A question I have not settled, thought through in the open — an attempt, in the old sense.
You can show someone three stones. Set them on a table, point: three. You can show them one. You can, with some effort, show a thousand — a crowd, a field of grain, a long enough wait. You cannot show anyone zero stones. You can clear the table and gesture, but the gesture lands on […]
In September 1752, the British went to sleep on the second and woke up on the fourteenth. The days in between — the third through the thirteenth — did not happen. Not “were uneventful.” Did not exist. The calendar simply stepped over them, the way you might skip a stair. Eleven days were removed from […]