The Probability of Parsnip Pie

If you’d asked Edwin Pilcrow what the odds were of running into his ex-wife, his third-grade teacher, and the ghost of his childhood guinea pig on the same afternoon, he would’ve answered with absolute certainty: “Very low. Especially the guinea pig.”

This would have been reasonable, since Edwin Pilcrow was not prone to delusions, excess imagination, or talking to people on the bus. He was a respectable, if unremarkable, employee in the Department of Statistical Plausibility, which most people assumed was either made up or a front for something sinister. (It wasn’t. Unless you count aggressively dull bureaucracy as sinister.)

The Department, tucked between the Ministry of Sudden Showers and the Bureau of Umbrella Reclamation, existed to keep track of coincidences. Not stop them, you understand—there were far too many and, in some cases, they were considered charming. No, the Department merely logged them and flagged any that threatened to cause dangerous fluctuations in the probability continuum.

Like the time three different people in Swindle-on-Ooze found winning lottery tickets in identical cereal boxes on the same Tuesday. Or when ninety-seven ducks spontaneously learned synchronized swimming in Wiltshire. That sort of thing.

Edwin had worked there for seventeen years and had never once flagged an incident. His life, like his reports, was tidy, uncontroversial, and neatly stapled.

Until, of course, the Parsnip Pie Incident.

It began at 12:01 PM on a Thursday that had started suspiciously well. Edwin’s tea was the exact right temperature. His train was not only on time but early. And no one, not even Old Man Withers who fed pigeons from his pockets, sat beside him.

This should have been the first warning.

Things didn’t go right for Edwin. They went predictably.

But he dismissed the feeling and decided to treat himself to lunch at Nellie’s Nibbles, a small cafe known primarily for its stubborn refusal to update the wallpaper since 1973. He ordered the Thursday special: cheese-and-onion pasty, cup of leek soup, and (because he was feeling adventurous) a slice of pie.

“What kind of pie?” he asked.

“Parsnip,” said the server, with a perfectly straight face.

“Parsnip?”

“Parsnip.”

Now, Edwin liked parsnips. He had no quarrel with them. But he had never in all his life heard of anyone making them into pie.

Still, the day was already peculiar, and Edwin was the sort of man who took small anomalies as polite challenges.

“I’ll try it,” he said.

The first bite was surprisingly good.

The second bite was transcendent.

The third bite was interrupted by his ex-wife, Marjorie, sliding into the seat across from him like she hadn’t vanished into the Himalayas with a goat herder named Clive six years ago.

“Hello, Edwin,” she said, with a smile that could have sliced granite.

He choked slightly on a parsnip.

“Marjorie. You’re... here.”

“Yes. The Himalayas were lovely. Clive ran off with a yak.”

Edwin blinked. “Oh. I see.”

She leaned forward. “You look well.”

“I just had a very nice pasty.”

“Mm. Do you know you’re sitting in my old booth?”

Edwin didn’t, of course. But he nodded anyway. This seemed the safest option.

Two minutes later, the bell above the cafe door jingled and in hobbled Miss Featherquill, who had taught Edwin multiplication and the importance of proper posture, in that order of priority.

“Edwin Pilcrow!” she crowed, as if he’d been hiding behind the curtain for a surprise party she was determined to host.

“Miss Featherquill,” he said, standing instinctively.

“You still slouch. But better shoes.”

Edwin sat. Marjorie smirked.

“I didn’t know you liked this place,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t,” said Miss Featherquill. “Hate the soup. But something told me I’d run into someone useful today. You’ll do.”

Before he could ask what she meant, a small, squeaky voice from under the table said, “Hello, Edwin.”

He looked down.

A transparent guinea pig—slightly iridescent, and wearing a monocle, of all things—was staring up at him.

It looked familiar.

“Barnaby?”

“You remember!” the guinea pig beamed. Or rather, gave the impression of beaming, which is no small feat for a rodent spirit.

“I buried you in a shoebox.”

“And a very fine box it was.”

Marjorie looked at Miss Featherquill.

“Is he always like this?”

Miss Featherquill nodded. “He was a strange child.”

From here, things deteriorated.

The wallpaper began to peel in the shape of constellations. The soup turned into what could only be described as enthusiastic fog. Patrons began discussing abstract concepts like they were menu items.

“I’ll have the existential dread on rye, please.”

“Make mine a side of forgotten dreams.”

And amid it all, Edwin sat, pie forgotten, staring at his ghost guinea pig, his ex-wife, and his third-grade teacher.

“What,” he said carefully, “is happening?”

Miss Featherquill produced a clipboard from her handbag.

“Your coincidence index has exceeded acceptable parameters. You’ve triggered a localized improbability surge.”

“I did?”

“Technically, the pie did,” said Barnaby. “But you ate the pie. Therefore, causality is smudged in your vicinity.”

Edwin blinked. “I... what?”

Marjorie patted his hand. “You always were terribly rational. It’s one of your more annoying qualities.”

“Why would parsnip pie trigger a reality event?”

Miss Featherquill sniffed. “That’s classified. But let’s just say certain root vegetables have hidden talents.”

The cafe shimmered.

Time hiccupped.

And everyone around them froze, like mannequins waiting for direction.

Miss Featherquill stood. “Right. We’ve only got a few minutes before probability stabilizes. Edwin, you need to choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Whether you stay in this reality, or move to the adjacent one.”

“There’s an adjacent reality?”

Barnaby nodded. “You get a better view of sunsets there.”

“But—my job. My flat. My Tuesday crossword?”

Marjorie smiled gently. “Sometimes the universe gives you a nudge, Edwin. You can stay. Or you can go where things make slightly less sense but a great deal more story.”

Edwin looked down at his half-eaten slice of parsnip pie.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, “it was very good pie.”

Miss Featherquill handed him the clipboard.

“Sign here.”

He did.

Reality sneezed.

And everything changed.

These days, Edwin Pilcrow runs a small bookshop that occasionally rearranges itself and sells books that haven’t been written yet. Marjorie visits on weekends. Miss Featherquill teaches quantum etiquette at the local community center. Barnaby manages inventory and eats spectral lettuce.

And every Thursday, without fail, they share a slice of parsnip pie.

Because some coincidences are too good to be true.

And some are exactly what you needed.