The Counting Cube

It’s not like any other counting cube. Most cubes have their dots indented. Carved into the plastic shell they were born from in a factory far off in the east. Albeit this cube was made from solid plastic it's not the jelly kind you might think of when playing Monopoly, nor the reflective kind. A simple generic plastic you could’ve used to make your tupperware. Granted my gray tupperware overflowed my kitchen cabinets. Would organizing them organize my mind as my mother would nag? I honestly doubt it. Watching the dark gray clouds right now has brought more peace to my mind than this cube or tupperware ever could. The only downside to the clouds is the absence of light the sun would’ve brought to my room. The only things I can see are my desk and this thoughtfully vague cube.

The dots on this cube aren’t indented as I proclaimed. Each dot that signified a digit was a button. A strong caveat is some of these soft purple buttons worked while the others didn’t. Sometimes I’d hear a click, while other times I’d feel the soft plastic rub against the dense plastic. It was left behind by my grandfather, not to me of course, I hardly ever knew the man. I was told he appeared at my birth. A few gray blurred times in my childhood suggests he was there. This cube was a gift to my father, passed down to him like some heirloom. An heirloom he obviously didn’t want. Before my father vanished he left it in his beside table tucked far away. When I asked him about it he said his father gave it to him and that I could keep it. From what I gather, from the stories my mother imparted to me, my grandfather and father had the usual rocking father and son relationship.

His father did what he could. It’s not like my father had anything vacant in his life. I pressed into one of the working buttons rapidly. The sound of the click felt soothing to some degree. Regardless, my father got what needed to survive and live in this world. My grandfather fulfilled his legal obligations, you could say. Clothes covered my fathers back, food filled his stomach and a roof always protected him from the rain. The kind of rain that decided to slam down against the ground outside. Sometimes the thunder drowned out the buttons. Or maybe it was my finger absently moving to the muffled buttons. Those muffled buttons were of course less satisfying. It’s like something was missing. Sure I could appreciate the sounds of the functioning ones. If I needed the click it was just a centimeter away, and yet the cube’s face never felt more vacant.

The color of the buttons did bring some satisfaction. The bright purple over its gray hull stood out, regardless of sound. But what could my grandfather have possibly meant passing this to my father? It’s not as though their relationship was filled with a plethora of inside jokes. This is the sort of gift you impart to someone you have a high emotional connection to, and yet, my grandfather had the gall to pass this down to my father right before he died, on his death actually. Not as he was dying, no that would be as preposterous as the rain outside moving up rather than down.

Relationships are a confusing line of work. I don’t expect people to get it right all of the time. Take it from me even something as simple as dating couldn’t be all the more confusing. After the first high honeymoon phase you start to really understand what old people clamour about when they poke their comments about such a phase. Nowadays elderly folk have steered towards the more arrogant part of the emotional spectrum. To some extent they’re right. But that doesn’t make them right all the time. I understand I can’t have everything. Their number one attack. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t have something.

The clicks from the buttons are so tactile. Flipping it side to side I can see the varying number of buttons. The side I find the least interesting is the side with the number one. A single ominous button sitting in the center of the cube face. I dare not to try pressing it. The depression that would overwhelm me should it not click with the tactile feel as the various buttons on the other faces scares me to my core. I try not to be picky with things like dating but I do have my share of boxes to tick. I’ve even broken the list into categories of what matters most to least. Each section has a different number of boxes. Some filled, some empty. But after the honeymoon phase you try to really nail the important ones. Everyone wants their love to last. I pressed the muffled button. My finger tip rubbed into the cube’s plastic shell. I know pressing into this muffled button leads to nothing, and yet knowing that outcome I pressed again. Maybe it’s what my father did to my mother every morning when he woke beside her.

My parent’s love definitely didn’t last. They divorced when I was young, the most common tale of anyone in our generation these days. It’s not like anything was missing from our lives, we were clothes, fed and had a protecting roof over our head. But unlike how the storm outside begins to calm, my parents' relationship never did. It never found that state of calm. My father gave what he could but couldn’t fill those boxes that my mother needed.

I can’t bear to finish the pasta on my desk. My attention is just towards this counting cube. As these thoughts tumble out of my mind the hours I spent working on the red sauce eluded me. The time spent watching the pasta boil is even more forgettable. My fingers keep jumping from a tactile button to a muffled one. Back and forth. The only button that eludes me is the single one. The one on its own. Sure I could press it and find out if it works. But what if it doesn’t. The disappointment of the single button alone not working could worsen this all the more dreary day. Then again, what is the point of owning this cube if I don’t try. I wasn’t given the cube like my father was. It was a simple choice I made when I was a child to keep it. It clearly meant zilch to my father, he abandoned it just as quickly as he abandoned his love for my mother. So quick you could ask whether there had been love to begin with.

But the clouds outside start to part. The bright blue sky starts to shine through and illuminate the cracks in the road. I doubt these roads were ever made from good quality tarmac. Some parts of the tarmac weren’t probably of the highest quality while some might have been. And yet with such a mixture most of the road remains. There is weathering of course, there is bound to be, yet it remains.

I flipped the cube over to its single button side. The side and its functionality that has always eluded me and I wondered who could’ve dreamt up such a cube?