Two Husbands'... Part 1, Chapter 16

  

Numbers in the Drink

 

Scientist Husband at work

(Another day at the office)

NARRATOR in critical review,

Two Husbands are at work;

    at work

    at their desks

with graph nets behind them

supporting numbers upright;

while they - the men - are

    bent over,

their shoulders heavy,

their jaws clamping shut for good

as they concentrate and work out

    those numbers.

Their pencils are thickly squeezed between

    their sweaty fingers

and are almost slipping out, squirting away

    from them.

Thin pencils, un-useable -

pencils, now laughable, left aside;

all their shallow numbers

    not figuring!

leaving the squares

evaporating or toasting... (Sighs) 

Or, just leaving the two men

    barely able to

mentally get a hold of them at all!

Two Husbands sliding together

    in futility -

their stumpy, fat legs practically intertwining,

underneath the broad desk’s desert-like expanse.

Up above: bare figures, black ghosts

or shadows of numbers 

    barely seen.

Or, are they leaving?

Your numbers are all black ghosts now -

burnt up in electrico-magnetic wiring;

    fussed and fizzed out

    by you, Two Husbands!

BIGGY

Yes, we can’t try.

We can’t fuss anymore.

We’ve reached our ultimate limits

and are no good.

SMALLY

No good at it.

BIGGY

At working with

or embracing our figures.

SMALLY

Yes, they are not real.

They are like black ashes

    turned to dust.

BIGGY

Or, like fuzz on an old TV screen

    looked at dead.

SMALLY

Their stately proportions

    have left us now.

BIGGY

They no longer can help us

do anything now.

NARRATOR

Your numbers are staying apart

from one another, not mixing.

SMALLY

They don’t care to be intermixed.

BIGGY

Alas, they want to be left alone.

SMALLY

Yes, see? They are separate personalities

proclaiming their self-usefulness;

and not wishing to be so engaged as to lose

their smug, stand-out appearance.

Numbers disruption

    Such as ‘The Great 7’

    or ‘Certain 8’

(though it is two halves of something)

     or ‘Left-Alone 9’

     hanging above,

     poised or radical.

And 10? Who does it? One? Zero?

    10 - who does it?

No one. They merge to create

    a double 5.

    And did they ask to?

5 says that there is only it, alone. Not two.

So, everyone is confusing.

3 seems to be

more than half of 8.

And 2 half of 3.

And 1 looks like an unfinished 9

or a tall, meek 7.

And 6 is unusual.

4 is a tabletop.

And 7 is a slider, a trickster -  a 7!

BIGGY

6 is bending over, down under

    the Sun

and probably pushing back all the time.

SMALLY

Each number has a right to proclaim itself.

Numbers gallery

BIGGY

5 is pressing forward pointing,

    changing 6.

5 is an incomplete 6;

and (so embarrassing)

never getting anywhere.

SMALLY

7 is a departure.

8 is a perpetual game inside of itself:

    two of 4

    and four of 2.

9 is a leftover,

before 10 takes over.

They skip down

(all the numbers in a frown)

and waste themselves

    in the drink;

absolved, dissolved...

No man can help them.

Their abstract, mathematical,

configuring soup is of no use.

(End of Chapter 16)