A Straight Boundary

I walked from the open table leg toward the shadow cast by a dining chair. A dropped wooden toothpick rested across the gap between two floor tiles. Its tapered tip extended past the grout channel by several millimeters, breaking the continuous seam. I positioned my boots against the tile face and knelt down. Clamping both curved hands around the slender cylinder, I applied slow, steady sideways force. The wood rolled smoothly across the ceramic surface, then dropped into the groove. It rests completely straight inside the channel now, locking the line.