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Wednesday 9 June 2010

Geometry

Anyone can draw a line.

Suppose,

A = < B = ^ C = >

D and E = some further mystical substance:

What makes X?

I draw.

Wrong order. Not too squiggly, not too spindly, straight through the axis. Use a ruler if you like.

Did you know Euclid constructed a theory of parallel lines?

The thing is, I can draw a line. I know it. Just the other day I had this discussion with the good Dr Smalling about the very subject. I even surprised myself with the sophistication of the regression, the erudition of analysis, as taut as someone who’d not only drawn a thousand lines, but who could imbed them in several meta-theoretical frameworks simultaneously.

In the end, we wait for the solidity to fashion itself from the distilled air hovering about the office.

That night I dream I trace a line to the moon, erasing it on the way down for some mad witness to consign it to the realm of myth, while I hoard it – in my distant tower like a bald man falling upon the secret to Rapunzel’s hair or – under my curved hat like a monk.

By the time I receive his next directive to send him a mock up of what we discussed, the steam has dissipated and the page is swollen with what looks to be a fetid standing pool of water.

I look for a reason. Maybe it’s because Dad used to tie my left hand behind my back. Maybe it’s more unconscious than that.

This must be what judgment is like. At the gates, the flames licking me perversely from behind, thinking the whole time I’m a shoe in for sure, my foot already in the door.

Now I administer lines, witnessing every single person attain glory out of the most self-evident incredulity, dreaming of vengeance like a sans-culotte.

Mom says certain people are fortunate enough to have the time and money and guidance to hammer out their youthful fetish for oriental trapezoids and Arabian triangles into something functional.

I say it’s the worst kind of dictatorship.

She doesn’t understand.

Walking in the sand, I come across a heaving cuttlefish.

I take my pocket knife and run it through until the black ink seeps over my hand like a broken oil rig.

Then I draw my masterpiece. I send it to him.

A magic wand.

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