A Loss of Marbles (The Fate Remix)

This small story is dedicated to all those who doubt fate. May you open your eyes.

I sat on the floor, playing with a marble and racecar track I got a few years ago. I always liked to set up the track to go from one room to another, and then watch the marble go down the track, faster than I could run. It would amuse me for hours as I tried to optimize the speed of the little ball of glass, and then I'd add in jumps and turns, just for excitement. It was on one of these days that my grandfather came over, only to find me fast at work building a new roller coaster for my spherical friend.

"I see you’re hard at work," he said from behind me. I heard him climb the stairs, and smiled upon hearing his voice. Most grownups didn't care about my fun, but he always did. I quickly ran and hugged him.

"Yep! Let me show you!" I grabbed his hand and lead him to a spot next to the track, and then insisted that he sit down to watch. He took his time, but did so happily, excited that he would see my newest creation. I obliged him by getting the marble and letting it go down the track once more.

He looked over to me, and said "Get another marble. I want you to try something."

I had always been used to only using the one marble on the track, but he sounded very enthusiastic about his plan, so I got another marble and sent it on its way. It ended up a few centimeters to the left of the previous one.

"Now Benjamin," (he always used my full name) "why didn't the two marbles end up in the same place?"

I thought about it for a moment, and remembered all that I had learnt about track building over the years. "Well," I replied, "do you see this chair here, under the track?" His eyesight wasn't the best, so I thought that I should ask if he saw it, just to make sure. He nodded. "It holds up the track so that after each run, the track doesn't move as much. It moves a little bit though."

"So, if there was a completely immovable track, and you put a marble down it, it would always end up in the same place?" he queried. He looked like he had just got started, so I decided that the answer had to be no, and worked on why it was that.

"No, I don't think so," I hesitantly answered, hoping that my guess was right.

"Why's that? What other things could be different from the first time, to the second?"

I practiced taking a marble and setting it on the track. I tried to figure out what could change exactly, and then I realized that there were a few things. "I could push the marble!" I happily said. "A-And I could put it down in a different place!"

"Those are both correct." He smiled at me, and I smiled back. "Now, let's imagine that we get rid of everything that can interfere. Then, would the marble always end up in the same place?"

I mulled the idea over. "That makes sense," I finally told him.

"Good, good. Now, when an experiment can be done many times with the same result, it's called repeatable. It's through these repeatable experiments that we gain scientific knowledge. We discover patterns." He looked at me patiently, as I took in the information.

"So," I started "if I send the marble from the top of the track, and then from lower heights, I can find out how far it will go from any height?" I was quite bright for a boy of twelve, partly because I had a good teacher in my grandfather.

"Exactly. You can find a pattern, and then use it to predict future events." He paused, and gazed at me with a twinkle in his eye. "But there's something even more amazing that I have to tell you." I looked back at him with curiosity, and a drive to learn that paralleled his own to teach. "We can use this idea to prove that fate exists."

I eyed him carefully, trying to tell if he was tricking me here, as he so often did. "If you ran enough tests, then you could predict the future for everything, right?"

He just smiled back at me. "You're still thinking inside the box, Benny-boy." The only time he ever called me Benny-boy was when he was very happy, and he was only very happy when he was teaching me something truly wondrous.

I was very excited now, but impatient all the same. "Then tell me!"

He teased me for a minute by just smiling at me some more, and then began saying "The experiment will come up the same if we have everything the same, correct?"

I nodded in response. "If the track doesn't move, the marble starts in the same place, and with the same speed, etc. then yes, the result will be the same."

"That," he slowly revealed, "is the cornerstone to this proof. If you repeat something under the same conditions, the result will always be the same."

"But how does that prove that fate it exists?" I really wanted him to get on with it, even if he was enjoying his teaching.

"Pick a number between 1 and 1000, and tell me what it is," he stated.

"672," I replied, wondering how this had anything to do with fate.

"Alright then. Let's say that we could somehow recreate the moment that you chose your number. Everything would be the same. The whole universe would be identical to when you just chose your number a moment ago." He was getting excited now. "The experiment would be duplicated perfectly! What number would you choose?"

"Six hundred and seventy two." I slowly let the words roll off my tongue, as my mind raced forward to what he'd say next. I started to see where his argument was progressing, and I liked it.

"Exactly! There was only ever one outcome, right?!"

"Yes!"

"Which means..." He was pulling at me to make the connection myself.

"Then you'd get a new universe in which another event will occur, and then a new universe in which even another event will occur, and it will keep progressing in a cycle of action begetting change, change begetting action, onward and onward..."

He smiled. "And all of it stemmed from one action. That's the essence of fate. The universe is like a giant billiard table. An initial action, the hitting of the cue ball, sets a series of events in motion. In the universe though, there are an almost infinite amount of these balls, and they never stop moving, creating action upon action."

And then I knew the final words. "But it all started from the one action. It was all predetermined."

He smiled at me once more while I sat there, grasping at the remaining shreds of the reality I knew only moments ago. "Now Benjamin, don't think about it too hard. It'll come to you in time." He got up, and started to leave. "For now, just be content with your marbles."

I looked up at him, sighed, and then continued playing, my mind working overdrive as it was destined to do.