Math Of The Many (Alternative Ending)

Do you remember LCM

from when mathematics was just another subject at school,

and not a currency of your existence?

LCM.

Lowest Common Multiple.

We grew up.

Our mathematics didn't.

We still flock together,

call ourselves community, society, cult, religion, civilization;

names for the same old arithmetic.

An assembly of LCMs,

each pretending the whole

must mean something more than the parts.

With HCF

as their selling proposition.

HCF.

Highest Common Factor.

Or, as the LCMs call it,

ambition.

They spend their lives

calling themselves prime numbers,

waiting for someone else to agree.

Not because they believe they are, 

but because lies need lamination.

Gloss and glitter

are the oldest misdirection

truth has ever had.

Every now and then,

a prime number turns up.

And the LCMs feel it.

The HCFs tremble.

Because if a prime number

is recognised for what it is,

who would bother

mistaking an LCM for one?

So much for faith.

So much for creed.

So much for civilization.

Nothing

but basic mathematics.

And before anyone gets the wind of it,

the LCMs, armed with their HCFs,

line up to take the primes out of their way.

Because what is death by numbers

if not

the habitual repetition

of normalcy?

In a world ruled by HCFs,

LCMs are prime and non-prime,

the rule and the exception;

prime numbers, a conspiracy.