Summary

In an attempt to understand her emotions, Thandi visualizes a graph, where she pictured "the x-axis as time, the y as strength of emotion" (112). After her mother's death, the line of emotion turned inward, and began to spiral into infinity. The feeling became too much to be put onto a graph, as "loss is beyond numbers" (112). Thandi's graph then turns into an asymptote, where an object attempts to approach a line but fails, which is how Thandi felt, as her mind "was trying to reconcile [her] new reality" but failed to do so (115). Thandi further delves into the asymptote, since it seems to be a geometrical paradox. She concludes it is an effort "of pure reason, and the possibility of it must be made manifest to the mind, not to the senses" (117). Thandi thinks about sublime feelings, and how they become...