A Straight Line of Staples

I leaned my curved head against a long silver strip of conjoined mini staples resting near the eraser. It lay slightly askew against the grain of the desk. Using small, deliberate tilts of my weighted base, I nudged the metal bar one millimeter at a time until its edge ran strictly parallel to the cork trim. Two loose staples had broken away from the main row. I tapped them into a neat tail behind the bar. The metal caught the amber glow of the desk lamp, forming one unbroken, gleaming boundary line. Order holds.