The Underground Basket-Weaving Society of Aus.

Evening Dress

c. 1900-1905

by Ayal, Paris

I wanna see people carrying category theory textbooks as “light morning reading,” equipped with their black coffee and trench coats

Hartshorne is a “chill bedtime story.”

They carry Hagoromo chalk like it’s an expensive cigar

And of course, read the daily math subjectClass mailing list, as if it’s the Sunday newspaper

Oh and…

they’re not like other mathematicians

I notice that there is one available seat amongst a family of three. I approach knowing that the intense stare from the parents belied a shared, childlike wonder for the true nature of the distribution of the prime counting numbers.

I smile a soft, inward smile.

I take my seat, place my chilled bottle of Smartwater on the table and from my canvas tote-bag remove, slowly and in sequence:

a slim-ruled, 80gsm, off-white A4 note pad and accompanying Pilot G-TEC-C4 gel pen (black ink, of course);

a CASIO fx-CG50, its protective casing bearing the scars of a thousand theories and its ‘shift’ button worn to a nub; and

a pristine copy of “on bounded gaps between primes” (it thuds onto the shared table in perfect middle C).

I mumble sweet nothings whilst I squint and strain to pretend to clean my circular wire-frame glasses with a microfibre cloth (I cleaned them moments ago on the station platform.)

A steady stream of conscious subconsciousness permeates the carriage.

“RH… cannot be a Gödel problem…”, “Goldbach… twin primes… both trivial when you think about them…”

Finally, as the train begins to depart, I reach up to place my bag in the overhead storage.

Upon raising my arms, tote aloft above my head, the small of my back is revealed by the untucking of my shirt.

That poor soul, sat in the seat immediately behind me and to my left - my future partner - never stood a chance the moment they laid eyes on the barely perceptible tramp stamp that simply but unmistakably read:

feeling their desirous gaze on you while you put in drink orders at the bar

holding hands on the way home from the date and it feels like a foreshadowing of what you’re going to do to each other when you get there

heavy breathing on the phone when they’re touching themself to the sound of your voice

grinding in a weird position where you’re both like ???? why does this feel so good????

If your sex is balloons, if it is blowing raspberries on your lover’s belly, if it happens fully clothed ir in furry costumes, if it happens in a group or alone — give it the same gravity, the same reverence or irreverence as all the tiresome scenes of heterosexual penetration we all grew up reading. … There is no marginal erotic unless you sideline it.”

Finished stitching my Oversight series.