Dan's Dinner Synchronicity

I'm eating dinner in Round Table Pizza, rather high, with three friends. I'm not participating in the conversation and my eyes wander around the room to land on a nearby table.

There are about eight kids all crammed in around it and the one that is most visible from my seat is the youngest, a boy, maybe four or five years old, sitting in a booster seat. He is crying. His Daddy just reprimanded him for some unknown reason and a little girl in glasses is comforting him by wrapping her arms around his head. I feel a gush of empathy with this small person as it brings back memories of my own fearful relationship with my father. In fact, the boy bears a striking resemblance to myself at that age. I look over at his dad sitting at the adjacent table; he looks quite a bit like my own Daddy.

The man looks over at his son, still a little teary-eyed. "Eat your dinner, Daniel. It's getting cold."

We even have the same name.

I turn my attention back to the conversation. Those things hardly phase me anymore; they've become almost commonplace. Coincidence mounts. Synchronicity converges. Time is ending.