we were just four but when I left, they turned 22. how possible?

Question

we were just four but when I left, they turned 22. how possible?

Answer 1

22-4 = 18.

So 18 years have passed since the person in the word problem left the other group of people in the word problem.

Answer 2

So Adeyemi R.,

Peter F.'s explanation is one possibility (and the most likely one, considering), referring to ages, and a somewhat identity-vague narrator. But there's the troublesome shift from "we" to "they", and it is implied that the shift in number is instantaneous? Maybe a touch of anosognosia?

Perhaps the narrator was responsible for keeping the individual units bundled up initially, such that they considered themselves only 4 in number; when the narrator left, the remaining 3 units fractured into 22.

That could be an actual physical process (one "Beefstake" tomato making about 7 "Cherry" tomatoes, for example), or perhaps a mathematical transition among rather bizarre number bases.

As another possibility, "4" and "22" could be codes representing messages, or states of health, for example as is the case with CB radio lingo ("that's a 10-4, good buddy" means "OK, got your message" not "Yikes! I see a huge jellyfish in the sky ahead of me", arguably referring to a ctenophore!). So the remaining group of individuals underwent some status change, with the departure of the narrator.

Well, that's a couple of other possibilities for you to chew on, anyway.

-- Cheers, --Mr. d.