In the dead of sleep I was awakened by the sound of shattering glass. Startled I looked to the windows relieved to find them all intact. Then I noticed that the glass of ice water on the bedside table was gone. I must have shifted the position of my head and the pillow brushed against the glass, sending it crashing below on the hardwood floor. Of course, at that time, being sleepy and disoriented, I didn't connect those events together and simply rose to a sitting position and turned on the light.

I was about to rise to my feet when I noticed the shards of glass below my feet. The base of the glass held together and with it shards that formed jagged teeth. And that menacing fragment just chanced to land bottom down, several feet away from the bedside table and the other shards, and right below where my right heel would have landed if I were to have gotten up.

If I had arisen without looking, those teeth would've lodged themselves in my heel, no doubt severing my Achilles heel, providing me with a permanent limp, leading to back problems and a life of growing pain and suffering... All because of chance. Chance led me to place the glass too close to the bed. Chance was responsible for my moving the pillow in my sleep. Chance sent the glass plunging to the floor. Chance had the glass hit a sensitive point and shatter. Chance allowed the cooling process when forming the glass to create a weakness throughout the glass in the shape of teeth. Chance let the base of the glass avoid breaking. Chance sent that lethal shard several feet from the rest so that it would rest under foot. Chance granted the glass permission to land with the teeth raised to greet my foot. Chance was out for my blood.

Science dictates that nothing happens without an observer. So all those chances that accumulated into an assault on my well being, since they weren't observed by me, then I have to blame them on the higher power. That eye behind the eye allowed for that sequence of events to occur.

But I didn't let fate fuck me. An instant before I was to place my foot on the floor I looked below with drowsy eyes to witness destiny's pitfall, and stopped just in time. I actually felt the highest tooth of the shard brush against the underside of my foot. Did I subconsciously take all those possibilities into account the moment before? Did my looking below actually solidify all those events in the past that led to this potentially tragic situation? Or was I lucky that fate didn't get to injure me?

I was immediately seething over this circumstance. I blamed fate. I blamed God. I blamed the Universe. I blamed every bit of randomness that led my path towards that moment. My avoided injury was not due to a lack of faith, it was prevented by doubt and disbelief. It was pessimism that saved me. By consciously being prepared for the worse I increase the chances of experiencing the better.

Without a doubt, I know that the moment that I slip up and take my eye off of fate, that cursed nemesis of mine will take the opportunity to cripple me. By having faith in the fortune of chance I could end up getting out of bed and step of a broken glass severing tendons and arteries, ensuring a permanent limp reminding me forever of my folly of trusting fate. Fuck fate!