o the sparrows (with apologies to fortinbras).

maybe it was the sparrows.

maybe it was the ecphonetic O.

or maybe it was fortinbras' fault (when you can't blame bill gates, blame fortinbras).

last week after class i did not take the interstate home.  i intentionally avoided the most efficient route.  my car turned left (sans premeditation, predetermination, preordination, or election) when i wanted it to turn right.  as my car habitually neared the familiar route, i decided to listen to my right-turn-self in a moment of action and eschew the interstate.

i defy augury.

i also defy the interstate.

in the moment of decision, i wondered if this habit-defying action would really change anything.  would i get in a wreck not intended for me?  would i pass something or someone that would alter my perception of the world so much that i'd never be the same?  would i run over a wooly worm that would have otherwise survived if i had run over a beetle on the interstate, and this said beetle's great-great-grand beetle would eventually (butterfly effect-like) cause the destruction of mankind?  have i seen too many movies?  the extrapolations are endless.

what if (dangerous isn't it?) claudius had allowed hamlet to go to wittenberg?  would it have been action enough to get him out of denmark and distract him from revenge?  would he have been off packing his bags trying to decide which vintage t-shirts to take, and which ones to leave behind when ghost-dad made his appearance? would rosencrantz and guildenstern (or was it guildenstern and rosencrantz?) have stayed home because hamlet wasn't there to behave erratically and force their invitation?  would polonius have continued blathering empty axioms until ophelia ran off to become a carny (tragedy indeed)?

and then there's fortinbras.  lest we forget the formidable viking lord of revenge, he's always doing something:  marching, defending honor, sending captains off to chat with kings, revenging, this and that. if hamlet had gone off to wittenberg as planned, fortinbras would still have arrived to revenge his father's honor.  ergo, claudius dead.  ergo, a bigger stack of bodies.

so what?  moody hamlet turns right towards wittenberg--avoiding the proverbial butterfly.  there's always fortinbras waiting in the wings to do the deed.  claudius gets revenged.

i went interstate-less.  i missed the crucial beetle of world destruction.  no worries, fortinbras was in the car behind me--i saw his norwegian complexion in my rear view.  i got a new view, however.  i looked at the city in a new way.  i saw the surface streets.  i saw people i'd never seen before at a stop and go 45 rather than 70.  and now rather than non-active habitualness, maybe the habit-breaking act makes the next one easier.