She picked up and placed down pens, a pad of paper, various
notebooks for scheduling.
"Hmmmm," she sighed.
Her fingernails clicked against the hollow plastic
keys, numbers responding, popping up on the small rectangular screen in concert
with the tapping.
“Where is my
calculator?” she mused, once again searching the desk.
“I guess I’ll have to
just do the tax in my head,” she said as she tapped one then five then the X
symbol then period zero eight five.
“I mean,” she said, “it’s like this big.”
She lifted her hands a foot above the desk and made a square shape, framing the
exact same shape and size of the calculator she had just released from her left
hand, the one sitting on the desk.
I was
confused.
Maybe she meant “credit card machine.” To swipe my card. But no, she
had said calculator several times, usually while punching the numbers into the
calculator. Maybe she had another one that was her favorite and this was just a
crappy old one that would have to do for now. And really, if she hated it so much she
could’ve used her Iphone; it was right there next to the chunky grey
calculator.
She turned
the device so that the numbers faced me, so that I wouldn’t have to read
them upside down like one of those old school kid tricks of spelling out
“boobs” 58008.
Made you look.
Made you look.
She said,
“This is so weird, where is it?” as the 126.275 flashed on the screen.
My total
charge, calculated “in her head.”
“Oh wait,”
she blushed. “It’s this, isn’t it?”
She grabbed the calculator, held it up to
the light, doubting its authenticity.
“That is so weird. Wow. And I got sleep
last night.”
She was
embarrassed, I was embarrassed.
I was also more than slightly distraught that I was her
new patient. She stuck the needles in just fine this time, but what if next
time she couldn’t “see” the needles? Ouch.
Yet I was also fascinated by this
temporary lack of recognition, this momentary blindness that prevented her from
seeing the object in her hand. The object she was using as though it was an extension of her brain, watching the numbers change
with symbols and clicks.
How many times does this happen to us in a day? Maybe not
on such a noticeable scale, but in smaller ways: our glasses on our head, keys in our hands, toast burning in the oven when we do not remember making toast.
Or in larger ones: how many objects, animals, people do we simply NOT SEE in our every day lives?
Or in larger ones: how many objects, animals, people do we simply NOT SEE in our every day lives?
Maybe
this world is a whole hell of a lot more crowded than we think it is.
It also made me wonder where the line between Me and Other Than Me is drawn. When I have a calculator or phone or sewing needle in hand, does it become part of my anatomy for that time? Is that why when I leave me phone at home these days I feel like I’ve forgotten a vital piece of my being? Or is that just addiction?
Perhaps objects simply exist when we think them hard enough into being. Like how European ships on the horizon were said to be invisible to Native Americans at first. We don't see things until there is a want or need or context. That goes for people too. I've had people look right through me enough to feel this reality. I am at times someone's invisible calculator, but I am holding plates of food instead of a screen of numbers. And how many times have I walked past a homeless person without looking into his eyes in fear of connection, in fear of making him human to me?
She
apologized again, nervously laughing off the bizarre misunderstanding between
her hands, eyes, and brain.
I walked out
in the office, disturbed. She might be crazy. I mean, did she really think she
was going to be able to multiply 15 by .085 in her head? God knows only a 5th
grader could do shit like that.
Bat. Shit.
Crazy. I thought as I walked across the street, hoping I would dodge the cars-
seen and unseen (both them and me).