Numbers!

    On the face of it, numbers appear to be a constant in The Village, unlike the citizens and citizenesses. There might be a new Number 2, Number 8, or 14, the person changes but the number remains the same. If a person is permitted to leave The Village their number becomes vacant and in time is reissued. Sometimes a citizen changes his number as in the case of 250 who later became 93.

   In ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ Number 113 sent Number 6 a birthday greeting. The trouble is Number 113 didn’t exist. 113 was an old woman who died a month before! But previously Number 113 was a reporter for The Tally Ho, so what happened to him? If Number 113 didn’t exist because the person had died, Number 113, the reporter for The Tally Ho in ‘Free For All,’ couldn’t have died otherwise the number 113 wouldn’t have been re-issued to an old woman as mentioned in ‘Hammer Into Anvil.’ The number would have died with the reporter! Just in the way the number 73 dies with the woman who committed suicide by jumping out of the hospital window. But if the numbering system does work like that, eventually there would be large gaps in that numbering system!

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