Squares All the Way

The sheet of paper seemed to mock Paul, reveling in its deceptive rectangular design. It was a square that was completed, overshot, and stopped just before the length of two whole squares could be achieved. When Paul sat down to write, there was the tantalizing feeling at the end of the page to go a little further, to complete a square of the written word by spilling partially onto the next sheet. But when this happened, the white of the rest of the document, if left unattended, caused immense chagrin. The final word hung capriciously near the top, threatening to leap down any moment with a trail of diverse cousins tailing. A journey into the heart of nowhere. A half-whispered promise.

Once day, amid the sound of rain assailing the tin roof above, he felt himself crack under the strain of this quasi-complete square. He could stare no more. Armed with a fountain and a morbid obsession for perfect squares, Paul let loose his mind in glorious strokes of black liquid. The letters clubbed into words and the words leapt from one rectangle to the next, promising to fill a perfect square but always overshooting it and running the length of the entire page. No semblance of a plan ever emerged, either on paper or off it. Paul's surroundings meandered in an incessant flux. Like his beloved cohort of letters, Paul flitted from one dingy apartment to the next. Hurtful relationships whizzed passed him. But the words only got more fiery and inexorable. When he was sixty-five and still as obsessive as ever, his heart decided to desert him.

When his will was opened, there were only two lines found near the top edge of the page. The period at the end seemed to yearn for the white abyss below.