There is something called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Our brains highlight information it has recently
imbibed.
Let’s say, today you learned about mangoes. Suddenly, you see
mangoes everywhere. In “How to Cook with Mangoes” cookbooks, mango-flavored lip balm, shoes that look just as
ripe.
There is the theory of synchronicity. Why we pick up our phones at the exact same
time
“Funny, I was just thinking about you!” like the universe had
orchestrated it.
There is a term called apophenia. A mental
sickness related to the Baader Meinhof phenomenon. The
brain detects
patterns in a series of meaningless data and
reads too much into it.
It is why some people see faces
in the moon, Jesus in a raisin cookie, the future in dregs of coffee.
I am convinced my brain is apophatic.
I see a man on the train with lightbulb eyes
like yours
traces of
stubble like pencil tips I used to burn
my mouth on.
I believe synchronicity is a cheap fallacy. If it
were real I should have bumped into you
because I thought of you
today when I ate
ripe mangoes, when the soil
of my coffee grounds
evoked something you said about
the future.
Carl Jung said you should have manifested by now. But you
didn’t.
Marie Christelle 'Isel' Garcia was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College in 2013, and was part of the staff for the College's journal, Lumina. She has performed her flash nonfiction and flash fiction in various readings in New York City, such as the Lamprophonic Reading Series and LitWrap. She is currently working on a collection of prose poetry about moving to a different country, displacement, and the concept of home. She writes, sleeps, dreams, and drinks too many cups of coffee in New York City.