The arthritic sat calmly, like a statue, on the indigo swivel chair. The doctor felt his wrists, palm and fingers, mumbling what sounded like the names of the bones and joints. “Are you a typist?” he asked, puffing on his cigar. “Nobody types anymore,” said the arthritic. “True enough,” the doctor agreed, swiveling his own indigo chair to face his manual typewriter with its fresh new form. He punched some keys to make notes, and then turned to the arthritic to ask about his profession. It was not one the doctor recognized. He prescribed some ointments and aspirin and sent the man on his way. At the end of the day, as the doctor walked down a broad avenue of chestnuts, he saw the arthritic, standing in the shade to the side, counting on his fingers, pausing, and then counting again. What was he counting? Motorists? Transients? Lost friends? Syllables? Autumn leaves? “Nobody counts anymore!” the doctor exclaimed out loud, and shuffled off to the station.
mathematics
The Secret Number of Trees
A traveler came to a city by the desert. Outside the city gate he found a man lost in thought. “What are you thinking about?” the traveler asked. “I have questions about heaven and god. I wonder what it is.” The traveler shook his head and muttered: “What a foolish waste of time! Instead you should ask how many trees there are, how many leaves they have, what the tavernas are like, and follow your questions to the end!” The traveler walked off and entered the city. Some years passed and a great earthquake struck, cracking the streets and crumbling the towers. The traveler lay in a heap of stones, bleeding from his wounds. He tried to count his wounds. He wondered how many stones he lay upon. A thoughtful man was going from one injured person to another, bandaging wounds and giving them water to drink from a kettle he had found. It was the idiot from the city gate–the first person the traveler had met when arriving. “Are there many dead?” he asked, after drinking a cool stream of water from the kettle. “It would seem so,” said the man, who still seemed youthful despite his crow’s feet and scattered strands of gray hair. “How many are injured? What kinds of doctors and engineers live here? Am I going to die? Did you ever find an answer to your useless questions?” The thoughtful man sighed, smiled, and started to bandage the old traveller’s wounds.
The Numbers
For every number, there is but one element or artifact. There were three golden pears on one tree. Seven black birds passed by. It is not dark, but neither the moon nor the sun can shine. Myriads of stars still burn, but the constellations keep shape-shifting. Earlier, in the distance, five roman arches appeared. I stretched out my hand for a pear, and behold! My fingers had vanished! The moon rose as the tree disappeared, causing the golden pears to fall to the earth. I will not eat them, for they are invisible, and I have no mouth. I pray that the twin stars will not rise into the elliptic because I do not want to go blind. And yet I suspect I am already headless, for I have but one skull and the one moon is full and bright. My thoughts and impressions shape-shift like a jigsaw puzzle ever forming, deforming and reforming. I would like to travel, but that will depend on the numbers. It is hard to exist here.
The Ice Cream Stand
The lawyer crossed the plaza in front of the palace of justice and walked up to an ice cream truck. Only two flavours were available according to the chalkboard: neaopolitan and spumoni. The lawyer ordered spumoni. The vendor looked at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes and said that there was none left—he would have to survive on rosa. And not just today. After dishing out the ice cream, he turned up the radio, just as the football game became animated with the static of disembodied shouts. “What the hell is this?” the lawyer demanded. “I don’t want rose petal ice cream. I want spumoni. last time you offered limone or fragola and had neither—offering me mandorla instead. The time before it was malaga or zabaglione. I wanted malaga and you gave me amarena. When it was cioccolato and fior di latte, you only had bacio, and the time before that, when it was cannella or menta—you made me take the noce!” Another roar burst from the radio. Switching off the radio, the vendor leaned over and said that one should be very careful about talking that way—especially a man who had eaten nothing but neapolitan for a month in the early summer. Word gets around. Things could happen. The lawyer paid, grabbed his rose petal ice cream, and walked over to a bench, where a bald, thin franciscan sat chain-smoking and staring at the doves strutting on the pavement. It was unbearably hot. The only things that moved were flies, birds and shadows. “It is always c,” said the young scholar. “It is never a or b—never. They do not exist. This is the mystery of the third letter. It is the exact opposite of disappearing ink!” The lawyer ate a mouthful in disgust and watched the franciscan light another cigarette before spitting out, “And don’t even bother with the tobacconists!”
The Word Problem
Golden oak leaves blew across the sidewalk when the man stepped out of the bookstore. Near the bus stop, a beggar sat on the pavement, asking for coins. The commuter truthfully said that he did not have any and gazed down the street, waiting for the bus to appear. The beggar continued to mutter and argue with himself, and the other began to regret that he had not given him anything. When he glanced back, he saw the poor man struggling with the wind, a rolling paper and a bag of loose tobacco. The commuter reached for his pack of cigarettes, and offered the man a few. The beggar was about to accept them, but seemed ashamed and confused, and said that maybe he should not. The commuter insisted, and the beggar accepted two and lit one. Only moments later, the other unlit cigarette came flying through the air and landed at the base of the oak tree. Whether or not it had been the wind, one could not say. The poor man smoked intently and quietly, his stormy blue eyes gazing beyond matter and time. The bus arrived, and when the commuter boarded, he noticed that the passengers were arguing passionately in sign language.
The Explosives
They met on the beach in the early morning, as the dark blue sky still hovered over the waters and the wind whipped at the dry grass on the dunes. After building a fire, the older youth drew circles in the packed, wet sand, filled them with triangles, and began to explain the angles, the measurements, the laws that ruled the division of space. The younger boy, shaved liked his companion, watched in awe. They recalled the old man in another seaside city far away who had taught them about machines, space, and the stars whenever they brought him olives, squid, ink, or wine. I wonder where it all comes from, the younger one asked. The elder looked up into the dark sky where the stars were beginning to fade. Then he gathered some sand into his palm, letting the wind carry most of it away until only a few grains were left. It began with something smaller than one of these grains of sand. What happened? There was an explosion, said the older one, his gray eyes staring through the sand, through his own palm, through the very fabric of the universe. And out of that explosion came everything—time, matter, heat, the workings of the planets and stars. The younger boy opened his mouth and then closed it as he stared intently at the sand grains by the light of the fire. One of these grains of sand could be an explosive, then. Maybe, the older one sighed, dusting off his hands. I don’t know. What are stars? the younger one asked. They are part of the explosion. It happened thousands and thousands of years ago, maybe millions of years ago, and we are still seeing it. The moon, sun, and stars are all part of the great explosion. Then they are explosives, as well! the younger one shouted with joy. Perhaps, the older one sighed. Explosives like our old city. The smoke must have risen for days. The younger one filled his hands with dry sand, throwing the grains at the sea. Then he turned to his friend and asked how many grains of sand there were in the universe. The older boy began to speak of myriads, and myriads of myriads, and myriads of myriads of myriads, writing letters on the sand to explain as he went. The young one felt as if his own head were suddenly hollow and filled with distant stars. When his friend had finished he asked him how large one star might be, and how many grains of sand it might contain. The older one ventured a guess. The younger one walked back to the surfline and stared into the paling sky. Everything is explosive, he whispered, almost breathless.
The Chariot Wheel
One cannot be many, the king insisted, his eyes brimming with tears of frustration. The old blind seer knelt into the wind and sand and drew a chariot wheel with twelve spokes.
The Lampposts
On a street of copenhagen and prussian blue, a lawyer walked briskly, followed by a doctor, coroner, judge, pastor, chemist, philosopher, landlord, coachman, and numerous other shadows and trades. Some were carrying crosses, some not. What is that—a pilgrimage? asked a foreign visitor. No, said the lamplighter, that’s a man. The lamplighter thought about it for a moment, and added that with the current inflation and depression, it was actually one third of a man, possibly even a fourth or fifth. The foreigner shook his head sadly. After some moments, the street was empty and quiet for a while until a soft glow emerged from behind a tall, narrow building. It was a tall man in a black coat with a head and face resembling a round of camembert and the eyes of a byzantine icon. Now who is that? asked the foreigner. Having lit his last lamp, the lamplighter looked back at the street and laughed gently. That’s the moon in the man, he said. They watched the moon pass down the street and take the same left turn the first procession had taken. The lampposts were beautiful.
The Questions
The man who was tired stopped before her threshold. Once again, he could not enter, for again he had arrived with all the wrong questions. The ciphers she would strip from her dark hair were a down-splashing rain through a voice like a sieve. Many cigarettes later, he then realized and determined not to venture back into her five-cornered street, not to get lost and wander her seven bridges. The formulas she had folded and those she had torn were thrown a great distance beyond shadows and unknowns. And his shadow was sleeping, regardless of time, blurring into a whisper of sickness and death. An obsolete silence struck his analog head. Then one night, he went out, shaved and dressed for a wake. And to the darkness he whispered. My cold fingers twine an abacus without beads and hold a cheap cigarette lighter with one single flame.
The Mound
The mound of sand rose pale and smoky in the blue night of great stars as a light breeze constantly added and subtracted grains of sand to and from its mass. The lost assassin thus perceived the merciless impossibility of death, the momentous eternity, the shattering and reassembling of numbers and words, and the distance of distance.
the lost way 