#obbessive

One, two, three… no no no. Damnit.

                Okay. One. Two. Threefourfivesixseven people off that bus. Okay good. Got it.

                The woman sat a the bus terminal waiting for it to come. She wore grey slacks, immaculate,  crisp, with creases that you could cut yourself on. She sat by her self. In the middle of a bench, that had five places. Two seats on each side of her. Two sets of two. Half of two being one, and her taking up one seat. She brought a book, but she ended up counting page numbers and it started getting to her. So she quit, but people keep moving. The world is to messy to be counted.

                That is her job though. Clerk in the IRS. Head for numbers. Perfect 4.0 GPA. GPA and IRS both have three letters in them. As does FBI, and CIA, and ABC. MADD doesn’t though, and it has double letters. She grinds her teeth thinking about alteration. Letters follow each other, they don’t double dip. They are consistent. You can count on that.

                Seven Oh Eight, next is the Fifty Six. Promptly at Seven Thirty, but it won’t be. Each bus can old Twenty Four people. And there are Thirty six people here. If Ten of them get on the Seven Oh Eight, and Twelve including myself get on the Fifty Six, then that leaves Fourteen to disperse between the other Two buses coming during commuter hours.

                Her thoughts flit around, from person to person. There is an old man, with a messy leather jacket sitting across from her. She is on the bus now. He is smiling deep, like he knows a secret. A secret that you can’t count on, that you can’t find in numbers. He blinks sleepily and leans back against the seat and light comes in, through the window on his hair, like a halo. Like a rare sun shower.

                They are Broderick street. They have three more streets to go. They will be there in Three minutes. Three minutes and counting.

                How old is he? Can she count his years? How many seconds are in his life? Is his life better for being longer, or worse for being shorter remaining.  How exactly can she choose to quantify his life? Two minutes till she gets off. Two minutes and counting.

                If she were to crash this bus, fall into a coma, and live forever. A strange and magical coma where she would never die would she have lived more life, because her days were more. If she counted each day on her fingers, and toes, each strand of hair, and each was a year of her life, would that be more life, than this balding man now sitting across from her. One minute. One minute and counting.

                She looked at the clock. The clock was the enemy, it constantly ticks and counts, and each second that goes by is followed by another. She could spend all day looking at that clock, the rusty screws clamping her hands down to the chair, staring out it runs down. Thirty second and counting.

                What would she do to get rid of this time, slowly counting its way away from her, slipping like uncountable dust through her fingers. Unquantifiable. Ten seconds. Ten seconds and counting.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

A second freezes.

Zero isn’t really a number. You can’t count it. How do you quantify nothing, when you have nothing left?