The Left
Out Numbers
 |
| "They're coming back!" |
(While the Witchdoctor’s
numbers approach, the Husbands are still in a bewildered limbo in their offices
- but this will soon change)
BIGGY talking quietly to
himself.
No, we haven’t forgotten
you, O Wives!
But we have to find a way
to go to meet - to find you
- across the map;
even if it’s way over to the
other side of the globe.
How are we going to find
this way to go?
Into which magic balls shall
we look?
SMALLY agitating,
The numbers have mocked us,
run away!
BIGGY
But their spokesman, Seven,
once spoke to us.
He may return.
SMALLY
Why might the numbers come
back?
BIGGY
Because we are at a
threshold
that is not interesting without our wives mixed in with us
and telling us, perhaps, how
good we did.
And how good we’ve done.
SMALLY perturbed,
How good we’ve done doing
what?
Calculating losses? Losing
all our score?
Petting certain numbers in
boxes on our graphs
and putting uncertain ones
off
until they - the disappointed, unused ones -
stand at the side frowning,
even glaring madly toward us,
piercingly
through our high, meticulate
office windows,
from the outside!
BIGGY joining into
Smally’s exaggerated story,
Yeah, then, they’ll kick in
-
throwing everything off,
miscalculating, dragging us
down -
manacling themselves
haphazardly, unevenly
to their upstanding,
clear, bright fellow numbers
still inside -
so that their added extra
weight
throws us all off!
SMALLY
That’s why they’re not
accepted.
They’re rejected and stand
outside the office window.
Maybe, they’re unhappy
there?
BIGGY
We can’t care.
SMALLY
Yet, like thugs
snapping on their fingers,
in they come!
Gripping, tackling, tripping
-
stopping any momentum -
throwing our picked numbers
off
in various ways.
Oh, how absurd! A folly!
 |
| "We're left out!" |
BIGGY
And they’re smashing through
our window saying:
“We’ve had enough!
The big city doesn’t
accommodate us.
We’re left alone now, just
bouncing along.
Fit us in. On to your best
new graph!
We’re ready to be fitted in.
Do it now!”
The numbers press!
They press in as the window
glass shatters!
SMALLY
Yes, I can see it. As the
view to the outside city
is distorted, sharp, angry
numbers pass through!
They’ve come back to declare
their upset;
wanting their inclusion onto
the graph.
BIGGY
They say, “Small us -
better, us smaller down
onto the
thin, beaten wire
squares
into our prospective, former
places
next to Eight or Zero.”
‘But you can’t all fit in!’
I say.
“No, but we will! “ they
shout.
And they force their way
like angry bees down upon
the starched-out lines,
crowding together on the
paper.
SMALLY
We have to relate to them!
BIGGY
Our other numbers,
already there filled in
dutifully,
act stiff and will not move
toward their banished
fellows.
There is a prospective
numerical
gaff starting up:
a setting up war
fantastic to behold,
as the number shapes begin
to transform themselves,
fully merging and mixing on
top of each other
like crazy, drooling,
black paints
tipped over and scared -
because they are not at all
willing;
and they’re trying to remain
separately contained
by implosive, not
protective, graph lines
fluttering there on our
board.
(Biggy makes the numbers’
sound effects and exclamations)
“BANG! BANG!
Ouch! Ouch!”
The numbers move over.
A ridiculous circus has
begun.
The numbers tip over and are
re-framed.
They’re poking up like
seals’ heads
under life-rings.
They’re getting entangled
in a sludge of tangled graph
line;
and they’re taking away,
removing -
obliterating its order!
There’s no more cross-hatch.
There’s no more straight
lines or corners.
There’s no more
even-tempo’ed gait
from cage to cage.
They’ve burst out of their
hives
and are in a free-for-all
now -
culminating in disaster -
a tar pit!
(Biggy becomes more exasperated
and exhausted)
I cannot explain it -
numbers failing,
being heavily reduced down
into an unrecognizable black
puddle
dissipating on top of the
desk!
SMALLY
This strength of numbers can
turn into an ocean there -
causing chaos to reign
off the top of the table -
causing chaos to overtake
the man
and possess him along like a
flood,
bigger than blood;
seemingly, bigger than anything!
That is where the numbers
will go -
out there, in a sense -
without measurement.
And they don’t have to stop
anywhere!
(A faintly recognizable
female Voice - perhaps one of the Two Wives -
suddenly sounds out)
UNKNOWN VOICE
So that now that the
numbers’ glue is undone
the man doesn’t have
anywhere to go -
except, in his heart, to be
thinking of his Two Wives!
BIGGY quietly explaining
to Smally,
All the left out numbers
were
sucked out of the patchy
grid-work lines
through the holes, the
squares;
through what seemed safe to
contain
and hold them up and keep
them dear
or steady there.
A kind of in-breath,
quietly diminished their
upright stance.
Wearied of their places,
they backed out -
even through our windows,
out into the sky
where it’s way too bright to
see
their black-reflecting
shapes, anymore.
SMALLY
Non-reflecting black
outlines
are in the sky no longer,
you say?
But they are! Here they come
now!
Look!, Biggy!
(The Husbands’ shaky
premonition of the Witchdoctor’s magic effect on their numbers is over. Now the
real thing happens. The Witchdoctor’s new formal numbers, sent from the jungle,
do burst through the Husbands’ office window)
BIGGY
But are they coming through
now?
 |
| Unfinished |
(A man-sized number Seven
shape comes through their window)
SEVEN
Yes! We’re coming back! In
to the office!
On to your pages!
In to your eyes and looks.
Do you cherish us now? And not your wives
for whom you’ve been
forsaken before?
(BAM! CRASH! in the
office is the sound of REAL numbers this time)
EIGHT following Seven,
So, you’ve been forsaken for
your wives?
Forgotten by your wives? We
doubt it!
They need you now.
And we, all ten of us, are
going to help!
That is why we’re coming in
so suddenly.
SEVEN
Your window may be wrecked -
but no matter -
we’ll stand around bossing
until you two get it right!
-
until you get the right
formula
to come down and out of your
paper.
SIX
Yeah! Until it pops up.
BIGGY AND SMALLY,
incredulous:
The formula? What is it?
SEVEN
It’s enough to take you over
into us
fully and completely,
so that we’ll sail,
as numbers do,
over oceans’ moronic,
and deserts flat
and continents,
and through sky elements
using star-tracking systems
(of no
special relevance to you) to
place
you down close to the
vicinity
of your wives’ entrapment.
EIGHT
Which is, perhaps, a
reckless endangerment?
SIX
Under unpleasant
circumstances?
NARRATOR
The numbers scare the
Husband workers
who don’t have any rule over
them, anymore.
Even the straight lines they
use for graph paper
are all tangled; balled up
like old barbed-wire
or a frisky kitten’s yarn,
hard to unravel,
with no room for numbers’
calculations -
an un-numbered clump
just to trip over on the office floor!
Useless the Husbands are
feeling now, as before;
their scientific pages empty
and scattered.
But, lo, the numbers return
in true force
attached to their hearts!
which can lead them to their
wives.
The most important
exploration for now!
(The Two Husbands are
astonished and fearful and worried for their wives)
(End of Chapter 28)
