The dawn of nothing.

A dark stage. We can barely see the faces of two figures. The mathematician BRAHMAGUPTA, despite his regal bearing, seems terribly afraid of the nameless STRANGER.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Who goes there?

STRANGER: Nothing.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Very funny. ‘Nothing’ speaks now?

STRANGER: Everything speaks—even nothing.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Well, ‘nothing,’ what would you like to talk about?

STRANGER: Oh, nothing in particular.

BRAHMAGUPTA: So what are you exactly? A concept? A chasm? A quality?

STRANGER: I’m a quantity.

BRAHMAGUPTA: You can’t be serious.

STRANGER: I am nothing if not serious.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Look, ‘nothing,’ I’m a mathematician. I know quantities. You are not one of them.

STRANGER: What makes you say that?

BRAHMAGUPTA: “Would you like some sugar in your tea?” “Yes, please.” “How much?” “Oh, none.” Be serious!

STRANGER: How droll.

BRAHMAGUPTA: “Do you have any brothers?” “Oh, certainly! I have none.” Ridiculous.

STRANGER: Are you finished?

BRAHMAGUPTA: “Have you eaten yet?” “Yes, I had nothing.” “Tsk! I warned you not to spoil your dinner!”

STRANGER: Sigh.

BRAHMAGUPTA: My point, I hope, is made. Absence is not a quantity.

STRANGER: Well, not a very big quantity, I admit.

BRAHMAGUPTA: You honestly think of yourself as a quantity? ‘Nothing’ is a number?

STRANGER: Yes.

BRAHMAGUPTA: And what do you call yourself?

STRANGER: Some call me cipher.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Ha. It fits. And if you’re a number, then I suppose you can undergo operations?

STRANGER: As it suits me.

BRAHMAGUPTA: So when I add you to five, I am left with… what?

STRANGER: Still five.

BRAHMAGUPTA: And when I take you away from five?

STRANGER: Five again.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Ha, of course. And if I multiply you by five—well, hold on. Five nothings is still nothing, isn’t it?

STRANGER: Yes—and no fives is nothing as well.

BRAHMAGUPTA: And if I divide you by five, still nothing.

STRANGER: Yes.

BRAHMAGUPTA: But what if I divide five by you? How many nothings does it take to make five?

STRANGER: Division I cannot do.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Ha, I see! You’re not that kind of number. Not the dividing kind.

STRANGER: That’s right.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Let me tell you what you are. You are a null, a void. You are no more a number than blankness is color, or silence is oratory, or sleeplessness is sleep. You know how much credibility I give you, how much plausibility?

STRANGER: How much? None, I imagine.

BRAHMAGUPTA: Right. None. [pause] What did you call yourself again?

STRANGER: Cipher.

BRAHMAGUPTA: I’m going to call you zero.