Scots terms
Roasters – idiots.
Scottish Wars of Independence – Events that happened during the late 13th and early 14th centuries after King Alexander III died without a male heir, and his presumed heir (his granddaughter who was still a child) died before she reached Scotland from Norway. This ignited a sucession crisis where Scotland ended up being subjugated by England for a time (under the even more famous King Edward I of England). This is the period when the very famous Scottish “heroes” William Wallace and Robert the Bruce lived. The wars ended with Robert becoming King Robert I of Scotland. It was part of the history curriculum in Scottish schools, and no doubt still is, for obvious reasons.
Ma – Mum
Script
Episode 30 – The Reckoning
I…I don’t know how to record this, how to tell this story. Everything’s such a mess. And I just keep thinking what if I’d done something differently, what if I’d just listened? I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t feel like shite.
SFX: *Takes deep breath*
It’s a normal day in the shop, like the day before, the week before, the months before. It’s a full house; the two roasters and Chronos are playing a game of cards I’ve never heard of, but there’s money riding on whatever it is, or prestige, or pride, or all three. They’ve been engrossed in this game since I arrived a few hours before. They barely acknowledged me when I got in and have said barely a word to me or anyone else.
I entertain myself, not difficult in the shop, and after a few more hours the bell above the door resounds around the cavern. I crawl from where I’ve been hiding, flipping through someone’s collection of society gossip columns from the 18th century, which are surprisingly savage, to see who it is. As I’m making my way to the counter, I see the customer. A lassie with blonde hair and dark roots, designer glasses, and chiselled cheekbones. We pass each other in the narrow aisles, exchanging that awkward half smile British people have been genetically modified to do.
I wait at the counter, wondering what she’s looking at or looking for. What items are doing the same thing to her. Which ones Fate will put in her path to trip her up and possibly ruin her life. Some jewellery, a war medal, a vintage blouse, someone’s beautiful painting of Edinburgh as the sun sinks down.
It’s a book. I grit my teeth, a habit ever since that ginger haired bitch decided to jump from one and escape. I can’t look at a book in the shop without thinking of it. I hope this one doesn’t have a similar surprise inside.
This one doesn’t have a title or an author or anything on the cover. It’s one of those old ones, early twentieth century, before they invented cover art. It’s light green and embossed with vines, flowers, and geometric patterns. For all I knew it could’ve been about anything from botany to the Scottish wars of independence. There wasn’t even any writing on the spine. I had to look on the inside of the front cover to find a pencilled in price, but that was the only writing in sight.
I put it in a paper bag and handed it to her, watching her leave not really knowing what to think. It couldn’t be a good sign that it didn’t have any writing on the cover or spine, but there were a few books in the shop where the print on the outside had faded with time.
Before the thought that it could be a normal book crossed my mind, I heard Chronos’s voice in my head. He’d looked up from the intense card game, after the woman who’d just left, the last echoes of the bell still audible. It was evidently not his turn to make a move. Chronos informed me that the book the lassie had just bought tells you how your life will turn out. It’s like a biography, except the end of your life is written about before you have a chance to get there yourself. Because everything in the past is so accurate, the readers assume that the end must be too, and few people ever liked what they read. Many got depressed, many go into denial, many change their ways, and some convince themselves there’s no escape and end their lives. Some make positive changes, but the book was never meant as a gift. These things never are, apparently.
I wait a few minutes, long enough for it to be Chronos’s turn in the game, long enough for them to forget I exist, before I slip out the shop and try to find the lassie. As I’m looking for my trusty guide, the brown rabbit, I happen to see her a few shops down. Thankfully, she hasn’t gone far.
I have a few excuses lined up; I recycle a lot of them. I’ve had to buy a few things back from customers, but hopefully I’ll get it returned to me through karma. I was thinking of buying lottery tickets. For this lassie I decided to tell her I made a mistake and that the book had actually been reserved by a collector. She seemed really nice and understanding. I gave her some money and clutched the paper bag in my hand, the book that re-wrote itself depending on who owned it crinkling the paper.
I’d made a habit of this, of catching up to customers, or using items in the shop to find them, or following my trusty cotton-tailed pal. I’d lie and deceive and con my way into getting the item back. I’ve destroyed one or two, the rest are hidden away in the shop’s nooks and crannies, left to gather dust and be forgotten by the world. I thought nothing of this at the time, or any of the times before. It was just another customer I’d saved.
I’d go back to the shop, hide the item, and wait for the next customer, the next time I could interfere in things I’d been told not to. But let’s see what happens to these customers, to these people who I “save”.
This lassie never reads the green book, she never gets to learn where her life is heading, she never gets to reflect or think. She never gets to be horrified or reminded. She goes on with her day with nothing changed, her path going in the same direction as it was when she woke up that morning. And that path will take her, two days later, to her girlfriend’s living room. There’s a box of tissues on the coffee table, cluttered with magazines, keys, and a few odd pieces of jewellery.
Two women are on the sofa, arm’s length away. One is the customer, the other is her girlfriend. The customer looks troubled, guilty, but resolved. The other woman has tears streaking down her face taking her mascara and eyeliner with it. They’ve broken up. It’s for the best, it’s just not working anymore, they’d be happier with other people. There’s no one else, it’s just not working, it’s time to move on, call it quits.
A few hours and tissues later, the customer leaves for the last time, thinking that she’s been mature and that it’s gone as well as she could’ve hoped. She’s sad, but she’s convinced it’s the right thing to do.
Her ex, on the other hand doesn’t agree at all, and she doesn’t understand. The relationship was going great, they were having fun, they were even talking about moving in together. They were making hypothetical plans that could one day be their future. For the girlfriend, the customer had been the future, and now it was gone.
She does what many people do after a breakup. She finds solace at the bottom of a bottle, and then another, until it numbs the shock, until she thinks she’s better off single anyway, until she gets angry that she wasted so much time. About how next time she’ll find the one.
A few days into this bender, after she’s made a suitable dent in her bank account buying booze to maintain the numbness, she gets a phone call from her Ma. Her cousin’s had a heart attack. Despite the doctor’s best attempts to save him, he didn’t make it. The family’s devastated and she needs to come over, now.
The shock sobers her up, she needs to be with her family, she wants to see them. Her previous pain is momentarily forgotten. She digs around the mess of takeaway containers and empty bottles of beer and spirits until she finds the fluffy keyring she keeps attached to her car keys. She’s fine. She decides she isn’t too drunk to drive. She gets in her car and hits someone. She didn’t even see him, not until it was too late. She doesn’t want to get out the car, it might’ve just been her imagination.
Except there’s a crack on her windscreen. A circle that fans out into veins, the glass has bent under the weight of a body. That body is lying in the road in front of her, limbs at impossible angles. There’s a pedestrian who’s seen the entire incident, their phone’s out and they’re calling the police.
Someone’s been run over, they say, someone needs an ambulance.
That someone is Reid.
I go into the shop the next day and Fionn is waiting for me wearing an expression that immediately sends my stomach to the floor. It’s no sixth sense, it’s a gut feeling, something instinctual. Or perhaps it’s me picking up something from the dragon headed ring on my finger. He tells me what’s happened, that Reid’s been in an accident and he’s at the hospital.
I don’t really remember what he says next; if he says anything. I immediately get on the bus, and although I know the journey is only 20 minutes, it may as well have been twenty hours. I eventually arrive and I have no idea where he is, I’ve never been in the hospital before. I go to a desk and say his name, say I’m his sister – or was it his cousin? – I would’ve said I was his Ma if it meant I was told where he was.
I get a floor and room number. I pass doctors, patients, nurses, people who look like death is perched on their shoulder, and I start to feel this awful dread building in my stomach. I fucking hate hospitals.
I eventually find his room, a private one. But I don’t go in, not when I see all of his family crowding around the bed, a doctor talking to them. I hear through the gaps in the door that he’ll pull through, that he’d stabilised but still needed observation. The doctor commented that it was a miracle he wasn’t more badly hurt as the driver had been going almost double the speed limit when they’d hit him.
I didn’t know at the time who the driver had been, but I was relieved to hear Reid was going to be ok. It was easier to be angry than upset at the time. This was the reason why there were speed limits, I bet it was some fucking roaster without a licence trying to prove he had big fuckin bollocks by racing down the road. He’d better hope I didn’t use some of the things in the shop to end him.
By the time I got back to the bus stop I’d calmed down. I’d decided not to go in to see Reid, it hadn’t seemed right with his family there. I’d visit him later. As the last of my adrenaline ebbed away, the anger gave way to sadness. Seeing Reid like that, bruised and beaten up, so small in a bed that engulfed him, made me realise he was a lot more fragile than I’d assumed. I don’t know why I’d thought that; it’s not like foxes are particularly strong, but he wasn’t human, so shouldn’t that make him more powerful? Perhaps that was the reason he’d pulled through when someone like me would probably have died. I couldn’t bear to think of how close he’d come to those pearly gates, and just as my eyes were stinging I noticed something appear at my side.
The bus stops in the city have these bars that go along the back wall of the shelter, they’re instead of putting in proper seats. You’re supposed to lean on it, and I think out of habit more than comfort people do. I’m no exception. But beside me, perched on this piece of plastic like it was a tree in the woods, was an owl.
I squeezed the tears out my eyes and looked again, expecting it to have transformed into one of those scrawny pigeons that are everywhere. But it was still an owl. A mixture of brown, white, and black, it perched calmly at my side, not moving, staring straight ahead with it’s large, glassy round eyes.
I cast my gaze around, looking for someone else at the bus stop, even a passerby to see this, to confirm that I was not just going mad. It was the voice in my head, not my own, that pulled me from my disbelief. It was the same way Chronos spoke to me, I could hear him like I could hear my own inner voice, but this one was different. This voice was deeper, slicker, had a heaviness to it that I’d never heard from anyone before. Not the comforting kind, and even the deep Scottish burr couldn’t expel my growing dread.
It told me not to bother looking for someone else, that I was the only one who could see it. My first thought, and now I don’t know why, was that it was Madam Anora come to give me an answer to my proposal from all those months ago. But why would she send a messenger? Was this her familiar? Was this like an anti-Chronos? I suppose an owl would be somewhat fitting.
No, the owl had nothing to do with the Madams, not directly. I hadn’t asked a question out loud, and the realisation that this owl could hear my thoughts slowly began to trickle in. Before I could ask what the fuck this bird was, it’d already answered me.
Fate.
I laughed. I know, not my wisest reaction, but it couldn’t be serious. I’d never thought Fate was a person let alone an animal. Hearing these thoughts, Fate corrected that it wasn’t an animal, that was just how I saw it. Everyone saw something different, not that it had shown itself to many people before. I wasn’t happy about it making an exception for me.
Where I saw an owl, someone else might see an old man or woman, a person in a black suit, a horse, an eagle. Fate had no form of its own, so people gave it one.
I asked why it was here. I actually asked to what do I owe the pleasure before I could filter that out.
Fate knew what I’d been up to. Interfering, stealing back things meant for people and hiding them in the shop. Altering their fates. They’d ignored it the first few times, thinking I was just testing ma luck, but when I’d kept doing it they decided it was time to teach me a lesson.
You see, this was all connected, what had happened to Reid, and all of it was my fault. Fate took me back to last month, to the day a lad came into the shop and bought a cap. The flat cap, the one that gave you waking night terrors. The one I’d taken Reid to go and get back. It turned out that lad had an undiagnosed heart condition. If he’d worn the cap, like he was supposed to, he would’ve gone to the doctor, hoping to get medication for anxiety or depression, and the doctor would’ve taken his blood pressure and noticed something was wrong. The lad would’ve been sent for some tests and the heart condition would’ve been found and treated.
But none of that happened because I’d taken the cap back less than an hour after he’d bought it. He’d never gone to the doctor; he’d never had the tests done. Instead, he’d had a heart attack and was dead.
He was the cousin of the lassie who’d hit Reid with her car. And the only reason she’d been drunk enough not to notice? Because I’d prevented her girlfriend from reading the book that would’ve changed her mind about ending the relationship. If I hadn’t interfered, there’d have been no need to go on a bender to ignore her heartbreak, and she wouldn’t have got behind the wheel and nearly killed Reid.
In this supposedly random string of events that had ended with me nearly permanently losing one of my closest pals, I was the common denominator. If I hadn’t interfered with these customers, none of this would’ve happened.
What else had I done? I’d interfered with so many customers, buying back the items, lying and deceiving just so I could get them back. Had something like this happened every time?
Fate said that sometimes when I interfere I’ll be helping, and other times I’ll be making it ten times worse. I’ll never know which is which. Was I willing to take that risk?
No. No, of course not. I didn’t want that on my hands, it was bad enough I knew what I’d done just because I’d prevented a customer from wearing a stupid cap. It haunts me that I don’t know what else I’ve inadvertently done by taking back items that have been bought. How many things have happened that shouldn’t have? How many times have I made things worse? I didn’t understand before, how Fate worked. I was thinking in the short-term, preventing people from suffering today. But by doing that I was causing them suffering tomorrow, or next week, or next year. My own thoughtlessness had almost killed my familiar, and possibly strangers who I was convinced I was helping.
The Madam had been right, and I’d been too arrogant to realise, too stupid to understand. You shouldn’t interfere with Fate. I understand now, and I’ll stop.
I promise, I’ll stop.
Script – Scots
I…I dinnae know how tae record this, how tae tell this story. Everything’s such a mess. And I just keep thinking what if I’d done something differently, what if I’d just listened. I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t feel like shite.
*Takes deep breath*
It’s a normal day in the shop, like the day before, the week before, the months before. It’s a full house; the two roasters and Chronos are playing a game ae cards I’ve never heard of, but there’s money riding on whitever it is, or prestige, or pride, or all three. They’ve been engrossed in this game since I arrived a few hours before. They barely acknowledged me when I got in and have said barely a word tae me or anyone else.
I entertain maself, no difficult in the shop, and after a few more hours the bell above the door resounds roond the cavern. I crawl frae where I’ve been hiding, flippin’ through someone’s collection ae society gossip columns frae the 18th century, which are surprisingly savage, tae see who it is. As I’m makin’ ma way tae the counter I see the customer. A lassie wi’ blonde hair and dark roots, designer glasses and chiselled cheekbones. We pass each other in the narrow aisles, exchanging that awkward half smile British people have been genetically modified tae do.
I wait at the counter, wonderin’ whit she’s looking at or lookin for. Whit items are doin the same thing tae her. Which ones Fate will put in her path tae trip her up and possibly ruin her life. Some jewellery, a war medal, a vintage blouse, someone’s beautiful paintin’ ae Edinburgh as the sun sinks doon.
It’s a book. I grit ma teeth, a habit ever since that ginger haired bitch decided tae jump frae one and escape. I cannae look at a book in the shop withoot thinkin’ ae it. I hope this one doesnae have a similar surprise inside.
This one doesnae have a title or an author or anythin’ on the cover. It’s one ae those old ones, early twentieth century, before they invented cover art. It’s light green, and embossed wi’ vines, flowers, and geometric patterns. Fae all I knew it couldae been aboot anythin’ frae botany tae the Scottish wars ae independence. There wasnae even any writin’ on the spine. I had tae look on the inside ae the front cover tae find a pencilled in price, but that was the only writing in sight.
I put it in a paper bag and handed it tae her, watching her leave no really knowin’ what tae think. It couldnae be a good sign that it didnae have any writin’ on the cover or spine, but there were a few books in the shop where the print on the outside had faded wi’ time.
Before the thought that it could be a normal book crossed ma mind, I heard Chronos’ voice in ma heid. He’d looked up frae the intense card game, after the woman who’d just left, the last echoes ae the bell still audible. It was evidently no’ his turn tae make a move. Chronos informed me that the book the lassie had just bought tells you how your life will turn oot. It’s like a biography, except the end ae your life is written aboot before ye have a chance tae get there yourself. Because everything in the past is so accurate, the readers assume that the end must be too, and few people ever liked whit they read. Many got depressed, many go intae denial, many change their ways, and some convince themselves there’s no escape and end their lives. Some make positive changes, but the book was never meant as a gift. These things never are, apparently.
I wait a few minutes, long enough fae it tae be Chronos’ turn in the game, long enough fae them tae forget I exist, before I slip oot the shop and try tae find the lassie. As I’m lookin fae ma trusty guide, the brown rabbit, I happen tae see her a few shops doon. Thankfully, she hasnae gone far.
I have a few excuses lined up, I recycle a lot ae them. I’ve had tae buy a few things back frae customers, but hopefully I’ll get it returned tae me through karma. I was thinkin’ ae buyin’ lottery tickets. Fae this lassie I decided tae tell her I made a mistake, and that the book had actually been reserved by a collector. She seemed really nice, understandin’. I gave her some money and clutched the paper bag in ma hand, the book that re-wrote itself dependin’ on who owned it crinkling the paper.
I’d made a habit ae this, ae catchin’ up tae customers, or usin’ items in the shop tae find them, or followin’ ma trusty cotton-tailed pal. I’d lie and deceive and con ma way intae gettin’ the item back. I’ve destroyed one or two, the rest are hidden away in the shop’s nooks and crannies, left tae gather dust and be forgotten by the world. I thought nothin’ ae this at the time, or any ae the times before. It was just another customer I’d saved.
I’d go back tae the shop, hide the item, and wait fae the next customer, the next time I could interfere in things I’d been told no tae. But let’s see whit happens tae these customers, tae these people who I “save”.
This lassie never reads the green book, she never gets tae learn where her life is headin’, she never gets tae reflect or think. She never gets tae be horrified or reminded. She goes on wi’ her day wi’ nothin’ changed, her path goin’ in the same direction as it was when she woke up that morning. And that path will take her, two days later, tae her girlfriend’s living room. There’s a box ae tissues on the coffee table, cluttered wi’ magazines, keys, and a few odd pieces ae jewellery.
Two women are on the sofa, arm’s length away. One is the customer, the other is her girlfriend. The customer looks troubled, guilty, but resolved. The other woman has tears streakin’ doon her face takin’ her mascara and eyeliner wi’ it. They’ve broken up. It’s fae the best, it’s just no workin’ anymore, they’d be happier wi’ other people. There’s no one else, it’s just no workin, it’s time tae move on, call it quits.
A few hours and tissues later, the customer leaves fae the last time, thinkin’ that she’s been mature and that it’s gone as well as she couldae hoped. She’s sad, but she’s convinced it’s the right thing tae do.
Her ex, on the other hand doesnae agree at all, and she doesnae understand. The relationship was goin’ great, they were havin’ fun, they were even talkin’ aboot movin’ in together. They were makin’ hypothetical plans that could one day be their future. Fae the girlfriend, the customer had been the future, and noo it was gone.
She does whit many people do after a breakup. She finds solace at the bottom ae a bottle, and then another, until it numbs the shock, until she thinks she’s better aff single anyway, until she gets angry that she wasted so much time. Aboot how next time she’ll find the one.
A few days intae this bender, after she’s made a suitable dent in her bank account buyin’ booze tae maintain the numbness, she gets a phone call frae her Ma. Her cousin’s had a heart attack. Despite the doctor’s best attempts tae save him, he didnae make it. The family’s devastated and she needs tae come over, noo.
The shock sobers her up, she needs tae be wi’ her family, she wants tae see them. Her previous pain is momentarily forgotten. She digs aroond the mess ae takeaway containers and empty bottles ae beer and spirits until she finds the fluffy keyring she keeps attached tae her car keys. She’s fine. She decides she isnae too drunk tae drive. She gets in her car and hits someone. She didnae even see him, no until it was too late. She doesnae want tae get oot the car, it mightae just been her imagination.
Except there’s a crack on her windscreen. A circle that fans oot intae veins, the glass has bent under the weight ae a body. That body is lyin’ in the road in front ae her, limbs at impossible angles. There’s a pedestrian who’s seen the entire incident, their phone’s oot and they’re callin’ the police.
Someone’s been run over, they say, someone needs an ambulance.
That someone is Reid.
I go intae the shop the next day and Fionn is waitin’ fae me wearin’ an expression that immediately sends ma stomach tae the floor. It’s no sixth sense, it’s a gut feelin’, somethin’ instinctual. Or perhaps it’s me pickin’ up somethin’ frae the dragon heided ring on ma finger. He tells me whit’s happened, that Reid’s been in an accident and he’s at the hospital.
I dinnae really remember whit he says next, if he says anythin’. I immediately get on the bus, and although I know the journey is only 20 minutes, it may as well have been twenty hours. I eventually arrive and I have no idea where he is, I’ve never been in the hospital before. I go tae a desk and say his name, say I’m his sister, or was it his cousin, I wouldae said I was his Ma if it meant I was told where he was.
I get a floor and room number. I pass doctors, patients, nurses, people who look like death is perched on their shoulder, and I start tae feel this awful dread buildin’ in ma stomach. I fuckin’ hate hospitals.
I eventually find his room, a private one. But I dinnae go in, no when I see all ae his family crowdin’ roond the bed, a doctor talkin’ tae them. I hear through the gaps in the door that he’ll pull through, that he’d stabilised but still needed observation. The doctor commented that it was a miracle he wasnae more badly hurt as the driver had been goin’ almost double the speed limit when they’d hit him.
I didnae know at the time who the driver had been, but I was relieved tae hear Reid was gonnae be ok. It was easier tae be angry than upset at the time. This was the reason why there were speed limits, I bet it was some fuckin’ roaster withoot a licence tryin’ tae prove he had big fuckin bollocks by racin’ doon the road. He’d better hope I didnae use some ae the things in the shop tae end him.
By the time I got back tae the bus stop I’d calmed doon. I’d decided no tae go in tae see Reid, it hadnae seemed right wi’ his family there. I’d visit him later. As the last ae ma adrenaline ebbed away, the anger gave way tae sadness. Seein’ Reid like that, bruised and beaten up, so small in a bed that engulfed him, made me realise he was a lot more fragile than I’d assumed. I dinnae know why I’d thought that, it’s no like foxes are particularly strong, but he wasnae human, so shouldnae that make him more powerful? Perhaps that was the reason he’d pulled through when someone like me would probably have died. I couldnae bear tae think ae how close he’d come tae those pearly gates, and just as ma eyes were stingin I noticed somethin’ appear at ma side.
The bus stops in the city have these bars that go along the back wall ae the shelter, they’re instead ae puttin’ in proper seats. You’re supposed tae lean on it, and I think oot ae habit more than comfort people do. I’m no exception. But beside me, perched on this piece ae plastic like it was a tree in the woods, was an owl.
I squeezed the tears oot ma eyes and looked again, expectin’ it tae have transformed intae one ae those scrawny pigeons that are everywhere. But it was still an owl. A mixture ae brown, white, and black, it perched calmly at ma side, no movin, starin’ straight ahead wi’ it’s large, glassy roond eyes.
I cast ma gaze aroond, lookin’ fae someone else at the bus stop, even a passerby tae see this, tae confirm that I was no just goin’ mad. It was the voice in ma heid, no ma own, that pulled me frae ma disbelief. It was the same way Chronos spoke tae me, I could hear him like I could hear ma own inner voice, but this one was different. This voice was deeper, slicker, had a heaviness tae it that I’d never heard frae anyone before. No the comforting kind, and even the deep Scottish burr couldnae expel ma growin’ dread.
It told me no tae bother lookin fae someone else, that I was the only one who could see it. Ma first thought, and noo I dinnae know why, was that it was Madam Anora come tae gee me an answer tae ma proposal all ae those months ago. But why would she send a messenger? Was this her familiar? Was this like an anti-Chronos? I suppose an owl would be somewhat fittin’.
No, the owl had nothin’ tae do wi’ the Madams, no directly. I hadnae asked a question out loud, and the realisation that this owl could hear ma thoughts slowly began tae trickle in. Before I could ask whit the fuck this bird was, it’d already answered me.
Fate.
I laughed. I know, no ma wisest reaction, but it couldnae be serious. I’d never thought Fate was a person let alone an animal. Hearin’ these thoughts Fate corrected that it wasnae an animal, that was just how I saw it. Everyone saw somethin’ different, no that it had shown itself tae many people before. I wasnae happy aboot it makin’ an exception fae me.
Where I saw an owl, someone else might see an old man or woman, a person in a black suit, a horse, an eagle. Fate had no form ae its own, so people gave it one.
I asked why it was here. I actually asked tae whit dae I owe the pleasure before I could filter that oot.
Fate knew whit I’d been up tae. Interferin’, stealin’ back things meant fae people and hidin’ them in the shop. Altering their fates. They’d ignored it the first few times, thinkin’ I was just testin’ ma luck, but when I’d kept doin’ it they decided it was time tae teach me a lesson.
Ye see, this was all connected, whit had happened tae Reid, and all ae it was ma fault. Fate took me back tae last month, tae the day a lad came intae the shop and bought a cap. The flat cap, the one that gave you wakin’ night terrors. The one I’d taken Reid tae go and get back. It turned oot that lad had an undiagnosed heart condition. If he’d worn the cap, like he was supposed tae, he wouldae gone tae the doctor, hopin’ tae get medication fae anxiety or depression, and the doctor wouldae taken his blood pressure and noticed somethin’ was wrong. The lad wouldae been sent fae some tests and the heart condition wouldae been found and treated.
But none ae that happened because I’d taken the cap back less than an hour after he’d bought it. He’d never gone tae the doctor, he’d never had the tests done. Instead, he’d had a heart attack and was deid.
He was the cousin of the lassie who’d hit Reid wi’ her car. And the only reason she’d been drunk enough no tae notice? Because I’d prevented her girlfriend frae readin’ the book that wouldae changed her mind aboot endin’ the relationship. If I hadnae interfered, there’d have been no need tae go on a bender tae ignore her heartbreak, and she wouldnae have got behind the wheel and nearly killed Reid.
In this supposedly random string ae events that had ended wi’ me nearly permanently losin’ one ae ma closest pals, I was the common denominator. If I hadnae interfered wi’ these customers, none ae this wouldae happened.
What else had I done? I’d interfered wi’ so many customers, buyin’ back the items, lyin’ and deceiving just so I could get them back. Had somethin’ like this happened every time?
Fate said that sometimes when I interfere I’ll be helpin, and other times I’ll be makin’ it ten times worse. I’ll never know which is which. Was I willin’ tae take that risk?
No. No, of course not. I didnae want that on ma hands, it was bad enough I knew whit I’d done just because I’d prevented a customer frae wearin’ a stupid’ cap. It haunts me that I dinnae know whit else I’ve inadvertently done by takin’ back items that have been bought. How many things have happened that shouldnae have? How many times have I made things worse? I didnae understand before, how fate worked. I was thinkin’ in the short-term, preventin’ people frae sufferin today. But by doin that I was causin them sufferin’ tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Ma own thoughtlessness had almost killed ma familiar, and possibly strangers who I was convinced I was helpin’.
The Madam had been right, and I’d been too arrogant tae realise, too stupid tae understand. Ye shouldnae interfere wi’ Fate. I understand noo, and I’ll stop. I promise, I’ll stop.