Everyone has their path. The choices they’ve made. How any two people end up in the same place at the same time is a mystery… To try to predict the places we’ll go and the people we’ll meet would be pointless.
-- Narrator (Untitled Chapter)

Importance: When the novel begins, and passengers board the OSPRY, the narrator lays out what many perceive to be a truth in life. This is that everyone has a path based on choices they have made, and how two people end up somewhere together is, in the end, a mystery. The narrator notes that trying to predict such a thing is pointless, because such things are so mysterious. However, this is a false narrative: what follows in the novel is anything but chance, and has everything to do with choice.

They’re calling it an accident,’ Bill Cunningham is saying from the screen’s largest box, a...
-- Bill Cunningham (Injuries)