But I realize now that I was wrong - completely wrong. They do have meaning, value, but vastly different then what I had assigned. They are numbers. Their meaning can be combined or divided in ways that could never be done with letters or words. It is fascinating. I have committed to spending the better part of today sifting through my library looking for these numbers, trying to determine what other secrets they may reveal.

What has he placed inside of me, or changed of me, that I now understand numbers? He has changed me yet again, but to what end, and for what purpose? I cannot even begin to guess.

And so it is thus: he has taken from me a discovery which I had made (I imagine) of my own cleverness, yet given me the use of an entire new language. How am I to understand this? Are his actions, by some logic I fail to comprehend, meant with my best interest in mind? Or is it (as I find more likely to be the case) simply a matter of his whim changing from day to day, task to task?

He gives to me and he steals from me. My life is filled with such seemingly arbitrary contradictions. I wait with resentment for his visits, yet anticipate them with a degree of longing. I resent his intrusive forays into my insides, yet feel some comfort in his attention. I despise his appearance, and his smell, and his clumsy ways, yet I count on him to be so - and if he were not so, would I even know him at all? How am I to understand these things? How am I to draw a satisfying picture of my small world if I am constantly confounded by its complexities? Perhaps... perhaps I am a failure.

I sign my name, confused,
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