Innumeracy

She's saying words, and I'm pretty sure she's speaking English, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what the numbers she's talking about are supposed to mean. They lie there on the page, dollars and numbers of people doing things, but they seem abstract, unreal, just arbitrary squiggles.

Words have been magic to me since before I knew how to read, but numbers seem like something somebody made up. I force myself to focus, knowing that I must make these seemingly lifeless numbers dance, even though I don't know the tune.