Eric Scot Tryon

A Mathematical Certainty

Colombia has 1,129 cities. Bogotá is one of them. Bogotá has 7.413 million citizens. Marie is one of them. Marie has 35 classmates. Tomás is one of them. Tomás has 13 emotions on Tuesday. Anger is one of them. Anger has 3,104 possible manifestations. Violence towards others is one of them. Violence towards others comes in 114,931 forms. Throwing rocks is one of them. There are 56,903 rocks on the playground at San Juan Bosco. Tomás throws one of them at Marie. Marie has 21 ways to respond. Twenty-one ways that each expand and domino to a nearly infinite number of possible outcomes, some of which extend into lifetimes, hitting others along the way like a spray of shrapnel, all compounded by the naivety of a ten-year-old. Marie has 21 ways to respond. Forgiveness is one of them.

Eric Scot Tryon                          

Eric Scot Tryon is a writer from San Francisco. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, Willow Springs, Los Angeles Review, Sonora Review, Pithead Chapel, Pidgeonholes, Berkeley Fiction Review, Monkeybicycle and elsewhere. Eric is also the Founding Editor of Flash Frog. Find more information at www.ericscottryon.com or on Twitter @EricScotTryon.