THE CONCORDANCE · ONE NUMBER
Seat № 01901, read as a number
№ 01901 reads as a calendar year, among one hundred and twenty-seven in the house, and it is prime.
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 1,901 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.