The Numbers Have Us - A Cautionary Tale

The borders have been breached. The invaders have snuck onto our shores and laid root right under our noses. They ride in cars, buses and train carriages, silently mugging us on our coffee breaks, disrupting our breakfasts and befuddling our minds with their whispered promises. "Go on," they say, "5 clearly goes in the little square over here."

And who are we to resist? Answering their call with a thousand pen strokes and frantic scribbles, we sweat and toil, goaded by their alluring simplicity before falling helpless into their trap. We struggle in vain whilst the beast descends to retrieve its prey. A snap of jaws, a muffled whimper. Su Doku claims another victim.

It came from Japan with the precision of a military strike. The Times fell before it, swiftly installing the grid-like terror within its pages. It lay silent, nestled comfortably amongst the crosswords and chess puzzles, and waited. Word spread, other papers fell. Soon the might of Su Doku was such that it warranted its own publications and sat proud amongst the best sellers, gazing down contentedly over the verdant land it had conquered.

I stared in bemusement the first time I was introduced. Surely this was the work of far superior minds? I had no place dabbling with its complexities and placed it alongside the cryptic crossword upon the shelf of impossibility. But Su Doku had seen me coming. It clocked my nervous fidgeting and deployed its most dangerous weapon: an easy puzzle. Egad!













Evil!

I bested the fiend swiftly. The creature had been dispatched by little more than a few well placed pen strokes; soon the others would fall too! But alas, my ambitions were little more than folly. I had played into its hands and lay helpless while the grand Su Doku war machine rolled out its minions. My powers grew as I learned to fend of waves of the fiercer troops, but it was too late. Poison had been dripped into my ear as I slept; I was an addict.

With feverish enthusiasm I would embark upon a fresh puzzle, but soon I would gaze mortified as I ground to a halt. When stuck, staring into the yawning numerical darkness, a man confronts the blackness of his own soul. His failures and shortcomings laugh at him under the guise of of a stubborn 6 that refuses to be placed. Misery descends and clouds the mind with fear and insecurity. It is a sad sight, the Su Doku victim, when he is backed defenseless into a corner by his own doubts and confusion. Swordlike, the biro is his only salvation, and he must persevere alone, for above all it is a personal battle, and only when the numbers have yielded their hidden positions can he breathe once more.

Until tomorrow that is, when the the paper falls open upon that dreaded sight and the urge resurfaces. Just one more. I can see where that 5 goes. And that 7. It won't take long...