Punching Through the Drywall of the Mind
"Sometimes the biggest puzzles aren't hidden in secret places. Sometimes they're hiding in plain sight."
Imagine your mind as a room.
Every opinion, assumption and belief you've built throughout your life forms another sheet of drywall. Most people spend their lives decorating those walls.
Every now and then, however, an idea comes along that doesn't ask you to believe it.
It simply asks you to stop...
...look twice...
...and wonder.
This project isn't about proving a conspiracy.
It isn't about claiming a company secretly encoded hidden messages into a product.
It's about curiosity.
It's about taking an everyday object and asking, "What happens if I read this differently?"
The result became what I now call The TAUS Cipher.
The Can That Started Everything
The inspiration came from something surprisingly ordinary:
A Monster Energy Zero Ultra can.
Like most people, I originally saw exactly what anyone else would see.
A drink.
A logo.
Ingredients.
Marketing.
But then I noticed something else.
Printed on the can is a customer support phone number written as a phoneword:
1-800-M-ENERGY
That immediately caught my attention.
Long before smartphones, phonewords only worked because every letter corresponded to a number on the mobile and telephone keypad.
In other words...
The can already contains its own invitation to think about letters as numbers.
Not because it says "use T9."
But because that's exactly how phonewords are designed to work.
For me, that became the doorway into the puzzle.
The Forgotten Language of T9
Many people today have never used T9 predictive texting.
Before touchscreens, every letter belonged to a number.
2 = ABC
3 = DEF
4 = GHI
5 = JKL
6 = MNO
7 = PQRS
8 = TUV
9 = WXYZ
Every word could be transformed into numbers.
Numbers could become letters again.
It was a simple communication system that millions of people used every day without thinking twice about it.
The moment I noticed the phoneword on the can, I started wondering...
"What happens if I keep reading everything else on the can using that same language?"
Reading the Ingredients as Numbers
Instead of stopping at the printed words, I converted several of them into T9.
ZERO
9376
SUGAR
78427
GUARANA
4827262
TAURINE
8287463
These numbers became the first layer of the cipher.
Building the Letter Pools
Instead of reading each word individually, I collected every letter according to its keypad number.
2
A A A A A
3
E E
4
G G I
6
O N N
7
R S R R R
8
T U U U
9
Z
This changes the role of the keypad completely.
Instead of acting like a keyboard...
It becomes a collection of interchangeable letter pools.
Each number represents possibilities instead of certainty.
The First Rule of the Cipher
One group immediately stood out.
The 7 key.
Unlike every other number, it naturally contains multiple letters, including both R and S.
That observation became the first custom rule of my cipher.
Within this system, R and S may be substituted because they already occupy the same T9 key.
The numerical code remains unchanged.
Only the chosen letter changes.
This isn't a rule of T9 itself.
It's a rule of this cipher.
Following the Trail
Starting with:
TAURINE
T9:
8287463
Applying the substitution rule changes R into S.
The numerical code never changes because both letters already belong to the 7 key.
That produces:
TAUSINE
Removing the optional ending:
INE
reveals
TAUS
T9:
8287
The larger word becomes the pathway to a smaller one.
The Number That Connects Them
Now compare the digit totals.
ZERO
9376
9 + 3 + 7 + 6 = 25
TAUS
8287
8 + 2 + 8 + 7 = 25
Different words.
Same T9 total.
Within this cipher, 25 becomes their shared numerical signature.
That doesn't prove a hidden message.
It simply demonstrates an interesting numerical relationship created by following one consistent set of rules.
Why the Artwork?
The accompanying illustration exaggerates the entire experience.
A cartoon character punches through the drywall inside someone's mind.
Not because they're attacking someone...
Because they're breaking through assumptions.
The black background represents the unknown.
The neon colours represent ideas appearing from the darkness.
The Monster can represents the starting clue.
The old T9 keypad represents the decoder.
The cracked wall represents the moment curiosity breaks through familiar thinking.
Even the cryptocurrency imagery serves as a metaphor.
Not because Bitcoin is connected to Monster Energy.
But because both involve the idea of decoding information beneath the surface.
Final Thoughts
This project isn't asking readers to accept every connection as intentional.
It's inviting them to experience a different way of thinking.
Sometimes pattern recognition reveals something meaningful.
Sometimes it simply creates an enjoyable puzzle.
Both outcomes have value.
The old mobile phone keypad was designed tonoq help people communicate.
Perhaps, years later, it can also become the foundation for a new kind of cryptic storytelling.
If this article made you pause...
Look twice...
Or ask a question you hadn't considered before...
Then perhaps there's now a small crack in the metaphorical drywall.
And that's exactly where curiosity begins.
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