Numbers have long been the subject of much study in the world. It has long been surmised that numbers hold the key to understanding the world. For instance, it has long been known for a fact that the number &quot;Forty-Two&quot; is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. And the number 12 has long been used as a number for luck. But in all their research, man has long been unable to unlock the true mysteries hidden within these numbers. Therefore, a question has to be asked: how _long_ has it really _been_? Like all numbers, the number 10 started off as a simple Integer. Then it was called an Odd number. Later on, although in its Prime, it was not Happy, unlike its friend, the number 20. Perhaps because it was not Powerful, nor was it as Perfect as its neighbor, 11. It wasn't even Sublime like the number 22. It wasn't very Friendly or Sociable. In fact, it was quite a Solitary and Deficient number. And one day, it just decided to change itself, but ran into some problems. It was quite a _Quinary_. 2008-05-09T14:17:53Z http://ficlets.com/feed/story/29896 <p>Bizarre but intriguing little study of numbers&#8230;kind of hard to separate conjecture from fact from silliness. makes for a challenging but amusing read.</p> http://ficlets.com/stories/29896?basename=61153 2008-05-09T14:17:53Z THX 0477 http://ficlets.com/authors/thx_0477