My bit of L-space

Working hypothesis 1: From any given point in time there is a certain finite number of probable sequence, each with its own probability of occurring. It can be assumed that some of these sequences have a higher probability than others. (For example, while running across the street, the probability of being run over by a maddened horde of elephants is much lower than being run over by a car)

Working hypothesis 2: Some people can see, or sense, these probability lines and/or collapse a certain desired probability function. This can be extended to say that collapsing the waves is easier in certain states of mind or certain places.

For those who don’t know what a probability wave or function is, it belongs to the realm of quantum physics and is best explained by the example of Schroedinger’s cat. This is the simplified experiment, which doesn’t involve nuclear disintegration (bear in mind that it is a mental experiment): You put a cat in a box. You spray acid 9or something similar in the box (without any kind of personal action such as opening the box). Before anyone lifts the lid, the cat is both alive and dead and in the moment when you look you collapse one of these two probability waves and one option becomes real. (It can be argued that you either have a dead act or a very angry cat for being shut in a box and sprayed with acid, in which case it wouldn’t be very wise to open the box).

Now how does all this apply to Tarot and spells? Take any kind of divination method, Tarot, I-Ching, rune stones and so on. The divinatory doesn’t see THE future, but A future with the highest probability. This is why sometimes predictions don’t come true: other factors, such as personal decisions or external factors collapse another probability function. But why, if the persons are the ones that see the probability lines is there the need for cards or stones? If you ever tried to understand quantum mechanics, I’m pretty sure you found it’s hard to get your mind around it. Now imagine you have the actual physical phenomena behind the theory. The cards and stones are the physical means that help fit the probability information in a human mind frame. And maybe dreams fit in here too. Future probabilities sneak into your sleep when they can’t make any sense in your waking mind.

Suppose someone can collapse a certain probability wave: easier for one with a high probability and getting harder as the probability gets lower. We do know something that does exactly this: spells and potions. And more exactly wishes. ‘The legend says: make a wish inside the cave and it will come true’. Well, maybe it does. Some people are naturally lucky: maybe they just walk on favourable probability lines. And prayers? Just a different form of wishes.

This is either a theory explaining divination and wishes or just another literary attempt.

The tree moved his leaves in the warm summer wind. He had always liked the long august afternoons. For a long, long time, he had been standing there on the hill, looking down at the river valley. The view hadn’t really ever changed: the same green meadows, the same river, the same blue mountains in the distance. It’s true, the few houses on the river bank kept changing. Now they were modern holiday houses, to which humans had brought electricity. Actually, they had been called modern before, in their own way. Each owner, in his turn, had been proud of his house and its utilities.

The old tree was very interested in humans.  There’d been so many summers in which he had sheltered them in his shade and listened to them talking. And in the long winter months when hardly anyone would stop under his bare branches, he had had time to think and maybe now he could understand them better than they did themselves.

Right now he was listening to two girls stretched out on the grass. They couldn’t be older than 16. They had known each other since they were babies and their mothers had brought them to play around the tree. Each summer the tree had watched them growing older and changing their games. Now they were talking about the new game they had discovered: love.

The scene reminded him of another one, one he had listened to a long time ago. On another summer afternoon, two young girls had been talking in the same spot, about the same things. The other two had been wearing long dresses, gloves, hats and parasols. But deep inside, the tree thought, they were the same. His mind wandered back in time…

“Are you sad?"

“Yes, and angry. Very angry. Yesterday, at dinner, my dad told me that my fiancée will soon be here and that I am to be married by the end of the year! I think, I’ve told you the story before. My dad and his are very good friends and partners at the firm and they decided we will be married since we were very young. To be fair, I always thought there wasn’t much truth in it, that my dad had to be joking. It seems so absurd! I can’t get married just because they want me to!”

“You’ve never met him… Maybe you’ll like him. You never know…”

“Actually, I did meet him. When we were children we used to play together sometimes. I think we even spent a holiday here.”

The tree did indeed remember two rosy kids running around his trunk.

“After that he went to study abroad and I haven’t seen him since. No, I’m lying. I’ve seen him once after that, about three years ago. But he didn’t stay for more than a few hours. And I hardly talked to him. We are simply strangers! I couldn’t ever spend my entire life with someone I don’t know! My parents are taking this too far! I’m not going to accept this!”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. First of all, I’m going to tell my parents what I think. Maybe even today. My mother should listen to me at least. And if not… mybe I’ll run away from home. There’s a whole world out there! Anyway, I’m not going to marry a stranger!”

But it hadn’t been like that. The tree couldn’t know what had happened in the house down in the valley, but the next summer, the two newly weds had sat down in his shade and then their children had played and ran around his trunk, that grew thicker by the year…

His mind came back to the present. Although so many years had passed, the girls’ dialogue was very similar. It was different in something maybe essential, but absurd. The tree would’ve laughed if he could.

“I’ve talked to my dad last night and he said that HE won’t come to stay with us this summer…”

“Who?”

“How could you forget, I’ve told you before! He’s my dad’s best friend’s son. We’ve known each other since we were kids. Actually, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know him. I can remember us playing in this exact spot!”

The tree could remember as well.

“And then he went abroad. I didn’t care so much back then. But then, he came back here a couple of times and I’ve loved him ever since. I couldn’t ever love someone so much again!”

“Isn’t it a bit weird? You don’t really know him at all. How can you say you love him?”

“Uff, you don’t understand anything! You see, we’ve been raised in the same way! You can know someone even without talking to him! There’s a special link between us.”

“If you say so…”

“And now I find out I won’t see him this summer! I will have to wait a whole year! Or maybe he’ll come home for Christmas? I have to hope. I’m sure he’ll love me as well, once we get to spend more time together. That is, if he doesn’t love me already! I can’t imagine myself living without him.”

But the tree knew the way people are. He already knew it wouldn’t be like this. After a few years the girl will fall in love again, with someone much closer to her. She wouldn’t forget this one. She’ll remember him as either a beautiful teenage love or an absurd childhood crush. After a while she might get married and, in turn, her children will play under the old tree.

Late at night, long time after the girls have left and the houses in the valley have been surrounded in darkness, the tree is thinking. He is thinking that people’s stories do happen again, slightly changed, but they do. He believes they should know this. The old tree wishes he could tell them.