CW: Multiple references to suicide, mental health, psychiatric care

I promise I'm not trying to be a hipster! How come the first one I actually love so far is the one everyone seems to be panning?!

A mathematician makes a breakthrough that proves maths as we know it to be a facade and the enormity of holding this in her mind destroys her world.

Maths is a mystery to me. I was a classic untreated neurodivergent kid with aptitude that had me among the top of the class until high school, when became a language I struggled to understand and my mental health and everything going on at home and school fully made me check out. It wasn't until talking to people at uni I even had a clue there was mode to maths than arithmetic and equations. I've never looked into the art and philosophy of maths, I have even less capacity now than I did then, but knowing it is as broad and magical as any other exploration and attempts to understand and make sense of our universe is one of those things that brings me joy. It is a very real magic that is completely out of my grasp, and I that is kinda cool.

Mental health, depression, and Ideation and suicd attempts are something I know a lot more about, and have been with me all of my life. There is a part of this narrative that echoes my learning about politics, capitalism, kyriarchy, and anarchism. The world and how I see it and am barely able to cope with it and don't know how any of us just go along with the fucked way the world is and how that gnaws away at my reality makes this story hit different. Hell, adult diagnoses, developing post viral chronic conditions and disabilities that emerged with my C-PTSD rearing it's head as a clusterfuck parting gift from swine flu, and all of their effect on my capacity and ability to do and understand things in ways I feel driven to but can't attain makes this hit extra hard too.

A friend said to me the other day in regards to the above:

"I just try and keep in mind that mark fisher killed himself and that other famous guy who hated industrial society so much he moved out to a cabin in the woods started mailing bombs to people...you can’t attempt to fully perceive the beast or you’ll go mad."

There are many things in our world that exert an influence on us like they are an eldritch entity and I love how this story treats this mathematical concept as forbidden knowledge, but with a relative subtlety that I find enchanting.

Just like Tower of Babylon and Understand, this is a another thought experiment, but to me this is one written with so much more heart and a more real feeling character and believable notion. Her relationship and history with her partner adds a level of weight and colour I just felt was missing from the other stories so far.

This sad girl is also just a sucker for a sad girl.

This has by far been my favourite story in the anthology so far and it genuinely makes me want to look into that side of maths. ( )

Zero idea what this was talking about, too highbrow for me oof

Wonderful S.F. stories! ( )