He had done the math. The calculations all checked out. In theory, everything should even out with smooth precision, the two sides of the equation fulfilling each and every criteria implied in the symbol called “equals”. And yet, they did not. No matter how precisely he fine-tuned the amounts, double-checked the sums and parallel-parked the quantities, there always seemed to be ever so slightly more of the one than the other. Attempting to even the scales inevitably ended up with there being more of the other than of the one, forever

Defeated, he put away the now empty milk carton and chewed through the remaining cereal, his equilibrium perturbed