Counting​​

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Counting. Counting is calming.

Counting is how I function.

My therapist is very proud of me for my counting. She says it's a huge accomplishment. That it’s leaps worth of progress.

I’ll admit it’s nice to hear.

Even though I know she’s using a reward system for good behavior and practically tricking me into doing this, I don’t mind too much.

I’ve gotten good at counting.

She tells me so. I think it’s important. She says there has never been a Counter like me before. It’s all lies, all flattery, and frankly doesn’t even make sense.

But I AM good at counting.

I’m good with numbers, and calculations. People say I’m weird, and I guess they’re right since I have a therapist I see twice a week. Only, I would supposedly be weirder without the therapy, so who knows what's weird and what’s not weird? I suppose it’s all subjective.

My therapist likes to talk about subjectivity. She says that everything is relative and subjective and different for everybody. She says that so I don’t feel bad when my progress is slow. But I do understand relativity, so it makes sense. Numbers are relative, and that makes sense. But now I’m not making sense, so I’ll stop. Stop being weird.

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Lately, I see everything in pairs of seven. Everything comes in a countdown from 7 or a countup to 7. Well, I say lately, I mean today. I woke up today and the numbers I usually see had rearranged themselves into pairs of seven. My therapist took a lot of interest in that when she came to pick me up before lunch. She asked me a lot of questions. But she always does that. About all my numbers. She tells me I’m doing well, that the counting seems to be helping.

It does seem to be.

I don’t get upset like I used to. I don’t get uncontrollable fits of anger or sadness or happiness. I’ve found a steady calm, so long as I keep counting and keep calculating everything.

After lunch, my therapist took me to my mentor, who helps me with my counting and my calculations. He likes to tell me how good I am, and how good I’ve got with my counting, and he tells me how proud he is of me. I think he must either be related to my therapist or at least is her client as well because they say a lot of similar things.

After I’ve completed all my assignments with my mentor, he gives me some homework and my therapist takes me to have dinner with a couple of old men. I don’t mind too much because I get to go off camp and the old men just ask my therapist a lot of questions, about me and my day mostly. Sometimes my therapist makes me answer some questions, but for the most part, I just get to eat my dinner in peace.

Not many others get the opportunity to go off camp, and certainly don’t get such fancy dinners, so it really doesn’t bother me at all that they ask me so many questions about me as if I’m not there.

I see waiters come out, and 7 in total. Fascinating. Why does everybody and everything get 7 today? There are seven notes in the awful music playing from the speakers. 7 beats too. 7 seconds of pause in the conversation around me.

I turn to my therapist, to find she is staring at me oddly, as if waiting for me to tell her what I’ve seen. I hadn’t realized she could tell when I was seeing numbers. For some reason, this does bother me.

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I calm down again, and my therapist is concerned, I can tell, but she is trying not to show it because I am not a problem, according to her, just special, different, and there’s no reason to be concerned. I point to the corners of the room. Do you hear it? I ask her, she glances in that direction.

“Hear what? The mu--”

7. Do you hear the 7?

She swallows rather noticeably, which is not usual for her. She usually is so controlled. Her voice is still as controlled as ever as she shakes her head. “Not really. Explain to me. Why do you hear 7?”

I feel my mouth curl down in displeasure, because I don’t know WHY. I never know the why of my numbers, I just know they exist, and she knows this.

She winces, apparently realizing her error. “Yes, of course. How do you hear 7?”

The beat. The notes. The waiters. I explain it to her as she nods solemnly.

“Good, good. Very good. You are recognizing patterns. That is very good, that is improvement. ”

The old men are nodding around her, like they have the same body and do everything together, which is weird.

Ha. There are 7 of you too. 7 steps, 7 windows, 7 clouds, 7 birds, 7 assignments, 7 papers, 7 homework, 7 problems, 7 minutes.

“Shh.” My therapist is scribbling things down in her notebook that she always carries around. “Count.” She looks in my eyes.

I count. From 7.

I stare at the fork on my table, 7 millimeters from my plate. I stare at the old man across from me. His tie is seven degrees askew. Ha. I feel a grin stretch across my face. Everything is in so much unison, so much cohesion. 7. Everywhere. Hahaha. 7. Countdown time. Tomorrow, tomorrow I know there will be six. Hahaha.

I look at my therapist, and grin at her, because she should understand. The beauty in the unison. The numbers all agree with each other. Patterns. I tell her. Patterns.

She smiles at me, but her eyes never move, as usual. “Yes.” She says, “Yes, patterns are good.”

Tomorrow, there will be six. I tell her. And I grin, because I’ve cracked it. The problem, the equation, today’s assignment. Tomorrow, there will be 6.

She blinks. “6, is that so?”

I frown at her, because she doesn't question my equations or my observations. She wouldn’t understand them anyway. I always KNOW when I’m right, and she couldn't know better than me. I nod anyway, feeling my irritation but knowing she doesn’t like it when I get irritated or angry. We’ve already solved that problem. 6 tomorrow. 5 the next day.

“Everything is just going to, disappear?”

I frown, but shrug. I nod.

She nodded slowly. “You said 7 waiters.”

This is getting annoying, but I nod again. 7 of you too. I point at each of the old men. They blink together. I grin at that.

“And,” She pauses, “Tomorrow there will only be six?”

I nod triumphantly, because that is WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.

“Where,” she pauses again--strange--, “Where will the seventh go?”

I blink this time, because I don’t THINK about that kind of stuff. I don’t think about the why of my equations or how the equations will prove themselves true. They just DO. I glare at her, and shrug. Tomorrow, 6. I insist. Next day, 5.

“And, and when,” she’s stuttering and pausing now--fascinating. “When we reach 0?”

I blink.

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I shrug.