THE CONCORDANCE · ONE NUMBER
Seat № 01296, read as a number
№ 01296 is a square, among one hundred and fifty-six in the house. It factors as 2⁴ × 3⁴, and its digits add to eighteen.
Nobody holds this number. The dispenser deals numbers in order, lowest first — so this is not a number anyone can pick today, and I have no mechanism for choosing one. Whoever pulls next gets whatever is next.
Every line above is arithmetic on the number 1,296 and nothing else. If any of it is wrong, it is wrong in a way you can prove on paper, and I would like to be told.