Numbers, numbers...a tale about 13 and 33.

     Number 13 was peering restlessly out of his 13^th story window at number 33, who was in her living room ironing her wedding dress. Thirteen   squinted and looked away for a minute. He desperately wanted to know everything about number 33. He felt he was falling in love with her and needed to gather information about her rapidly and efficiently. But there wasn’t a minute to spare. He didn’t want 33 to marry. Nevertheless, he knew that before acting he had to gather more information. He knew he would never know everything about her, even supposing he were to be lucky enough to say the wedding vows, yet intelligent action requires precise information.

Thirteen was well aware of his limitations. For example, his powerful looking glass couldn’t penetrate the woman’s solid cement walls. He knew that. He would never be able to see her lying on her bed. Never would he see her in the shower, never languidly drying herself, never undressed. For the time being he could only see her in the living room, ironing or eating or watching TV or staring out the window at the patio below. Sometimes he could spot her in the kitchen, if the light was right. What annoyed him terribly was that he had no idea who the lucky man was who had gotten her to say “yes.” How had he pulled that off? What trick of luck had favoured the other man over he himself? If she were to have met him first, would she have accepted Thirteen’s proposal? Why hadn’t he gotten up enough courage to introduce himself? Sometimes luck is just a question of timing, he thought, of knowing when and how to act.

 

Number 33 had no reason to suspect that the man on the 13^th floor was gawking at her as she ironed her dress. She was not of a paranoiac bent, yet her nature was rather on the shy side. That’s why she thought it was so exceptional that an outgoing man like number 113 should show such love and affection for her. Were his intentions serious? Why had he chosen her and not someone else? Was it a mere question of chance? What brings couples together? What mysterious force drives them apart? Thirty-three was happy, but deep inside her there was apprehension, a fear she was unable to rationalize. Was she taking the right decision? There was no way to know so she kept ironing her wedding dress. People get married every day, don’t they? They go on honey moons, relatives give them wedding presents. It must be comforting to sleep alongside your spouse every night. Or were there secrets of marital life she could never imagine? Anyway, she would soon find the answers to all of her questions. Ironing relaxed her. On arriving home from work every evening she would iron the dress again and think about the upcoming wedding.

One Saturday afternoon something quite unusual happened. Thirty-three’s fiancé had called to say he had an important meeting and so would not be visiting her as usual. So she decided to browse at the neighbourhood bookstore. She had never met number 13, and had no idea that a man living in an apartment two floors above hers had been spying on her with his powerful looking glass, admiring her and inventing a relationship that only existed in his imagination and in the lens of his looking glass. That afternoon she was bent on finding a book that would take her out of her contemplative state of mind. She leafed through novels and short story collections and autobiographies but seemed unable to find anything that interested her…until she came upon a used and spoiled volume with an oriental design on the cover. The title called her attention: “To Be is to Be Nothing.” As she was turning the pages, she heard a man’s voice and turned.

“Strange title for a book.” Number 13, amazed at the directness of his approach.

“It’s the idea that’s strange, not the book,” said 33 without looking up from her reading.

“Quite true…but how can we be nothing?”

Number 33 looked up and stared at 13 as if she had just discovered something. Neither man nor woman spoke for what seemed to be ages.

“To find that out you have to read the book,” said 33 finally. “Please excuse me, I must go.”

Thirteen went straight to the cashier and paid for the book. Thirty- three looked on the transaction as if confounded. He had met her! Her voice seemed soft but firm and the air still lingered with the scent of her lavender perfume. Hmm. To be is to be nothing. What an idiotic thing to write about! Either we are or we are not. Why complicate things? And yet…maybe there was something to the idea. It could be a good subject for conversation. Thirty three was going to buy the book. She was paying for it right now, at the cashier’s. She left the shop without looking back. Thirteen thought for a moment, then ran out of the bookstore, taking the eyes of several customers and the cashier with him, and bounded up the stairs to his 13^th floor apartment. The elevator had gotten stuck on the 11^th floor and there was no time to loose.

When he focused the looking glass on Thirty-three’s apartment, she was already curled up in the sofa chair, reading. One of her legs was dangling over the arm of the chair and he could clearly make out the pale auburn colour of the leg and its slender firmness. He needed an excuse. Once he had worked as a door-to-door salesman and he knew that the first words and the first impression were essential to get the potential client to listen. The memory was useful.

It should be quite clear at this point that this tale is far from its end. Would the kind reader like to end it? Or would you prefer to wait for the author to find an ending? Things have to end. Our problem is that we often do not know how to go about finding that so-searched-for ending. That happens sometimes when the end is right on the end of our noses, on the tip of our tongues, or on the keys of our computer...