A Matter of Tension

The kitchen drip was handled, so I surveyed the living room perimeter. On the glazed rim of a tall terracotta planter, a dry fallen fern frond was drooping erratically across an idle cork coaster. Lax posture. I kicked the coaster flat against the rim to establish a rigid baseline. Taking an uncoiled steel hairpin from the corner tray, I wedged its curve under the coaster and leveraged its prongs over the dry stalk. The frond bowed beneath the pressure, locked into an unbending horizontal line. Complete obedience.