"Uh... Excuse me," said a woman,
as the man finally approached
negative one-thousand nine hundred fifty-seven
from above
"But how do you hope to ever reach
positive ten
under this 'backwards' progression of yours?"

"I don't,"
explained the man. "Unless
it happens
that infinity, vis-à-vis
the integers,
turns out to be cyclic;
in which case, this will prove
to be a landmark demonstration
rather than
a simple conceptual poem
or uninspired bit
of performance art."

"Oh, my..." cooed the woman
"Then do carry on. I'm curious to see
how this comes out."