I don’t know about you, but it often seems to me that Future is just Chance decked out in a different guise, our lives welcoming these costumed prospectors to play with us, advancing in some way our great game. So, I invite you to indulge me: go and grab a die. Just a normal one, six faces. Go on. I’ll wait. // . . . // Thank you. Now roll it, and let chance choose your future, as it so often has chosen mine.
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Dice have been used since before recorded history, but their exact point of origin remains uncertain.
I’ve always been me, as long as me has been here, but the lack of a definitive source-point label led to the inquisition of my youth, the oft-repeated question: ‘If there’s a football match between Scotland and England, who would you support?’ Back then, I’d panic and babble my way out of the corner, knowing that my honest answer would only cause further resentment and alienation. Now, though, I won’t even entertain the notion that I have to choose one over the other. What’s important now is not where I’m from, but, rather, where I’m going — and it’s not as if I’m going to a football match any time soon. After all, back then, the honest answer was that I couldn’t care less about football.
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The faces of a traditional cubed die are marked with different numbers of pips, from one to six, with opposite sides summing to seven.
During my teens, I became obsessed with the stage, always acting and writing and listening to musical theatre cast albums on a loop — and so it was only natural when it came to choosing a university course that I would end up studying mathematics. Because who doesn’t love a good plot twist, eh? Despite making it through the degree (and I do want you to know that my final-year one-man mathematical stand-up comedy routine is still talked about to this day), maths never sated me. The regret of following that supposedly safer path, however, did eventually teach me the importance of directing my own show, my own life, in my own way. Our days are numbered, but there is no script. Tomorrow is unwritten, and I will never sum to seven.
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Certain dice, such as those used in casinos, have their pips drilled, then filled with a paint of the same density as the material used for the dice, to ensure that the centre of gravity of the dice is as close to the geometric centre as possible; in this way, concerns that the pips will cause a small bias are allayed.
— but what if chance would have it that some of our hollow parts were filled with words of greater weight? — and what if each letter of each word pulled us decisionways into a throw not of our own casting? What then, I ask you? What then? For I was thrown like this, tossed, debilitated into what I thought was another today, but realise now to have been merely a moment from a passing yesterday, drowning in a sea of Why?, the odds ever against me. — . . . and what if I knew that the future would drill away those words and fill me, instead, with me? — I would smile. — and dream.
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On some dice, the single pip is a colourless depression.
No, I will not remember days spent frozen-trapped on the duvet, the sun sailing past, above me, beyond me. Nor will I remember the empty streets, how the crescent cried a lullaby each time I toed its lips. Or the loneliness of being the only person in the pub, tureen of soup for one, happy birthday to me. No, I will not remember those things. Instead, I’ll sift their grey silt, pan their alluvium for golden flashes, however small, and fashion a pair of phoenix wings, crimson, burnt orange, ready to take flight into bluest sky, the sun sailing on, beside me, within me.
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Multiple pigments may be added during the manufacturing process, resulting in the creation of a speckled or marbled die.
There will come a day in the vast, unknowable futuretimes when I meet him. I imagine it will happen outside, simply so the sky can soundtrack the scene, that calm note the air makes when the universe creaks. I think we'll be wearing the same clothes, the same shoes, the same nervous smile. We will be essentially the same person, but different. He will be me and I will be him. He will say to me, Thank you, and I will say to him, Was it worth it?, and he will lean in close, kiss me, and reply, Only one way to find out, and at last the die will be cast.
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The word die comes from Old French, dé; from Latin, datum — “something which is given or played”.
The greatest gift I’ve ever been given is a clock, embedded in a curve of glass, upon which the gifter inscribed a message both simple and moving. The words of that message and the mechanism’s tick-tock remind me not only that the past exists, but also that the future is coming — and I say, finally, Bring. It. On. With all its summer warmth and fiery storms, bring it on. With all its cloudy days and star-filled skies, bring it on. With its laughter and its love, with its smiling crescents and phoenix feathers, with its music and numbers and words and wonders, with its coming-soons and yet-to-bes, with its wide-open arms of acceptance and the chance to change, I say, bring it on. Bring on life. Because the future has promised me, It’s time to play — and you no longer need the die.