Russ Bickerstaff

Chance and Circumstance

 

Chance looked at its own reflection looking back at it. Circumstance was looking at its reflection in Chance as well.

The two of them were looking at each other without seeing each other...each one only seeing itself in the face of the one that was looking back at it. All was as it should have been, only there was something strange about the substance of the moment. It wasn’t exactly what it needed to be as there was a conspicuous absence of some sort that no one seemed to fully acknowledge. Chance and Circumstance looked on into each other’s eyes.

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Chance was trying to convince Circumstance that the one had been left in the other’s care. Their parents were clearly gone and they were clearly there alone. Someone needed to be the responsible one and clearly it was Chance (or Circumstance.) And either way, there was clearly something that needed to happen. Chance called after their mother (Nature.) Circumstance called after their father (Nurture.) Neither one of them managed any response at all from anyone. Silence was the answer. (And it hadn’t even been invited.) Chance and Circumstance sat around accompanied by silence waiting for the moment to pass.

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Silence shifted about in the room. It wasn't exactly acknowledging the presence of either reflection. They were both reflections of each other. From a different perspective. From a different distant perspective it's all reflection. But it's not exactly what Silence seemed to observe. Silence seemed to observe a lack of movement. A lack of motion. A lack of real communication. There was a feeling of coldness as well. A lack of warmth perhaps. Or a presence of frigidity or fragility. Something like that. You don't seem so very fragile. As there was such a solitude about the gentle periphery of the moment.

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But as long as there wasn't anyone else present, Chance and Circumstance were more or less free to do whatever it was that they wanted to. There really wasn't any sense of supervision about the moment. There wasn't any sense of authority. Anything could happen. In the shadows of Nature and Nurture’s absence. Clearly something must happen, mustn't it? It would seem almost inevitable. And yet in the absence of any real authority, the two of them merely sad about in the company of Silence. They were both waiting. Waiting for the inevitable which was, by definition, going to happen.

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It was really only a matter of time. And they both seem to be looking deeper and deeper into each other. And climbing ever deeper into their own reflections. However, there was something missing about the moment that went beyond Nature and Nurture. Something beyond the presence of Silence. Something which seemed to speak to a deeper concern over a great many things. And it wasn't exactly certain what it was. But certainly there was an absence in the room that everybody seemed to acknowledge. However, it was uncertain exactly what it was there was so much that was being sad. So much which was not being acknowledged. So much that was present in the substance of the moment that seemed to be somehow missing unpopular perception.

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Everyone there who is there to witness both Chance and Circumstance in the presence of Silence was growing a bit restless. There was some concern. After all, it wasn't as though they hadn't paid a great deal of money for this performance. It wasn't as though it wasn't billed as being some sort of great spectacle. Everyone was beginning to become concerned that it may, in fact, have been some sort of a practical joke of some sort. Or some sort of a scam.

After all, there is a great deal of money that have been paid to watch this happen. And nothing had happened as a result of it happening. There might've been a crumble or two in the audience. A few doors may have been flung to open towards the back of the room, which at the stage was clearly an auditorium of some sort.

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Chance and Circumstance shifted about easily. Perhaps on some level he might've registered the fact that there was some sort of noise in the periphery. But there's probably a really good chance that they were just acknowledging that as something rolling through their memories. More than anything. Not actually there. Not actually there, in the moment. Otherwise how could they have gotten into an auditorium without them realizing it? Of course, how could they have suddenly found themselves in the presence of their parents?

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There were so many questions. But they didn't really seem all that concerned about answering them. Not at that moment. At that moment they were gazing into each other. Climbing into each other. And there was a bit of a scuffle.

Or perhaps it was just gravity. Whatever it was, but two of them seem to be climbing into each other. And in the process of doing so, they were climbing out of themselves. But they were never going to make it. Obvious reasons. The basic nature of geometry and that sort of thing. And so rather than climbing it was more of a matter of chasing chasing.

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Chance and Circumstance chased each other through the shadow of the auditorium. In the presence of Silence. And then the presence of absence as well. (By this time everyone else had left the auditorium.) No one else was assembled. It was just the gentle respiration of a couple of abstracts which made no noise. The two of them made it well and it collapsed at some point in the future. But that wasn't going to happen now. Because now is the present.

And the present was a matter of momentum. Aggressive momentum those things were knocked over and walls were knocked down and gravity was duly ignored in favor of something a whole lot more horizontal. Everything seems to be rushing. It was going to run out of its own energy. Friction would take over. It was only a matter of time. But for the time being, there was motion. In a rush. Amidst the presence of Silence.

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