Coincidence is one of the most powerful of the Great Forces of Life, the Universe, and Everything (with my apologies to Douglas Adams). In fact in a way it is similar to the Force of the Star Wars universe. Only not. It's not something that can be controlled or channeled, in any way, as Jedi may do with the Force. It's more like a wave that one may learn to ride like a surfer or something. Or not. It's really pretty hard to explain. But suffice to say, what it is is sort of the opposite of the common accepted definition of the word "coincidence." In fact that word is fine as it is, when spelled with a small "c." But with a large "C," as a Great Force, Coincidence is the opposite and far more powerful (sometimes), and really... Yes, I can't explain it. But whatever it is, it is attracted more strongly to some people, and I call such people Coincidence Magi (or mages), though they might more aptly be considered "Coincidence magnets." Many coincidences and much Coincidence may occur in such people's lives; small, middling, large, and huge Coincidences. They can't control it, and it may well drive them mad. But what they really must do is simply learn to go with the flow of it, as much as they can. It can be damned hard or impossible at times. But there is no escaping it.

(Okay, every now and then they can take a stab at trying to use their Coincidence magnetism for a specific purpose, and they may get lucky, or they may not.) Here is an example: Sometimes you might watch one random episode of a TV series for the first time ever, without any particular plan to watch that specific episode. Then you might not watch the show again for months, maybe years. You could see the series is in reruns, and randomly one day decide to check it out... and it's the one episode (possibly out of hundreds) that you've seen before. This will likely happen with no planning on your part, but it could be that you had a reason you wanted to catch that specific episode again, and hoped your Coincidence magnetism would work for you. (It might happen, or it might not.) Of course, this is a very small, probably trivial example of the power of the Coincidence Mage. Much greater events could be controlled by that power, but essentially in just the same fashion as the smaller events....

Anyway, herewith, I shall attempt to put together a list of people (real or fictional) whom I suspect may be Coincidence Magi...

David A. Ward (me)

Bink (from Piers Anthony's Xanth novels)

Jar Jar Binks (from the Star Wars prequels)

Chance Harper (from Strange Luck)

Jade (from the Jackie Chan Adventures [That's how she does that, Jackie.] )

in fact most characters from Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker" and "Dirk Gently" books...

Teela Brown (from Larry Niven's Ringworld novel)

...more to come?...

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