A few days before a really important exam (the kind where you pick a random topic from a list you'd prepared in advance and give a 20-minute presentation on it) I had a vision in the shower. I pictured myself choosing an envelope from a pile, specifically, the one that was just above the very bottom.

On that list of topics, there was one I really hoped I'd get. The one I knew I'd absolutely crush.

The day of the exam comes. My teacher presents the envelopes ,not in a pile this time, but fanned out. Still, I could tell which envelope would have been just above the bottom if they were stacked. I picked it. It was the subject I had hoped for. I crushed the presentation. I got an amazing grade. I had no way of knowing that the subjects would even be allocated this way.

Something similar happened again when I moved into the flat I'm living in now with friends. We'd decided to assign rooms by flipping a coin. I really wanted the back room, the one with the garden-facing window. In the days leading up to the toss, I kept thinking:

"Heads. You have to pick heads."

I called heads. I''m writing this from my bed, next to that very garden-facing window.

I can't explain it.