A satirical WINDBAR short story about vape culture, consumerism, money, and the mathematics of human desire.

The wind had been blowing for seven days straight at the eastern end of the village. It bent the red sorghum in every direction and twisted the WINDBAR sign above the shop into a complicated spatial curve.

Old Sun crouched on the doorstep and studied it for a long time.

"That," he announced solemnly, "is a hyperbola."

"No," I said. "One of the screws has come loose."

Old Sun refused to accept such a vulgar explanation. In his youth, he had studied advanced mathematics for three months. Although he had long since returned everything he knew about calculus to his teacher, he remained convinced that all things under heaven could be explained with formulas.

A fall in grain prices was a negative derivative. An increase in drinking capacity was a positive derivative. A debt that was never repaid was an infinite series. And whenever the village chief held a meeting without getting to the point, the limit of the function simply did not exist.