was probably mere seconds, but it seemed as if the seasons were rolling by outside my window. Then her voice crackled through my mind like a sudden ice storm from the north, inside of me and all around me:

“Who art thou to decide she is not worthy of thy time?? What makes thou think thy pitiful existence is of more value than hers?? Where dost thou find the gall to claim thy meager subsistent career is of more import than her safety??”

Against all the willpower I could muster, my head turned to face her as if caught in a vice. Again, I was locked into those horrid, virid eyes, now seething as with tsunami waves. In a blink of my fear-wide eyes, I was imprisoned by the infinite, rolling void. All around me, the blackness pressed in as if I were at the bottom of Challenger Deep. The only thing keeping me from imploding was the wellspring of craven terror welling up from my soul. Her voice vibrated through my whole being with tectonic intensity:

“How dost thou darest put thoughts of thy career over the needs of a vulnerable woman such as she?? Many heroes have I seen through the millennia lay down far more for the downtrodden than thy puny ‘career.’ Men and women have lain down their freedom, their lives, and even their souls with not a second thought to protect those whom they will never meet. Thou hadst a woman beg thee face-to-face; Beg! And thou wilt help her not for fear of losing her case?? Stupid boy! Thou hast the audacity to dare presume importance!”

If tears could have leaked out of my eyes at that moment, they would have been flowing down my face. In that roiling darkness, I saw, for the first time, the insignificance of my life. All my life had been pointed toward the success at my fingertips, but the accolades and awards, the certainty of a life of money and power, crumbled to dust and was swept away on the unending tides. It was all meaningless, ash before the wind. Who’s life did I improve by becoming a Rhodes scholar? What good did I do anyone by graduating first in my class at Harvard? Who did I help by accepting my position at Jameson & Folcourt? Who would benefit if I achieved partnership? I had always told myself that I stood for justice and right. I had always believed that I would support the good and punish evildoers with my knowledge, but did any of that mean anything if I would not take an impactless case such as this? Did it not all come crashing down as soon as I faced a real chance to make a sacrifice? With a bright, bitter clarity, I understood my life for the meaningless frivolity it was. I was crushed under the weight of meaninglessness and shame.

“You’re right!” I cried into the emptiness. “I see it now! What good is a life of significance if it is spent in a self-driven coma?” I sat there in the crushing silence for a moment, and then pled to the darkness again: “But what can I do? Isn’t it just as meaningless to take her case and lose than to never take her case at all?” I was afraid that I had stepped too far, that the wrath of infinity would come crashing down on me. Then I heard her voice, insistent still, but softer; “There is more to life than success or failure, boy. Sometimes, simply being there to support a person can mean the difference between life and death. Sometimes, thou need only be present.”

My soul calmed as I listened to her words. Here was something I could do, something to give my life the meaning it would never get by chasing the material significance. I closed my eyes and let the void in. I surrendered.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the train, getting close to my station. I looked around to find the old woman, but she was nowhere to be found. I felt a sharp sense of loss, even though most of our conversation had filled me with terror. When I got to my office, I immediately called the woman…my new client…and told her I’d take her case.

I will never forget meeting that woman…hag…crone…whatever she is, and I live in both terror and longing at the thought of meeting her again. That fateful encounter on the 137 changed my life, and yet I cannot define any specific ways my life has been made materially better or worse for it. Was that encounter even for my benefit? It must have been, and yet…

And yet…

I can’t help but wonder if I’m little more than a bit player in some larger design. What if this isn’t my story at all? What if I am nothing more than a footnote in someone else’s story? Perhaps that meeting of fate wasn’t about my fate at all. Perhaps I’m nothing more than an instrument in someone else’s destiny. How many lives can I touch in small, insignificant ways? How many lives can I impact by doing little things that cause great ripples? Maybe all I’m doing is providing moral support to my client, giving her the strength she needs to stand up to her husband. If that’s all I can do for her, if I accomplish nothing more than to offer a flicker of hope to a woman in need, it is enough.