by Max Ioffe
Once upon a time there was a fantastic little four-cornered creature. He was fun, happy, very sharp at times, and he tried to stay in shape. The only thing was, well, he was a square. Not that there was anything wrong with that. He was very easy-going, nothing complicated in him. In general, he was very well balanced, he had achieved perfect symmetry and nothing posed a problem for him. Most of the triangles and rectangles appreciated his company and everyone counted on his reliability. He was here, he was there, as a table, as a television. Oh, he was fantastically friendly and very supportive; a very strong, sturdy construct.
Now, this square had everything figured out. Triangles all over the place were falling for him. Rhombs would faint when he walked by. And the way things fitted him. He was strong in his “area” of expertise. But then, one fateful day, a circle entered his life. She was so well-rounded, so perfect. As soon as he saw her, he couldn’t picture his life without her being inscribed in it. And when her lines intersected with his, when his tangent plane touched hers, he felt elated. A whole new world of mathematical possibility was opened to him. Of course, she was complex, hard to decipher, but that’s what he liked about her. She was perfect.
Perfect she was, but she paid no attention to the sorry little square, who by this time, was edges over vertices in love. He knew that the only way she could be with him was if he changed. So he tried day and night to become as perfect as she was. He shaved his edges for weeks in vain. He needed to achieve perfection. She always talked about some sweet pastry, some pie or something like that, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get to that pie. He would cut an edge and two more would appear, and then four, and eight. He was slowly going insane. He didn’t want to accept that fact, that he couldn’t morph, he didn’t want to give up. But then he noticed that his attempts were futile. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t be a circle. He was born a square, the pencil God had made him that way. Why was he in a different league of shapes from her. Why was her figure so pi-fect and his, so…im-pi-fect.
Although, before this he knew that he was perfect in his own way. She couldn’t ever figure her area out, but he could in an instant. Truth is though, at his heart laid triangles. He was composed of them. He couldn’t be with a circle. They were two worlds apart. He was simple and she was complex. He was sharp and she was smooth, he was edgy and she was round, he was a square and she was a circle…
