Many of us profess not to be superstitious. We don’t hold with black cats crossing our path; black ravens do nothing but annoy us with their mournful dirge; slanted ladders against a wall don’t prevent us from walking under; a star streaking across the night sky is a breathtaking sight, no more or no less.
Make a wish, used to be the common advice given on espying a falling star. Make a wish. That’s easier said than done because a star fell so suddenly and was extinguished so quickly that it was impossible to think up a wish soon enough. Besides, wishes are something we don’t appear to carry in our heads all the time. They are something we need a little time to think about. They are not always on the tip of the tongue waiting to trip over.
Which reminds me of a joke about this fanatic cyclist who offered up a prayer to a deity and when asked what specifically he wanted he said he wished he could have a bridge built all the way from California to Hawaii which he could cycle across. The deity replied that such a wish was too materialistic: the building of it would destroy a lot of natural resources. Think of something more meaningful, he was urged, so after a few moments of deep thought the fanatic cyclist said he really wished he could understand his partner better: i.e., read her moods, figure out all the little things he did that annoyed her, got to know what she meant when she said nothing was wrong when clearly a lot of things were wrong and…The deity interrupted at this stage to ask, “About that bridge ... did you have two lanes or four lanes in mind?”
Be careful of what you wish for.
That’s another thing that people, especially serial wishers, have been advised against doing. On a rail trip from Brisbane to Sydney recently, I found myself making a wish after refraining from such unrealistic behaviour for decades. For fourteen hours of the journey I (in my window seat) had sat next to a fellow traveller (in the aisle seat) who acknowledged my presence beside him just as a man would acknowledge a rock. Perhaps that’s not entirely accurate, for some rocks elicit amazing responses from men. So, let’s say for the whole journey I played the part of something less than a rock. Even when I needed to use the toilet and asked to be excused he’d stand and step aside rigidly, eyes staring straight ahead and when I returned I’d find him still standing, his gaze fixed on some distant point in the carriage until I moved past him back to my seat, offering my thanks as I did so.
No catnap
I really wish I have someone more friendly on the return trip, I said, as I took my bags off the train. Five days later as the train pulled out of Brisbane heading back to Sydney, I found that the seat beside me was unoccupied. I began to entertain notions of a quiet, sleep-filled ride back home. I had only managed two hours of sleep the previous night.
In fact, I did doze off and must have been asleep when the train stopped two hours later at the next big station. When I awoke I found the seat beside me occupied by a big cheerful elder. “Hello, I’m Pete, just back from five weeks to Brazil to visit a faith healer. Left Australia in a wheelchair, left the wheelchair behind in Brazil! Don’t need it anymore,” he introduced himself, as soon as my eyes flickered open. And from then on I wasn’t allowed the luxury of another catnap. When I alighted 12 hours later, my ears humming, I realised that while I’d learned a lot about him, he didn’t even know my name or, indeed, anything about me. It’s like, in a different way, he hadn’t noticed me, too.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
