I bolted upright in bed, my heart pounding, but I was still alive. Yes, I was safely back. I'd had a terrifyingly real dream. Or had I died in my sleep and come back to life? Either way, I was back in my small, shabby apartment. What did the Fates have in store for me, I wondered, for I had met them. They were an imposing Group of Eight. That is what they called themselves: "The Group of Eight." My host had explained that they made all the big decisions about our destinies. By "our" I mean all of us; you and I-all of humanity. He explained with a note of amusement in his voice, a low, echoing voice that sounded like rushing water, that humans erroneously believe that they are in control of what happens to them. But they, he called them the Fates, showed me differently. Why had the universe conspired to tell its secrets to me? I was a nobody; less than nobody. An unemployed writer. And if I wrote about it, would anyone believe me?
I always knew there was a God and that He sent us here on a mission of sorts. We were expected to run an obstacle course of challenges and then by our deeds we would be judged. I learned these things at church, though they were not explained as clearly. They preached that we were children of God-that we had a Father in Heaven, and a savior named Jesus. All we had to do was to pledge our allegiance to said Jesus and we would be going straight to Heaven. It did not matter how evil we had been as long as we had the Jesus card at the end, we would pass the pearly gates. But life's challenges-the pain and injustice were never explained, mainly because Jesus never explained it, so the parish priest certainly could not. Like good soldiers we had a cross to bear and if we shouldered through and didn't lose our faith, Heaven would have a rollcall with our name on it. This is what I understood to be the unspoken agreement between God and me. But this dream showed me I was all wrong.
But let me back up so you understand the trajectory my life took before I met the Fates. I will skip most of the drama of my childhood to say that my 20s and 30s were filled with alternating fun and angst. In my 20s I married a man, and in my 30s I divorced him because I came out as a lesbian. In a confused effort to do what my Christian parents expected, I tried dating men again only to get bored, and to get pregnant. I parted ways with the father when I refused to marry him. I told him with an exasperated sigh, "I am a lesbian. How can I marry you?" But I kept the baby because I was raised by a religious mother and attended a church who drilled it into our heads that abortion was the worst kind of sin, no better than murder. And this decision, to keep the pregnancy, would be the most monumental decision of my life.
As a second-generation single mom, I worked a fulltime job only to take over as mom to a baby who was just 4 months old. This meant 4-5 hours of sleep at night, every night. I was dog tired and had no help. My mother was angry at me for coming out as a lesbian, so I was on my own. I was in my early 30s, but I had dark circles under my eyes from sleep deprivation. Yet I never questioned my decision to keep my daughter, or my ability to provide for her. But as she grew, my work schedule required me to travel extensively which meant hiring a nanny to raise my child. The cost of daycare was killing me, but I stayed on this hamster wheel, working so I could pay an exorbitant daycare bill, and later a preschool bill until she was school-aged. Even then I had to afford afterschool care, and when I traveled, weekend care. And all the while I was missing the momentous moments I most longed to see: her first steps, her first words, all the milestones a parent is supposed to be there for. But I consoled myself time and again by saying, "You did the right thing." The right thing. The right thing. This phrase the Fates acknowledged as being another faulty perception, not necessarily the whole truth.
As I gazed at the map of my life which was stretched the length of the table, I saw how doing "the right thing" had been the right thing for my religious mother, and for my church. But had it been the right thing for me, and for my daughter? We were really the ones who mattered in this situation, not the onlookers, the ones who hadn't cared enough to lend a helping hand. It was my life. And yet I never asked myself, not once, if it was the right thing for us. The map of my life began to move; swirling and rippling topography moving backwards in time. When it stopped, I saw myself newly pregnant and exercising on a stationary bike. I knew this moment exactly-I remembered it clearly. I had been wrestling with making a final decision. I asked myself, what is the right thing for this baby? The right thing certainly could not be abortion, I reasoned. And I could not imagine giving her up for adoption after carrying her for 9 months. No, I did not have the strength for that. The decision was between abortion or single parenting. An abortion would disappoint my mother and my church friends who of course were counting on me to keep the baby. But worse was the thought of an embryo being scraped out of my womb. That thought made me shutter. I watched myself wrestle with this decision as if I were watching TV. One of the Fates with long fingers that looked like tree branches reached out and grabbed a pair of dice laying on the map. With a flick of his wrist he rolled it. It landed on two, a dot on each die. The Fate looked down at my life and saw that I had decided to keep the pregnancy.
"Why did you roll the dice?" I asked him.
His words came directly into my mind:"You thought it was your decision," he said without looking up.
I stared at him straight for the first time. They all wore identical black linen robes and their hoods were pulled over their faces like the Grim Reaper, yet I was not afraid of them. They did not inspire fear; they inspired awe. I couldn't see any of their faces, they were only shadows, a form instead of a solid entity. I knew they were eternally existing, wise rulers, a committee of spirits who had power over my existance and who could alter destiny when they deemed it was necessary. I don't know how I knew these things except I was in a different realm where spoken word is superfluous, and knowledge is abundant. "Wasn't it my decision? I decided, didn't I?"
He pointed a spindly finger at the dice. "Two of you against the world," he replied. His words resounded like thunder clap, and in a lightening flash I was drawn back to a scene playing on the map. My daughter and I were sitting at home on our couch. I had pulled her onto my lap for some snuggles and declared, "It's just the two of us against the world." The two of us-and the dice had rolled the number two.
"What if you had rolled a different number. Then what?"
He responded by picking up the dice and rolling again. It landed on the number four, two dots on each die. The map swirled and churned again until a different scene, one which had never happened in this life, appeared. In this world I had decided not to have the baby. I went to the abortion clinic all alone because neither my family nor my church would support it. Then the map went dark like someone had turned out the spotlight. "This decision was four you," responded the Fate.
"Yes," I replied, beginning to comprehend the game. "Four would have been for me. So, this is all a game?"
"Yes," he answered appreciatively, pleased that I understood.
"That means we are not in charge of the major turning points in our lives," I said.
"When it is a matter of life and death, Fate steps in."
"I see," I responded. "So, we each have a Fate, but not fate as we commonly think of it. We each have an actual Fate..."
"One fate out of The Group of Eight helps you to make the most important decisions."
I appealed to him. "If it is our life, shouldn't we make the final decisions?"
He shook his head as if I still wasn't getting it. "The roll of the dice determines your outcome." Around the table the Fates nodded in silent agreement.
"I don't mean to be a bother, but why are there eight of you?"
"If what the dice shows us is troubling, we take a vote."
"I see. Wouldn't it be easier to vote if you had an odd number, like seven? Then one could be the tiebreaker."
"Clever of you to think of that. But we do everything by agreement. We discuss until all are in perfect unity. Like a jury," he offered.
"Does God control the dice?" I was still trying to figure out where God came in.
"God has nothing to do with this game."
"Are there different outcomes in different dimensions-I mean, in parallel lives?"
"Each dimension has a unique outcome. The outcome of a roll in an alternative universe could be different."
"I see," I replied thoughtfully. "Why does God-or you guys, leave it to chance?"
"It is more exciting that way," the Fate replied. "A game in which the outcome is unknown is always more stimulating."
I began to get upset. "But these are real lives. People are suffering down there. People are doing terrible things to each other, like war and famine. Children are starving. Illness and hunger are ravaging whole countries! And you are up here playing dice with our lives?"
One of the Fates lifted a hand before speaking. It was a softer woman's voice, which surprised me. "I know it sounds unjust to you," she explained. "But according to your deeds your future lives will play out."
"So, there is karma?" I asked her.
"Of course. This is a perfectly just system that happens to be played as a game, that is all. In subsequent lives the die shall be cast again, and you will be given exactly what is due you. Exactly."
"Then God must know what numbers are going to land."
"What numbers will land is an unknown variable, even to God," she explained.
"Ok. So, let me see if I have got this straight. Whenever there is a big choice to be made, especially life or death, our Fate casts the dice. Whatever number we get becomes our reality, unless it seems too harsh and unfair. At which point you discuss it amongst yourselves and decide whether to stick with the roll of the dice or not. But all eight must be in agreement to change what the numbers show."
"Very good," replied my host, as if he were speaking to a child. "Think of it in this way: your country has a President, and a Supreme Court. Most of the President's decisions are made unilaterally. But sometimes it goes to the Supreme justices who have veto power. It is like that."
"Except this is all a cosmic game," I said, incredulous, and the Fates nodded in agreement.
"Where does God fit into this," I asked. "Does He know about this game of dice that decides our fate?"
"The Creator is pure awareness," spoke the female. "The Absolute knows all."
"And may I ask-who are you? Are you aliens? I can see that you are not human."
"We are concerned with the affairs of mankind and were chosen to manage your cosmic play," she responded.
"A cosmic play," I repeated. "Is that what life is?"
"It is all a dream in the Creator's mind. God is dreaming," answered the female.
"And is this meeting a dream I am having, or have I..." I stopped short of saying it.
"You will never die," replied the female Fate. "Death is another fallacy. Your essence will go on."
"Yes, but do I still have a body to go back to?" I asked, sounding more desperate than I wanted to.
"Your body is waiting. We summoned you to show you that life is a game. Therefore, you should not worry. There will be many chances to set what went wrong aright. Fate will always help you, no matter the role of the dice." I looked at The Group of Eight and felt a profound gratitude sweep over me that someone smarter than me was running the show. I was going to ask if I could return to my body when before I could ask, I awoke and found myself in bed.
And that is how it happened, how I met my Fate. Whether it was a dream or I died in my sleep and came back, I will never know for sure. But in times of trouble, I remember what I was told-that life is a game of that we play until we get it right. So, lighten up.
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