"The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity."
Causality. One event causing another. Some incredible coincidence of science happens, sets off a chain of events and you have to live with some godawful outcome. You know, quarks and electrons and then Elton John starts singing. Or you drop a coin in the Trevi fountain and Let it Go starts playing on a jukebox in a side street in Buenos Aires. Or worse, there is a bat in a fish market in Wuhan and before you know it Alice is throwing marshmallows at the neighbour’s cat because she thinks it’s the sun and it’s not quite as hot as it should be.
The mean distance of the Earth from the sun is 93 million miles. The mean diameter of the Earth’s orbit is 186 million miles which, to the first 3 significant figures, is the velocity of light in a vacuum.
That’s a coincidence.
Do you know what else is?
When Apocalypse Daddy was born there were 20,000 cases of Corona worldwide. On day twenty-six there were two million.
Fish + heart = a bird
Today is Alice’s birthday.
One thousand four hundred and sixty days on the most habitable flying piece of rock in the known universe.
But the only one? Seems unlikely.
From a hundred kilometres up there is no sign of life. You have to descend to the scale of a metre before you see our influence and Alice and the magic number four.
There are four people in the Apocalypse Family. Coincidence?
“What is four?” Alice said as we ate a birthday breakfast of jelly and ice- cream.
“What is four?” I said, taken aback by the deep simplicity of the question. “That’s abstract. I’ve not thought about it like that for a long time. It’s a number, but I feel you are looking for more than that.”
So we looked at famous number fours.
“The Fantastic Four. The Beatles. The Wizard of OZ.”
“What’s the wizard of Oz?”
“We’ll write that,” I said, “on day forty three. There are four cardinal directions. Four seasons. Four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, four card suits and four basic arithmetic calculations. There were four Ghostbusters and there were four Marx Brothers. But, it’s like Yin and Yang. Not all the four pieces count for as much.”
“Who was bad, Daddy?”
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are rarely welcomed with open arms.”
“Anyone else?”
I thought long and hard. “Coldplay,” I said.
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Your daughter is not four every day. So we cancelled school and set up the dining table under a tree in the garden. Alice sat at one end, surveying her world. She had on a blue Frozen dress and was looking curiously at Luca who was asleep at the table, his head resting on a green balloon. Apocalypse Mommy was sitting at the other end of the table drinking a Long Island Iced Tea and also looking curiously at Luca. As I made my way to the table they pricked up their ears.
“No room, no room,” Alice said, as I approached carrying drinks.
“There is plenty of room,” I said. “And how the hell is Luca asleep? He never sleeps.”
“It must be the fresh air,” said Apocalypse Mommy, a hummingbird hovering expertly before her hazel brown eyes. “Ever since the lockdown, he doesn’t get out so much.”
The air was fresh. As fresh as it had been since the last ice age.
“Have some wine,” Apocalypse Mommy said.
“There isn’t any,” I said.
“You’ll have to go and get some Daddy,” said Alice. “Can you get my presents too?”
That’s very civil of you I thought. “I know it’s a long time ago Alice, but remember rule number three. Always be polite.”
“It wasn’t very civil of you to come to a party without gifts Daddy. This is my tea party, you should bring gifts. Please.”
I asked Alice if she knew what a coincidence was.
“I do,” she said. “At least, I think I do. But I think so many things and they all get lost and swirl around. Sometime I feel lost. Mommy, what is a coincidence?”
“It’s when something happens and you weren’t expecting it to happen but it kind of seems like it was planned.”
“Like Luca?” Alice said.
Apocalypse Mommy’s drink came out of her nose. And then a green balloon popped and Luca woke up.
“Mommy, was Luca planned or was he a coincidence?”
“Look at him,” I said. “He was born on the steps of Mount Olympus. He’s like Mars, the God of War.”
“Sorry Daddy but Mars was Roman, Olympus was Greek and Ares was the Greek God of War. And also, he has MY balloon and it’s MY BIRTHDAY.”
Alice started crying.
Luca started crying. A kingfisher landed on the table and pecked at the cake. At the end of the garden a rabbit appeared, then another, and another and then a goat. Everywhere and nowhere animals thought extinct popped back into life.
“Quick,” I said, counting juniper berries. “Give him another balloon.”
Alice stopped crying, stuck out her tongue and gave him a silver balloon. Luca lay his head back down and fell instantly to sleep.
“Luca was definitely planned.” I said. “But also a coincidence, if you think about it.”
“Daddy,” Alice said, scooping Smarties into her mouth. “Where do robots live?”
“They are born in factories in China,” I said. “And America and Vietnam. Where they live is then up to us.”
“They are born in a factory in China?” Alice said, “Like the microbe?”
“Have you been watching Fox News again?” I said.
“How is a fox like a wolf?”
“What day is it?”
Alice said it was Tuesday.
Two days wrong I said.
And Alice cried.
And I said it was her birthday so she could cry if she wanted. So she got up and pulled Luca’s hair right back.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “Not in this dream.”
Time ebbed away.
“Can you tell me a story, Daddy.”
Once upon a time.
“Daddy,” Alice said. “You need a hair cut.”
Apocalypse Mommy said, “Why don’t you let us cut it for you?”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
So I sat on the table and let them cut my hair with child-proof scissors.
It was a mistake.
But nobody would see me for another four weeks.
I hope that when Alice is five we can look back on today and laugh.
And go for a walk, eat in a restaurant, watch a film at the cinema.
Climb a mountain.
Go to the pool.
I hope she is free.
As I tucked Alice in to bed later that night – a lot later that night, like midnight, once the drugs cake had worn off – she said, “Daddy, I’m four, I’m big big big big big. Big like this.” And she stretched her arms to the ceiling. “When am I five?”
I said next year.
“Daddy,” she said, taking a biscuit from behind her ear.
“When is next year?”
“Do you remember your last birthday?”
“Not really.”
“I do,” I said. “It’s that long again. I’ll remember today forever.”
“What’s forever Daddy?”
“I don’t know, but I wish it would last.”