Como alguém disse, e bem, todos os acidentes de carro são estúpidos. São daquelas coisas para as quais olhamos, olhamos, e nunca conseguimos perceber como foi possível acontecerem. Hoje, aconteceu-me a mim. Lembrei-me, de repente, de uma das cenas do filme sobre Benjamin Button, em que vemos como, na prática, uma sucessão de acontecimentos, pelo menos aparentemente desconexos, desembocam numa determinada situação. Destino, fatalidade, coincidência ou o ter de ser, não sabemos o que será. Sabemos que as coisas acontecem, e que, depois de estarmos «no meio delas», cabe-nos resolvê-las.

«And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare and had stopped to get the cup of coffee, he picked up the lady who was going shopping and had missed getting the earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did because he forgot to set his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing and was taking a shower.

And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before and forgot. When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck.

All the while, Daisy was getting dressed.The delivery truck pulled away,and the taxi was able to move while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently, if that shoelace hadn’t broken or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier or that package had been wrapped and ready because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend, or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee or that woman had remembered her coat and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would have crossed the street and the taxi would have driven by.

But, life being what it is, a series of intersecting lives and incidents out of anyone’s control, that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted. And that taxi hit Daisy. And her leg was crushed».

(Excerto do argumento de «The curious case of Benjamin Button»)