What if the fate of humanity depended on a single, random act of a man,
no matter how insignificant—sort of like a Sunday parish raffle,
but with our very existence at stake?
Fairness aside, what are the chances we would survive such a trial?
Being a poet, not a statistician, I can’t really calculate the odds,
though since even on the battlefield there are occasional acts of kindness,
we might be just fine.
But if something like glueing a nail upright to a pavement slab
that I stumbled upon on my evening stroll is not an isolated incident,
then we are eternally screwed.
hidden pilcrow 