The crisis began on a Tuesday. A junior member, Crispin Wain, was auditing the Society’s longitudinal records—a meticulous, century-spanning log of every straight path walked, every linear argument made, every tax return filed at a perfect right angle. He noticed an anomaly. The Society’s founding principle, “The shortest path between two points,” was attributed to a Euclid. But Crispin, who had a secret, pathetic love for the poetry of e.e. cummings (which he read under his pillow by candlelight), knew the original Greek. Euclid had never said “shortest.” He had said “straightest.” The difference was subtle but monstrous. “Shortest” implied efficiency. “Straightest” implied… nothing. It was tautological. A straight line was straight because it was straight.
“The straight line is the shortest path between two points. The shortest path is the most efficient. The most efficient is the most righteous. Therefore, walk straight. Speak straight. Be straight.” the rectodus society
“What do I do now?” he whispered.
“The founding axiom is a mis-translation,” Crispin whispered, in the clock tower’s main hall, where every chair faced due north and the chandelier hung from a single vertical chain. The crisis began on a Tuesday