"Your number is up."

We all know what that means: it's your time to die, you're next on the infinite list of living beings scheduled to live no more.

What if it really did work that way? An ordered list, but not just one of simple sequential numbers...an equation of nature perhaps.

Here's an example of what I mean. In The Time Machine, Alexander travels back in time to prevent the death of his fianc�e, Emma, at the hands of robbers. He takes her away from the danger he knows is near, only to see her death occur in a different way at, I'd guess, the exact same moment in time. He tried to cheat Fate to no avail. Poor Emma is crushed under a carriage.

Say Emma's "number" was twenty-five. There is an infinite number of ways you can get an answer of twenty-five. Twenty-five multiplied by one could have been the robbery death, twenty-four plus one could signal the carriage crushing her, ad infinitum. Any way you do the "math", it was her time.

So...is the past immutable?

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You love someone, there will be grief. The kiss of death, lips of a thief. --Type O Negative World Coming Down "Everyone I Love Is Dead" (1999)