Numbers
by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri
The door was
locked. The door still is locked, the weight of
numbers pressing against it.
Bad credit
scores, delinquent. Delinquent, the numbers
whisper, as if I’m a character in a bad 1950s
teen movie, where everyone wears leather jackets
and calls the teacher Daddy-O. Delinquent,
delinquent, even though I had a 3.95 GPA. Even
though I’ve never gotten into a fistfight,
don’t have a police record, never did stints
in juvie. Delinquent, because the numbers
proclaim it to be so. Because late fees and
interest rates are the give all end all for black-and-white
business obsessed soulless cretins. Can X pay
this? Great, let’s butter him up. If Y can’t
pay, pressure. Mark him delinquent. Never mind
stories of being out of graduate school, trying
to assemble the pieces in that jigsaw puzzle
called professional life. He’ll just have to
suffer, suffer, do without this, subside on
crackers and onions nightly.
I’m
thirty-three. I have a name, and the name is a
number, case number X, case number Y, case number
Z. Or a misspelled name, butchered while numbers
deliver bad news and fit a new pair of fetters
upon me. Not enough income, another set of
numbers whisper. No credit cards for you. No
apartments, no world of your own to inhabit. You’ll
live at home in perpetuity, retreat, retreat. I
push back against numbers, to batter the doors. I
proclaim defiance. I will not be defined by
numbers. I mock the lickspittles, mock them in
words and images upon pages. Stories and poems
declare war on numbers. They speak of jobs and
economic booms, but with so-called booms come the
numbers. The wealthy consume champagne and caviar,
preserving numbers in the form of phallic tax
cuts.
Numbers from
the past taunt me with what-if scenarios. 860 SAT
crippled, kept me from private schools,
scholarships. It’s all gone, but is it
really gone?
And of course,
when I die, it’ll be more numbers. X debt, Y
debt, who wants to pay off the funeral bills? If
I’m being defined by numbers, I’ll
dictate the number of mourners, the number of
songs to be played, and the number of companies
that I’ll pay off. The Funeral March for a
Marionette will play, while the numbers march in
the parade, and Alfred Hitchcock will proclaim
good evening and welcome me to the realms of all
deathly things. But they’ll be more numbers
from the afterlife. Number of fellow corpses,
number of strikes against me in the afterlife.
Number of years to wait until I feel loved.
Surprise.
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