Bad Things Good People
When something bad happens we play it back in our minds, looking for a place to step in and change things. We should go outside right now, you might have said. Or: Let's not drive anywhere today. The sea rises, the mountain collapses. A car swerves toward the crowd you've just led your family into. We all look for reasons. Luck isn't the word you want to hear. What happened had to, or it didn't. Maybe the exceptional man can change direction in midair, thread the needle's eye, and come out whole. But even the hero who stands up to chance has to feel how far the world will bend until it breaks him. He can see that day: the unappeasable ocean, the cascades of stone. A crowd gathers around his body. He sees that too. someone is saying: His luck just ran out. It happens to us all. -"The Hero's Luck" by Lawrence Raab, from The History of Forgetting