Numbers
The New Notebook
I'm not normal. I know that. I've always known that. Eventually, I didn't even really care. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I do way too much.
Charlie violently tore the page from the new notebook he'd paid way too much for. It wasn't his regular Mead, 150 page, spiral bound, college ruled notebooks he bought a couple of dozen of every summer, just before school started, when Discount Village had them on sale real cheap. This one had a soft, supple leatherette cover in a deep mahogany color and a zippered closure. It was the kind that overpaid executives carried because they thought it made them look important and intellectual instead of just a glorified sleazy wheeler-dealer.
It was intended to be his journal. He'd been told he should keep one more than once. By his mom. By the various school psychiatrists he'd always had to see because he was "special". But now the "new notebook effect" was ruined, by both the torn out page and the prose that had been on it. It no longer felt crisp or fresh. It no longer had that feel or that smell. He loved the smell of new notebooks, all new, unsoiled paper, but notebooks especially. He tried to explain it to one of the psychiatrists once who tried to tell him he liked it because it was "a blank slate, just waiting for you to fill it with your brilliance, your creativity". No. He just liked the smell. He was weird that way. But hey, it wasn't as weird as being into bondage or Nsync or something.
No. The journal idea wasn't working for him right now. They had wanted him to write the journal to help him sort out his feelings and the vagaries of life in general, but he'd lost the mood. But he wanted to write something. Maybe it would be therapeutic. No. Journals were cheap therapy and he'd already discarded that idea.
What he needed was a distraction. He'd promised his father he would find a distraction from mathematics. His father thought he had a tendency to become obsessive and needed some balance, something to engage his brain in a whole different way. That's why he thought he might give the whole ill-fated journal thing a try. He still wanted to try to write something. There were several ideas for papers he'd had in the back of his mind, but – that involved mathematics too much, and he'd promised his dad he'd step back from that.
Maybe he would write the definitive biography of Alan Turing. He'd read every one he could get his hands on over the years but they always left him with questions. The man was both undeniably brilliant and misunderstood in his lifetime. His life work changed humanity forever in so many ways. His "definite method" alone assured his place in history. Not to mention the Universal Turing Machine. And Enigma. His work in mechanics, neurology, physiology, philosophy, biology, physics and artificial intelligence was groundbreaking. Not to mention mathematics.
Mathematics. There it was again. Would writing the definitive biography of Turing be breaking his promise? It would involve, necessarily, his mathematic theory and practice. How could it not? He was perhaps the most brilliant and innovative mathematician of the first half of the 20th century. And everything else he did or researched or theorized was based on his innovation as a mathematician.
Okay. Scratch that idea. For now.
He'd had the idea once in high school that he should write a book explaining advanced mathematic principals in everyday language so other kids could see it's beauty and possibility. Maybe some would be inspired to study further and maybe one would someday become – a mathematician.
Mathematics. There it was again.
How was he supposed to get away from mathematics when everything had a mathematical component? His mother used to like to do needlework – some of it beautiful – but that involved mathematics, or rather arithmetic and geometry, in the pattern designing she did and the way the stitches were executed. Sports? It was all heavy in statistics and probability. All forms of technology were out as subject matter.
History? Again, a lot of statistics and probability and technology. Not to mention the fact that it would never hold his interest unless he was writing about some aspect of the history of mathematics.
So what was left? Poetry? No there was math there, too, in the rhythm and cadence. It was all numbers. Besides, he was never very good at it.
Fiction? About what? He had no ideas. He had to write fictional pieces from time to time in school but there was always mathematics in them somehow.
Who was he kidding? Mathematics was who he was. There was no way to avoid it. He didn't want to avoid it. He liked it. It made sense. When nothing else made sense, mathematics did – or could, if you worked on the problem long enough and hard enough.
But, was that all he was? No. Of course not. He was a son and a brother. But, then, they never really did have anything in common but biology and an address. Sure they got along as well as any family and they loved each other as much as any family he supposed, but, he really didn't have anything much in common with either his father or his brother. Never had.
There was his friend Professor Bergum from the English Department. They ate lunch togetheralmost every day. But the only thing they really had in common was the fact that they both liked to eat lunch in silence. She, so she could read and take a break from lecturing all day, and he so he could work on some equation without interruption. All the other teachers wanted to chitchat their lunch periods away and it irritated both of them. Can you really call someone a friend when the most intimate conversation you've ever had was "Hello. Could you pass the napkins? I'll see you tomorrow."? What was her first name again?
He couldn't really be that shallow. Could he? No. Not shallow. One-dimensional. He couldn't be that one-dimensional, could he?
Charlie closed the notebook, zipped it shut and threw it in his desk drawer. He wasn't going to write anything.
He retrieved his keys from his dresser and the worn canvas duffel bag from the bottom of his closet and strode purposefully out the kitchen door, pausing just long enough to let his father know he was going to the Y to swim for awhile. Maybe when he got back he would be able to figure out a way to keep his promise to his father.
End.