Fast Fiction: Results
...'No, you don't. You don't understand. Don't you realise that you are affecting the results on the field - that if you say 77 for eight at lunch then it, or something like it, will be the case?'..
So does this chap really have such power? Richard Mallinson tells a deliciously enigmatic tale.
For more of Richard’s short-short stories please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/fast_fiction/
'I could have told you what would happen,' he said as the wickets kept tumbling.
'You did tell me,' I said.
'I could have told you that by lunch we'd be 77 for eight.'
'You did.'
'And I was nearly right, wasn't I?'
'Yes, you were. But don't you see what's happening? Don't you understand? Don't you ever make the connection?'
'What connection?'
'The connection between your forecasting or conjecturing or guessing or prophesying or whatever and the actual results?'
'Of course I do.'
'No, you don't. You don't understand. Don't you realise that you are affecting the results on the field - that if you say 77 for eight at lunch then it, or something like it, will be the case?'
'Now, now, you don't believe that, do you? That's real ignoramus stuff... crude superstition ... You're telling me that I have the power or powers to determine the outcome of -'
'Yes, that's the way it looks . . . So, come on, how do you do it?'
'Well,' he said, smugly, 'if you promise to keep it to yourself...'
