Short Story
Math
It was a bleak, boring day as Henry Lancaster stumbled through the streets of Boston. It was mid February; the snow covering the ground reflected the dull gray of the skyscrapers that surrounded him, matching the color of the overcast sky. As he thought about it, Henry began to accept the feeling of being completely consumed by the bleakness of his surroundings. He began to realize, his whole world was just as gray and dull and endless as the sky above his head. His house was gray. His suit was gray. And his cubicle was gray. Most days, he wished he could take a few cans of paint and just throw their vivid contents all over his office, his house, his suit, so that maybe he could finally be rid of the color gray. He wished that he could brighten those parts of the world that he would call his own. But he knew better, that it would never happen and he should just stop thinking about it before it ruined his day. He continued to walk through the crowded streets, his gray footsteps following him.
Henry was walking to his office, his cubicle, where he knew he would be sitting for the rest of his days. He might get a few promotions, maybe a corner office, but none the less, still stuck in a gray box for the rest of his life. In his office, he looked at a computer screen covered in jumbles of numbers all day. He was an accountant, for a large, faceless firm. His job consisted of entering endless sequences of numbers onto that jumbled computer monitor, and then the occasional meeting with a satisfied customer, but mostly unpleasant rendezvous’ with disgruntled customers about how he wasn’t doing his job well enough or how they definitely had more money than he had calculated or why they didn’t have more money. He dealt with the greediest people on the planet, day in; day out. He used to genuinely care what these people had to say, what their problems were, how he could solve them, but now all he heard were numbers, no emotions, no sympathy, just numbers. All he cared about was that little computer screen and those jumbles of numbers, because they were inevitably his past, his present, and his future. He often pondered how he had gotten into this mess, how he had been trapped by his job in such a way. He could barely even remember how he had decided to become an accountant. All he could remember was his counselor in high school saying, “You like math?”, and Henry replying, “I’m good at math, better at math than anything else”. And now fifteen years later, this is where being good at math had gotten him. A standard sized office, an average apartment, and a dead end, 9 to 5 job, all because he was good at math. “But at least it was a stable life”, he told himself as he walked through the dense streets to start another day. At least it was a stable life.
He stopped at the Starbucks on the corner of 3rd and 7th to get his coffee, just like any other morning. When he was waiting awkwardly in the store for his coffee, he quickly glanced at the clock and realized that he had given himself an extra hour to get to work than he needed. When he finally received his coffee, he decided to take a walk, in hopes of finding something interesting to occupy himself with until it was inevitably time to go to work.
He strolled through the streets, eventually just wandering in whatever direction his feet whimmed. He was walking through a small alleyway that separated two apartment buildings, when he saw something in a dim window that seemed to jump out at him. There was a flash of bright colors and sploches of paint that immediately caught his attention and beckoned him closer. There was a painter, standing alone in front of a large, blank canvas. The apartment was covered in canvases much like the one before him, except for they were covered in all manner of things, some with a beautiful landscape, others with faces of human beings Henry had never met. They were all terrific, as if each one could be a portal to another place and time. There were brushes thrown about the floor, paint dotted every surface of the rather small apartment. In the background, there was what appeared to be a fridge from possibly the 1960’s and a washing machine and dryer to match right next to it. It was obvious that the painter was not a rich man.
The painter had his hand on his chin as he stared intently at the blank canvas. His gaze was so piercing, it seemed as though the canvas would begin to paint itself if it had the ability to do so. The painter slowly walked up to the canvas, and began to run his hand along it, trying to feel what should be painted on its surface. Henry was intrigued by this, and as he watched on he remembered repeating a similar process in his earlier life. He used to paint in high school and he had only given a little thought to becoming an artist. He thought it was too much of a risk, too unstable of a lifestyle. His parents also both dismissed it as childish and not important in the scheme of things, so he had forgotten about his minor hobby in search of a greater calling. This was the first time he had thought about painting at all in so many years. He was mesmerized by the man in front of him, he had never seen such intensity in a human being. He wanted to burst into his apartment and buy every piece of art he had so as to reward him for how much he cared about his job, for the passion and emotion he put into his work. As Henry was thinking this, the painter’s face lit up and he reached for his brushes. He had found his inspiration.
As he began to paint, Henry looked at his watch and saw that he had to start heading over to work, unless we wanted a lecture from the boss. He wanted to desperately know what he was painting, what his masterpiece would be, but it looked as though he might never find out. He began to turn away from the window, staring back for every second that he could and then finally turning the corner and losing sight of the apartment window. As he began to sulk to his office, through the dull, gray streets he realized a terrible truth. Of all the things that he hated in this world, he hated math the most.