5
He didn’t merely claim that 2 + 2 = 5, but that
0 + 4 = 5, 0 + 3 = 5, 1 + 3 = 5 and 1 + 2 = 5. Undeterred,
he unselfconsciously, self-righteously declared 0 + 6, 1 + 6 and
0 + 7 = 5, that it’s all divinely revealed with elegant mathematical precision
not only by addition but subtraction. I can still hear him dogmatically
insisting these truths to be self-evident as he bellowed through a
megaphone weirdly wired to an amplifier on Fifth Street:
9 – 2 = 5, 9 – 3 = 5, 8 – 1 = 5, 8 – 2 = 5, 7 – 0 = 5, 7 – 1 = 5
and 6 – 0 = 5.
For any scoffers
gathering around, he used
a whiteboard to display that what
is true in the tens, is true in the hundreds,
thousands, millions, billions, trillions and beyond:
As he began to multiply, my attention was suddenly
divided between the divine revelation on his
whiteboard and the stranger next to me
streaming him on YouTube.
If you’ve ever felt like
you fell asleep in second grade and
woke up in college, I pray you can forgive me
for not being able to capture his mathematical proof
sprawling exponentially into the quadrillions, quintillions,
sextillions, septillions, octillions, nonillions and decillions into the
infinities. Calculus, linear algebra and differential equations have never
been my cup of tea, and my finite capacity for comprehension could
not grasp the cacophony of equations belted out at hypersonic
speed through a megaphone exponentially amplified by
an amplifier, nor could I track the dizzying array
of ever-changing numbers, parentheses
and exponents on his whiteboard.
How was I supposed to
know the entire spectacle was
anything other than nonsensical word salad
of a poor soul caught in a tsunami of bipolar mania?
Did you catch the news? A team of professors from
Harvard and MIT analyzed the viral video
of the entire episode and found
everything came to 5.
5
When
rounded off
to the nearest 5.
Author’s Note
The poem is about the dismantling of stereotypes regarding people whom we see as "other," as different than or inferior to ourselves. When we do so, we end up judging the book of a person's life and character by the cover without even bothering to read the pages of someone's life, to see the intelligence, competence, creativity within them. When we do so, we fail to see how they too have been created in the image of God. While none of us are perfect, we are all of infinite worth and have something to offer to others in this world.
© Todd Matson
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| Todd Matson |
