Read Online Coincidence by David Ambrose - Free Book Online
Authors: David Ambrose
Tags: Science-Fiction
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world and into the macroscopic. We are told that subatomic particles behave
according to quantum indeterminacy: In other words, their behavior is inherently unpredictable. However, when there are enough
of them, the law of large numbers causes them to average out sufficiently to constitute the atoms and cells that make up,
say, a chair and table, a horizontally revolving wheel, and a human being sitting at the table watching the wheel spin as
he plays roulette.
Why this should be so also remains obscure.
We are further told that by the time we get to the level of the macroscopic world (the casino in which the game of roulette
is being played), the quantum fluctuations on the microscopic level of reality are too small to be of significance. And yet
the game of roulette (like all games, including the insurance business) is governed by the same principle—the law of large
numbers—that has assembled the casino and the player out of their anarchic fundamental elements in the first place.
All
gambling is a quixotic joust against the odds, and the odds are no more than another manifestation of the law of large numbers.
But the roulette ball does not know that, in the long run, zero must come up once every thirty-seven times if the casino is
to stay in business. Yet, in reality, on average, that is what it does.
Again, go figure.
Chapter 10
S ara was going to Philadelphia the following morning, which was a Saturday. I had been sleeping badly, and that night was no
exception. I lay in the dark, watching her, listening to her breathe. I don’t know why, but suddenly I knew she was awake.
And I knew she knew that I was awake. Which meant that she was pretending to sleep to avoid talking to me. I knew in that
moment that I knew a great deal, and had known it for some time. I just hadn’t been willing to admit it to myself.
As though she read my thought, or perhaps she merely sensed my stillness and divined what lay behind it, she opened her eyes
and turned to look at me. The words came from my mouth through no conscious decision on my part. It was as if they had spoken
themselves.
“It’s Steve, isn’t it?” I heard myself say.
“Yes,” she said simply.
There was silence. I remember I lowered my head slightly. She may have taken it for, and perhaps it was, a nod of acquiescence,
a passive acceptance of the worst blow that had ever been dealt me. My mouth was dry. I swallowed hard. She began to speak.
She was trying to apologize, telling me how sorry she was. I cut her short. I couldn’t bear to hear it. I didn’t want to think
about it. I was numb and I wanted to stay that way.
Then she said she thought we ought to separate. I looked at her, still hardly able to believe that this was happening. “I’ll
move out,” I said. “While you’re away I’ll find somewhere. I’ll arrange it.”
“Yes,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper, “perhaps that’s best.”
I don’t remember much else. I recall making some kind of promise not to cause trouble, at the same time wondering why I wasn’t
raging and breaking things and threatening to kill them both. This sense of inner dislocation between what I wanted to do
and what I was actually doing served only to heighten the unreality of the moment. What was happening was impossible. And
perhaps because it was impossible I didn’t believe that it was happening. I moved through events as though they were unreal,
a dream from which I would awaken and everything would once again be normal. I moved from our bedroom into one of the guest
rooms. I took a sleeping pill, and then another one, because I wanted oblivion. More than that, I
needed
it, because I feared without it that I might go mad.
Next morning I woke abruptly just after seven. My head was clear, in fact unusually so, and I remembered everything that had
happened. I still felt strangely distanced from it all, like a sleepwalker going through the
according to quantum indeterminacy: In other words, their behavior is inherently unpredictable. However, when there are enough
of them, the law of large numbers causes them to average out sufficiently to constitute the atoms and cells that make up,
say, a chair and table, a horizontally revolving wheel, and a human being sitting at the table watching the wheel spin as
he plays roulette.
Why this should be so also remains obscure.
We are further told that by the time we get to the level of the macroscopic world (the casino in which the game of roulette
is being played), the quantum fluctuations on the microscopic level of reality are too small to be of significance. And yet
the game of roulette (like all games, including the insurance business) is governed by the same principle—the law of large
numbers—that has assembled the casino and the player out of their anarchic fundamental elements in the first place.
All
gambling is a quixotic joust against the odds, and the odds are no more than another manifestation of the law of large numbers.
But the roulette ball does not know that, in the long run, zero must come up once every thirty-seven times if the casino is
to stay in business. Yet, in reality, on average, that is what it does.
Again, go figure.
Chapter 10
S ara was going to Philadelphia the following morning, which was a Saturday. I had been sleeping badly, and that night was no
exception. I lay in the dark, watching her, listening to her breathe. I don’t know why, but suddenly I knew she was awake.
And I knew she knew that I was awake. Which meant that she was pretending to sleep to avoid talking to me. I knew in that
moment that I knew a great deal, and had known it for some time. I just hadn’t been willing to admit it to myself.
As though she read my thought, or perhaps she merely sensed my stillness and divined what lay behind it, she opened her eyes
and turned to look at me. The words came from my mouth through no conscious decision on my part. It was as if they had spoken
themselves.
“It’s Steve, isn’t it?” I heard myself say.
“Yes,” she said simply.
There was silence. I remember I lowered my head slightly. She may have taken it for, and perhaps it was, a nod of acquiescence,
a passive acceptance of the worst blow that had ever been dealt me. My mouth was dry. I swallowed hard. She began to speak.
She was trying to apologize, telling me how sorry she was. I cut her short. I couldn’t bear to hear it. I didn’t want to think
about it. I was numb and I wanted to stay that way.
Then she said she thought we ought to separate. I looked at her, still hardly able to believe that this was happening. “I’ll
move out,” I said. “While you’re away I’ll find somewhere. I’ll arrange it.”
“Yes,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper, “perhaps that’s best.”
I don’t remember much else. I recall making some kind of promise not to cause trouble, at the same time wondering why I wasn’t
raging and breaking things and threatening to kill them both. This sense of inner dislocation between what I wanted to do
and what I was actually doing served only to heighten the unreality of the moment. What was happening was impossible. And
perhaps because it was impossible I didn’t believe that it was happening. I moved through events as though they were unreal,
a dream from which I would awaken and everything would once again be normal. I moved from our bedroom into one of the guest
rooms. I took a sleeping pill, and then another one, because I wanted oblivion. More than that, I
needed
it, because I feared without it that I might go mad.
Next morning I woke abruptly just after seven. My head was clear, in fact unusually so, and I remembered everything that had
happened. I still felt strangely distanced from it all, like a sleepwalker going through the
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