Prequel to Transcendental Numbers.
Three is the law of the universe.
There are always three bears, three brothers, three tests to win the princess, three lines before repetition becomes significant. There is the body, the mind, the soul. The land, the sea, the sky. Biology, Physics, Chemistry. Three is the most beautiful number, a number of eternity.
The one is the birth of the Universe.
Imagine the darkness before the light, the contentment of nonexistence, the peace of silence. The first particles, fusing, merging. Changing. Violently changing. It’s a revolt, fiercer than the Devil’s, louder than life’s, more insignificant than any war waged by man. Imagine you. Imagine me. Imagine the battered copy of Republic against your purple knuckles, the red in your cheeks. You called me “geek” because that’s what everybody else calls you. The bus stop is quiet. Evening sets, and the lamp lights flicker on. Your face burst to life.
Four is the number of construction.
I know, because when I was four-years old there were four pillars holding up my room, four legs holding up my chair, four feet raising my bed, four limbs allowing me to function in everyday life. So the second time I met you, I bought you four books about philosophy, and I told you four jokes about mathematics, but you didn’t laugh once. But I didn’t mind. I can’t mind, not with you. I’d try as many times as I’d like, as long as it was for you. And besides—I made you laugh the fourth time we met, at least.
I first recited pi when I was fifteen-years old.
Because you were never impressed by how I could calculate the height of a skyscraper by looking at its shadow, or the distance of a most certainly dead star. You were never impressed by me calculating how fast we could accelerate on your parents’ Volvo without hitting a tree, or how much friction you’d need to hit the brake. I sung, but the notes were only dissonant to you. I was reading a story in French, dripping mathematical splashes you called ‘meaningless’. But pi isn’t mathematics. Pi is a story. And I knew how much you loved stories.
Nine is for that time someone called nine-one-one when I broke your window.
I swore to your parents I was only passing by, but admittedly I could’ve been more convincing if I hadn’t stored so many pebbles in my jacket. It was a mathematical error on my part; I forgot to take into account the shape and weight of the pebble before throwing it. “You’re capable of mistakes?” You laughed after I got out of the precinct, ten minutes before my folks would give me the standard admonishment. “And here I thought you were just a good-looking calculator.”
And I looked at you, brow arched, amused. “You call me good-looking?”
You shook your head. I thought I saw a familiar red on your face. “I have low standards.”
Two is for two A.M in the morning, when you caught on.
Maybe I had recited a hundred and two digits too much. Maybe you realized the peculiarity of having a mathematician constantly trying to impress a writer. It didn’t matter, whatever it was. The bus stop was there. The bus stop would always be there, for the both of us. You weren’t holding the Republic anymore—Carnegie replaced Plato. “Why are you still here?” You asked. Concerned. Eager.
I had arched a brow. Concerned. Eager. “Shouldn’t I be?”
Your eyes were steaming blue, the hotter colors of fire, studying me like a test problem. “Not for this long,” You concluded, zipping your jacket up. “Not for people like you.”
We stood in silence for a little while, unexplained. Content. Your eyes flickered, again, before turning back to the book. “I can’t satisfy you,” you said, “I can never satisfy you. If I could, I would. But I don’t. I don’t understand what the numbers mean. I don’t understand what you see.” You paused. Perhaps out of guilt. “I don’t understand why you haven’t left already.”
In that moment—in that short moment where the only thing that stood between us was the descending evening and the inevitable bus stop coming to carry us both away—I realized I didn’t, either. I never did. I had recalled the numbers, over and over again in my mind, and they never stopped. They stretched out, too far for me to understand, too far for anybody to understand, too far for the entirety of human existence to comprehend. But that wasn’t the point of pi. That wasn’t the point of numbers. Understanding was never the point of us.
“Three,” I had began, slowly, as the sky turned black, “Three point one, four, one, nine, two…”
And I continued. I continued, for what felt like a peaceful eternity, surrendering all hope of meaning or explanation. I chanted and recited, until I had felt your lips pressed against mine. Until the streetlight flicked on, and we both understood.
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139,506 Literary Works • 672,595 Reviews
Oh crap I never actually reviewed this. I legit had started a review but I never finished beyond 'let the reviewing begin'. I think I need to do this as my first RevMo review.
Whoops. Lizz forgot the one thing she was supposed to do on August besides 30 reviews.
Actually I think I should start that review now, right at this line.
Hey there Ell. It's just Lizz dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin, three and a half weeks later.
Since I read and reviewed the previous part of this, I felt I should read the other part. I'm also trying to find out if there is any YWS literary work that will actually make me cry. So far not but this might just be the ticket. Who am I kidding? That's extremely unlikely. One thing you should know before reading any further into this review, my grandfather died last week. He was sort of the reason my reviews were so kind so my apologies in advance of this comes across as mean-ish.
Okay. Enough with the tears. I actually did like this work because you explained each of the numbers. I mean I was expecting a similar type of format because Pi played such a big part in the previous, well upcoming, story. And it would be nice to know why Pi was so important to the character besides the fact he was into math. But as readers, we feel that there is something more to the Pi story besides a fascination with an interesting number.
So should I do this number by number or paragraph by paragraph.
Yeah my jokes are pretty bad this week because I haven't written any jokes into reviews for a long time.
The explanation for three comes across to me as funny. I'm not sure if you meant it that way but I thought it was very funny. Especially about the bears because that part doesn't really seem to fit the rest of the idea.
I also like the alternation between long explanations and short ones. You know me, so you know I'm not really the best when it comes to explaining things. Congrats on writing a character who doesn't fail at the life skills I fail at. What I'm trying to say is that I can relate to the character in some ways and in others I can not. And I think I can relate to this fictional character more than there for some reason.
Maybe because you're the goddess of math Lizz.
Shut up Pisces.
Anyways getting back to story comments now that lack of sleep is starting to kick in.
This is somewhat saddening to me. To hear about fictional characters that I'll never meet or never hear anything else about but it's still sad to hear they had such a nice love story. How long was it before the one got sick? It's been awhile since I reviewed the other so I can't really remember. Please just fill me in, instead of letting me struggle and trying to find the answer.
The story overall is very pwierful and gets a lot of emotion across to the reader. What they choose to do with such emotion is of course their choice. I didn't cry but I think some people might cry during such a romantic piece.
I'm sure of something else now too. You would make a great Hallmark movie writer. This reminds me of the one where a veteran had died and then he was reincarnated and went to save his sister dying of cancer and suffering from depression. So sorry I'm straying away from the topic but I'm just trying to find something to connect it to besides current real life events.
One final note about this review before I give my dramatic exit. I had to be on mobile for this review and I could not get copy paste to work. If I could have, believe me I would have. Instead you're just stick with the comments I would have had for each quote.
Have a nice day.
Lizzy
The Queen of the Book Clubs
And the Goddess of Math
Okay so firstly, this is beautiful. Just, right off the bat, ten out of ten, I'm waiting for you to get published, this is wonderfully weird and perfectly poetic and ~damn son~
I, a natural critic, can only say, I'm not sure about the hyphen in "And besides—I made you laugh the fourth time" but mostly because I'm not sure about hyphens, and secondly, I don't think 'steaming' is great word choice in "Your eyes were steaming blue" purely because 'steaming' is water based, yet you compared the blue to the hotter parts of fire. I recommend either find a better word or just miss it out entirely; I have a love-hate relationship with adjectives and think it would still work perfectly without it.
But really. I think this style of writing will appeal to a lot of people, including myself.
I appreciate your writing and the romanticism it involved. It made me feel something quite inexplicable. Being a student of Philosophy I totally agree with the three laws of universe and other areas.
However you could have also given some tribute to no.1 deals with unity and no.2 deals with something such as marriage or mutual relationship something like that. For instance, 'We are all evolved from one being and at the time of death we merge with that one being and Marriage is the wonderful creation of human society which enhance discipline o other positive ideas but the idea of marriage works only if it is mutual'. These are just some ideas. You can change it if you like. I felt that you were a bit partial with 1 and 2.
Apart from this i think your work is great and you must get going. It is a wonderful piece of writing and every details of your work involves a romantic environment. Keep it up.