Numbers

Numbers. That's what your life had been. For every person you saw, there was a number above their head. Some ranged from ten or two, to fourteen hundred and sixteen. Really it depended on the person.

And you had lived your life, with these numbers, wondering what they were.

One of the theories you had come up with, was the numbers were how far away a person was from their soulmate. Being measured in feet, of course because it didn't seem possible to be two milometers away from your soulmate and not know who they were. You had hypothesized that you could see the distance between two soulmates and for a while it saddened you to see a large number above someone's head, thinking that they were far away from the person that they truly belonged with, that they truly needed. And in turn, it made you happy to see small numbers. You would often try to find people with the exact same numbers in a distance between, trying to think of a way to introduce them, just so you could see two soulmates meet for the first time.

But that wasn't it.

Then, a while after that, you came up with another idea. That the numbers were months, the number of months that you were away from dying. You felt bad for those who only had numbers like two or three, a few times you had almost stopped to talk to them. You never considered telling anyone that you could see numbers over their heads and that they were close to dying, for a few reasons actually. One, being that you didn't really know the reason behind your uncanny ability and two because people might think you were crazy and have you sent away.
But you would also find older people, elderly who had numbers like forty and twenty above their heads and you felt relieved that they were live a little longer, love for a while more.

But that wasn't it either.

Perhaps it was the number and years, in that person's opinion, until the world would end. Everyone had a different opinion on that strange question and if you asked around enough, you would find that there was many different numbers.
During this time, while you hypothesized this, you had looked at people a little differently. You had looked at the strangely, seeing the different numbers. The lower number, in your own opinion, showed how much faith they had in one opinion, or one doomsday-sayer. Other, who had larger numbers, you wondered in their own ideas, how the world ended. Would the sun explode, thousands of years into the future, effectively burning up the world? Would the Earth's core become unstable and inevitably cause an explosion? Would there be a huge tidal wave, a massive underwater earthquake that flood over the whole world, covering everything in hundreds of feet of water? Maybe we're invaded by alien parasites, like in the movies, that settle in your stomach and then hatch out, slowly killing everyone on Earth?
It hurt your mind to think of all the different reasons that someone could come up with, though you knew there were hundreds of ways that people have hypothesized the world ending.

But that -thankfully- wasn't it either.

You noticed, one night while you were laying in bed -where most of your deep thoughts tended to happen- many years into your life, that you had never seen anyone with the number one over their heads. Two's, three's, four's and five's, but never a one. You had wondered why. You'd thought hard about this, coming up with a few different theories that could be, but ended up not being.
And it wasn't until years later, that you finally figured it out.

You had been out walking. Just down the street of your town, trying to get to the store for a loaf of bread and maybe some milk -it really depended on how you felt-. You'd been distracted, looking around at the many numbers above people's heads. You turned to cross the street and almost stopped, right there in the middle, where cars could stop and hit you at any moment. You made your way quickly, across the street to the person with the number one above their head. A bright number one, looking like the numbers you'd see on a digital watch.

Then, the person made a face.

Your mind raced, were they about to die? Were they going to explode? Was it something bad? Something good?

Their nose scrunched up, and just then, they sneezed. A quick expulsion, covering their face with their hands and the numbers quickly reset.

You had figured it out. The numbers were counting down to when someone was going to sneeze.