A sunny day in Paris, 1929. The novelist Anne Parrish leaves her husband in a left bank cafe to browse books at a stall by the Seine. One in particular grabs her attention. It’s an old favourite – Jack Frost and Other Stories, in English. She parts with one franc for it, before excitedly returning to the cafe to share her find. Charles, her husband, takes it from her to have a look. After a moment, he passes it back, open at a page inscribed with the words “Anne Parrish, 209 North Weber Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado”. It was her very own childhood copy.
We expect marvellous coincidences like this to occur once in a lifetime. But most of us have experienced more than one event that, on the face of it, seemed highly unlikely. The friend who called at the moment you picked up the phone to ring her. The neighbour you bumped into thousands of miles from home. At these moments, life suddenly seems less random, the world less indifferent. It can be comforting, feeling like you are the centre of the universe, or unsettling: if we really are caught in a web of destiny, who is weaving it?
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