Successor

I am number seventeen. I look forward to my turn. I have reason to understand my wait as something conducive to realization and not as a trap in which the illusion stops me. Why would I be, if not the seventeen? Furthermore, I am convinced that I have heard the thirteen say that the eleven claimed that the seven had announced that the five said that the three received from the two the promise that the one had been called.

In front of me there is a fat lady who sneezes from time to time. I have detected that her sneezes occur with monstrously regular lapses (as if they were the minute hand of her breathing, one occurs every eight inhalations) and always, after each sneeze, emits a slight moan. I'm not the only one who finds it annoying; the eighteen showed me his discomfort for the sixteen and with a grimace of his nose allowed me to understand that he would support any determination that I made about it. It is clear that he expects me to eliminate her.

I suspect that further back have begun to generate numeric societies, and nothing prevents me from supposing that a numericide has already taken place. This could be the origin, as an epicenter, of certain barely perceptible oscillations that propagate through the row in the manner of an elastic wave.

Maybe I should conspire, but with whom? Sixteen gives me an ungovernable revulsion, and I do not think I should trust Eighteen, he has a sinister edge, and has been exchanging inaudible words, behind my back, with Nineteen. This immobilizes me, since in them both my alternatives are exhausted. The conspiracy is not possible between ordinal mediates.

Sixteen sneezes once again, Eighteen emits a censorious whistle. I turn to observe him and he raises an eyebrow at me. I tell him what I heard Thirteen saying. Nothing answers me, just nodding, but I notice that his gaze is directed beyond me. I look straight ahead and stumble over the reddened eyes of Sixteen. But also that look pierces me. Between both, with frightful indifference, they crush me.

A sudden oscillation. Some were eliminated, but not me. I'm seventeen. I wait my turn.