unary

000(0) numeral the identity, foundational set

One day, the world came to an end. There was not a single person on Earth who did not notice when it happened. Likewise, there was not a single person on Earth who noticed it happening.

A paradox, certainly, but not one unprecedented.

Those who were clever would call it an ‘unforeseen consequence’. Those who were wise would call it ‘blinding’.

Not all those who saw that were present in that moment. Most would discuss it under the comfort of their own roofs, images delivered to them by an infinitesimal stream of electrons.

Those who recognised the sheer extent of their own confusions at first were in the minority, and those who admitted it were a minority among those. There was rarity enough in that it did not take long for the world to admit that it did not know.

Exceptions abounded, of course – those who sought out conspiring superpowers were the first to attribute it to them, be those powers men or gods. From the latter, there was perhaps a certain prescient allure.

That day was named after an unconquerable titan that it evoked – Goliath – whose account was fittingly authored amongst grandiosities borne of humanity’s inability to understand its own world.

Maybe they understood on some level that for all the eras they had outlined in their own histories, the one and only age of mankind slowly began around the year 9700 BCE, and came to an end quite suddenly at 13:13, September 13 2016 CE.

But amongst those who were there, those grandiosities were not enough, for nobody but those standing in the very heart of that storm saw it for what it was.

And of those few who understood before perishing, there was only one who saw inside Goliath.

She saw that this was not her story.