Black Holes: A Narrative Fiction

SQUARES

Pt. 1 The Dream

“Virtue can only flourish among equals.” -Mary Wollstonecraft

To screams she woke; they were her own.

It was earlier in the week when Tiff’s night terrors had started. Every night since Monday she had woken up screaming in her perfectly square bed in her perfectly square room. All was still in the house, and she could make out no noise but the faint murmur of the light box in the front room. Looking up and out her door, the dancing blue reflection on the walls confirmed her suspicions. Papa must be awake.

Tiff pulled on her square slippers and quietly walked out into the front room, rubbing her eyes to clear her tired vision. Papa sat on his square chair, the light box showed a man in a square suit giving the nightly

The man on the light box says that the Rounds tried to destroy one of our power stations in their territory. Such savages, those Rounds are…” Papa stared out the window, towards the border. The city of Domashk was separated into two halves. One half belonged to the Squares, and the city walls were arranged as such: four walls, four right angles. One of the walls borders the Round half of Domashk which, according to what Tiff saw on the light box and what the adults talked about, was riddled with non-stop crime, abject poverty, and eternal sadness. The Squares and the Rounds had been separated for as long as Tiff could remember, but the elders sometimes spoke of a time when Squares and Rounds lived together in harmony; that is, until the HOLY SQUARE revealed unto the elders the evil ways of the Rounds. After the Great Conflict, a war that lasted years and ended in stalemate, the Rounds and the Squares took to their halves of the city. Even though the war happened before she was born, Tiff knew it was for the better. The Squares, being so civilized, live wonderful lives: no hunger, no poverty, no sadness. Had the Rounds seen the light of the HOLY SQUARE, they too could live this life, but they selfishly traded prosperity and security for their uniquity. Tiff knew that Papa fought in the Great Conflict, as most men his age

The Temple of THE HOLY SQUARE was located near the border of the Round and Square halves of Domashk. Square, like the other buildings, but it’s walls rose high above anything else in sight, even above the opaque city walls.

I bet you can see for miles from the top of the temple.

Slowly Tiff opened the heavy, square door into the temple’s vestibule and hung up her raincoat, now dirty from the muddy streets, and walked into the ablution chamber.

Water, like food and energy, is a precious resource to the squares; but what is more important is presenting yourself clean before the HOLY SQUARE. The cold water jolted Tiff awake as she splashed it on her head and face. The water ran murky and brown as she rinsed her dirty feet, raw and caked with mud from walking in the rain. She threw her square clothes down a chute as a nearby machine dispensed a fresh, perfectly square and completely white set of temple uniform. All Squares are to appear clean, pure, and most importantly equal before the HOLY