FICTION

The Coincidence

Years ago, Shi accidentally met Ties in an elevator, and a series of coincidences followed.

Imagination has no boundaries, And edges have no vision.

On a cold evening of the Autumn season, after wrapping up the research work, Shi headed to the elevator installed in the South-East corner of the university building’s third floor. Soon as she reached the elevator, a man suddenly appeared, an unknown face. Mostly, the third floor remained less populated with familiar faces and had few research laboratories. This man pressed the elevator button and waited for Shi to enter the elevator first.

As soon she entered the elevator, the man asked, ‘Which floor?’ She replied, ‘First.’ He pressed the elevator button to №1. The elevator’s inside wall was blue in color, and both started starring at the wall to avoid eye contact. Exhausted by day-long research work, Shi was in her thoughts of rushing fast to the parking lot, getting in her car, and picking up her two-year-old toddler from the daycare. But, before she could do that, the thrill began in the blue elevator.

Instead of going to the first floor, the elevator stopped on the second floor. The door opened halfway, and no one was standing there. Before both can think to get out, the elevator door closed, and they went to the ground floor, skipping the first floor. The door opened halfway on the ground floor, and no one was there. The door shut and started moving and reached the second floor again. Both thought that the elevator had gone on to the first floor, but soon the door opened halfway, both realized it is on the second floor. Again, the door closed, and instead of moving down, it went up to the third floor.

With all these ups and downs of the roller coaster, Shi finally sputtered out a few words to the man and asked, ‘Are you a student?’ The man replied, ‘I’m a new faculty in the Biology department.’ She was familiar with words like Teacher, Lecturer, Assistant professor, Associate professor, Professor, Dean, etc., but F.A.C.U.L.T.Y. Her programmed mind started whispering, ‘Faculty,’ ‘New Faculty.’ She raised her left eyebrows and tried for the right as well, hiding it from the man.

The man was in his thoughts about what that girl is thinking about him. That made him smile for a while. And, suddenly, he said, ‘Finally, we have reached the first floor.’ Shi soon dismantled her thoughts and started walking down the corridor. The man was walking beside her and started murmuring to himself about Stars, Galaxy, and Disneyland.

Before Shi could reach the building’s gate, her cellphone started ringing. She excused herself and sat near the entrance of the building to receive her call. The man headed out of the building’s gate, looking back to Shi while she was picking up her phone. Shi’s advisor, Dr. Paka Mabumba, called her and asked to come to her office as she needed help with her computer. She headed back to the elevator, pressed button №3, and reached the third floor.

She entered the office of Dr. Mabumba, who was a Virology freak and racial by nature. Researchers and students of different ethnicities had difficulty working with her due to her racial mindset, and most of the students, researchers, and postdocs have left her laboratory.

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance. -Jonathon Kozol

Although Dr. Mabumba was racial, torturous, irrelevant most of the time to Shi, she admires Shi’s computer skills and knows that Shi can help her out. And to Shi, research came first and admired Dr. Mabumba’s handwriting more than any of her erroneous research plans.

As soon as Dr. Mabumba saw Shi, a whimsical smile spread across her face. She said to Shi, ‘Can you please fix my computer?’ and gave her a chair to sit on. Nodding her head for a ‘Yes,’ Shi was ready to fix her computer but was unwilling to take her chair and said, ‘I am fine.’ She started wondering what has happened to her advisor because, usually, Dr. Mabumba behaved terribly and insanely. Contrary to usual racism stories, this is different here; Dr. Mabumba was an African Black Woman and followed all the extreme racism stages in her laboratory.

After insisting on Shi a few times and convincing her that it is okay to sit on her chair, Shi agreed, and Dr. Mabumba sat next to Shi on a student’s chair, which was available in her office to learn computer skills from Shi. She was fixing the computer, and the computer screen almost hid her face.

Suddenly, a voice echoed, ‘Hello,’ which was Dr. Mabumba addressing someone at her office door. The person entered the door, and now Dr. Mabumba introduced the person to Shi, saying, ‘He is Dr. Ties Hanks!’ and Dr. Hanks, ‘This is Shi!’ Both Ties and Shi were surprised to meet AGAIN and were smiling at each other as it reminded them of the roller coaster elevator episodes. Ties said we just met, but before he could complete his sentence, Dr. Mabumba interrupted him and started asking non-stop random questions.

Meanwhile, the computer got fixed, and Shi said, ‘Done!’ Dr. Mabumba thanked Shi, and Shi said, ‘Have a good evening, see you tomorrow,’ and left. As Shi was going, both Drs. Ties and Mabumba came out of the office. Ties kept on looking at Shi until she was no longer visible in the corridors. After some time, Ties excused himself from Dr. Mabumba and rushed to the stairs, skipped few steps, jumped as a teenager, panting, reached the building gate, looked in all ten directions, wondering where did she go. He ran to the parking lot as fast as he could, but he couldn’t find her anywhere.

Shi reached home, and in the night, after dinner, She practiced pronouncing,

“F A A K U U L T Y”

“F U U C K K U U L L T Y”

“F A U U C K K K U U L L T I E S”

And finally made it to

“FACULTY,” “NEW FACULTY!”

As she achieved her goal for pronouncing correctly, a gust of wind flowing from her windows flopped her hair on her forehead. Ties also went home, and in silent moments was thinking about Shi and smiling. He then opened his laptop and started to do some work, but he couldn’t focus. He stopped his work and started searching Shi’s name on Google and other social media to get to know her. He did not know when he slept on his laptop.

Days passed by with their respective research works, and both were busy and did not meet until The Coincidence.

Shi was multitasking with different research projects, and Dr. Mabumba informed her that an expert in Bioinformatics would be visiting for the collaborative work without further details. There were some collaborations in the laboratory, but most collaborators left mid-way due to Dr. Mabumba’s research approach.

It was a late afternoon, with papers, flowcharts, and research papers around Shi when she was planning her experiments. Suddenly, Dr. Mabumba rushed to her and said that the Bioinformatics expert came; and informed her that you would be working with him. As Shi collected herself from all the papers sticking around her and stood up, she saw Ties standing tall in front of her.

Both Ties and Shi starred each other, saying in their minds AGAIN!

And, the STORY BEGAN…

The Coincidence in the Parking lot,

The Coincidence at the Starbucks,

The Coincidence in different Departments,

Life moved on for both Ties and Shi, but, The Coincidence remained forever!

Thank you for reading this story.