— Tales from the Universe
There is a department in the universe that nobody talks about.
It doesn’t have a name anyone can pronounce.
It doesn’t appear on any map.
And as far as I can tell, nobody has ever received a letter from it.
Which is probably intentional.
It is called the Department of Coincidences.
And they are very busy.
You have probably encountered their work.
You think about someone you haven’t spoken to in ten years.
Five minutes later, they call.
You mention a song you haven’t heard since childhood.
It comes on the radio.
You’re wondering whether you should take a particular job.
Then you open a book and find a sentence that seems almost suspiciously relevant.
You walk into a café you’ve never visited before.
The person sitting next to you is reading the exact book you’ve been thinking about all week.
You laugh.
You call it a coincidence.
And somewhere in the universe, a very tired civil servant stamps a form.
PROCESSED.
The Department of Coincidences does not make miracles.
That would be handled by another department.
Miracles have paperwork.
Coincidences are cheaper.
They simply arrange for things to happen at approximately the same time.
A thought.
A song.
A person.
A sentence.
A bird.
A number on a clock.
A book falling off a shelf.
Nothing impossible.
That’s important.
Everything must remain technically explainable.
The Department has very strict regulations about this.
For example:
You are thinking about calling your mother.
Your phone rings.
It’s your mother.
Case closed.
You could explain it.
Of course you could.
Perhaps she was already planning to call.
Perhaps you usually talk at this time.
Perhaps your brain is simply very good at predicting patterns.
All perfectly reasonable.
The Department is not interested in reasonable explanations.
They just want the timing to be really, really good.
There are several divisions.
The Department has never officially confirmed this.
But I have heard rumors.
There is the Unexpected Meeting Division.
They specialize in putting two people in the same place who otherwise would never have met.
A missed train.
A wrong turn.
A coffee shop.
A delayed flight.
A seat that happened to be empty.
One tiny alteration in an ordinary day can put two entire lives on a collision course.
Sometimes they become friends.
Sometimes they fall in love.
Sometimes one of them says something the other desperately needed to hear.
Sometimes they never speak again.
The Department considers all of these successful outcomes.
Then there is the Perfect Timing Division.
These people are terrifying.
They are responsible for things like:
Opening a door exactly when someone needs help.
Arriving at a hospital five minutes before something important happens.
Hearing the right song on the worst day of your life.
Finding the exact piece of information you needed buried three pages into a completely unrelated article.
They specialize in moments where you look around afterward and think:
How did that happen?
The answer is:
Very carefully.
There is also a department nobody likes to talk about.
The Almost Too Much Division.
These are the coincidences that pile up.
One coincidence is funny.
Two are interesting.
Three make you suspicious.
Seven make you start staring at the ceiling.
You think about a person.
You hear their name.
You see their hometown.
Someone mentions the exact obscure hobby they have.
Then you receive a message from them.
At this point, the Department sends a representative to your house.
The representative is invisible.
Their job is simply to stand behind you and whisper:
“Please remain calm.”
They are usually ignored.
I don’t think the Department is trying to tell us what to do.
That’s important.
A coincidence is not necessarily a command.
Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.
Sometimes the universe lines things up because the universe is enormous and strange and probability is a wonderful machine.
Sometimes we notice patterns because human beings are pattern-making creatures.
And sometimes—
well.
Sometimes the timing is so absurd that you just have to laugh.
The Department appreciates that.
I imagine the employees taking their jobs very seriously.
A room full of cosmic clerks.
Thousands of desks.
Stacks of forms.
Charts covering the walls.
Someone yelling across the office:
“WHO APPROVED THE THIRD DOG?”
Another voice:
“IT WASN’T US. THAT WAS ANIMAL SERVICES.”
A printer jams.
Someone sighs.
A supervisor walks over.
“What’s the problem?”
“We’ve got two people who haven’t seen each other in eighteen years.”
“And?”
“They’re both going to the same grocery store.”
The supervisor checks the paperwork.
“Can we make it happen?”
“Absolutely.”
“How?”
“One of them forgets the milk.”
The supervisor smiles.
“Excellent.”
Stamp.
And maybe this is why coincidence feels so strange.
Because most of our lives are built out of things that don’t happen.
The thousands of people we could have met.
The roads we could have taken.
The conversations that almost happened.
The places we almost visited.
The decisions we almost made.
For every person who becomes part of your life, there are countless others you passed without ever knowing.
A different bus.
A different restaurant.
A different Tuesday.
A different five minutes.
And suddenly your entire life is different.
The Department of Coincidences works in those five minutes.
Maybe that’s why some people feel important almost immediately.
You meet them and something clicks.
Not necessarily romance.
Not necessarily friendship.
Sometimes it’s simply recognition.
Oh.
You.
You don’t know why.
You don’t have to.
Maybe the Department has been trying to put you in the same room for years.
Maybe they finally got the paperwork through.
Or maybe it’s nothing at all.
Again:
The Department is not responsible for interpretation.
They only handle scheduling.
And sometimes their work is painful.
You meet someone at exactly the wrong time.
You lose someone because of one tiny coincidence.
A missed call.
A missed flight.
A door that closed too soon.
A decision made five minutes earlier.
The Department of Coincidences does not promise that its work will be kind.
That would be far too much responsibility for one department.
Life contains beautiful accidents.
It also contains terrible ones.
The same machinery that brings two people together can separate them.
Perhaps that is why we shouldn’t turn every coincidence into a message.
Sometimes a strange thing happens.
Sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes it helps.
Sometimes it simply happens.
But there is one thing I like about the Department.
They remind me that life is not nearly as linear as it feels from inside it.
We wake up.
We make plans.
We follow schedules.
We assume tomorrow will resemble today.
And then somebody forgets their umbrella.
A dog gets loose.
A bus breaks down.
A stranger asks a question.
Someone decides to stop for coffee.
And suddenly the entire trajectory changes.
We call it an accident.
Maybe it is.
But I like imagining a little office somewhere in the universe where someone quietly circles the event in red ink.
IMPORTANT.
So the next time something strange lines up, you don’t have to believe it means anything.
You don’t have to turn it into a prophecy.
You don’t have to make a decision because the universe gave you a funny little sign.
You can simply notice.
That’s enough.
Someone thought of you.
You thought of them.
The song came on.
The door opened.
The bird landed.
The book fell open.
The stranger smiled.
The timing was ridiculous.
And for one tiny moment, the enormous machinery of existence produced something that felt almost personal.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
But somewhere, deep in the impossible bureaucracy of the universe, a clerk may have just finished a little piece of paperwork.
They put down their pen.
Look at the completed form.
And smile.
Coincidence successfully delivered.
Next case.
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