Numbers

2

"Yes, well how was I supposed to know the numbers were going to start falling!?"

"Well if you had watched those Barry Henderchuck videos I kept sending you, then you would have known how to not just survive, but thrive!  That's why Janelle ran off with whatshisname."

"OK, first of all, you are being very unhelpful right now.  Second of all, whatshisname's family bought stock in Henderchuck Inc. at the IPO - they didn't do anything smart to survive and thrive other than invest in the survive and thrive guy early on!  That's the only reason they survived and thrived and stole my wife and kids, your grandchildren by the way, whose side are you on anyways?"

"Let me talk to him, let me talk to him."

"Your mother would like to try and talk some sense into you."

"I would rather she didn't"

"Now you listen here, your father is trying to give you sound advice and you just won't listen.  Numbers fall.  We all know numbers fall, that's like a law of the universe or something.  The question is are you going to..."

"Honestly, I swear, if you say the words survive and/or thrive I am hanging up."

"Stop interrupting me, I had a point to make.  Now where was I.  Right, the question is, are you going to survive, and thrive WHEN the numbers fall because it's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN - did I get that right?  He hung up.  Can you believe it, he hung up on his own mother!"

"Then he wonders how he loses his house, car, job, wife and kids.  I dunno where we went wrong, honestly.  I mean we're not exactly thriving over here, but we're surviving at least."

Gannon should have known better than to waste precious time talking to his parents.  The odds of them suddenly understanding anything other than what everyone else understood were staggeringly low.  No, he was on his own.  With no car, job, house, wife, family, the falling numbers had reduced Gannon to the increasing ranks of the population that nobody was interested in hearing about, let alone from.  Despite the ever increasing volume of UnThings on the planet, it was like the more of them there were, the less they were acknowledged as even existing at all.  He would have no choice, but to run off into the wilderness and live with the WildThings.  Yes.  It was all he could do at this point.  He knew nothing about surviving in the wilderness.  But he simply could not throw his lot in with the other UnThings. 

No.  No, that was no option.