Well this is just fucking typical. Handsome Makim comes up with a new system of counting and everyone loves it. I come up with a new system of counting and I am treated the same way that Urlk was when he had too much fermented grain paste and broke all of the pottery in the storehouse.
So we’re sitting around the fire, eating some goat and some bread and talking about how good cultivating crops is when Makim clears his throat.
“So, I’ve had an idea,” he says in his aggressively charismatic way. “About numbers.”
I’m not rude. I’m not an asshole. I place the bit of goat I’m working on back into my earthenware bowl (which I made myself, by the way) and listen attentively. I’ll admit, the idea is not terrible.
“So, you know how we count things and we have a word for all the numbers of things there are until it gets to too many and then we run out of words?” We all nod, somewhat sceptical of where this is going but, at the same time, all too familiar with what happens if you need to keep going after you reach sklebin. “Well, what if when you got to too many numbers you added a word and then started again?”
If anyone other than handsome Makim had said this, we would have laughed and gone straight back to shooting the shit about sedentary agriculture and how cool having a permanent supply of food is.
“So it would go like this, I think. You go one. Then two. Then three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” So far, pretty routine, but there’s a twist: “Then you go ten-and-one. Ten-and-two. Ten-and-three. Ten-and-four. And so on.”
“What happens when you get to ten-and-ten?” asks Urlk, speaking up with a surprising amount of confidence for someone who not so recently broke all of the pottery in the storehouse.
“Urlk, I am so glad you asked,” Makim replies. “After ten-and-nine is two-of-ten. After that is two-of-ten-and-one”
A hushed silence falls over us. Even old Yuhe, who talks to herself and laughs for no reason, briefly suspends aggressively poking the hot coals with a stick to listen. This is impressive stuff. The implications are nothing short of staggering.
Now, I’m not trying to say Makim’s idea is bad. It’s great. I love it. I’ll be the first to admit that I am thrilled at the prospect of being able to count higher than sklebin. Everyone should keep in mind that I banged the leg bone of a goat against one of the sitting logs in excitement just as much as everyone else did.
I just think it could be improved, and I say this in, frankly, the politest terms possible.
“Makim,” I say. “Handsome Makim, the most upright person in all of the settlement.” Appreciative nods of agreement pass around the fire circle. “I love this. I really do. Numbers bigger than sklebin! What a concept!”
Makim smiles, patiently and handsomely, like a complete creep.
“I was just thinking that, maybe, instead of the big number being ten, it could be, uh, nine.”
I see a lot of looks of confusion. All of the excitement whipped up just because Makim may have revolutionised our system of counting and also happens to have a largely hairless upper face has abated with a speed that I find confusing and, honestly, a little hurtful.
“So, uh. You know. Seven. Eight. Nine. Nine-and-one. Nine-and-two. And so on.”
Handsome Makim, who thinks that his idea is so perfect that there’s no way anyone else could improve upon it, looks at me with the sort of disgusting, charitable tolerance that makes me want to throw up some goat straight into my earthenware bowl.
“Oh, uh,” Makim says, smiling beatifically, like a fuckhead would. “Well I– I guess we could, you know, have a play around with it.”
Those are the words that his mouth says but his eyes tell a different story. A story about how good the number ten is, and how we should use it to underpin a positional counting system, and how he is the sexiest genius in all of the plains for coming up with it.
At this point I’m getting stares from everyone, just for having different ideas. Even A’at, who is over sklebin years old and still doesn’t know how to weave a net properly, is looking at me like I suggested we should start throwing spears with the not-pointy end first.
“But… why?” Asks A’at. “Ten is a good number. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Handsome Makim’s idea just feels right.”
Handsome Makim looks at A’at in his characteristic fashion, warmly and gratefully, but without any hint of being insincerely obsequious. The absolute bastard. Everyone is nodding, like I’m some sort of prick for having my own feelings on an issue.
“Well, yes,” I say. “Yes, I can see that argument. I can see how you would arrive at that idea, at first. But that doesn’t mean we can’t refine it.
“You might like the sound of ten as the big number — just as beautiful, strong, handsome Makim suggests — because it comes very naturally to us and is a very visible part of our body. Sure. But what’s so good about counting to ten?
“You know what I like? Counting to nine. Much easier to count to. I’m already a bit tired by the time I get to eight!”
For a second I think that maybe Chiwe might have nodded in agreement with me but he was simply trying to dislodge a moth that had worked its way into his face hair. Otherwise I am met with the complete stillness and silence usually seen in prey animals about to ambush food animals.
“Maybe we can put it to a vote,” Makim says. “Would that be constructive?”
Oh ho. Very generous of you, handsome Makim. Sure, let’s put it to the group of simpleton settlement dwellers who are starstruck by your incredible posture and unobtrusive forehead bone. That’s very fair. Hell, why not just decide based on a handsomeness contest. Why not do that.
In the interest of being the bigger person, I go along with it. We put it to a vote. With the exception of one abstention, everyone votes in favour of Makim’s idea, and the abstention is only because Yuhe doesn’t understand what we are doing. Cool. Great.
Well done, handsome Makim. I hope this makes you feel good. We could have been the most advanced settlement on the plains, with a visionary nine-based counting system but, no, you had to set us back, all because of your gorgeous eyes and powerful calves.
I will have the last laugh, handsome Makim. Let’s see how long this idea of yours actually lasts.
