It was the child’s mother who discovered it.
She had only intended to sit for a while and look at the colourful scribbles in the eighteen-month-old’s book. She would, of course, make all the right congratulatory noises to encourage the child. This was when she found the word. It was a large colouring book, with a few blank pages at the end. On one of these the infant had written in large, black capitals, the word ‘ONE’. She was amazed and excited at the same time, calling out to her husband.
The boy’s father, being something of a cynic, after staring at the page for a while, asked, “One what?”
His mother, on the other hand, was a religious woman, in an angry tone, she said, “Don’t be silly! It’s not ‘one’ anything. It is just the word ‘one’. For goodness sake, don’t you see, for this child to write the word ‘one’ is miracle enough!” She looked up at the ceiling. “This could be a sign, some kind of prophesy.”
They didn’t always see things the same way. Nothing much was said about it for a day or two. He certainly didn’t want to get into any arguments about what was almost certainly a fluke. Nothing happened, until his wife called out, in a hysterical tone, “Come and see. You must come and see this!”
He had to admit a fair degree of surprise when he saw that the child had written the word ‘ZERO’, again in large bold letters.
“I don’t know how,” he said, scratching his head, “but this boy is talking binary.”
“What?”
“Binary, I know you’ve never been interested in that sort of thing, but binary digits are either zero or one; that’s their values.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, but I feel sure it means something. I mean, it must, mustn’t it?”
He pondered. “Well, I have to admit, with this second word, it is a mystery.”
“Mystery, yes. I think it’s a message of some kind. Should we be telling someone?”
“Maybe, but I suggest we think about it for a while, you know, give ourselves time to let it all sink in.”
She nodded in agreement.
The real shock came on the following day when the child wrote the word ‘TECHNOLOGY’ on another page. Although it was truly amazing their very young child had written it, it did make perfect sense. They had several long discussions about it, with him saying that some kind of communiqué was obviously unfolding and they should remain patient until they had a clear idea of what it was.
The conundrum grew even more interesting when on the following day they found the word ‘MUCH’ had been added. Whereas, they had both felt that it was becoming clearer as to what the statement would say, the word ‘much’ didn’t help at all. They talked about it even more, of course, but there was now a degree of tension growing regarding the whole series of events.
It was on the following day that this strange business was destined to come to a head. The mother was deliberately watching the boy constantly for any signs. He eventually turned to his book and picked up his black crayon. When he had written, his tiny hands proceeded to tear up the book, page by page. After standing frozen for the longest time, she came back to her senses and screamed out for her husband. Seeing what was happening, he rushed forward and rescued the book, just as the last of it was being torn up. He managed to retrieve the last word written.
That night, when the child was fast asleep, they sat talking. Finally, he held up the torn page with the word ‘TOO’ on it. “We’re agreed then?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied.
He finished tearing the page to pieces, then bagged it up with the rest of it, ready for the rubbish bin.
They had taken a mutual vow of silence regarding the entire affair.
