End of Coincidence

I've always been into herbal remedies with the intent to increase my cognitive function or induce mystical states.  The Chinese have an entire cultural tradition of alternative medicines ranging from qi gong to ginseng.  So naturally, when I went to China one summer while I was in college,  I sought out a Chinese herbalist so that I could do better on my engineering classes during my senior year. 

I located the master herbalist quite by accident--or so it seemed at the time.   Soon after arriving in Tianjin,  I found myself exploring one of the myriad of side streets off the main downtown square.   It was blistering hot outside and I ducked inside a small shop to catch a breather from the sun.  While inside, I stood next to the a small electric fan on the counter and quite absentmindedly raised my hands up to grasp the frame of the fan to tilt it in my direction.   A careful inspection of the fan would have revealed that unlike its American counterparts, this fan had a limited protective frame which permitted objects the size of fingers to penetrate and contact the moving fan blade.   Taking advantage of this alternative design, my negligent finger seized the opportunity and proceeded through the metal frame contacting the moving rotor which caused me immediate pain and unleashed a small amount of blood.   The proprietor, horrified that a foreigner became injured in his shop, immediately ran to the nearest medical practitioner--which in this case happened to be a Chinese herbalist--and I came under the  protective care of one Jin Ku Ming, a gnarled old man who spoke only a smattering of English.  Combined with my smattering of Chinese, we had a great time in the summer of 1988.   Indeed, one of my most treasured  photographs of my Chinese adventure is a photo or me sitting next to Jin while his wife Suya was pouring us tea out of an ornate gold colored dragon shaped tea server in Jin's small apothecary.

Decades later, I sought to retrieve my old photographs of China out from storage.  One of the visitors to my apartment complex (I have so many visitors these days--I can't seem to keep them all straight) had a son--or someone that looked a lot like him-- who had just returned from China after spending the summer.   I learned that the son had also visited Tianjin, so I was curious to see how the City had changed through the years.  The son was kind enough to record his trip by holographic video, so I was excited to see in three dimensions how my old stomping grounds had metamorphosed during my absence.   However, to my surprise, one of the first scenes in the son's video was the son walking into the same small apothecary in downtown Tianjin that I visited all those years ago, and greeting the same gnarled old  Jin Ku Ming who looked the same as in my photographs.

How could this be?   I asked the son who the Chinese herbalist was and he told me that it was Jin Ku Ming and that Jin and his wife Suya used to entertain him while he was in Tianjin.   What?  Impossible!  Jin must have been at least 70 or 80 sixty years ago when I was in China.  He would be 150 years old!  No one lives that long.  Or do they? 

"Grandpa, what are you saying?   You never went to China," the son told me. 

But the kid had to be wrong.   I remember going to China as clear as day.   I can prove it with my old photographs.   I still can't seem to find them.   They must have been lost in my last move.   I think it was not my imagination.   Its the singularity.   Every since the computers took over I've been noticing that there are glitches in the program.   Like we are all living in a simulation except that the computers keep recycling the programs for new generations hoping that they don't notice.  But I do.  I've still got my wits about me--and that's no coincidence.