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Fractal | Oct 24 2005

I sat in the park with A and talked about his breakup with N, which has left him disconsolate. A group of men nearby were playing cricket. I’d never seen cricket before and wanted to watch the men play, but because this seemed rude to A, I turned to the side.

A said something interesting. He said that the stages of death, as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, repeat over and over until one moves to the next stage. It’s a fractal structure, he said. I pictured a corkscrew turning.

As I pondered this image, a cricket ball came flying toward my head. At the moment I first saw it, the ball was just ten or fifteen feet away. Somewhere behind the ball, I could see the man who had struck it. He was frozen in time, as in a photograph, a concerned expression locked on his face. I realize now he feared the ball hitting me, but in that moment I didn’t understand why he was looking at me like that.

I understood something, though, because I snapped my head back, and the ball whizzed by.

A mentioned Kubler-Ross because a breakup is like a death. Perhaps this goes without saying.