A man named Eric is on a walk with his dog, Nova.
While on the walk, Eric loses Nova
after she pulls the leash from his hand in pursuit of a rabbit
that happens to jump out of a bush as they pass by it.
Eric chases after Nova but this only inspires her to run faster,
until she completely eludes Eric's vision
continuing on her pursuit of the rabbit, that has, by now,
hidden somewhere in the other direction.
After a great deal of time passes, it becomes clear that Nova
has outrun her sense of orientation and is now lost.
Eric spends the rest of the day and the days following
searching for Nova. He notifies neighbors,
enlists friends and family to help,
puts up signs, and so on.
A week goes by,
nova is still missing eric is devastated beyond comprehension
he thinks
about how horribly unlucky it was that the rabbit
jumped out at just the wrong time his hand position
just in the wrong place to allow Nova to pull the leash from it
About another week later, a woman shows up at Eric's front door,
she has Nova.
After nova and Eric reconnect in a chaotic, heart-warming display of affection,
Eric thanks the woman.
She introduces herself and tells Eric her name is Vanessa.
She's beautiful, and about Eric's same age.
Eric and Vanessa talk for a little while and seem to hit it off,
In the following weeks they hang out several times
and things goes so well, they soon begin dating.
Eric finds her to be absolutely gorgeous, kind, funny,
smart, spontaneous... all the right buzzwords for a perfect
romantic partner in a story.
Soon, Eric and Vanessa fall in love,
the relationship is everything one could reasonably hope a relationship to be.
erick thinks about how lucky it was that vanessa was
who happend to be in the right place at the right time
to find and return Nova
A couple months go by,
Eric is driving on his way to pick up Vanessa.
While driving through an intersection, Eric is T-boned at full speed
by a driver who distractedly runs a red light
coming from the perpendicular side street.
Eric is knocked unconscious as he and his car are sent in a
thrashing 1080° spin.
An hour or so later, Eric finds himself in a hospital.
A doctor informs Eric of what has happened, and explains
that he has suffered a severe head injury, and that they will need to run
some immediate tests as well as a brain scan to determine the severity,
and if there's any chance of permanent brain damage
or internal bleeding.
As his consciousness begins to more clearly return to him,
Erick thinks about how unlucky it was to been going
to get Vanessa in the exact direction at the exact time
Eric is held overnight at the hospital.
The next day, the doctor comes in into Eric's room:
, the doctor asks.
, Eric replies.
, they doctor says.
, Eric responds.
Confused, Eric says:
, says the doctor.
, Eric asks with an escalating level of concern and confusion.
The doctor pauses for a moment,
and Eric looks at him unaware of what this means.
"It's a tumor", the doctor goes on to saying
, Eric asks.
"... we ran the brain scan. Because of the brain scan
we found the tumor. Normally we only catch a tumor like this
"... Because we found the tumor right now, though,
we cut it while it's still benign before it became malignant
and grew into any other areas of your brain,
which in almost all cases becomes fatal.
Since it's still in this stage, though, we should be able to remove it almost entirely
without any issue.
, the doctor concludes.
Eric starts to feel a weird, visceral tingling sensation
and becomes slightly disoriented.
Regardless, Eric looks around at the room.
He thinks about how lucky he was
to having going to get Vanessa in the exact direction
at that exact time. He thinks about how lucky he was
to have gotten in the car accident.
He thinks about how weird it is to think this.
In this moment, Eric realizes how little he knows
about what anything actually is.
That he has never and can never know what exists on the other side of
anything that happens to him or because of him,
no matter how good or bad, lucky or unlucky
any of it might seem.
Eric feels a strange, paradoxical sense of helplessness
and liberation.
About a week later, Eric undergoes brain surgery to remove the tumor.
The surgery is successful.
Eric is mostly as good as new, with exception to a scar running down the side of his scalp
Several days later, after being released from the hospital,
Eric is at home with Vanessa, recovering.
To get some fresh air,
he takes Nova out for a walk.