Dancing by the Numbers

Eddie felt like nobody really loved him except for what he could do. Eddie could make the numbers dance.

Not just the taxes, or the books, or the warehouses, or the boxes, or the contents in the boxes, or the routes, or the credits, or the debits, or the interest, or the payroll, or the benefits, or the payoffs, or the kickbacks. The numbers!

He could make them perform ballet. He could make them waltz, cha cha, foxtrot, tango, two step, or break dance. He could make them dance slowly, quickly, blindingly fast, or a constantly changing rhythm. You could pick any dance, any speed, any set of numbers, and Eddie made them dance.

Eddie felt like no one understood.

 

They found Eddie face down in the river, a small bullet hole at the base of his skull.

Rumors said it was the mob. Or the feds. Or the union. Or one of several foreign governments. Or one of any number of corporations. But Eddie was dead. The numbers danced no more.

Perhaps someone understood too well.

 

To Eddie's surprise and delight, he found himself in a better world.

He felt loved. And he could see everything dance- quarks, protons, atoms, molecules, the grass and flowers, animals he'd never believed in, people, angels, creatures he'd never heard of or imagined, the very light around him, and a loving Father. Even the numbers danced. They'd dance for Eddie if he told them to, but he enjoyed just watching them dance on their own. Sometimes he danced with them.

At last he knew someone understood.

 

Edwina played with her food as usual. She looked distant and troubled. She was just five, but like her deceased father she was brilliant and precocious. Edward spoke.

"Edwina, you look perturbed, Is something wrong?"

"Papa, we went to Daddy's grave today," she said. "His marker said 'He made the numbers dance'."

"And you want to know what that means?"

"No, Papa. I want to make the numbers dance, too."

Edward looked at her plate, at the carefully sculpted four sided rice pyramid, the perfect cubes of meat, the four squares of green peas three on a side with a solitary pea exactly in the middle of those squares. As she prodded the peas with her fork, the squares rotated and revolved slowly around the pea in the middle.

"How many peas do you have, Edwina?"

Her eyes flicked to the peas for an instant. "Thirty seven, Papa. That's easy."

Edward smiled. "You will make the numbers dance, baby."

She didn't understand yet.

But she would.