What do we make of fate? How should we understand it?
There's a modern fad, only a few centuries old, of viewing the universe through the lens of causal determinism. Everything is caused by some cause before it, a chain of dominos falling, with the First Domino being the Big Bang.
Sounds like fate. The way this conception of fate enters the popular imagination in connexion with our own free will (a human property which would appear to contradict the notion of fatedness) is commonly via the science of genetics.
This is a science few of us even understand. Doesn't matter. It makes a good story.
So I goofed around and made a story that plays with ideas of fatedness as manifested in genetics. I'm no more a scientist than I am a philosopher, so the story's just a lark. But it's a sad lark, which, as you know, is how I do.
The journal pacific REVIEW was kind enough to find space for the story, called "Manywhere", in their 2021 issue, "The Mirror Maze." It fits with the general theme of the issue of looking into the self and what it is.
If you'd like a copy of this fine journal, you can order it directly from the publisher (recommended) by clicking here. Or you can click here to give your money to the Bezosferatu.
I hope you like it.