Contemplations in Reading
by Rey ArmenterosFirst of all, I don’t ever want to write a book with that many pages. Those times I am reading a book that reaches the 666th page, I pause and wonder if that page is in fact the one that owns that ordinal distinction. The pagination might not have started on the first page of the story. Depending on when they started the count, six pages may have been lost to title, blank page, then title again, along with indicia and some quotations, and my place in the actual text might be on its 660th page, and this disturbing sequence of repeated numbers has actually not yet arrived. I have six more actual pages to read to get past it. It’s like the 13th chapter and the 13th floor, but worse, because not as many books have that three-digit piece of amalgamated spookery. If I read through such chapters and pages like I once avoided cracks on the sidewalk, I look at that page as something to quickly pass and move far enough beyond it to make sure I had also passed the 666th page of the actual text. No point in getting the bookmark out and prolonging this bad luck for the next several hours or till tomorrow.
When greeted by the 669th, you are reminded there are other possibilities. One of the digits is upside-down. I have to go beyond this one and the textual version of it too. But then, what about the 699th and the 696th?
The book I was reading today did not quite reach the 960s, but I thought about what a drag it would be if it did. I read about the symbolism in numerology so many years ago, I hardly remember the ramifications of these numbers. But to this day, I still have personal favorites, like nine, three, and two, and of course, one.
The way to add things up in numerology is a simple system. If you have a number with more than one digit, you add each digit with the others to get a new number. If that new number is not a single digit number, you do it again, and you continue until you have one of the first nine numbers. For example, in 12, you add the one with the two, and you get three. With 2485, you add the numbers together and get 19. Then, add the one and the nine to get ten, and then add one with zero to get one.
666 gives 18, which reduces to nine. I like that last number but not the first. When you add 3 to that unholy number and get 669, it changes the results to 3, because 6+6+9=21, and 2+1=3. It is interesting because if you added 666 with 9, it retains the conclusion of 9. I just remember that all numbers divisible by 9 end up with 9 in this system. I believe it is the only number that does that.
