Numbered Forever

For this week's optional prompt on Poets And Storytellers United, we are invited to write poetry or prose which includes numbers.

Here is mine :

When I was born, ages ago, the hospital did not number my birth. 

As a student I was known by my Roll Number.

During exams my presence was proved again by a number  on the attendance/answer sheet.

At work place it was the Employee Code

Post retirement, thankfully, the Employee Number remains valid.

As a citizen I am again identified by a number.

We have, it seems, become prisoners of numbers.

Life has become a series of checklists wherein we have to tick numbered boxes to express our likes and dislikes, aspirations and assertions, compliances and rejections and sometimes detestations and dejections. Feelings are now being quantified whereas at one point of time I was taught that they are immeasurable.

During surveys, our experiences are required to be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 -  highest the number maximum is the satisfaction quotient. 

However, strangely, lesser the number in the ranking scale the greater is the extent of corruption in a country. 

At the fag end of life, I realise the anomalies of number. 

My days on earth are numbered , I know.  

I may finish the race within the count. 

I may lose it before.

Or, by a weird stroke of (ill)luck, I may outnumber the years allotted to me.

It's not in my hand.

But one thing that I fervently wish for is not to lose the count of time.

Shared with Poets And Storytellers United