NUMBER -- A SHORT STORY BY TOSSAPOL BOONSINSUKH

Tossapol Boonsinsukh wrote some Thai short stories in his blog. I just translated this one into English.

http://yrna.wordpress.com/

“NUMBER

He closed his eyes and tried to reach me by his hands
He told me “eight”
He is an old friend from my high school. He came to see me in late morning.
He told me he could see every number in everything.
My house equals sixteen.
The old green refrigerator equals 0.06
The bedroom wall equals 511.
The little dog equals 0.333…
My girlfriend equals 9.1
And I equal 8.

I asked him what these numbers stand for.
He didn’t know.
He just knew that every time he closed his eyes and held out his hand to anything, a number would appear.

I invited him to take a stroll in my backyard.
The sky equals one.
The trees in the backyard equal six multiplying by six for sixty times.
The music flowing from the house next door equals a great amount of numbers.
I noted down the numbers he told in a large sheet of paper.
We got so many numbers we don’t understand.

The sun set.
I invited him to have dinner with us.
My girlfriend had already made some dinner for him.
1258”