Coincidences

Hey guys :) So this is just a little reflektion on how some small choices and coincidences can affect a life forever. I hope you enjoy, I'd love some comments! Thanx :)

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Janie is three years old. She loves to play- especially with dolls. Her favourite doll is called Poppy.

Poppy gets to go everywhere with Janie- not just to bed, to kindergarten, to friend’s houses and shopping with mom.  

Janie’s mom has just recently seen a program about each person’s carbon footprint, and about the damage the oil companies do our ecosystem. That is why she has now taken to walking Janie to kindergarten and to herself work.

Mom’s friends don’t like mom and Janie to walk alone- it’s a dangerous city with dangerous people, they say. That’s why mom’s special friend, Jordan, likes to walk with the girls.

On this particular day, Janie forgets her backpack in the kindergarten class, so when mom arrives, they first have to find someone to unlock the classroom to fetch the bag. Once at home, mom and Janie decide to have pasta for lunch. But halfway through the meal, Mom realises she has no noodles. So mom calls up Jason so that he can come and walk them to the shopping centre. While they wait, mom puts the sauce into the oven to keep it warm.

Meanwhile, Jason’s roomie has just awoken from a long, alcohol-fuelled night. Unfortunately, the girl in whose arms he find himself as he wakes up, notices his trying to leave and is rather unhappy about him wanting to sneak away after their night together. So forcibly, Jason’s roomie is kept in the woman’s house for a full ten minutes longer in which he tries to reason with the ferocious girl before he can leave.

Jason is a little afraid of fast moving cars, since he was once almost hit by one as a child. That’s why he prefers to cross highways a little faster that most people deem appropriate. In turn, he arrives at Mom and Janie’s house rather quickly.

Jason’s roommate has finally managed to get rid of the hysterical woman, and is now on his way towards home. When he hits the road, he becomes fully aware of how much he must have consumed the previous night as a headache begins to mangle his head like a screwdriver.

Mom, Jason, Janie and Poppy are now on the way to the supermarket, heading through the quiet streets towards the highway and the supermarket. Janie is a little distracted, and mom has to all-but pull her along the winding streets.

About half way home, Jason’s roomie finally decides to fix the headache problem and searches his glove-compartment for some aspirin. As he fiddles around in the box, something sharp pricks his finger. Pulling his hand back with a sharp hiss, Jason’s roommate decides he has to look for the tablets properly. The road ahead is quite clear- there are some people crossing the street up font but they will make it to the other side long before Jason’s roomie reaches that part of the road. Satisfied, he leans down to find the packet in question.

Meanwhile Jason is pulling Mom and Janie over the road as quickly as he can- there’s a car coming that looks like it’s going well over the speed limit. Still a little absentminded and startled by the sudden pull, little Janie drops Poppy. Unable to leave the doll on the road, the girl pulls free of mom’s hand and runs back to fetch the little puppet.

After sorting through stashes of old paper and finding what looks like a used needle, Jason’s roomie has finally retrieved some aspirin from the glove compartment. He looks up just in time to see the small figure of a child on the street, bent as if to fetch something. Jason’s roomie pushes his foot down on the breaks as hard as he can, but having moved in order to find the aspirin, he misses the pedal in question and hits the gas instead. The child turns and looks up, just as the coming car hits her, and a sickening sense of recognition spreads through Jason’s roomie as he watches the small figure roll over the window screen and disappear over the roof of the car.

Mom lashes her hand out to grab Janie, screams to her child but she can’t reach the girl. There she is, flying through the air like a bird towards a sunset.

When the police arrive, they find the small, broken body of the child in the arms of an equally broken mother. The man that caused the accident is nowhere to be found- according to a witness named Jason he walked off, looking as if he were in a trance, leaving behind the broken bodies of his car and his friend’s child. Wrapped tightly into the child’s arms is a doll- the only comfort to an untimely death. The officers can’t stay long- they are called to investigate the scene of a fire, caused because someone left an oven on and left the house.

Jason’s roomie dies a year later of TB. The needle he had pricked himself on in the car had been infected with HIV. Two years later, Jason and Mom’s bodies are found in the ruins of what was once Janie’s bedroom, before it burnt to the ground. they had killed themselves with an overdose of aspirin, and in their hands they held a blood-stained doll, the last reminder of an untimely death.