Branches of Fate

I pushed through the crowds swarming Regent and Oxford, a veritable sea of people moving in ways impossible to predict.

Individuals made thoughtful, intentional movements, unaware of how deeply impacted they were by the most minute movements of those around them, blind to how intensely their own actions affected all around them.

I’d long grown used to seeing the future. Ethereal constructs intertwined with the forms of passersby whispered of endless possibilities to me. I liked to think of them as branches, with every individual being a trunk supporting the canopy that was their future.

The branches shifted wildly, the confluence of fates wrought by the crowd producing a cacophony of changing futures, countless possibilities appearing, yet disappearing as fast as they came.

An errant shoulder shook me from my stupor.

A beautiful voice shifted my attention to a man singing off to the side, delighting in his own performance as both tourists and commuters paused to appreciate his voice. The most prominent branches whispered of a future where he would become flustered, where he’d miss a critical note, where shame would begin to flourish in his heart. He’d end his performance early, the perceived embarrassment preventing him from ever performing again, never knowing that the crowd hadn’t even noticed his mistake.

But his eyes found a little girl in a frilly red dress, beaming brightly as she experienced wonder like never before. He found his purpose in her admiration, and his newfound confidence changed his destiny. New branches shot forward, whispering of a future full of ever greater musical heights.

The girl would bug her mum to take her to singing practice when she returned home. I watched her go, still craning her neck back toward the singer as her mother steered her gently away, her face full of something she had no words for yet.

I caught myself wishing I could see my branches, to see how my future had changed.

I turned and walked down the stairs to the tube entrance. As I approached the gates, I watched as a couple giggled while walking through them side by side. When I tapped my card and walked through, a younger man followed, evading both the fare and the attention of the police. I heard a whisper as he rushed past. He’d likely get through a few more times before being caught.

I followed the crowd to the escalator, enjoying myself as it gently carried me down. For a moment, the crowd’s hearts and minds unified in purpose. The branches grew quieter, seeming to sway with a nonexistent wind. Every breath felt lighter, the soreness in my left calf felt realer.

Then the moment passed.

As I stepped off, I saw a woman tenderly press a coin into the hands of a homeless man. The woman walked off with a smile, a lighter pocket, and a much lighter heart.

The homeless man’s canopy was dense. I followed the strongest branch, the path he’d most likely take. He imagined trying again, attempting to make a simple life for himself. He imagined finding his footing, relearning the skills of a trade that had long since passed him by. But he couldn’t ignore the bottle, the allure of forgetting his many sorrows for just one more chilly night. I met his eyes, and I smiled, passing him by before seeing where his new branches would take him.

Occasionally, I worried I was too passive. That the burden of the branches slowly pulled me ever further from reality. That maybe, surrounded by branches, it was too easy to miss the trees for the forest.

I made my way to the platform, where a small group of commuters waited in quiet anticipation of our train. I leaned back against the tiled platform wall and hummed the song I’d heard earlier, delighting in the relative calm on the platform. After a moment, my ears picked up on the distant rumbling of an approaching train.

Just seven stops away from home.

But my eyes caught sight of a hooded man standing by the edge of the platform, his head held high, and his eyes gazing towards a sky he couldn’t see. He wore a red hoodie, identical in colour to the dress the little girl wore. His anticipation was not quiet. His right foot tapped the floor, and his hands, though nestled in his pockets, twitched restlessly as if agitated.

The rumbling grew louder.

My eyes drifted above his head, a place where I had always seen the twisting, evolving branches of lives to be lived. Yet where I expected a canopy of possibilities, hinting at the man’s many potential fates, I saw nothing but a shrivelled sapling, with only a single weathered trunk leading into the abyss.

The rumbling grew louder.

I was moving before I realised what was happening.

The rumbling grew louder.

The man stepped over the yellow line.

I screamed as the man made ready to jump off the platform. My voice conveyed no meaning but sheer terror, yet it was meaning enough for the man to falter and glance back at me.

His momentary hesitation gave me all the time I needed to find purchase on his hoodie. I pulled with all I had, and he tumbled back, safe.

The train thundered through, the wind and the screeching wheels drowning out all other noise.

His shocked eyes met my own, and his destiny exploded forward.

Vitality rushed into the shrivelled sapling. Its decrepit central trunk grew as branches sprouted in all directions. Each branch grew multiple branches of its own, and those branches grew more branches still. With every breath he took, more possibilities took root. A million million paths solidified. Many futures carried yet more sorrow, tears, and depression, but no matter how bleak, no matter how terrible, there were always sparks of joy and wonder, of love and beauty.

A forest of choices and decisions sprang up above the man, and a trace of hope appeared in his eyes.