Description
Prompt:
“May is the fifth month of the year. Write a letter to the number five explaining why five is important. Be serious or be funny. Either way, here’s a high five to you for being original.” (250 words or less)
Here are some examples of past winners. do not copy theres but use for reference.
- Humanity seems to divide itself around the number five. There are five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot, five basic senses, and consequently five as a number factors heavily into society. Important numerical amounts almost always are divisible by five; the one, five, ten, twenty, to one hundred dollar bills in the USA, analog clocks center around increments of five, and important landmarks around dates divisible by five. For example, the Spanish holiday Cinco de Mayo revolves around the fifth day of the fifth month, or Christmas taking place on the 25th, a date amounting to five squared. There are several pieces of symbolism around the number five. Five corresponds to the number of points on pentagram, the Heirophant in the Tarot deck, the Fifth house of the Zodiac, home to Leo and the Sun, the Olympic rings symbolizing five continents, and the Investigator Enneagram type. Since five relates to the human digit, any symbolism involving human hands and feet invariably brings in the number five. Perhaps the reason for the number’s cycling throughout popular culture is based on this prominence of fives on the body. With five limbs, including arms, legs and head, and five digits on each hand and finger, the number has always been a part of standard human equipment. Therefore, basing many different themes, traditions and symbols around the number may spring from our anatomy. If you look carefully, you can see the number everywhere.
- Remember when everyone was lined up? A couple scrawny freshmen but mostly upperclassmen leaning in that brick hallway. I got last pick so I was stuck with you, the one nobody wanted. Not to be disappointed, I guess a number is a number. But you were my number. You were the number on my back. I wore you on my jersey for four years. We shared the rain, sweat, and blood of high school soccer. You were with me for thirty-six goals, every win, and every loss. We beat under the sun together until you were cracked and faded. We bore the trials of mud and snow. You became my reputation. Other coaches would know me by number. Watch out for number five. Somebody mark number five. My sister would make signs that read “Strive to be as good as Five.” I had pride in you. You were me.
And now I still know you. You give me songs from the Jackson Five, the Guardians of the Galaxy Soundtrack, and memories of summer. Without you there is no Cinco de Mayo or parties in Spanish class with my favorite teacher. There is no five more minutes of playing video games with my little five-year-old brother before bed. There would not be five brothers bound together in my family. You are a strong number.
You and I are connected in my past and memories of you drive me towards the future.
- Five, being the first good prime, always assumed she was better than everyone else. She was the untouchable one (and not to mention the only one of her odd kind). She was boron’s atomic number for heavens sake, doesn’t that mean anything to anyone? Those morons, she would think.
With white collar felons, doped up baseball players, alleged communist, and rebel spies constantly pleading her, she was hard to get to. Yet, I loved her so. With Five, I was alive. Perhaps it was her Coco Chanel perfume that attracted to me first but all it took was a workweek and my maroon heart was in the shape of the pentagon. Next thing I know, I’m writing sonnets in iambic pentameter for her.
I wish I could say she loved me back. I wish I could say we were a perfect fifth, in consonant harmony. But she tore through me like a tropical cyclone, only destruction left in her wake.
Five changed my life. Before her, I had nothing to live four. Now I know what love is and I can move on to the sexy prime of my life. I still see her everywhere. The number of seconds I have to eat before the donut is ruining for good, the number of elements that compose my universe, the number of Jackson’s that occupied my cassette player. And I know I will always be able to count on her.