Marilyn saw just the second living number she had ever met. It was the number 81. It wasn’t a week after she went home with her lucky number, the number 23, after meeting it in a bar. No. 81, on the other hand, was sitting on a street corner at the entrance to an alley. It was begging for change. She had been missing the number 23 ever since it came and left, and to see the second embodied number of her life felt important, like more than coincidence.
Its eyes were spirals of reds and blues. The longer she looked, they were kaleidoscopes. Slowly changing color and pattern. They pulled her in, the eyes.
It didn’t matter what she wore, where she was coming from or where she had been. She searched her wallet but she had nothing to give it. It wasn’t important. The number didn’t judge: it was both singular and infinite at the same time, infinity turned on its head. She felt warm through, and loved.
Oh, how loved. Safe from everything: life, death. Like she was living a dream or losing her mind – but it didn’t matter.