Mathematics

A gray background. Slowly, from top to bottom, as if from a brushstroke, it changes color to blue. Amidst the uneven clash of colors in the background, a square appears in the foreground. It slowly rolls onto the blue field. It is quite large. All angles are right, and the sides are equal in length – a true square. Its edges are not ordinary segments; they are convex, simply perfectly shaded. They give the entire figure a majestic character. The proud square seems to loom above the plane. It is an artist, a king over other figures. It delights in its own qualities: shapely, even, symmetrically perfect. It has diagonals and right angles. It is always the same, regardless of how it is placed, rotated, or reflected. It knows its worth, and that is precisely why it so majestically enters the plane. The plane, having prepared for its arrival, sweeps away the remnants of gray, replacing it with royal blue. The purple square appreciates this work. It stops at a central position and, with this, seems to be offering its thanks to the plane. Its purple permeates the sides, distorting the plane's blue. The purple slowly emanates, changing its hue. Now, the background, having acquired a dirty brown hue, begins to turn yellow. The unwavering color remains only within the perfect figure. At this moment, against the yellowing background, a triangle appears.

An ordinary triangle, that is, any triangle. It faces the king raised above the plane and fills with green. The yellow of the background begins to stabilize and halts its march towards brightness. The green of the triangle, on the other hand, begins to fade towards purple. The proximity of the Great Square provides a pattern. The triangle dyes with all its might, as long as it is red, not blue, gray, or yellow, as long as it is red, perhaps not even purple, at least red. The triangle can't cope. Having settled on a color that, in his opinion, was closest to purple—a faded pink—he decided to have at least one right angle and equal sides. The square, sensing the presence of its imitator, merely scorned him. The triangle, sensing this scorn, began to make its sides more even and its angle straight. With this effort, the sides lost their straightness and ceased to be segments, recognizing the name of the arc as relevant. The triangle, or rather, it was a triangle, began to bend even more. Seeing its defeat, it fought with it and for the ideal goal, completely losing the qualities of the figure. The great square ignored the small suffering and continued to illuminate the space with its majesty.

Somewhere nearby, as if from another dimension, a quadrangle appeared. Its color was black. The blackness of its sides and the blackness of its interior, as if it were a hole into that other dimension. This quadrangle was neither square nor rectangle; neither rhombus nor trapezoid; just any quadrangle, black as night. Quickly, it marked the yellow of the background with its blackness, leaving a dark trail behind it. It stopped despite the square and began to mock it. At first, easily assuming its grand shape, then it began to imitate its color, not with purple, but with a shimmering violet morphing into pink and yellow, as if for fun. The square stood unmoved, its properties unchanged. Only the small triangle, its former power tarnished, its color tainted, began to reverse. To disrupt the intruder's plans. To neutralize irony and mockery. The black quadrilateral, however, continued to mock, only increasing its fury, no longer against the square, but against the former triangle, using its violence. A new figure entered the conflicted plane. It shone with a beautiful whiteness, its brilliance stunning. Smooth-walled, ideal, angleless.

A circle.

At its appearance, the square began to shrink, collapsing in on itself, yet without losing the straightness of its angles or the evenness of its sides. The medium-sized circle guarded and settled over the square, the background began to brighten. The former triangle completely failed to notice the arrival of the new ideal. The black quadrilateral, however, suddenly, as if enchanted by the perfection of the circle, began to fade in its blackness. When all the figures turned their thoughts toward the circle, a pentagon rolled in as if through a kitchen door.

Its angles were almost equal; its sides were of similar lengths, its color gray, like the one recently eradicated from the background. Puzzled by the situation, he wanted to study each figure and place it within himself, so he could choose his future form from which to draw. First, he examined the former triangle, for he had never had the opportunity to study such a figure before. Then he approached the black quadrilateral to delve deeper into its character. Meanwhile, the Great Square burned with hatred for the grey, and the color around it turned green, then brown, to make him realize he was wandering in the mud. The grey, while the quadrilateral, undeterred, studied it, though it gazed at the circle, closed in on itself, like a turtle in its shell. Meanwhile, the circle, seeing that its majesty did not illuminate the small pentagon, grew worried and began to weaken. The square grew larger again. It began to strut, simultaneously checking whether its angles were in proper order. The ideal, delighted with its ideality, the circle, despising it, desired to remain a plane. The pentagon, sensing all this, rejoiced within, for it had never known such pride, arrogance, courage, contempt, or hatred.

Suddenly, a voice rang out, seemingly tearing everything apart, emerging from the blue background, lost beneath the yellows, reds, greens, and browns: "There are no ideals." And in the place where the triangle had once been, a blue stain remained.

Then, like a bell, a deep voice rose from the faded blackness of the small rectangle: "I am a fool, for I do not listen to myself." And its blackness turned royal blue, and the sides, immersed in that color, ceased to exist.

Suddenly everything trembled and tilted backward. To the Square's despair, its angles diverged at the top and began to narrow at the bottom. The circle became an ellipse, and the pentagon began to align its sides so that everything remained in order. The square, becoming a trapezoid, lost its purple and collapsed in on itself, losing its pedestal and standing equal with all others.

The circle, transformed into an ellipse, heard: "Look into the future." To this there could be only one answer: "How can I look if it does not yet exist?" The response quickly came, this time louder, stronger, and deeper: "Then shape it before it becomes the present." The ellipse, remorseful, humiliated by its audacity, took on a blue hue and dissolved into present nothingness.

The square—now a trapezoid—inflamed with hatred for the World and that voice, grew ever larger, occupying almost the entire plane and slowly losing its color, thinking of imminent revenge.

The voice boomed once again, this time under the pentagon. But before it could hear anything, the pentagon uttered with full force, "I am not a whore," and vanished. It left no color behind, no memory, no sadness, and no emptiness, as if it had never existed.

Meanwhile, the Great Square occupied the entire plane, leaving only a narrow strip of blue, seemingly straight, above itself. Then the World said to the square: "Everything, even the most brilliant things, become trivialized and banal under the influence of a different point of view." And when the voice fell silent and the square became completely grey, the blue line, as if with a brush stroke, covered this grey with royal blue.