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    Story

    I don’t believe it.

    It is irrational not to believe in some supernatural beings because their existence is obvious. It is only our faith in what we like to call rationality that blocks our acceptance and blinds us from seeing the proof that is presented to us on a daily basis.

    There was little doubt left in Simon’s mind that the most powerful of these beings is the Great God Sod, whose law affects us all and shapes our lives. As he got older he had come more and more to see Sod’s Law for what it really was, not a product of self-selected coincidences but the workings of a higher power. As a retired maths teacher, he knew his statistics and this was not a conclusion he had jumped to but one he had arrived at over many years of real study. He had logged the outcomes of numerous pre-specified occurrences over many years and had calculated, almost beyond doubt, that the results could not be due to a random pattern of self-selected coincidences as most believe them to be. What form this higher power took, he obviously could not determine but a real Sod’s Law, administered by the great God himself and his minions, seemed as good an explanation as any.

    As even his unbelievers know, The Great God Sod is mischievous rather than malicious. He does not normally cause people to be struck by lightning or drop comets on their heads but prefers to tease and annoy. Thus, no matter how sparse your social calendar may be, any invitation is bound to coincide with a previous arrangement. Start a long journey with a nearly empty petrol tank and that is the one day that your local gas station will be closed for no obvious reason. Accept a job offer after months of unemployment and you will get offered a better one the next week. There are many, many examples, ones that all of us are all too familiar with.

    Simon had always been a rather short-tempered, irascible individual and, now he was getting on a bit, it occurred to him that the consequences of Sod’s law could be serious. His blood pressure was already way too high and the last thing he needed was a stream of petty annoyances to raise it even further. Driving to work from his home in a small village with no public transport provided the most triggers. He would make his way along the narrow little country lanes, not passing another car for several minutes, yet always find one approaching at the exact moment that he reached a huge pothole, or come across a cyclist just as he left the straight section. It was all very trivial and not worth getting het up about, he knew that, but he couldn’t help himself. Every time it happened he got enraged and would shout “I don’t F* believe it!” at the top of his voice. What this was doing to his blood pressure, he could only guess. How long before he gave himself a heart attack or stroke? Would he even reach the longed-for retirement that was just a few years away?

    Self control did not work. Vodka might but that was hardly a good solution for driving stress. Then it came to him. Why not invoke Sod’s Law to counter Sod’s Law? He brought a little dashboard camera with a built in voice recorder to record all those little driving incidents. Now, all he had to do was to tell somebody else, in advance, of what was going to happen at which pothole or blind bend, and then present the evidence to them. Sod’s Law would surely ensure that his predictions did not come true so that he would look like an idiot. His long-suffering wife was happy to humour him and watch his little evening presentations, of potholes safely avoided by driving in the middle of the road and cyclists safely overtaken on straight stretches. It worked. The predictions no longer came true except on odd occasions that could be accounted for by mere chance and his drives became stress free. True, he looked like an idiot but that didn’t bother him, long marriages make for a lot of tolerance.

    All went well for nearly four years and he had just a handful of commutes to make before he retired and didn’t have to bother anymore. The wind was strong but hardly that unusual and it was just bad luck, everyone said, that such a big pine tree should fall just there and just at that moment. The emergency services got there quickly and cut him out of the crushed car but it was already too late.

    In a vast misty place, in a reality beyond our own, The Great God Sod stood behind Simon’s Jarwa, his fate controller, and watched as it packed up the simple apparatus, the scales, jars and counters that had controlled the events of Simon’s life. The Great God Sod shook his head sadly, for Simon had been wrong in one major respect, Sod was not at all malicious. Like all gods, he did not make the universal laws and had no more understanding of their origins than do any of us. In the grand scheme of things he was nothing more than a departmental head who carried out the duties assigned to him. At least, unlike Simon, he knew what the rules were. Each of us have just so much luck, both good and bad, allocated to us. Our bad luck allowance can be used up in the form of a constant drip of tiny annoyances or it may be used in the large dollop of a major crisis. Only one thing is certain, we have to use it within the time allotted to us

    Simon had grasped a reality that few of us do but his insight had not encompassed one important fact. Bad luck avoided is bad luck that accumulates.
    bloggoth

    If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
    John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

    #2
    Nice idea.

    Comment


      #3
      oh the Great God is in the like & thank mechanism!


      excellent as always, glad to see Xoggy tales back again.
      Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

      Comment

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