Zombies be runnin’

The World English Dictionary defines Synchronicity as “an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated” and Wikipedia defines it as “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner.”

I like the Wikipedia definition better.

I experience synchronicity on a weekly basis. I am agnostic–I don’t think any one you hairless apes out there knows jack about the universe or the nature of reality. I’ll be the first to admit I certainly don’t. I think probably there is no god but I think the certainty of A-theists is just as ill-conceived as the “faith” of their religious counterparts. Definitely all the major religions are dead wrong–which is hilarious by the way. But synchronicity provides that itch in the back of my head that makes me sure there’s more to reality than meets the eye.

Last Sunday I experienced a weird episode of synchronicity. I had flown down to Fort Lauderdale with my girlfriend Sophia the previous Thursday but we had separate flights back to Atlanta on Sunday. She left Ft. Lauderdale before me and made it home before I had even boarded. I had my laptop with me so I spent the three hours until my flight sitting in the terminal watching episodes of “The Walking Dead” on Netflix via wi-fi (wee-fee as they call it in Mexico).

When I got back to Atlanta it was about 2:50pm. I disembarked and walked through the terminals down to the Marta train. As I walked I thought about the walking dead episodes I had watched and engaged in a little speculation about what I would do should the zombie apocalypse hit my town–this is an important subject. One must have a plan.

While walking I passed a little shop that had a rack of hats–ATL baseball caps–prominently displayed in the doorway and I thought to myself, “self, what hat would you wear during the zombie apocalypse?”

Obviously the answer is “an Indiana Jones hat.” Of course an Indiana Jones hat. In the next few seconds I ran through a couple more zombie apocalypse scenarios–how would I get to my family–how would I get out of the city–would we go to Sophia’s parents or mine? They live on a mountain but my dad’s place is fenced–I stepped onto the escalator going down into the superbly-named “plane train” subway line beneath the airport.

Two seconds later on the escalator a random stranger about ten feet ahead of me

started whistling the Indiana Jones theme song out of nowhere. He whistled all the way through the first verse of the theme song and stopped. And then–if it wasn’t a weird enough coincidence already–he turned around and looked me right in the eyes and grinned a big, toothy grin. I hadn’t said anything to this guy and I hadn’t said anything out loud about the hat thing.

I grinned back and gave him a nod. What else do you do?