A really really really odd thing happened to me on Wednesday morning. I never sleep well when I've been drinking, and following our quiz over-indulgences on Tuesday evening I was awake early, and eventually got up to read in the hostel common-room at about 7.30am.
I'd not looked round the hostel properly, so once I'd made a coffee I wandered into the reading area which has a bookshelf containing books left behind by travellers. Looking through the books I was surprised to see a book I've read on my travels: Nicholas Parsons's autobiography, The Straight Man. I bought this for $2 in Hervey Bay in June, and sold it in Airlie Beach later that month, also for $2. I picked up the copy I found in the hostel and opened the cover. I realised it was THE SAME COPY I read! It had a stamp from the Hervey Bay bookshop, and one from the Airlie Beach bookshop! Someone had paid $7.70 for it in Airlie Beach, and then the book had found its way to the Greenhouse Backpackers in Melbourne. What are the chances? I'm reading the second Lord Of The Rings book at the moment, and it occurs to me that like the One Ring, perhaps this book WANTS to be found by me. I took the book back to our room, pleased to have the company of an old friend. I then registered it on www.bookcrossing.com and "released" it once more in the hostel. I hope now that I will be able to track the book for ever.
Anne poo-poos my One Book To Rule Them All idea, preferring to suggest that this coincidence proves the existence of God. "Maybe there's a higher force at work?" she put to me in a mysterious voice. I started thinking. Yes, maybe. Perhaps this silver-haired comedian has a hidden agenda? Could Nicholas Parsons be God? Or at least A God? His surname has religious connotations. Perhaps this God respects prayers that last one minute exactly, and do not feature repetition, hesitation or deviation? Maybe Anglia TV's Sale Of The Century was Parson's pulpit, from which he tried to convert the masses (of Norfolk) to the gospel of white goods and a small car?
Anne is sitting next to me and just said, "I think you've gone far enough now?"
It's worth thinking about though, isn't it?