A Book of Numbers

It was buried in the libraries archives. Hidden away until it was placed on shelves by mistake. An infinite book containing nothing but numbers. People kept checking the book out, and kept returning it due to the fact it made little to no sense. Eventually a mathematician checked it out and intensely studied the book. Every page consisted of nothing but numbers. Some pages had many numbers imprinted on them, while other pages had single solitary numbers, huge in size, which are beyond human comprehension, The book captivated the mathematician who eventually convinced the library to sell him the book.

His studying led the mathematician to try to find the books meaning. He tried to decipher it, thinking it was a code, a grand explanation for everything. But due to the books infinite nature once a page was turned it was lost to infinity, almost impossible to retrieve. The mathematicians calculations could never be finished as checking pages became futile as once they were flipped they disappeared into the infinite void of pages. What started out as a challenge was now overwhelming, an absurd quest without end. Notes were plastered all over his apartment, endless incomplete equations unable to be re-checked. Attempts at logic had spiraled out of control, now endless number sequences that were now meaningless, even to the mathematician. The book had defeated him, his mathematical logic now just lists of numbers without definition or context. He took the book, removed it from his apartment and dumped in a random place, as far away from his abode as possible. Gradually, he got his life back together but the book still haunted him. He couldn’t work out its meaning, couldn’t figure out its meaning or purpose.

The book is still out there somewhere. Its infinite pages displaying infinite numbers will continue to confound people who gaze upon them. For this book will never be deciphered as it is beyond human understanding. Every number is present in this book. Past numbers, present numbers and numbers yet to exist. Every number exists in the book in all its possible forms. Such is the volume of information in the book it shall remain incomprehensible. Unless it is acquired by an infinite being.

Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges short story the Book of Sand: http://anagrammatically.com/2010/03/08/the-book-of-sand-el-libro-de-arena-by-borges-translated/ (translation by Antonios on Anagrammatically).

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