Below is the transcript for Season 1, Episode 113 of Freely Written, a podcast by author Susan Quilty:
Welcome to Freely Written where a simple prompt leads to a little unplanned fiction.
[Light piano music]
Hi, friends! I’m Susan Quilty and today’s prompt is Infinity Plus One.
Today’s prompt was inspired by a virtual yoga class. In a sort of roundabout way. I take a weekly virtual yoga class with my friend Gretchen Schutte. She’s great and you can learn about her yoga and meditation offerings at peaceinthepause.com.
In this class, Gretchen asked everyone grab a strap for some shoulder work. We only needed a short strap or towel, so I used my infinity strap, which is a cotton band sewn in an infinity—or figure eight—shape. When we were chatting after class, I mentioned that I was about to go write a podcast story. The infinity strap was right there, and a prompt was found.
While the story rapidly tumbled into my mind with the idea of Infinity Plus One, I wrote it using my usual Freely Written process. As a reminder, that means I sat down with the prompt and let myself write whatever might come up, with no planning and very little editing. And now, I’ll share that story with you.
Infinity Plus One
“I love cinnamon toast!” Tonya licked cinnamon and sugar from her buttery fingers and rolled her eyes in delight. Sugar sparkled at the corners of her mouth and in the crumbs spread across the table.
“Cinnamon toast is my favorite toast ever!” Deedee practically swooned as she draped across the table after her next bite.
“It’s my favorite anything ever!” Tonya announced, determined to top her older sister.
Their mother, Sarah, saw where this was going and busied herself with some dishes at the sink.
“I love cinnamon toast to infinity,” Deedee said with grave confidence as she took another bite of the sugar and cinnamon encrusted bread.
Tonya lit up. Deedee had recently taught her about loving something ‘to infinity’ and her friends had given her something better. Now was her chance to try it out.
“I love cinnamon toast to infinity plus one!” Tonya emphasized the last two words, beaming from ear to ear.
Deedee smiled sweetly, glanced at her sister out of the side of her eyes, and calmly said, “I love cinnamon toast to infinity plus infinity.”
Tonya’s mouth fell open.
“You can’t do that!” She didn’t know why Deedee couldn’t do that, but she was sure she couldn’t.
“Yes, I can.” Deedee reached for her second triangle of toast and took an ecstatic bite, confident that she had proven she loved cinnamon toast the best.
“No,” Tonya insisted. “Infinity is all the numbers. You can only plus one to them. You can’t add infinity to them.”
“Yes, I can,” Deedee repeated. “I’m adding all the numbers to all the numbers. That’s more than all the numbers plus one number.”
From the sink, Sarah pressed her lips together to keep from interfering. She watched Tonya carefully to see how this might play out.
Tonya finished her first triangle of toast quietly and reached for another. She chewed thoughtfully, ignoring Deedee’s smirk of pride.
Suddenly, Tonya sat taller and held her toast in the air like a trophy.
“I love cinnamon toast to infinity times infinity!”
It was Deedee’s turn to be outraged.
“You can’t do that!”
“Yes, I can,” Tonya told her. “If you can add all the numbers to all the numbers, then I can times all the numbers by all the numbers. And timesing numbers makes bigger numbers than plussing numbers! Right, momma?”
Sarah contained her smile as she looked between her two daughters.
“Well, we say multiplying, not timesing, and adding, not plussing,” Sarah began slowly.
“I knew that!” Deedee smirked while using her buttery fingertip to dab crumbs off the table.
Sarah ignored Deedee and continued, “And multiplying does make larger numbers than adding.”
“See!” Tonya beamed and took another bite, smearing more sugar across her face.
“But—” Both girls looked up expectantly while Sarah weighed how much she wanted to say about the concept of infinity.
“Yeah?” Deedee prompted.
“Well, you can’t really make infinity bigger by adding one or any other number to it. Or by adding or multiplying it by itself. Because infinity is already the biggest it can be.”
Tonya opened her mouth to argue but couldn’t find any words.
“So, I do love cinnamon toast the most!” Deedee crowed. “I said I love it to infinity and that’s the biggest it can be!”
Tears came into Tonya’s eyes, and Sarah glowered at Deedee.
“Why does everything have to be a competition?” Sarah shook her head and put her arms around Tonya’s shoulders. “Isn’t it enough that you both love cinnamon toast?”
“I can’t help it if I’m bigger and I love things more than Tonya can,” Deedee defended herself, only making Sarah and Tonya frown more deeply.
“Isn’t there anything bigger than infinity?” Tonya asked softly, holding back tears.
Sarah sighed, digging into her grad school mathematics for something that would wipe the smirk from Deedee’s face.
“Well, that depends… Deedee, do you love cinnamon toast to an infinity of natural numbers?”
Deedee cocked her head to one side and hesitantly agreed.
Sarah whispered something into Tonya’s ear, bringing an uncertain smile to her face. She glanced at her mom, then said, “I love cinnamon toast to an infinity of real numbers.”
“Okay,” Sarah said briskly. “Tonya wins.”
She headed back to the sink as Deedee screeched, “What? How does Tonya win?”
Sarah began filling a pan with soapy water as she said, “Infinity is the largest set of numbers you can have, but infinity can be a different size depending on whether you have an infinity of natural numbers or an infinity of real numbers. Because real numbers include rational and irrational numbers, while natural numbers only include rational numbers.”
“What?” Both girls looked at each other, then back at Sarah as if she’d lost her mind.
“That sounds crazy!” Deedee and Tonya both started laughing.
“As crazy as arguing over who loves cinnamon toast more instead of just enjoying your cinnamon toast?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, um, I guess that is kind of silly,” Deedee admitted.
“It’s okay if you love cinnamon toast more than me,” Tonya said graciously. “I’m just happy I get cinnamon toast.”
“Me, too,” Deedee agreed. “And maybe you do love cinnamon toast more than me. Or maybe it doesn’t matter.”
They exchanged a smile and Sarah grinned to herself.
“Hey, mom?” Deedee asked sweetly. “Since we both love cinnamon toast so much, can we each have one more piece?”
Sarah rolled her eyes, then asked, “How about you share a piece?”
“Yes, please!” The girls happily agreed, and peace was restored.
The End
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today’s story. I am not a mathematician, and this story had no planning, so hopefully I’m not too far off on what I think I remember about infinity. If you want to correct me, or just say hello, you can reach me through social media or my website: SusanQuilty.com. Links are in the show notes.
You can also learn about my novels and other projects at my website or look me up wherever you buy books. While this podcast is a fun side project, I’d love for you to check out my novels, which are written with careful planning and extensive editing!
Until next time, try a little free writing of your own. Let go of any planning and see where your imagination takes you.
[Light piano music]