Counterfactual

Nufro went ahead and proved mathematically that if you swim to an unknown boat out in the bay who you find owns it could be vastly different from who would have owned it had you taken a canoe there instead.

(Mark Z. Danielewski, "All the Lights of Midnight: Salbatore Nufro Orejón, "The Physics of Ero\(^r\)" and Livia Bassil's Psychology of Physics, Conjunctions, Vol. 37, p. 80).