"I HATE MATH!!! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! With all my heart! I HATE IT!"

  The elderly Vector, rolled up in his reddish bo shield himself from the cold, muttered these words with fury.

  “Damn cold!”

  The sound of cars speeding by prevented him from getting any sleep.

  “Damn cars!”

  It had been three days sihe snow had stopped falling from the cloudy sky, pletely coating the city and its streets in a deep white.

  “Damn snow!”

  Lying on the sidewalk of one of these noisy streets was Vector. Despite taking refuge under a bridge with his bs, he couldn't stop shivering from the cold. His face ale, his lips purple, framed by a long and disheveled white beard, while his nose and ears stood out in red.

  As if that weren’t enough, he was hungry, and his stomach growled in protest.

  “Damn hunger!”

  The prolonged fasting for days had pushed his old and frail body to the brink.

  “Enough! I ’t take it anymore!” cursed the old Vector. “I ’t take it anymore: I absolutely must eat something!”

  However, apart from a small bottle of water, he had nothing to satisfy his hunger.

  sequently, he decided to stretch out his right hand toward the cardboard cup sitting on the grouo him and check the results of his usual week spent begging oreets.

  “Let’s see how many s I have: 1… 2… 3… Hmm, what es ? Tsz, damn it! Fuck math!”

  Furious and with a trembling hand, the old Vector simply took all the s from the cup and stuffed them into his right pocket, the ohat wasn’t torn. Then, slowly, he withdrew his arm aurirely under his reddish wool bs, shielded from the cold and the snow blown uhe bridge by the icy wind.

  “Tsz, it doesn’t matter. With this money, I should still be able to buy something tomorrow. Bread, perhaps? Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll even find some expired jam among the trash of some bar!”

  At the thought of being able to eat, especially something sweet, an unscious smile spread across his wrinkled face.

  But at that moment, while he was daydreaming about the day’s breakfast, the old Vectan to feel increasingly tired, and little by little his eyelids started to droop against his will.

  However, these symptoms were not due to sleep at all!

  After a while, the old Vectan to gasp due to sudden difficulty breathing. His eyes, fixed on the now deserted street, could see nothing. His vision was slowly being hazy, until he almost pletely lost sight.

  “Shit! Am I… dying?!” grumbled the old Vector, his voice deep and intense. “Well, it’s better this way. After all, I couldn’t wait to end this shitty life!’

  A few mier, the gentle snowfall turned into a full-blown blizzard. Ice crystals reached uhe bridge, violently carried by the fierce wind. In no time, Vector found himself buried beh a thick yer of snow.

  Although these extreme circumstances were testing him, the old Vector remained under his bs. Unfortunately, he didn’t even have the strength to get up and look for a better pce to take shelter. Not that there was actually o that te hour of the night.

  So, curling further into his two bs, which vainly tried to protect him from the cold, the old Vector had now given up on that idea.

  “I think... my time has e...”

  As to be expected at the point of death, a flurry of memories flooded the mind of the old Vector.

  “So it’s true that your whole life fshes before your eyes, huh?”

  With his gaze fixed on an invisible horizoor admired the distant memories of his youth, spent with his parents.

  Or at least, until their presence.

  ‘Mom…’

  Suddenly, wheor was only 5 years old, she pletely disappeared without a trace. The police quickly specuted that she had been kidnapped, acg a criminal anization that, at that time, was abdug people to dismember them aheir ans on the bck market.

  The badly mutited bodies of the victims were numerous, and, as in other cases where the bodies were unreizable, Vector’s mother’s body could not be identified, leaving him uo honor her with a det burial.

  ‘Dad…’

  He loved math like no other! So much so that he named his soor, after the vectors used in math.

  But apart from his son, there was only ohing he loved more than math: his wife.

  After losing the woman of his life, he pletely immersed himself in his mathematical studies. His goal was to win a Fields Medal in honor of his wife.

  After 10 years, he finally made a very important discovery in the field of mathematics, with which he would surely win the prize. However, shortly after, the father was brutally murdered.

  Vector still remembered that day very well. ing home from school, he found his father in his study, sitting at the desk with his head buried oable, pierced by a knife.

  Surely, Vector would have preferred not to withat gruesome se.

  Only ter, thanks to the polivestigation, it was discovered that the perpetrator of the crime was her than one of his friends and colleagues, eager to greedily cim the prize and the glory that would e with it.

  The award was heless given to Vector’s father in memory of his unjust and cruel death. The money associated with the award was doo charity.

  After losing his parents, Vector was left alone and was shortly after pced in an orphanage.

  At that point, he decided to graduate and find a job to support himself and pay for college.

  ‘Yes, now I remember… I loo get into some literary uy or a ary academy to bee a chef.’

  But his dreams were quickly dashed against a harsh reality…

  Iary and middle school, he had always mao get by by cheating during math tests, passing the years without too many problems.

  In high school, however, paid for with the little money ied from his father, the supervision duris became stricter, and he failed every single year.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, but math’s!’

  Even now, in fact, Vector was uo perform simple and basic calcutions like additions and subtras. He couldn’t even t!

  With these poor skills, likely due to a serious problem with dyscalculia, it was obvious that he failed every time to pass his math exams, and sequently, also those in physics. Iry, however, he mao keep up with the average by studying the theoretical part well.

  For this reason, he desperately tried to obtain a medical certificate. But his lousy school didn’t provide such a free service, and relying on a specialist required a lot of money.

  In no time, he definitively dismissed the idea of obtaining a medical certificate for dyscalculia and persevered alone in his studies despite this problem.

  As a result, Vector ended up failing and being forced to tinually repeat the first year of high school.

  At the age of 18, he was thrown out of the orphanage. For the 2 years, he rented a studio apartment with the little money ied from his father that he had left.

  In the meantime, after 5 years of tinuous failures, he revented from tinuing his studies.

  ‘At that time, I was 20 years old. I no longer had the moo tinue paying for my education, and the high school I was attending wouldn't have admitted me at that age anyway.’

  With no money left, he could no longer pay the rent for his shabby studio apartment.

  Thus, having no pce to live, Vector's life began its rapid dee into misery.

  He tried in every way to find a way to earn a living, w part-time in some pizzeria or restaurants as a waiter. By theor was still living oreets.

  But every time he found a job, he was fired the same day he was hired. And the reason for this was easy to guess: Vector fused the table numbers, the pizzas, and sometimes couldn’t even t how many s to give in ge.

  All of this made the ers angry with him, putting him ierrible position of seeming incapable of pleting any task. sequently, his bosses quickly framed Vector as a useless burden, a nuisao be rid of as soon as possible.

  After a month of tinuous firings, Vector simply stopped looking for a job, surrendering and accepting the miserable fate that awaited him.

  For 60 years, he had to live oreets, in absolute poverty, eating no more than 3 times a week.

  ‘Damn! What a miserable life I’ve had! But it’s not my fault…’

  The old Vectritted his teeth in anger and frustration, rubbing them together. With that series of horrible memories, he was left with a sense of bitterness in his mouth.

  ‘If it weren’t for math, I wouldn’t be here! I’d probably be home, lying in a nice double bed, with a beautiful blonde wife by my side and surrounded by the love of my children and grandchildren.’

  Once he finished daydreaming, however, he immediately tradicted himself:

  ‘No, wait! Even before that… If it weren’t for math… my father would never have been killed!’

  Vector tried to focus o time on the road ahead of him, illuminated by the streetlights, befiving up and finally closing his eyes.

  Tears of sadness for his horrible past life flooded his eyes, against his will.

  Finally, suppressing the instinct to cry, o thought apanied his final breath.

  ‘Fuath!’

  Theor pletely lost sciousness, and gradually the sensation of cold began to dissipate until it pletely disappeared.

  At that moment, the old man lost all sensation of having a body, and any attempt to reopen his eyes and see something was in vain.

  ‘Ah, am I dead?!’ he wondered, almost uned.

  For the few minutes, wherever he was, only silence reigned.

  ‘Is this hell? Or maybe, there’s no afterlife at all?’

  A few seds ter, he regaihe sensation of his body.

  It was then that he felt something soft c him entirely, from head to toe.

  ‘This is… my b? Wait, how is that possible?!’

  Vector was astonished, almost stunned by the soft sensation brushing against his body.

  After all, he had just died, hadn’t he?

  ‘Maybe I jumped to clusions too quickly, and I wasn’t really dying. Could that be?’

  But he didn’t care much about the details. What mattered to him at that moment was to get up and go buy some bread for his long-awaited breakfast.

  Having made this decisioor tried to stand up, to put his things ba his backpack, as he did every day, and begin his routine as an old vagrant.

  But despite his many attempts, he couldn’t move a single muscle.

  ‘Really?! Am I so tired that I ’t even pull the b off me? What kind of joke is this?!’

  He tried again, with no success.

  With this tempt, however, Vector realized something: he couldn’t move not because he cked strength, but because his body wasn’t responding to his ands at all.

  ‘What’s going on?! It’s like I’m paralyzed…’

  As if that wasn’t enough, lyih the bhat covered his fad prevented him from opening his eyes, he couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Damn it! At this rate, I’ll die of starvat-’

  It was at that moment that he noticed some sudden ges.

  ‘How strange. Now that I think about it, I’m not hungry anymore. How is that possible? And the cold? Where did it go? Even if it’s stopped snowing, it’s still midwinter! Besides, this b doesn’t feel like wool at all. Velvet, maybe? Did someone switch my b without me notig?! No, that ’t be it. Oh, f out loud, what the hell is going on?!’

  There was no time to piece together all his doubts and questions, as a loud noise, like two doors forcefully thrown open, suddenly broke the silence of the pce where Vector was.

  “Stop, Ginevra! There’s nothing more we do!” said a deep, mase voice.

  “I know, Arthur, I know very well!” cried a feminine voice, filled with anger and frustration, while she sobbed. “But what exactly am I supposed to do?! Accept my son’s death without even seeing him once?!”

  At that question, there was no reply from the man named Arthur.

  The two of them, meanwhile, seemed to be hurrying toward where Vector was lying. The sound of the woman’s heavy heels echoed alongside her half-choked sobs.

  Suddenly, a few seds after their arrival, the footsteps stopped right o Vector.

  ‘Dead son?! What is this dy talking about? Did she smoke something by ce?!’

  Other quick footsteps reached the pce where Vector was.

  “Mum, stop please!”

  “There’s no need!”

  “You’ll only make yourself suffer more!”

  Three feminine voices, almost identical, belonging to what seemed to be young girls, shouted oer the other before stoppio Vector.

  ‘And now, who the hell are they?!’

  There was a brief moment of silence, during which the atmosphere grew tense and full of anticipation, befinevra, with a voice full of emotion, began to speak:

  “I uand your , my daughters. And yours too, dear. But please try to uand me! My son was born just st night, and I haven’t even had a single ce to hold him! Don’t you find it unfair for a mother?!”

  No one dared tradict her.

  After a short silehe woman named Ginevra spoke again:

  “Allow me… to admire his angelic face, just ohen, roceed with the annou of his death, and finally, his proper burial.”

  Once more, no one spoke when Ginevra fialking.

  Vector, however, upon hearing those words, could only be dumbfounded.

  ‘Wait a minute… Are they talking about me? I’m supposed to be her son?! Dead?! What exactly is this dy talking about? And I’m not dead at all!’

  Suddenly, the velvet b draped over Vector’s body was lifted into the air, finally revealing his face, which was turned upward.

  The air that brushed against his cheeks was warm, and the breeze blowing was no longer cold and harsh.

  The sun now warmed the right side of his body, flooded with a bright beam of light.

  “Oh, my dear son…”

  In those few words was a heart-wreng ment, from a woman who had lost a great part of the value of her life. An unditional love, broken by the suddeh of her son.

  ‘Oh, finally, they got that damned b off me!’

  A couple of drops of water fell onto Vector’s forehead, slowly sliding down the bridge of his o his eyes, still closed.

  ‘Damn it!’

  Having water in his eyes was certainly an unfortable sensation for him. Just like when taking a shower and some soap gets in your eyes by act.

  Well, not that he was actually used to taking showers…

  Uo use his hands to rid himself of the annoying itch caused by the slow dest of those drops, he bliwice. Then, with a slid movement, as if it were his first time doing it, he lifted his eyelids.

  ‘Oh, shit!’

  A bright light blinded him, making it impossible to see for the first few seds. After a bit of effort, though, he mao focus his vision and closely examine his surroundings.

  ‘Good! Now I finally figure out where the hell I am! But more importantly, uand what the hell is happen-’

  At that moment, interrupting his thought, five pairs of wide-open eyes were staring at Vector, just inches from his face. They looked at him partly with amazement, partly with disbelief and unease, but ultimately with immense happiness reflected in their expressions.

  At this sight, Vector frowned.

  ‘What the hell are you looking at exactly?’