(Worth a Thousand Words) Arithmomania

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Arithmomania
by Vaughn R. Demont

Dozens upon dozens of telephone wires and not a single pair of shoes dangling.

Not. A single. Pair.

It felt unnatural. It wasn’t the different languages in the air, the unfamiliar flags or tin roofs, or even that the sun was setting when his body was convinced it was mid-morning, it was multitude of spiraled, tangled, curled, knotted, and sagging, shoeless wires that slapped him with the knowledge that he wasn’t in Queens anymore, much less Kansas.

Fifty-nine… Sixty…

He looked away and muttered a curse under his breath, thankful that passers-by didn’t understand it as much as they didn’t understand him. A quick check of his phone gave him the verdict: He’d been standing there, counting the wires for two minutes, likely mouth agape and index finger flexing with every line tallied.

It had progressed beyond a habit in elementary school and grown to a compulsion that no one felt was severe enough to merit medication. The only complaint he’d received back in the States was form his roommate, annoyed that he couldn’t just be a compulsive housecleaner like all the other OCDs she’d seen on TV, and would have to nudge him when anything loose was spilled to keep him from literally counting grains of rice for over an hour.

It was the stress. It was a new place, new country, new job, that explained everything, or so he told himself for the fourth, fifth, sixth time that he didn’t have to worry. Nothing needed to be counted, at least not until he was at his apartment, a studio at the end of the hall on the first, second, third floor at the top of twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven stairs.

“No. Stop it.”

Inhale. Exhale.

Small apartment on the third floor. Top of the stairs so it’s a walk-up. Cheaper rent, only three hundred eight, three hundred-

Three hundred ten American dollars per month.

Made it cheap to live there, and at least he never had trouble making change. Make the jokes, make it not serious or weird. Be quirky, not the guy they’ll mutter about once you’re out of earshot.

Actually, he was American and wasn’t great at the local languages. They’d wouldn’t wait for him to be out of earshot, and they wouldn’t mutter.

“Go to another country. You’ll be more creative.” He didn’t roll his eyes, because that would put the wires back into his vision and it was itching at the back of his brain that he’d stopped at sixty. Instead, he proceeded down the street, only counting the nine, ten, eleven peaks in the tin roof, the one, two, three flags, counts that had a definite end, and made his way to a grocery to stock up on food, and had to go with what he recognized.

Anything in English was more expensive, probably for expatriates like himself, he’d converted his money upon arriving, know his US dollars would go far, but that he’d be ripped off. He stuck with staples. Four, five hundred grams of rice, fish, eleven, twelve tiger prawns, three, four, five cheaper beers, and he aggravated the grocer, who was such a goddamned six, by counting out the money slowly, giving exact change.

The wires were in his view when he exited the grocer’s, and he broke the line of sight, trying to force his mind down a different path than the eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-

No. Something else. The wires weren’t just hashmarks on a mental tally, they all had a home and a destination, all of them were connections to people. Real people. Not numbers. The grocer was not a number. Two, three deep breaths in and out.

It was the wires. He knew that now, even as he muttered the count of twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven steps to reach the first, second, third floor, then the end of the hall to his door, unlocking it with the key with three, four, five ridges, and then…

He stood breathing in his open doorway for over a minute, eyes closed, arm aching with the weight of his grocery bag. Ten breaths. No. Twelve?

It didn’t matter, and that got him through putting the groceries away, a beer in the freezer to drink sooner, and then a few Google searches for recipes in English, which weren’t too far to find. Counting and measuring was vital for dinner, but it was expected, not weird or quirky to want to be exact. He’d blog about the meal later, for the people back home who thought he was on some grand adventure instead of circumventing the viciously high cost of living back home. Goddamned gentrification was such a fucking… eight.

Granted, there were probably people in the neighborhood who felt the same about him. He didn’t blame them, really, he was the alien here, and the new world was right outside his-

The water was boiling over from the hot plate, hissing, and it shocked him from passing two hundred wires, two hundred and one.

“Shit!” He rushed to clean up, turning off the hot plate, knocking over the bag of rice and…

“One…” He clenched his eyes shut, gathering what he could feel with his hands into a pile on the floor. “Okay… Get the brown Tupperware container, pour the rest in there. Then cover the rice and sweep it up. It does not matter how many grains there are.”

Inhale. Exhale. Then again. Then again.

Quick work, but not really. It was just because of the wires outside his window, which he couldn’t close because it was too hot. All he had to do was find something with a short count to focus on instead.

A few seconds later, he left the apartment, and went downstairs, and returned moments later, out of breath from the dash up the twenty-six, twenty-seven stairs. The open window was waiting for him, and his eyes darted there, already counting the new addition.

One shoe. Two shoes.

He smiled, and retrieved his beer, the bottle already cold.