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Call it chance, kismet, coincidence, luck, serendipity, the accidental or unforeseen, the inadvertent and unknown; these are the threads that weave our fate. Unpredictable events determine our life—the ways we meet our partners, spouses, lovers, friends, choose our careers—choices made through the fortuitous intersection of circumstances. Shakespeare said, “Ourselves to be the slaves of chance … ”
Actually, we are all here by chanceful moments. Our great-great-great grandparents met, had children of their own, who then met their partners and came to America.
One Saturday afternoon in June 1932, a young premed student took time off from studying for a chemistry exam to play softball at Brighton Beach. When it was his turn at bat, he hit a long fly ball toward the water’s edge, where a young woman in shorts and a yellow shirt was walking, lost in thought. That long fly ball grazed her forehead. He ran over. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” Dazed and surprised, she looked up at him and smiled uncertainly. “I think so.” Even though he lived in Williamsburg, he insisted on taking her home. And somewhere on the subway between Brooklyn and the Bronx he knew he would never be lonely again. And if he hadn’t almost knocked her out, I wouldn’t be here writing this introduction.
In this issue are three very short stories about unexpected encounters in a restaurant, a hotel lobby, and a pub. In “Byron Beguiled,” Janine de Peyer contributes a fictionalized autobiographical chance encounter depicting a young woman finding herself caught between eroticism and danger. Playing on the edge, searching for aliveness and adventure, she meets an unusual boy in a most unusual way. Billie Pivnick, unable to write for many years because of a traumatic experience as a young girl, contributes a mystery story triggered by a chance encounter with someone from her past. Ultimately, she is able to touch her dissociated self, and we glimpse what trauma does to memory. And in “T