Ben Stapp

Looking out from the Nicaraguan coast Zozimos sees a leatherback sea turtle hide it’s eggs.  The locals told him that they can get to be 9 feet long head to toe and up to 2000 lbs.  Apparently the eggs take 45 days to hatch, 90% of the children die during their exploration into the deep seas.  When they finally return it has been 15 years and they manage to find the exact place where they were born, despite the fact that their travels can take them on 20,000 mile long journeys. 

The two statistics that caught Zozimos’ attention was the ones that did not vary, that the eggs take exactly 45 days to hatch and that it takes them exactly 15 years to return home.  Both numbers are multiples of 5. 

On the balcony of the luxurious restaurant looking over the Chococente beach Zozimos partakes in some aguardiente to sooth his full belly.  He just finished the delicacy that is the leatherback sea turtles’ eggs. 

Again he contemplates: why the number 5?

One nest of eggs costs a third of an average monthly income.  Returning the glass of aguardiente back to the table, with his fingers he curiously shuffles through the remains of his meal -a meal made from a beast that has survived 110 million years and is now on the ‘critically endangered’ list of species.

What is in the number 5?

As he continues to move his fingers about the scraps of his meal, he notices that the number 5 also pervades his own existence.   5 appendages from the torso, 5 appendages from each limb, 5 openings in the face, 5 major organ systems according to Chinese medicine, and most pervasive: his 5 very own and unique senses.

– Ch. 2,  verse LV

Going back into his deep slumber he remembers a large house with loved ones stationed at different parts of the edifice. His favorite most cherished one lays on the ground in front of him infected with what at first glance seems to be some disfiguring disease. It appears that a creature, green in hue has symbiotically attached itself to the gory aftermath that only faintly resembles the victim. He packages the half-dead body into a box, haphazardly poking and ripping at the green parts inside, hoping he might kill what is still alive, and then hides the box. He wants to forget what he saw and decides to wake himself.

– Ch. 10, verse IX

The doctor explains that what is inside of him must be removed.  At this stage it has grown to be too large and aggressive and oral medication will not help to purge the creature from within.  The operation is risky and he is scared to go through with it.  He wakes for a brief moment and realizes he is only dreaming but still feels a pain in stomach where the imaginary creature would have been.  So to resolve the dream and wake without an imaginary creature inside he closes his eyes.  The operation was successful although it hurts to laugh.  As he gets off the operating table he sees two small, fat baby worms crawl into the crevices of the rundown wooden walls.  He tell the doctor that her operation was sloppy and she should of killed the baby worms as well or one might have crawled into his mouth while he was sleeping.  He then wakes knowing that didn’t happen.

– Ch. 57, verse CCXLV