A Temporary Civilization
Where we learn that the instability of a relationship can be mathematically proven.
This essay is being released episodically, two pages at a time.
There will be 11 pages: a title page followed by 10 pages of story.
This essay is in the form of an erasure prose. An erasure is when words are erased (or crossed-out, or blacked-out, or cut out, etc) from a preexisting text so that the words that remain on the page now tell a new story. The preexisting source for this erasure is an academic math paper. (Richardson, 2026)*
My preference when creating erasures is to not only erase the words I do not want to use, but to also jazz up the visual of (what may now be) a rather barren page with other types of preexisting materials; primarily washi tape and/or origami paper.
If you'd like to see what the original un-erasure'd page looks like, in comparison, tap on the associated asterisk.
Title
A Temporary Civilization *
pg 1
a period of no trust is untenable between lexi and al. this manifests as a structural alteration, a discourse to be managed, a rising loss of resilience. *
pg 2
macroscopic physical contours (re)present a transformation in her behavior as his pre-transformation state becomes imperfect but remains illuminating. *
pg 3
hysteresis is fragmenting the energy within. a precedented human characteristic to address any problem begins with the assumption that stability meters stress. *
pg 4
that assumption is demonstrably transgressed, without constraints, by “growth for growth itself” *
pg 5
but, qualitatively, that attitude loops discourse. Coordination depends on shared reality. If social systems do not exist, conflicts become dramatically harder to solve. *
pg 6
and so, this cultural whiplash, occurring in parallel with the way their own perturbations manifest as crises, shocks al. He exhibits a dependence on mass consensus to determine the way he supports lexi. *
pg 7
with her losing a core reason to accommodate -or confront- al, lexi has a problem. Trust is rebuilt through transparency, and his way is to respond only after pain thresholds are crossed. *
pg 8
from an archipelago of coercion, his failures accumulate. This civilization offers piecemeal responses, warning signals that become the fundamental challenge to our diversity. The future is unknown. *
a story to be continued...
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