Sunday, September 13, 2026, began for me at the Fleur De Lis Bar and Grill in Pascagoula and ended in the water at Lyons Lake in Moss Point.
Between those two places, the day became another example of what I call seriality: names, numbers, sounds, timing, personal associations, and real-world events overlapping in ways that catch my attention.
Some parts of this story are ordinary, independently verifiable events. Other parts describe the metaphysical framework through which I experienced them. I am documenting the pattern as I experienced it, not claiming that I have proven a mechanism connecting these events.
Labor and the Reverse Flow
While I was in rehab, I watched material from Dr. Nicole Labor about addiction and how the brain works.
Her name immediately created an association for me.
I once had a Russian Blue cat named Nicole.
Nicole. Labor.
And labor means work.
That became connected to an idea I have been experimenting with while working at Fleur De Lis. Rather than sitting in front of a television and simply absorbing a Saints game, I try to do actual labor.
Wash dishes. Clean. Move. Work.
Within my simulation framework, I think of this as attempting a reverse energy flow: putting effort outward instead of passively taking information in through what I sometimes call the “glass of deception.”
My intention is positive. In my own metaphysical model, I imagine that energy either helping the Saints or, more broadly, energizing people who feel like “saints” to do something good that day.
I cannot demonstrate that my labor actually changes a football game or someone else’s behavior. This is the intention behind what I am doing, not an established physical mechanism.
The location itself adds another association: Fleur De Lis, the same symbol associated with the New Orleans Saints.
Zero to Seven
Detroit scored first.
The score became 0–7.
Seven caught my attention.
While I was thinking about the number 7, I heard that Jonas Sanker, Saints No. 7, had apparently scored a defensive touchdown.
I hadn’t watched the original play. I came toward the television during the review.
Sanker had recovered what initially appeared to be a loose or backward-moving ball and returned it for a touchdown. Replay officials ultimately determined that Detroit quarterback Jared Goff had begun a forward throwing motion, making it an incomplete pass instead.
The touchdown disappeared.
That is the football event.
Then there was what happened inside my own pattern-recognition.
Jonas sounded close to Jonah.
Sanker brought up sinker, sank, and sinking.
Jonah.
The whale.
Going down into the water.
And later that same day, I would be going down into the water myself.
I don’t present that phonetic association as proof of anything. It is simply the connection that formed in my mind as the day unfolded.
Watching the Screen
There is another part of this experiment that I am still trying to understand.
I have repeatedly had the feeling that when I stop working and start watching the Saints on television, something goes wrong for them.
During this particular game, there were essentially two stretches that I really watched.
The first was the Sanker review.
The apparent Saints touchdown was taken away.
The second was at the end of the game.
Detroit had scored in overtime and gone ahead 31–24. New Orleans answered with a touchdown, bringing the score to 31–30.
The Saints went for a two-point conversion.
I was watching.
The pass fell incomplete.
Detroit won 31–30.
Those were the two sections of the game that most directly held my attention, and both coincided with outcomes that went against New Orleans.
I notice that pattern. I do not yet treat it as proof that my watching caused either event. Correlation and causation are different things, and this is something I am still observing.
Michael Walks Through the Door
During the Saints game, I also received an unsettling message concerning money.
The message blamed someone named Michael.
Around that same period, a completely different Michael whom I know walked into Fleur De Lis as a customer to drink beer and play pool.
He had worked at Fleur De Lis as a cook in the past, after Jeffrey left, but that day he was simply there as a customer.
The timing caught my attention immediately.
I was reading about one Michael, connected to a situation occurring thousands of miles away, and then another Michael physically walked into the room.
Because the coincidence bothered me, I asked him directly whether he had anything to do with the money I was concerned about.
He said no.
He also pointed out that the Michael mentioned in the message spelled his name differently.
I have no evidence connecting the Michael at the bar with the missing money, and I am not accusing him of taking it.
What interested me was the timing of the name.
Two Jordans
Another repetition appeared that day.
At Fleur De Lis, Jordan the bartender turned 36 on September 13.
Later, at Lyons Lake, one of the children being baptized was also named Jordan.
Two Jordans.
One behind the bar on his birthday.
One entering the water for baptism.
That is the kind of recurrence I mean when I talk about seriality. The repetition itself is real. What, if anything, it means is a separate question.
The Baptism
At about 6 p.m., the setting changed.
I went to Lyons Lake in Moss Point and was baptized by Pastor Ricky Colvin of Lilly Orchard Baptist Church.
Three children were baptized as well.
After everything that had happened earlier in the day, entering the water gave the Jonah association another layer for me.
Jonas.
Sanker.
Sinking.
Jonah and the whale.
Then baptism.
But baptism did not leave me feeling as though everything inside me had suddenly snapped into perfect alignment.
I felt spiritually changed, but still somewhat off-center.
The image that came to me was geometric.
If the Holy Spirit were sitting at 180 degrees, maybe I was at 210 degrees.
Close enough to recognize the direction.
Not completely lined up.
I had gone beneath the water and come back out, but I was still Todd.
Still questioning.
Still observing.
Still trying to understand what these patterns mean without pretending that every pattern has already become an answer.
And perhaps that is the most useful thing I can take from the day.
A baptism can mark a beginning without requiring every mystery to be solved.
Whatever I eventually conclude about simulation, seriality, coincidence, consciousness, energy, or the strange way names and numbers sometimes repeat around me, there is still something very ordinary waiting in front of me:
Work.
Sometimes spiritual work.
Sometimes intellectual work.
And sometimes just washing one more dish.
Transparency note: This article was created with assistance from AI and fact-checked by Todd. Some details and characterizations Todd wanted to include were limited or omitted because the AI applied its own content and safety restrictions. Where appropriate, the article distinguishes between Todd’s personal interpretation and independently verifiable events.