The Right Numbers

A content note and discussion, with spoilers, for this work can be found here.

The room was hot. The windows were open, but the sun had beaten down on the rectangular white-plaster encased meeting hall all day long. The warmth of bodies, the smiling children and teachers, made it hotter. Or maybe, it was just me. My skin felt clammy, but my chest was on fire. I was also dressed out-of-season. Unlike the white linen dresses of the others, I wore a cotton wrap-around shirt and loose pants.

The children standing near me, some younger and some older than me, beamed like light. The joy on their faces was unmistakable. They were all so lovely.

That morning, the teachers had found me begging in the streets.

I was a stranger, but they helped me with few reservations. Wandering orphans were not uncommon. They gave me water. They asked my name. They both seemed so nice. I thanked them sincerely.

They had asked me if I understood the importance of the numbers. They asked if I had committed myself to truth. They warned me of the catastrophe that would result from making mistakes. I smiled at them with my wet lips after drinking from the cup they handed me.

“I know very well. Truth is all that matters,” I told them. “Mistakes made unmake us. Life itself must be eternal even if our lives are short. My parents knew this. My parents taught me this. They died for truth. I will forever honor them.”

They asked me how my parents died.

I told them. I left very few details unsaid. I made sure my joy never faltered even when I admitted that I cried when I discovered my parents’ bodies.

They forgave me for my inappropriate sadness and invited me to meet the other orphans in the meeting hall for recitation later that day. I accepted, of course.

“Don’t worry,” one of them said to ease my mind, “there are more of us than them. The truth will win out.”

When I entered the hall, it seemed familiar. The teachers who had found me earlier were standing at the front. One had a guitar and the other stood behind a podium that held up an open book.

The one behind the book told the others to welcome me as I found a place to stand near the center of the room. They cheered and I smiled to acknowledge their kindness.

“Let us begin,” he said.

The other teacher started to play the memorization jingle on her guitar. I had repeated it over and over again in my head until it seemed second nature but hearing it out loud was still jarring.

The guitar player nodded her head deliberately so that everyone knew exactly when to come in. The congregation began chanting in a rhythm most of them knew well before they could speak.

“Two. Seven one. Eight. Two. Eight one.”

I could imagine they found chanting comforting. Certainly, nearly all of them had lost family in the war. Certainly, they had witnessed great suffering. Certainly, they missed those who had died. However, I knew, I knew well, that what would otherwise manifest as acute trauma and grief, was replaced, in war, with concepts of glory and righteous sacrifice. The dead were honored dead. To die was not a sorrow, if and only if, your death was meaningful. If a death was meaningful, mourning was removed and was replaced with admiration.

“Eight. Two. Eight four. Five. Nine. Zero. Four five.”

I chanted along, of course I did. I smiled as well, of course I did. I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming ecstasy as the song continued. I trembled and my voice broke. Tears welled up in my eyes and burned my cheeks as they fell. The others noticed, barely, but I knew what they were thinking. Certainly, this new girl, she is showing her devotion. How faithful she must be! How touched with passion for the truth she must be!

She is one of us.

“Two. Three. Five three. Six. Zero. Two eight.”

In their hands was the fate of all life. Their own loves. Their own lives. Their hearts and their minds. Selfish personal meaningless things, certainly. Faced with collective responsibility, the sacred truth gave them meaning and purpose.

I understood.

The belt around my waist stuck to my skin and dug into my ribs. Sweat crawled down my back. It itched. I slowly moved my hand under my shirt.

“Seven. Four. Seven one. Three. Five.”

Their voices became louder in my ears. The sounds moved into the center of my head. My mind inexplicably separated the individual utterances into separate signals layered into a cacophony. The pitch seemed higher.

But like a switch, my determination asserted itself. My own voice, that was drowned out and faltering a second ago, rang out with prominence and clarity.

“Two,” I chanted in unison with the chorus of martyrs.

“Seven!” I screamed with conviction.

The girl standing next to me appeared to slow down time itself when she heard me, but her joy never faltered, as she simultaneously chanted, “Six” with the rest of them.

She turned her head toward me. Her eyes were bright. Her hair was pulled back in a cute ponytail. Her cheeks were touched by summer. I could see a few freckles on her nose. As she spoke the number out of her mouth, her lips were tainted with a lie that she believed, wholeheartedly, was God’s Truth.

We met each other’s gaze in that beautiful moment before I did my part for the effort, and we were all turned to ash.