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Inspired by Jayber’s desire to Tell It Slant

Long before it was explained to him, he had felt that numbers flowed like music out of the very centre of the universe. On fourth dates, when he really started to want to know about the girl and she wanted to know about him, eventually they would get round to first memories. They could never empathize with him. Vague recollections of dancing with cousins or a toy garage were wisps compared to the concrete jolt he could still recall when he first did real sums in his head. He couldn’t spell his name but simultaneous equations were his own private game. The world was full of things to count and chart and plot and project and as he got older, the lines he would draw got more complex yet lighter, until they seemed to take off. X and Y axes were his canvas. The world around him was his subject. To him, the numbers painted a more vivid scene than any watercolour.

And obviously, his art was much more real.

The birds would descend every morning to devour the nuts and stale bread warmed under the tap that he and his father would leave out, hanging from the shed or sitting on top of the oil tanker. And every morning he would wait to watch as carefully as he could, how it was those birds took off. Light but complex and out of nowhere they just jumped to rest in the air. How would you paint that with numbers? How could we unlock this soaring puzzle with maths? What made the birds fly?

He considered the birds.

They flew but never worried about the physics. They soared, while he was locked to the ground by his numbers. They ate and squabbled and sang. And every morning, after eating and even if they were squabbling themselves, he and his father would watch them and hear their song.

Later, from the pages of a book a voice more beautiful than any bird asked him to consider the birds.

And he did. Like a child he considered them. He received them with the wonder of that boy at the window, longing to chart their rise and explain their flight. And he realised that now as a man who had conquered maths, taught thousands, and learned to paint portraits of the world with numbers like a master, that he had forgotten how to consider the birds. In their flight was an articulate mystery, an invitation to that great miracle that had passed him by- the world could be known and that he was made to love knowing it. That numbers and music flowed out of the centre of the universe because there was a great artist behind it all, loving the thing he is creating.

Your Correspondent, Finds surprises at the intersection of things