Toe in the Water

A Charmed Life

A Charmed Life

Brad Nickel lived a charmed life. He became aware of this only gradually and it was only when he reached middle age that he began to believe it. It was true, after all, that he had suffered no absolute disasters in his life, experienced no catastrophes and not even broken a bone in an unhappy accident. Considering the terrible things that happened to other people around the world, floods, earthquakes, wild fires, falling off mountains and getting lost in endless labyrinths underground, Brad was not wrong to think himself somehow blessed with better luck.

In pondering on his charmed state, Brad began to develop a theory. Retaining a somewhat sensible attitude, he decided to call it the “It Couldn’t Happen To Me Principle.” While fully aware that this central premise to his theory is probably common to everyone, Brad still felt that there was some special aspect of his case that made it particularly true for himself.

There was, as anyone could see, innumerable instances of people thinking exactly those words before something did indeed happen to them. Such abrupt failure of the Principle in their cases only served to illustrate the peculiar nature of Brad’s own holding to the belief. Those few who managed to live an entire life without major misfortune or premature death must surely be gifted beyond the lot of ordinary humans. It was beginning to look like Brad was a member of this rather fortunate branch of the species that had nothing to fear from merciless fate.

Naturally, Brad suffered the temptation to try out his theory in practice. He could take up sky diving, for instance. That might be a reasonable test of his continuing charmedness. Or mountain climbing. Without ropes. Dare devil riding. On a motorised monocycle. Without a helmet.

He saw the trap well in advance. The test was a trick to get himself into a hopeless place before killing him off as recompense for his grandiose theory. He resolved to ignore such temptation to test the matter.

No, he would carry on just as he always had, living a normal life, not risking anything unnecessarily and avoiding pointless displays of his invincibility. The theory could best be given its full expression by merely being himself and accepting that he would never find himself taken to extremes beyond endurance.

At which point, one might expect to be told how Brad’s certainty was confounded by some ironic and apparently minor accident in his home or office life that developed into a huge and ultimately deadly problem for him. In only this way could Brad’s vainglorious hubris be taken to task and justice served.

Yet it did not happen. Brad lived on for many long years, dying at last of natural causes, in bed, in his ninety-fourth year of a charmed life. It is entirely possible that he was right, that there are some folk who, by choice of some unimaginable fate or perhaps just happenstance, manage to live lives untroubled by serious adversity and who leave this world never having experienced what it is to be homeless or dead broke or wounded in some permanently crippling way.

Life’s a funny old thing, you know.


Word count: 531