Lawli: More BB drabbles! I just can't get enough of him...
3 – Ends.
"Zero, zero, one, three, two zero. Zero, zero, one, three, one, nine. Zero, zero, one, three, one, eight. Zero, zero, one, three, one, seven. Zero, zero, one, three, one, six. Zero, zero, one, three, one, five. Zero, zero, one, three, one, four. Zero, zero, one, three, one, three. Zero, zero, one, three, one, two. Zero, zero, one, three, one, one. Zero, zero, one, three, one, zero..."
All morning he'd spoken nothing but numbers. He sat at the kitchen table with a case of markers to his left and sheets of paper scattered before him, all branded with the same numbers he mumbled. She didn't know what her son was doing, and she was too almost afraid to ask; she'd never known a six-year-old to behave in such a way, and to say it unnerved her was an understatement.
Beyond too a deep breath, switching to a blue marker, drawing an oval on the page. "Zero, zero, one, three –"
"Stop!" She cried, unable to contain her frustration. She took the marker from his hand and hurriedly placed the cap back on it.
"I have to count. I have to reach all zeros."
"Why?" she asked.
"I want to know when it happens," Beyond replied calmly, reaching for a purple marker since his mother still held onto the blue one.
"When what happens?" She was losing her patience now, watching as he began to jot down numbers once again, his lips moving in accordance with the words. She could practically hear him chanting in his head: zero, zero, one, three, zero, seven; zero, zero, one, three, zero, six...
"When dad's numbers end."
She didn't say anything further, unable to understand what he was talking about. Seeing this as only a child's overactive imagination and nothing more (wishing that he would do something normal, like go outside and kick the soccer ball around with all the other little boys) she stood up from the table and walked into the kitchen, leaving her son alone with his numbers wondering vaguely what he meant when he said that they would end.