Once again he debated which way he should take. In his head he named the choices “Road One,” “Road Two,” and “Road Three,” plucked a branch from an olive tree, and picked off the leaves one by one, counting as he did so. “One, two, three . . . one, two, three . . . one, two, three . . . one, two! So be it. I take Road Two.” What might have happened had one more leaf—or one fewer—grown on that branch we can never know. Matters of immense import may depend on such issues, but we can never do more than guess the outcomes of the roads we do not take.
