I love math. I'm an eleven year old girl. and I love math. It's like this, okay. So, words can be put together a few ways, and they can create things. Letters can shape ideas and those ideas can shape lives and stuff. whatever. words are important too. But look at numbers as sparks that make up every single thing in the universe. The internet is entirely numbers. Your bedroom is all numbers. Numbers hold secrets in them the words could never ever even attempt to convey. Numbers are what keep me going, even when I'm in the hospital. I'm in the hospital a lot of the time. That's just the way things happened. I don't really mind so much anymore, so don't feel bad for me. I really hate that. I would swear about it, but Jenny told me swearing hurts God's ears. I don't really believe in God, but I'm so close to dying, I might as well follow every rule I can to make it so I won't burn. Because lately, even though I've been trying so hard to think optimistically like Jenny says, I can't. I know I'm going to die. This is the last thing I have to commemorate my life. It's literally all I have left. Because I'm sick. And in the end, numbers are the only things I have with me all the time. My name is Rhadika. Numbers are my only friends besides my nurse, Jenny, and I have Sickle Cell anemia. I'm a little bit yellow sometimes, but my mother just tells me I'm shining to God like a star on earth. This is supposed to be comforting, but because I don't really believe in God, it's not. I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything too cold or too hot, I have to take penicillin, and folic acid. A lot. I need a lot of blood transfusions, because my blood isn't full enough. All my red blood cells are too small. Too weak. They can't carry the oxygen. Sometimes I just wish they'd give up, but I know they won't. My family is from New Delhi, in India. I was born there. I remember before I found out I was sick, sitting with my father in the middle of the city. That was before we came here. When my mother would tell me about Canada, she would describe it as a shiny glowing place, where I could learn anything I wanted about numbers, and things would be better for us, and I could wear whatever I wanted, and I could see snow. Snow at first was nice. Then I realized how not nice it is. Especially here. It's too snowy in Saskatoon. And if it's not too snowy, it's too slushy. The summers aren't hot enough and the winters are too cold. But I try not to complain, because after all, I'm lucky to be here still, writing this. Beggars cannot afford to be chosers. That's what Jenny says. Jenny says a lot of things. I don't want this whole thing to be about my sick. I want it to be about me. and numbers. Becuase I don't want my sick to.... make me who I am. I want who I am to be a separate thing from the sick. That's all. So here it is. I am me. Rhadika. I used to live in New Delhi, a beautiful bustling place. Now I live in a hospital room, becuase I have a common disease that is rarely as bad as I have it. I'm going to die soon, and this is all I have left.  And I don't believe in God. Partly because I wonder about how true things like the bible can be, when people have the opportunity to twist the words-another reason I like numbers. They always say the same thing. People don't have an opportunity to lie to you about what numbers mean. They ALWAYS mean the same things. And partly because if there was something up there or out there or around here who really cared, they wouldn't let my mother cry so much. And they wouldn't let Jenny's Husband be gone. I once asked her about him. She said, "Darlin' there's only one thing you can say about a man like my husband. And that's something that would most definitely hurt God's ears, so I'll just tell ya, he was a confused soul if I ever saw one. Thought I could fix 'im. Boy was I ever wrong. But don't you worry about that now Miss Rhadika. You're favourite show is on." I love Jenny. She's from Georgia. Her accent is strange but beautiful, and she always pronounces my name wrong, but I don't mind because sometimes I don't understand words either. Numbers are better.