Problems with Zero by Mitchell Gauvin

When Zero came to me after Polygon’s attack, hands like knives cutting wind and flesh, I could see Zero’s hurt at having to endure in this geometry. They wanted more angles cut into them, to feel the sharp edges that came with many sides. They wanted to be the Blue Mosque in Istanbul or the Basilica of St. Gereon in Köln or the gazebo in Spokane.  The heart is a dull axe but the mind is a chisel. And so I chiseled Zero. A fine gouge leveled one hundred and forty-four degrees ten times struck with care. Thack thack thack. Bits of integer on my shop floor. I passed Zero a mirror when I was finished and they marveled at their new edges, a decagon like they requested. But they were not satisfied. “Give me more,” Zero said. “Magnitude is measured in powers of ten. I want ten to the power of ten.”

“A shape with ten billion sides cannot be imagined,” I replied.

“Then I want to be beyond imagination.”

And so I continued to chip away at Zero. More bits of integer, more natural numbers, hours upon hours and days upon days and months upon months of gouging. After one year, ten thousand sides. After five years, one hundred thousand. After a decade, I’d only managed one million. “How can I continue when I can no longer imagine you?” I said.

“Can I still be comprehended?” Zero asked.

“You can.”

“Then stop trying to imagine.”

I raised my chisel once more and returned to chipping away at Zero until every inch was gone, every side infinitesimally small, every edge angled and sharpened and then angled and sharpened again, until they had returned to where they had started, until Zero had been ground down to nothing.

Mitchell Gauvin is a Canadian-born, Germany-based writer, editor, and educator. His short fiction has appeared in Quibble Quarterly, The Feathertale Review, SAND, and Broken Pencil. His debut novel, Vandal Confession, was published in 2015 and translated into French in 2017. He regularly works with Latitude 46 Publishing as an editor.