deliberately ambiguous metaleptic shifts in narration

the reversal of effects and causes, the precession of effects over causes of the ends over the origin. Predestination. Metalepsis.

That towards which our reflexive attention tends (adtendere) belongs to what narratology calls a metalepsis, by which it refers to the collapse of two narrative levels that are imagined to be distinct and impermeable

it creates a space for the reader joining the other potentially metaleptic sentence in the short story