#dactylonomy

[andinuffishthought]

Do you think the Babylonians ever said “I can count the number of times [Thing happened] on one finger”

[xmagnet-o]

Shoutout to finger-counters

[dictionomicon-archive-blog]

Kaitlyn Rak, Dactylonomy submission

OneTwoThreeFourFive –

My fingers tap rhythms against each other.

Nervousnervousnervous,

s t e a d y n o w,

nothing to be so nervous about.

How many syllables are in that sentence?

How many are in this one?

Seven.

OneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSeven.

"How many are in this one?

 How many are in this one?

How many are in this one?"

They repeat over and over,

an unrelenting melody.

Phrases refuse to vacate my brain

until I've counted them properly.

Why does this compulsion surface?

Why does it fade away?

How many syllables are in that sentence?

Six.

OneTwoThreeFourFiveSix –

Please.

This nervousness is killing me.

(Eight.

OneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEight.)

[dictionomicon-archive-blog]

Joelle Saveliev, Dactylonomy submission

Deep breath. Stay calm. Just be normal. Just be normal… If only it was that easy. To just take in a few lungfuls of cool autumn air, and somehow make everything change. They’d all forget who I was. Forget the strangeness. Forget the gifts. I’d be a blank slate and could set the record straight.  “Just be normal.” 

“Why can't you be like normal kids.” I knew it was what my parents had wondered. Why couldn’t I leave the house without counting fence posts or calculating angles? Why did my hand have to hang at my side, solving invisible equations, generating unending strings of numbers and tabulating the world around me.  

It’s a new school year and already my spirit feels broken. My last year in high school. My last chance to change things. To make them understand that I am something more that a human calculator.  ------ I turn up my collar to the cold winds, the sky already darkening with the promise of winter. A street lamp flickers on and off with irregularity, and I can feel the urge building inside me. “Just be normal.” I whisper.  “Just be normal.” my mother’s voice echoes in my head. 

I try to ignore it but my hands begin to twitch, counting the flickers, converting the signals. I know it has to be just random gibberish. It’s just a flickering street light, but then a letter, two, three, a word.  “D-I-G-I-T-S” I stop. My fingers keep moving, keeping track of the signals, but my mind has stopped as the world falls out from under me.  Someone is communicating through the streetlight. 

“No. It’s just a coincidence.” I think shaking my head.  But the numbers don’t stop.  “W-A-I-T” And I’m frozen with fear. Perhaps it has finally gotten to me. The numbers I had so loathed have finally broken me and I am hallucinating. It’s all just a waking dream- I lean back to steady myself on the light post. My world is spinning, yet the numbers keep flowing out to my hand, fingers rhythmically tapping on the metal post. They aren’t recording. They’re receiving. I close my eyes. The messages keep coming.  “A-L-L-R-I-G-H-T” “H-E-L-L-O” And with each word, the letters aren’t so drawn out, but are becoming audible. I am hearing each phrase and slowly but surely, I am seeing the speaker.  Not clearly, not a person, but the shape of one. A mass of numbers and equations taking shape and form before me.  “IT HAS TAKEN SO LONG. HELLO. YOU ARE ALIVE. YOU ARE WELL.”  And I don’t know what is going on. There are tears rolling down my cheeks. Is this a seizure. Is this how it all ends.  “FEAR NOT. BE CALM. FRIEND.”

And the number being reaches for my hand. They place their palm up against mine and I feel the buzzing hum of the numbers coursing across their form. My hand is still twitching, generating incalculable strings of numbers, but then it stops. As though they had somehow absorbed the madness, my hand is free of the involuntary motions.  “PEACE. BE STILL. YOU ARE FOUND. WE COME.” And then it cuts out. Everything stops. The numbers. The shape. They all fade and I am left standing beneath a flickering street light with my hand in mid-air, reaching for a figure I could have only imagined. I look at my hands and they are still. I count to ten, try some simple calculations, but nothing happens. The tremors are gone. The curse is gone.  And now I wait. For the who, the what, and when they come.

[dictionomicon-archive-blog]

Noël Coleman, Dactylonomy submission

I fell quickly.

And quietly.

In the pause between two & three.

He shook his head and 

Furrowed his brow.

And started over.

I guess I did too.

I watched the dactylonomy.

And wondered.

How entranced I could be.

With the deliberate holds.

And the way he mouthed each

One

Two

I don’t even know you

But I could watch you count

Three

Four

For hours

I don’t know you

But a part of me

Five

Six

Sort of loves

A part of you

Is this okay?