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Numbers
an article by Gregory Farnum
He had that Spanish double l. "You got a llot of tapes daddy," he said from the backseat. We were on our way home from some sort of function; not a big deal but just the sort of thing that gives the parents a break and helps the kids realize that they're not isolated, not cut off.
"Wanna knowhow many tapes you got?"
"Sure."
"I will count them," he announced with a flourish. His four year old sing-song and the meaningful rhythm of his speech imbued the numbers with something they hadn't had before. My office, from 8:00 to 5:00 every day, is a wash in numbers ---large ones -- and all of them vacant...mere ciphers. Now they were alive. It was like seeing the dead walk.
"One, two-a, free-a, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, lleven. That's how many you got. You got lleven tapes." Actually there were sixteen, but lleven did the trick. It seemed to stand for something remarkable that had grown out of the earth. It signified.
Back home, after both kids had gotten their pajamas on, my daughter decided to show me how high she could count. She's five and very bright, but she had trouble getting from 29 to 30 and from 39 to 40. She'd laugh and say "No no, I'll start again." I took out a piece of paper and wrote a long column of numbers on it...
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
We finally got them to bed and my wife turned in. I got some beer and sat down to read the newspaper. The big story of the day was this bunker in Baghdad. Four hundred the radio had reported on the drive home from work, five hundred the newspaper said. Women and children mostly,it seems. The Pentagon explained that it wasn't really an air raid shelter, it was a command post. It was a military target. The Pentagon has proof. It's Saddam's fault the spokesman explained. The spokesman seemed a little irritated. Women and children burned to cinders. The newspaper account had most of the details that were contained in the radio reports but without the screams of the fathers and husbands. Saddam doesn't put the same value on human life that we do, the spokesman explained.
The preceding story, slightly abridged here, was published in the anthology, The Gulf War: A Different Perspective (Reprinted by permission).
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DISCUSSION
Question(s) related to this article:
How can we put faces on the children killed in war?,
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Latest reader comment:
You can order your books directly from me. If mailed in the United States, it is total cost of $6.00. That is $5.00 for the book, and $1.00 covers cost of mailing them. If ordering one. Email me directly at: labratfive@yahoo.com to find out more about the books. I am willing to go on speaking engagements and that we can discuss in email as well. Please ask me about the kids in Iraq in your email and I will also send you links of groups that are in Iraq at this moment....thanks, Candy
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