I wonder at the things that never happened. For we have heard of grand projects that, barring a few, almost trivial events going the right way, would never have taken off at all. If we made some of the more unlikely things that have failed, instead, succeed — if we dot some i’s that were left unmarked, if we plugged something in that had become unplugged, if we did these things in forgotten corners, how spectacular would be the consequences? Not knowing how, we would be making history, a blind hand of fate, working secret wonders. The butterfly effect applied to fate: to change a single flutter of destiny, and in the great fabric of all that is meant to be would ripple out great and wonderful, dread and terrible. We never know until it is has all happened and is over what tiny accident or consideration will matter. What little things mean everything.