INTERLUDE
The Interview
"Fate's an immovable object," Miriam says, tracing her finger up the neck of the bottle. A warm haze saturates the edges; the scotch is doing its glorious, God-given duty. "The course is charted. Fate's already got everything mapped out. This conversation we're having? It's already on the books. It's already been written. We feel like we have control over it, but we don't. Free will is bunk, bupkiss, bull-puckey. You think that you go buy a coffee, you kiss your girlfriend, you drive a school bus full of nuns into a fireworks factory, that's your choice. You did that. You made that decision and acted upon it, right? Bzzt. Wrongo. All of our lives are just a series of events carefully orchestrated to culminate in whatever death fate has planned for us. Every moment. Every act. Every loving whisper and hateful gesture – all just another tiny cog in the clockwork ready to ring the alarm for our ultimate hour."
Paul says nothing. He just stares, wide-eyed. He tries to say something, then didn't.
"What?" she asks.
"That's… dark."
"No kidding."
He shifts uncomfortably. "So you've tried to change things."
"Yup. For the first couple years, I tried a lot. Let's just say it never worked out."
"And then one day you just stopped trying?"
"No. One day I met a little boy with a red balloon."