One of the problems a writer of fiction can sometimes face is the sheer interconnection of things.
In 'real life' events, situations, reactions and decisions occur willy-nilly. We exercise as much control as possible, and most of the time, our control is sufficient. But sometimes things get out of hand and momentarily fate and circumstance seem to be sweeping us along.
The fiction writer has to arrange imagined events so that they achieve the required fictional outcome — which, of course, is often dramatic, exciting, tragic, comic, triumphant and so on — without stretching credulity too far or breaching one's sense of what life is 'really' like.
Yet 'real life' routinely throws up sequences so bizarre, or so incredible that a fiction writer wouldn't dare to own them. Try this one.
There's this bloke who lives in South Australia but has been a supporter of AFL football club the St Kilda Saints for what seems like millennia.
Just when he is preparing to go in the ballot for a Grand Final ticket — last year he got one, standing room: good view, wrong result — his bank notifies him that there has been a 'fraudulent attack' on his credit card. Like the Mills of God, the bank investigates slow but it investigates sure. He loses no money but he has no credit card and he can only take part in the ballot by using Visa online. So that window closes.
Thinking laterally, he borrows his mate's Visa and his membership barcode then, with the mobile phone on speaker, the landline serially dialling and Ticketek on screen, he sets about the business of getting a standing room ticket from the limited general allocation for St Kilda members on the Monday before the Grand Final.
He admits defeat after three hours when, with the mobile phone battery flat, his ears ringing with the engaged signal from the landline, and his eyes bemused by the unwavering message on the screen about heavy demand and the need for patience, he finally gets through to a human voice which tells him with intolerable jauntiness that 'all tickets are gone, mate'.
He watches the game on TV and dies a thousand deaths — it's a draw. Like the players and coaches he doesn't know what