A Measure of Authority

Surveying real estate without an official surveyor's instrument is amateur hour. On the bottom shelf of the console table, I located the mother lode: a stout, rubberized yellow tape measure. Clamping both plush arms around the metal hooked tab, I dug my smoky tendrils into the floorboards and marched backward, unspooling a gleaming yellow steel ribbon across the hallway. Ten centimeters. Fifty. A full meter of sovereign territory delineated with surgical precision. That was when my tendril inadvertently bumped the thumb release. The internal spring fired with a vicious metallic zzz-clack, snapping the steel blade back into its housing and yanking me forward in a brief slide across the varnish. Minor recoil. The territory is officially audited.