Reach One Eventually
A fiction
Inspired by DiAmaya Dawn’s
Choose any positive integer. If it’s odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. If it’s even, divide it by 2. Repeat the process indefinitely. No matter what number you start with, you will eventually reach one.
~ Collatz conjecture
Most of the great stories start with the main characters doing what they do every day until something happens that changes their lives.
I was doing what I did every afternoon, walking to the wooden bench while trying to prove a conjecture.
Then I saw her. That someone that happened and changed my life.
She was listening to music, I thought, with her eyes closed.
Some people wear earphones to be alone.
She didn’t look like some people. She looked sadly beautiful.
I knew I couldn’t prove my Collatz while she was there but I had only few choices at hand.
So I got my face as close as hers and waited for her to open her eyes.
She did, maybe the song had finished, maybe she felt my breath, and screamed.
“What the…”
No more sad. Slightly angry.
“Would you leave please? I can’t prove my conjecture while you’re here,” I told her, honestly.
“Why should I? Who cares about your conjecture.”
“But this bench is mine.”
“Yeah right, and this park is mine!”
“Please, take a look at the bench. Those equations were written by me.”
“What are you? A vandal?”
This was going nowhere so I sat down and tried to prove the conjecture on my notebook. I hoped she would eventually leave, when she realized she was not as sad as before.
Only sad people stay for sunset.
“Are you a mathematician?”
“No, I’m a vandal.”
A chuckle.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Put your face so close to mine. It scared the hell out of me. Are you a perv?”
“Maybe.”
“A perv would want me to stay.”
“Sometimes a perv needs to be alone too.”
Another chuckle.
Maybe she needs some help.
“You’re not sad anymore,” I informed her.
“Who said I was sad?”
“Your face.”
“That’s what you saw after looking so close at me?”
“That’s what I tried to take away by surprising you.”
“How did you know it would work?”
Now I know it doesn’t work. She will stay for a long time.
I put down my pen and looked at her. She’s more beautiful when she’s curious.
So beautiful she made me sigh.
“I know something about psychology,” I simply answered.
“Hmmm…” she thoughtfully said.
She looked at my notebook and asked, “What are you working at? Conjecture?”
I told her about Collatz conjecture. We tried some numbers. Her birthdate, apartment number, car plate, and bigger numbers. All eventually reached one.
“But so what if it’s true? Why it’s so important to prove it?” she asked.
I couldn’t explain to her a mathematician’s passion with numbers and conjectures. So I told her something analogically philosophical. Wow.
“Let’s say each number represent the number of people close to us. We all can start with different number. The number of them will increase or decrease during our lifetime. But all of us will eventually reach one. That is dying alone.”
“That’s so sad. I hope you will never prove it,” she said. “I hope there will be a number out there that will never reach one.”
The sunset lit up her face and she smiled at it as if it was the number that would never reach one.
And she said she would write about it. About loneliness and aloneness, and collatz, and the sunset, and me perhaps, because she’s a poet.
I told her I didn’t read poetry. I only cared about numbers.
She smiled understandingly and offered me one of her earphone.
It was 파란 마음’s リンダリンダ.
I still remember it because we replayed it so many times until we’re both jumping on the bench.
Most of the great stories start with the main characters doing what they do every day until something happens and changes their lives.
I thought this was not a great story since I didn’t change at the end of the day.
Maybe that’s why we said goodbye in the end.
Years later I find her poems in Medium. She has become the editor of a publication called Lit Up.
Now I’m not sure if this is a great story, but I’m sure that I have changed.
I think I’ve proven the Collatz conjecture.
And I also begin to read and write poetry
About her
And that day.
