I have a book that was recently recommended to me by a friend titled Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. This is a narrative novel that deals with an interesting subject matter; the importance of people in our lives that we never even know. As explained in the book, fifth business is the character in an opera completely unrelated to the main story. This character however ultimately does something that changes the entire course of events for all of the characters. In this case the main character of the book is the fifth business of a greater story. In his youth Ramsay is with his friend when they decide to throw snowballs at a couple walking home, his friend however puts a rock in the snowball he throws and hits the woman in the couple causing her to be sent to the hospital. This woman is pregnant and the rock to the head puts her into a forced early labor and causes permanent brain damage. A few years later Ramsay teaches a small but curious boy in the town how to do some card tricks. About 20 to 30 years after that a strange magician comes to town and murders his friend who was with him in the incident with the snowball throwing. Then as a reader you realize that this magician was the boy who Ramsay once taught card tricks too. While this situation is extreme it does make you wonder what (if any) major events in other people’s lives you may have been a part of. This book reminds me of a part in another book, Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet In Heaven. In this book the first person the story’s protagonist meets in heaven is a man who he inadvertently killed when running into the street to get a ball as a child. He never knew that the man died because of him, or even that anything had happened at all. I wish there was a way to know whom I’ve truly affected in this life.
Aaron Stein
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