Flatland Page #3

Regularity and Equality of Angles?

It is nothing!

Do any of us seriously believe

that there is no connection...

between geometrical and moral Irregularity?

Citizens! There is good and evil!

Let me through, let me through!

Civilization as we know it would end!

- We would relapse into barbarism!

- Let me through!

You can't go on repressing

the lesser-sided forever!

Color is equality!

We can find a third way!

Let us consider compromise

with the Northern Kingdom!

Citizens! Look what happened when

we relaxed our standards,

and allowed our elected officials

to include citizens of any shape!

We now have an Irregular as a Senator,

who introduces this Color Bill to our body.

A Bill that, if voted into law,

would allow our citizens to color

themselves as they see fit!

If we adopt the Color Bill,

our friends to the North could SEE

that we mean them no harm.

They would reduce their arms freely!

They would make peace with us!

Appeaser! The Northern Kingdom

will see this as weakness

- and enslave us all!

- Lies!

Lies! The Northern Kingdom is not evil!

They simply feel threatened by us,

just as we feel threatened by them!

Senator, you don't KNOW that.

You are hoping that.

I am not willing to gamble away

our very survival on your HOPES.

You've already put the future

of the Republic at stake!

At any moment the North might attack,

and it's your fault!

No no no! Stop it!

Oh stop it! Oh that hurts!

Wait a minute! No no no!

Oh put that down! Oh!

Hey now I'm warning you!

I'm peaceful, but ... oh!

Oh, no no! Oh my goodness! Oh!

- He interrupted my speech!

- We can fix the records, sir.

The bloodshed. The death.

Are we doing the right thing?

How will history remember me?

As the man who saved the Republic?

Or a butcher who destroyed innocents?

- Can I sleep tonight?

- Don't falter now, sir.

Great figures in history never falter.

I don't want to be a great figure.

I want to be a good person.

- Mr. A Square! Go home!

- I dropped my Glow Point!

- I gotta go back and get it.

- Go home and lock your doors...

- Wait I jus...

- Oof! Oh! Oh!

Do you know the way out of here, brother?

Can't you see there's a

riot going on out there?

Do you know the way out of here,

out of this world?

Out of this... you old fool,

there is no out of here.

We'll see. We'll see.

Gods preserve his angularity in death...

Gods preserve his angularity in death...

He had children!

He was more than a soldier!

He may not have been a big important man,

but he was worth something!

He was practically my brother!

I was so worried!

The news said those horrible

Chromatists had started a riot!

Yeah! I was caught up in it.

- Are you hurt?

- No. Geez. Just, I'm just exhausted

- What happened?

- It's the end of the world.

Blood. Death. Murder.

Everyone killing everyone.

What are we to do?

Not much to do. Keep the door

locked and we'll stay inside.

I'm frightened!

Well, perhaps the new

day will bring a new world.

Hello. Hello there. Can you hear me?

Hello. Hello there.

What's going on here? Where am I?

What's all this monotonous chirping,

ya little line?

- Little?

- Monotonous?

I'm King of Lineland, Monarch of the world!

What are you, puny-voiced intrusion?

I'm A Square.

- A what?

- Square.

- A what?

- A Square.

- A squire?

- Don't talk gibberish to me.

Let's just say I'm a voice...

You are not one of Lineland's voices.

- I would recognize you.

- Let me hear your bass voice.

- My what?

- Your other voice.

I don't have any other voice.

- Then you're a woman?

- No.

- No! I'm a man.

- I thought you said you were a quare.

I am a visitor,

let's say from another world.

There's no world beside Lineland.

- Oh, you're wrong about that

- Is that so?

Prove it!

And address me as Your Majesty!

But, Your Majesty,

- you can't actually see lines?

- Impossible.

- Although,

- In death,

yes,

some of us believe we will

experience this mystic awareness

of a Straight Line in an afterlife.

Ah! Yes, of course!

I must be from that world,

the world of your afterlife,

where... you shall join me in the

Absoluteness of Two-Dimensionality!

Nonsense!

I see to the left of you two lines,

a point, a line, a point, a line...

and two points.

- Is that correct?

- What do you mean by left?

I mean to your... your bass end.

And to the right are two points, a line,

a point, a line, a point, and two lines.

Now, how did I know that

if I couldn't see them?

Tell me the length of the nine hundred

ninety-ninth male to my backwards!

- I ..aaa.. I can't see that far.

- Ha! Three inches.

By the same means my shape

can be exactly ascertained.

- Behold me!

- I am a Line,

the longest in Lineland,

over six inches of Space.

- Space? Of Length, don't you mean?

- Idiot.

- Space is Length.

- Don't interrupt me again.

- Oh! Forgive me, your majesty.

- Hear, now,

with your own ears,

how by means of my two voices

I reveal my shape to my wives,

who are at this moment over

six thousand miles away,

one forward, one backward.

Listen and I will sing.

Why don't you just feel your neighbors?

- What?

- Explain yourself.

Feel, touch, come into contact with.

That offense is punishable by death.

Really? Why is that?

- And what purpose would be served by touching,

- when there is sound?

But isn't life in Lineland just a little dull?

I mean... To see nothing but points!

- Not even to be able to see a line?

- Mindless man aren't you!

Mindless? Sounds like your music is mindless.

I can tell with a glance how many

people are to your right and to your left.

And there's nothing easier than a glance.

What is this left and right?

And how could you see the Line,

the inside, of anything?

Left, right.

You must mean backward and forward.

- No. Not so.

- Exhibit these directions to me!

I can't.

Unless you step out of your Line altogether.

- Out of my Line?

- Out of the world?

- Out of Space?

- Well, yes.

Out of your world, and into the greater

plane of two dimensions, where...

all is plane and you can

move in four directions...

- If you can't show this or describe this to me,

- then go away!

Hasn't it occurred to you that you

could move in some other direction,

- towards which your side is facing?

- What?

- Never.

- What do you mean by side?

- There is before and behind,

- nothing more.

Fine. Let me show you.

Here, I'm going to move into your world.

Here I come.

- There. Can you see me now?

- Yes...

- but...

- you're only a point!

Well, to you I'm only a point,

but in fact I've moved into Lineland.

Now I'm gonna continue to move

and, from your perspective,

I'm going to vanish.

- What does your majesty say now?

- Charlatan!

- Tricks! Tricks!

- Come back!

- How did you do that?

- I moved out of Lineland.

- Convinced?

- If you had any sense, the smallest particle of...

You ask me to believe that there's another world.

You say there's another motion

besides forward and backward!

But when I ask you to show it,

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