Before me is a mug of magical elixir I want to drink. What'll it do for me? I'm eager to find out.

There's just one problem: there are twenty negative spoons jammed in the cup. No way will I get my mouth past all those. They have to go. And I'm only allowed to move one!

What can I do? Negative twenty spoons. Twenty negative spoons. What is a negative spoon?

I mull over the riddle. I'm very shaky at math, especially negative numbers. "Negative 20 spoons poking up from 1 mug, that's -20 over 1. Wait, the spoons are down inside the mug—halfway underneath it; that's 1 over -20. So now if I multiply... -20/1 x 1/-20 = 1! Therefore there is only one spoon in this mug!"

Well, of course there is. That's logic.

I pull out the spoon--the positive, solid spoon--and drink.

NOTES

• SPOONS... Okay, anyone who has seen The Matrix is probably already laughing at me. Spoons in my dreams often mean the power of the mind over illusions, thanks to the scene in that movie in which a little boy explains to Neo how he bends spoons with his mind:

  "Don't try to bend the spoon; that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: There is no spoon. Then you will see, it isn't the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

• I really am so shaky with negative numbers I had to check this dream over with a calculator. As far as I can tell, the math is right. It's very simple, but…more than I can manage when awake!

  Or do I just... refuse to bend?

EDITOR'S NOTE

Wow, so much negativity blocking magic... and all twenty negatives boils down to one think. Oops, I meant thing, didn't I? Maybe think is right.

I wasn't laughing, or thinking of the Matrix. I was envious, and thinking of Alice. Lewis Carroll would have loved this dream. Drink me, eat me, and be transformed! If you can solve the negativity riddle.

"When I was going down the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today--
I wish, I wish he'd go away!"

And what then? What's in that elixir--what'll it do, if you can get past the negatives to reach it?

------Chris Wayan

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