Math 12X - Episode
The Black Void - Episode 21
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I walk down the hall, and then darkness again... And
a cross, the crossroads, the center of reality, the origin.
Yes, that is what they call it. The beginning of everything,
only this origin is far more profound. It is the place where
real crosses something else, the something else that parents
say does not exist and that most people have forgotten about. The real and
the imaginary or other realms.
There is a mathematical name for it: square root of minus one, or a small squiggly i. And the origin is where the paths of real and other cross. I swallow and emerge from my revery. I am again seated at my desk in the first row where I get a good shot at the board to take notes. The teacher, a tall thin substitute, the one who can teach 12X, the one with the long neck and almost colorless brown hair in a bun, is drawing an axis on the board. The Y axis is i, and below zero -i. The x axis is the real world. You can have combinations, worlds shading into one another. I listen. Math 12X is much better than the 11th year math I had last year, and now the truth has slipped out in eye-ease yellow chalk on a green board, but how to reach it? I know too well, that you don't go blurting out mystical stuff to a substitute math teacher, and most of the kids in class are too busy thinking about going down to the city to drink or their fencing lessons or drama club or whatever to much notice or care. I'm the only one in the world who thinks like me. I have morbid fancies you see, but this stuff is pure. There is a social studies teacher I can talk to down in the resource room. I've got a free period coming up next. On the other hand, even he is not likely to get this stuff. There's a new book by Ruth Montgomery in the library. She doesn't do much with math but she has the right idea, though she makes morbid fancies seem a little too sanitary for my tastes. Well...
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Roanna
11/22/2004 12:05:15 PM
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