Everything proceeded without further incident, other than my continuing to notice manifestations of nine: nine cars in a parking lot, nine blue bottles in an apartment window, that sort of thing. I wrote it all down, carrying the notebook with me. But the process became one of regularity and I continued to be agnostic in my view on these manifestations. And finally, the day of my birthday dawned, and I lay in my bed and looked out the window, seeing blue sky broken with small tufts of cloud. As I lay there, out of habit I counted the clouds framed by the window.
There were nine.
I froze for a moment, and then began to laugh at myself. It was so silly!
“Spooks,” I said, and got up.
As I did my morning activities, I reasoned with myself, arguing that I had been primed for the number ever
