Shimmer. Eric Barnes

now. The numbers of a hundred reports and a hundred budgets and a hundred campaigns and a hundred launches, all those numbers moving across the screen of the calculator in Cliff’s hands.

       But, really, moving across his eyes. Because the calculator is more habit than need. Pressing the buttons only absently. Barely glancing at the results, results he already knows. Results he can do in his head.

       In fifth grade he learns geometry. In seventh he learns calculus. By tenth he is on to college.

       There aren’t any numbers Cliff can’t do on his own.

      The taxi bottoms out, hitting hard on a steel plate, then lifting for a second, just a second, and his papers slide in place and two files start their slow, slow fall to the floor and he’s lifted with the cab and his stomach’s fluttering and high in his chest and he smiles that kid’s smile of riding in the car with his mom, a kid, in the backseat, with mom in the front, and he’s thinking now, What night is it? What street are we on? What time did I leave home this morning? What time did my kids go to bed?

      And there’s only guilt when he thinks about that. Because why is he doing this? To himself and to his wife and to his kids. My kids. Six kids. None more than ten years old. Home asleep now. Most nights, asleep. Weekends he sees them. When he’s home for a few hours. Weekends they all smile with him.

       No one makes him do this. He can make money somewhere else.

       He will get home and slide into bed and he’ll want to sleep and already he knows he’ll be out of bed by twelve, roaming the house, trying to empty himself of the numbers still moving through his mind, and finally he will give in, sit down, turn the TV on and stare. Stare for hours. Two hours or three. Bright infomercials and lost sitcoms and sad, heart-felt commercials. He likes the commercials best of all. And over time his mind will stop working. Finally it will let go. Emptied, dumbed down, left tired and somehow cold.

       Then he’ll sleep.

       This is his ride home. Guilty and tired and the numbers moving. Once more folding the results, turning them over, seeing them again.

       And of course, like always now, just as it’s been for the past year, the numbers don’t work for him. The numbers aren’t right.

       He’s never seen a number he doesn’t understand.

       But he doesn’t understand these numbers. The company’s numbers.

       And he thinks something’s wrong with him. He thinks that, finally, the company has moved past him. He thinks that, finally, he’s not able to understand. Finally the company needs someone else. Someone older. Someone more experienced.

       Someone smarter.

       He doesn’t understand. The numbers are balanced. They’re checked. The auditors sign off. His staff okays them. The bankers smile happily. Wall Street nods and nods.

       But he can’t touch something inside the numbers. Can’t see some part of them.

       And he thinks that Robbie always knows. Always, he’s sure. Always, he understands.

       But there’s something, somewhere, that Cliff does not understand.

       He doesn’t know how to change this. He doesn’t know who to ask for help.

      How does Robbie see it?

       The car hits another plate, lifting and even turning so slightly to the left now, stomach emptied and that glimpse of his mom and for some long second he even thinks that this will be his moment, his epiphany, the second when it comes to him and he sees and, finally, he can touch the very bottom, the very edge of the numbers he doesn’t understand.

       And of course it is not that moment. You don’t see when your epiphanies come. They just come.

       And so still, like every night, something, somewhere, does not make sense.

      I wonder if I could maybe wake up the kids for a little while.