As soon as the theme word of “Numbers” was revealed, my brain started making associations–numbers–>accounting, numbers–>gangs/majority, numbers–>money and then my memory dredged up Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) singing Jzero, Monad’s Anthem and Novim’s Nightmare from his Numbers album.  Numbers became the characters of the piece.  So, while it’s not one of my better pieces (lots of bad structure and grammar), it’s certainly one of my more unusual ones:

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One sat on the sidelines looking sad. There were times such as now that he cursed his solitary nature. An only child, he’d never had to share but he’d never had a regular companion either. Now was one of those times that he wished he could be more like Two. He hoped Zero would show up soon so they could play Boolean wars. Though One couldn’t necessarily call Zero a friend, he felt a close kinship to him, as if only a single degree separated them. That wasn’t far from the truth.

Two looked for a companion with whom to play catch. His partner hadn’t been feeling too well today, leaving Two out of sorts. He had no inkling how to amuse himself and often envied One who sat on the sidelines looking singularly contented. But his hot and cold outlook on life tended to confuse his fellow numbers and so they usually left him alone to stew in his own yin and yang juices.

Three wobbled over to where Two stood only to be greeted with a nasty quip of “Too crowded; get lost!” She was familiar with discord, unfortunately, because she always felt at least partially left out of stuff. Oh sure, she was sturdy enough to take most of what life in the numeral system doled out but as both an odd and a prime number, she didn’t have many friends…well, other than Pythagoras, but he wasn’t a number and her parents didn’t approve. Continue reading →