He tapped his glass-lens spectacles. A progress bar appeared in his vision: Downloading Humorous Logic... 100%.
Toby stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes. The transaction was complete.
Then he saw the ad:
Suddenly, the world shifted. Toby looked at a clock. Instead of "4:00," the clock face read: "Almost snack time, but not quite dinner time."
Toby was a "Three." It wasn't that he was bad at math; he just couldn't physically perceive anything beyond the number three. When he looked at a dozen donuts, he saw three very large, complicated donuts. When he looked at his five-fingered hand, two of them were just... static.
He walked into the grocery store. The prices weren't decimals anymore. A bag of chips was labeled: "Three jokes and a high-five." A gallon of milk was: "Heavy enough to make you grunt." "How many apples would you like?" the clerk asked.