Chapter 5
Numbers in a Closet
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| 2 husbands and how hard they tried |
NARRATOR
Two Husbands and how hard they tried.
They tried to enter the number room!
But, kaboom! the numbers dispersed
into the room and bounded all around them,
drawing in and out, in their breaths, black and white!
And then in color.
SMALLY shouts,
Take it easy on the numbers!
BIGGY
We are manipulating numbers -
I mean, maneuvering - seriously trying
to move around numbers. Big numbers -
colossal, giant, enormous!
And it’s a job!
SMALLY
Right. It’s a job with numbers
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on.
We’re manhandling them
over and over.
BIGGY
Until they crust over
and die.
SMALLY
No, until they collect,
all in our favor.
In a closet.
BIGGY
Closed.
SMALLY
Satisfied.
BIGGY
Sufficient
SMALLY
A surplus. Sort of calm and collected;
as we are, or can be, about this.
BIGGY
But aren’t!
SMALLY
Yet, we’re trying.
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| Vision of husband's wife in the studio! |
BIGGY
I just had a vision again during work
about, or exactly of, my wife!
alluring me over to somewhere else,
to wherever she would be -
I don’t know where?
SMALLY
Yeah, we don’t know where, yet.
BIGGY quietly,
But should we go to them, to our two wives?
SMALLY his attention fixed on their work,
No, let’s figure this out. I’ll be the ‘brains’.
Yes, we’re fiddling with the numbers
and it feels okay; though they’re big
and growing tall over us.
For some reason they are still light;
though expanded, we could say.
Expanded up into un-handle-ability.
BIGGY
And up into our clumsy oaths
of un-handle-ability!
SMALLY
Over abundant and unclear it is, confoundedly!
What we are doing for them!
Mixing them around as they grow tallish over us
and knock us asunder, aside and down flat,
head over heels!
BIGGY
Wacked out.
NUMBERS whispering,
That’s what you do to us!
SMALLY
I’ve spoken enough.
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| 2 husbands at work |
BIGGY
Yeah? You’re no ‘brains’.
I think I will do better here describing
our predicament about the numbers...
Hmm. Let me ask you this, Smally...
If the alphabet equals all the letters,
what mathematical term equals all the numbers?
What do you call that, altogether?
SMALLY
The sum totality of’ all the numbers? What?
BIGGY
Anyways, this is what I’m saying,
By being men, husbands,
we are entering in to that:
to reach a sum totality,
to wrack up our brains,
to gain well-numbering fortunes,
to gain belligerent gaining fortunes
over all,
stored in our closet.
SMALLY
Yeah, that’s where I can see all of our numbers
jammed in, head over torso:
5 mixed with 7,
and 8 congruent with 9.
It’s hard to tell which is which, who is who?
And where they come or go?
BIGGY
Or how they attach?
Squeezed like worms,
managed like tic tack toes;
crossed over
but making no sense.
And not equal.
SMALLY
Heads and tails touching together,
black upon white going
and no response on either side,
Shadow or outline remain unclear,
not experienced, unseen.
So, forgiven, forgotten, lost...
BIGGY
And them all together,
jammed like turtles
in a closet!
(End of Chapter 5)
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