A Man At The Edge Of Probability

One day, while waiting for a bus, Gordon discovers he has superpowers. Or maybe he doesn't . . .

Gordon Godwin had been waiting so long for his bus that he’d run out of words to curse his predicament. He'd had a gruelling day at work finding things to fill the time, the July humidity had not let up since morning, and worst of all the occasional light breezes brought only more thunderflies to tickle his forehead and scalp. “Bus! Get here now!” he exhaled in a brief pulse of indignation that he felt through his entire body. At that very moment, the bus reared above the brow of the hill in front of him. The coincidence amused him, and he remembered it later that evening as he lay down in his flat, bored. “Jennie! Call! Now!” he said, clicking his fingers in mocking tribute. He jumped as the telephone started ringing. As he went to answer it, Gordon felt himself hoping it wasn’t Jennie.

“Hi,” said Jennie, “it’s me!”

“ . . . oh . . . hiya.”

“Hello! Is anybody home?”

“Eh? Yeah . . . No, it’s just something strange . . .  I was thinking about you, and then you called.”

“Oh. Is that so unusual?”

“No, what I mean is, I wasn’t actually thinking about you, I just said your name.”

Jennie didn’t quite see the difference. “Well,” said Gordon, “suppose I said ‘Someone At Your Door! Now!’ and clicked my fingers, and suddenly there was someone there. But I’m not really thinking about someone being at your door, I’m just saying the words . . . hello?”

“ . . . You won’t believe this, Gordon! Someone’s just knocked . . . this is so weird!”

“ . . . ”

“ . . . I’d better go and see who it is.”

Presently there came a voice on the phone: "Hey Gordon!"

"Jennie?"

"This is Janice. Remember me?"

Everyone always remembers Janice. She'd been a schoolfriend of Jennie's. Years later, they'd run into each other again at a supermarket and Janice had insisted they resume their friendship at once. In her younger days, she was the most rebellious of Jennie's circle - odd considering she was a vicar's daughter. Now she was more likely to be found placing crystals on chakras than hiding her cigarettes in other girls' desks. The last time Gordon had met Janice, she'd just returned from Glastonbury. She'd been shown the very spot where they say Jesus Christ landed in England. She'd berated Gordon relentlessly for his scepticism.

"Jennie's told me your powers are breaking out. I think I noticed a dark bluish tinge to your aura last time I saw you as well. We've all got these elemental powers from our ancestors. We’ve neglected them, don’t know how to use them any more, we’re so logical and scientific. But they’re still inside us, and sometimes if we're under pressure or something . . . "

"I really don't think . . . "

"You know what, Gordon, you need to meditate. Sit down, close your eyes, go inside yourself and listen! Your powers mean no harm. Let them speak to you! Let them guide you!"

"I think you're getting this way out of proportion . . . "

"Go and meditate! I'll explain everything to Jennie. Just go and listen. Listen, listen, listen!!"

The phone went dead. Gordon replaced the receiver and sank into troubled reflections. Was it possible? The idea of such power was tantalising enough: imagine! His future transformed, in his own hands literally! But the longer Gordon dwelt on this, the more his hopes flamed out of control. He was scared to click his fingers, in case it didn’t work again. And then, suppose it was true! Why him? Did he really want it, to be that extraordinary? And what if he was not alone? A whole raft of scarier possibilities came to his mind: ghosts, Satan, sadistic criminals with abilities like himself . . . It was all very disconcerting.

Gordon was overcome by a stinging nostalgia for the ignorance he had lost. He outstretched his hands, and laid them down on his lap, his fingers splayed out. They all looked quite normal. The rest of the evening, he monitored his thoughts carefully, trying to suppress any desires that began to form. When that proved exhausting, he turned on his TV and radio, turned up the volumes, sat between them, and switched his attention alternately from one to the other. In this way he was able to block the recent strange events from his awareness, and after an hour or so, they had receded sufficiently for him to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Gordon was woken by his telephone ringing. It was Jennie: "Hi, it's me. Sorry it's early, but I'm about to go off to work. Just thought I'd give you a quick call to see how you're doing?"

"Oh, thanks, yeah, fine, er . . . "

"You really got Janice excited last night."

"Oh, that. I'd almost forgotten about it." That wasn't a complete lie either. It is surprising how sleep can bring a certain abstraction, an unreality, to the events which preceded it. Unless, of course, those events should then be repeated in some form. And on this day fortune decreed that, during his lunch break, Gordon was passing W H Smith when a cloudy-eyed youth stepped out in front of him, followed immediately by a man in a white shirt and black tie who made a grab for his arm.

“Excuse me, mate, have you paid for that magazine?” At once the thief bolted. The older man began a token pursuit, without hope of a result. “Police! Here! Now!” Gordon blurted out; he clicked his fingers as if by instinct. And at once two policemen appeared from round the corner, and began chasing the youth! “Thief! Trip! Now!” and a single percussive strike of the old digits – and with that the shoplifter found himself tumbling to the ground! The policemen wrenched the lad up and frogmarched him back toward the shop. The youth struggled uselessly. He had such a tormented look on his face, Gordon felt sorry for him: “Thief! Free! Now!” and a hearty click, and at that moment, the youth elbowed one of the officers, bending him double, and in the skirmish managed to pull himself free and run off.

That evening, Gordon related these events to Jennie. “Is there anything you want?” he dared her gleefully. “Anything at all!”

She was fascinated, but a little uneasy. “It’s amazing, Gordon, I know - and I’m really pleased for you. But what if there’s a catch somewhere? You’re playing with fate. It could be dangerous!”

“Do you think I should talk to somebody? Maybe an expert? Get some advice?”

“Yes, I do. I think you should go and see a doctor or something. They may’ve seen this before. In case there are complications.”

Gordon agreed, and swore not to use his powers again in the meantime – just to be on the safe side.

* * *

"Mr Godwin to Dr Gray's room please," came a distorted nasal sound through the speaker in the waiting area, followed by a loud electronic "thwap." Gordon entered the consulting room and sat down.

“How can I help you?” asked Dr Gray, not quite looking at him.

“The thing is, I don’t really know. It’s just when I tell something to happen, it does.”

“Oh yes?” the doctor smiled indulgently.

“You don’t believe me? OK, watch your door . . . Door! Open! Now!” Gordon commanded, clicking those fingers again. And the door creaked open. “Bell! Ring! Now!” and a click - and they heard the bell at the reception desk down the hall. “Ashtray! Floor! Now!” The doctor jerked his arm away nervously, knocking the ashtray off his desk.

“I’m not dreaming it, right, all that really happened?” said Gordon.

“ . . . Er, it’s . . . I’ve n-never seen anything like it . . . ” Dr Gray was shaking slightly. “Er . . . Do you feel any exertion, any effort, when you . . . ?”

“Not really,” said Gordon, but then he paused. “Well, not at first, but now I kind of feel I’m concentrating a bit.”

“Well,” said the doctor, at little more on top of himself, “I don’t know what to tell you. However, I do have a colleague. He’s a consultant, specialises in unusual conditions, name of Gardiner. He doesn’t get round often, but by a sheer fluke he’s here today. So I think it would be helpful, if you wouldn’t mind, to show him what you’ve shown me.  . . . Just a minute.”

Dr Gray rushed out the room, and presently brought back with him a tall white-haired man in a tweed suit. Gordon repeated the same three demonstrations of his abilities, only this time it was Mr Gardiner who inadvertantly brushed the ashtray onto the floor.

Mr Gardiner hummed thoughtfully. “That’s something I’ve never seen before and frankly never expected to. Nor my children, nor my grandchildren.” He asked Gordon to recount the details of every previous manifestation of his powers. “Well,” he said finally, “you’ll be pleased to hear you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t seem particularly surprised,” said Gordon.

“No, well I’ve speculated on the existence of your condition many times. I’ve even published a paper on it, five years ago now, and suggested a name: Extreme Probability Syndrome, Gardiner’s Syndrome for short. Let me explain: none of the events you presume you have caused are unusual. The police appearing, for example: there’s CCTV down Midland Road I understand. So they would’ve been alerted as soon as anything untoward started happening, such as when your store detective chased after his shoplifter. And then your shoplifter trips over. Nothing odd about that – I almost fell in Midland Road last time I was here: the state of the pavements is dreadful. Next, he gets away from the police: well, how many men in that position won’t try to break free?”

“The door here, opening by itself,” Dr Gray followed enthusiastically, “that happens all the time: if the back window is open and someone comes in the front door, there’s a draught, and if my door isn’t fast . . . And the bell: this is a busy surgery. It was most likely the same person who came in the front door! And the ashtray? Well, Charles will tell you – I’m not the deftest person around!”

“Nor me," smiled the consultant magnanimously. "So you see, Mr Godwin, none of these events are unusual. What is remarkable is that you were thinking about them in advance. But this doesn’t signify any special talents. Even if there were coincidences like that every minute of your life, it wouldn’t mean anything. Granted, that would be very, very, very unlikely. But it wouldn’t be impossible. I take it you are familiar with Littlewood's Law of Miracles?"

"You'd better just remind me."

"Well, Littlewood imagines miracles to be events with a probability of less than one in a million, and making certain assumptions about the number of events someone can be conscious of in a typical day, suggests the average person witnesses a miracle every month or so. Personally, I think his definition of miracles is much too lax. It’s hard to get figures on these sorts of things, but my own research tells me most people experience four or five coincidences like yours in a lifetime: four or five times when they think something quite specific, then it happens. They remember these events, see them as proof of some supernatural force. And forget all the times when there were no coincidences. But that’s just the average: a few people never have experiences like you’ve had, and some people – though a very small number – have a lot more of them. Which is precisely your condition.”

“Are you saying what happened to me was just coincidence! Twelve coincidences like that in three days! Six in the time I’ve been here!”

“A string of coincidences like you’ve had is pretty improbable, I admit. But think of it this way: there’ve been 80 billion human lifetimes in the history of this planet, and there’ll be billions more before we’re finished. There are 140 million new lives starting every year. These are vast numbers, Mr Godwin! And don’t forget, lifetimes are getting longer and longer – more time, you see, for these strings to appear. So it’s only to be expected someone like you will show up.”

“But the odds must’ve been . . . impossible!”

Mr Gardiner sighed. He got out of his chair and walked to the window. “Even if it was – I don’t know, wild guess – a trillion to one, that doesn’t mean we have to wait for the trillionth person to be born before you appear. You could happen anytime, so long as on average you only pop up once every trillion . . . ”

“But why me?” Gordon burst out.

“Why not you?” Mr Gardiner replied. “But you must be careful. Gardiner’s Syndrome can be a very dangerous condition, if you don’t appreciate what’s going on. You need to remember this: you have no unique relationship with nature, and the universe doesn’t do what you tell it. Everything is a coincidence. In the unlikely event these coincidences persist, you must not let yourself be fooled, or mislead others into thinking you’re special.”

“So you don’t think it’ll happen to me again?”

“Well,” said Dr Gray, “you’ve had twelve coincidence experiences in the space of three days. That’s pretty improbable. But it’s even less likely you’ll run on to twenty or thirty. And as for a run of two hundred, it would probably take you till Christmas just to write down the odds against it.”

“ . . . So it won’t work if I click my fingers again?” Gordon murmured pitifully.

“I’d say it was extremely unlikely,” said Mr Gardiner. “But why don’t you give it a try? Not something trivial this time. Something incredible. What about all this sticky weather? What we need is a good storm to clear the air. So summon some thunder and lightning! In fact, command that I be struck by lightning! Right now, as I’m standing here in this room. That would settle it, wouldn't it . . . what’s the matter, Mr Godwin? Don’t you believe what I’ve been telling you? . . . Come, Mr Godwin, do it now! Demand that I be struck by lightning! Now!”

Dr Gray giggled. Mr Gardiner snorted. Gordon burst out the room and pushed himself, hurt and torn to pieces, the mile to his flat. He gave himself a headache as he forced his thoughts away from the questions that drew them like a vacuum. And inside his heart was on fire. His luck had not completely run out, however: someone rang his buzzer minutes after he got home.

“Hi,” Jennie’s voice sounded over the entryphone, “it’s me!”

“ . . . oh . . . hiya.”

“Hello! Thinking about me again?”

“Do you want to come up?” Gordon pressed the door-release. When Jennie appeared, he repeated everything he had been told by Dr Gray and Mr Gardiner.

“So the more times you make something happen,” she reflected, “the less likely it’ll work. Well, of course! What they meant was, you shouldn’t waste your powers. If you keep using them, you’ll wear them out!”

“I don’t know . . . they seemed pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make anything happen again . . . If you’re right though . . . well, that would be OK, I never overdo things anyway.”

“You should only make stuff happen when it’s really important.”

It all made perfect sense. Gordon felt a whoosh of relief as he digested Jennie’s words. He was so cheered up he decided immediately they should go out for meal to celebrate and, later, the pair laughed their way through a spoof science fiction thriller at the multiplex. When they emerged a couple of hours later, they discovered the weather had finally broken. Hot swollen air masses had fizzed and collided, light and sound had had their periodic slanging match in the sky, and there had been a humongous downpour.

All’s right with the world again, Gordon thought as he inhaled the fresh, reinvigorated air. He'd have been more shocked than anyone to know that, thirty miles away, in a village south of Cambridge, concerned neighbours were peering through their windows as a renowned consultant – one specialising in unusual disorders - was being laid on a stretcher in his garden.