Life in Odd Numbers

This piece appears courtesy of GWN’s On The Art of The Craft: A Guidebook to Collaborative Storytelling (Harper One , 2024)

Three

The hours on a bus from Albany to the City. It is twenty-one dollars for a ticket, not including the train ride uptown into spray-painted subway signs and late-night service delays. Your sister rolls her black duffle bag through the melted snow on the cracked pavement, ignoring the guys who stand at the corner of Gun Hill Road and Burke Avenue. There is one there who proclaims his love on a regular basis—both directly and indirectly. Yet, she has no time. Franderis moves too fast for his feet and his mind, leaving him to choke on her icy dust. So does she. The cold air constricts her asthmatic airways and makes her wheeze. When she arrives at one in the morning—brown cheeks stained with pink, black hair plastered to her sweaty forehead—she kicks the front door with her boots.

Five

The number of twenty dollar bills your mom spares to gift you on your birthday. They are in separate envelopes; the silver and black striped enclosures are embedded with generic phrases like “it’s your special day” with too many exclamation points. Her fine, brown fingers cradle the sides of your head and your bashful “thank you” is lost to the sound of her smacking kisses on your frizzy hair. The custom-made ice cream cake is at the center of the table in front of you, butchered by a hot knife, oozing dulce de leche. It lies beside a present you have yet to open. You wonder in dread how much it cost, but then remember you were born during income tax season. Your stomach stops its churning.

Seven

The charms on your bracelet that tinkle like small wind chimes when you move too enthusiastically. You remember how you got each and every single one. The retro sunglasses for the white sand beach of Punta Cana. The crescent moon clip to match the ink behind your ear. The dangling butterfly and heart, both imbued with feelings of “forever.” Each one inspires deep, vigorous love—the kind that rushes through you like rapids and threatens to swallow you up when you’re lonely. They constantly remind you that you are not—lonely, that is—but you find yourself pushing into the corner of your room, making friends with the loose threads on your stuffed cow. They’ve come to grips with the fact that it’s just who you are.

(Nine)

The grade you slipped on a slope peppered with spikes. You are left with shredded insides and weak legs and a broken mind and it is hard to get back the breath that is knocked out of you. You start to let your mom stroke your hair when the pain is too much and reluctantly admit that you like it when you are left alone and she is at work. At the bottom of the slope is a dark pit and you are in it for three years. At first, you are too broken to try to climb out. You get comfortable on the mold-covered ground, ignore your sour stench, and eat what can stay down. But when you finally hear them calling your name, you start to claw at the walls. Your brain blocks out the climb out, but you suck in the fresh air greedily, hear them cheer despite the fact that everything is different and you are not perfect. And when your feet continue to dangle over the edge of the pit, they do their best to help you not fall in again.

Eleven

The hour you were born. Your mom says you and your sister were clean and shiny. Your father is too late to cut your umbilical cord, but that is okay because he doesn’t fit in with the rest of the story anyway. Your sister wonders why you are so much lighter than she is, but she still loves you. You can see it in an old, unfocused picture probably taken by Mom. Franderis holds you like she’s supposed to and the gap between her two front teeth is brilliant. And in your bones, you know they will stay with you always.