Basic Mathematics

Posted on Wed 5th Jul, 2017 @ 10:17pm by

335 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Unity Week
Location: The Addams House, Queen Anne Villas

The house was dark; the only light showing was in the kitchen, where the replicator control panel glowed dimly. If you could see in the dark, or if you had spacial senses which didn't depend on visual perception, you might perceive that at the top of the staircase was a walkway, and around the walkway, several doors. Behind this one, Purulence Addams slept. Behind the next, Ischemia Addams rested. And behind the third... on a bed constructed of boards with nails driven through them, her weight distributed across many of the sharp points, wearing what looked like Dr. Denton's pajamas rendered in black patent leather, dreamed Chlamydia Addams.

In the dream, she was standing in the kitchen of her childhood home, dicing bloodroot. At the ancient table nearby sat a little girl with the characteristic Addams features, wearing a black dress with a white peter pan collar. Her long, black hair was plaited into two braids, one of which hung forward over her shoulder as she looked at the homework she was struggling with. "But I don't like Maths, Aunt Chlamydia. There's no real use for them," she complained.

"Of course there is, dear," Chlamydia answered.

"For example?" the little girl prompted.

"Well, let's take subtraction," Chlamydia said. "If you have two corpses in the morgue, and take away three fingers, what have you got?"

The little girl, Experiment Number Nine Addams, looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Someone who likes to take trophies," she announced at last. "Very possibly a serial killer."

"Excellent," Chlamydia enthused. "And if you have two corpses in the morgue, and you add three fingers, what have you got?"

This time, Nine's response was almost instant. "A third corpse you haven't yet discovered," she said.

"Quite right."

In the dark bedroom, the Zeta Reticulan spider known as Thing simply appeared on Chlamydia's abdomen. The additional weight caused Chlamydia's unconscious mind to skip a track, and by morning, she had completely forgotten about the dream.

 

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