#dactylonomy

“Why can't you be like normal kids.” I knew it was what my parents had wondered. Why couldn’t I leave the house without counting fence posts or calculating angles? Why did my hand have to hang at my side, solving invisible equations, generating unending strings of numbers and tabulating the world around me.  

It’s a new school year and already my spirit feels broken. My last year in high school. My last chance to change things. To make them understand that I am something more that a human calculator.  ------ I turn up my collar to the cold winds, the sky already darkening with the promise of winter. A street lamp flickers on and off with irregularity, and I can feel the urge building inside me. “Just be normal.” I whisper.  “Just be normal.” my mother’s voice echoes in my head. 

I try to ignore it but my hands begin to twitch, counting the flickers, converting the signals. I know it has to be just random gibberish. It’s just a flickering street light, but then a letter, two, three, a word.  “D-I-G-I-T-S” I stop. My fingers keep moving, keeping track of the signals, but my mind has stopped as the world falls out from under me.  Someone is communicating through the streetlight. 

“No. It’s just a coincidence.” I think shaking my head.  But the numbers don’t stop.  “W-A-I-T” And I’m frozen with fear. Perhaps it has finally gotten to me. The numbers I had so loathed have finally broken me and I am hallucinating. It’s all just a waking dream- I lean back to steady myself on the light post. My world is spinning, yet the numbers keep flowing out to my hand, fingers rhythmically tapping on the metal post. They aren’t recording. They’re receiving. I close my eyes. The messages keep coming.  “A-L-L-R-I-G-H-T” “H-E-L-L-O” And with each word, the letters aren’t so drawn out, but are becoming audible. I am hearing each phrase and slowly but surely, I am seeing the speaker.  Not clearly, not a person, but the shape of one. A mass of numbers and equations taking shape and form before me.  “IT HAS TAKEN SO LONG. HELLO. YOU ARE ALIVE. YOU ARE WELL.”  And I don’t know what is going on. There are tears rolling down my cheeks. Is this a seizure. Is this how it all ends.  “FEAR NOT. BE CALM. FRIEND.”