Deang_Land

[Table of Contents]

Now that you understand how dangerous our highly-pointed Isosceles Triangles are, you can understand how much more dangerous our Women are. Because if an Isosceles is a wedge, a Woman is a needle, made up of, you might say, nothing but points, at least at the two ends.

Add to this sharpness a Woman’s ability to make herself practically invisible at will, and you’ll see that the Females of Flatland are not the kind of Creatures you want to mess with.

But maybe some of my younger Readers are confused, and thinking, “But how can a Woman in Flatland make herself invisible?” I think the answer is pretty obvious, but it won’t take very long to explain, so even those who aren’t paying full attention will understand.

Place a needle, or another long, thin object, like a pencil, on a table. Then, lowering yourself until your eye is level with the surface of the table, look at your line from the side, and you'll see its whole length. But if you turn it so that you are looking straight at it from the front or back, you see nothing but a small point.

This is what happens with our Women. When her side it towards us, we see her as a straight line. When her front or “head” in you terms, the part, containing her eye or mouth (which for us, is the same organ) is pointed at us, we see a bright point.

But when her back is pointed towards us, we see a dim light, so dim it's almost as dark as an inanimate object. And this is how a Woman, by simply turning her back on you, can become practically invisible.

[Image description start: A black and white digital diagram with a white background and black border. On the left is a drawing of an eye as seen from the side, with dotted lines radiating out to show the line of sight. This eye is looking downwards on a straight line, and is labeled, "A Straight Line viewed from the side.". The next is looking to the side at a tiny dot that is marked by a large arrow so you notice it, and this eye is labeled, "A Straight Line viewed from the front or back.". Image description end.]

I need to make it clear to you just how dangerous our Women are. If running into an Equilateral Triangle, whose angle is 60°, will give you a painful gash, then running into an Officer of the military class, an Isosceles, will give you a serious wound. If a mere accidental bump from the vertex of a Private Soldier, one of the lowest of the Isosceles, is life threatening, then what can you expect from running into a Woman, except complete and total annihilation?

And when a Woman is almost invisible like this, imagine how difficult it is, even for the most cautious, to avoid running into them!

Many laws have been put into place in the different countries of Flatland in order to reduce this danger, and in the Southern and less temperate environments where the force of the Southern pull, or gravity, is greater, where human beings are more likely to have sudden and involuntary movements from constantly fighting the gravity, the laws regarding Women are, naturally, much stricter and harsher.

But a general view of the regulations for Women can be understood from the following summary:

1. Every house will have one entrance on the Eastern side, to be used only by Females, and all Females must enter “in a becoming and respectful manner”. Females must never use the Men’s or Western door.

[Note from the Author: When I was in Spaceland, I was told (in a conversation not transcribed in this book, to save my Readers’ valuable time) that some of your Religious buildings have a similar policy, with a separate entrance for the working poor so that they can also "approach in a becoming and respectful manner."]

2. No Female shall walk in any public place without continually keeping up her Peace-cry, under penalty of death.

3. Any Female diagnosed with St. Vitus’s Dance ((A neurological disorder causing sudden, involuntary movements after an illness, usually affecting children)), seizures, a chronic cold accompanied by violent sneezing, or any other disease that causes involuntary movements, shall be destroyed immediately upon diagnosis.

In some countries, there is another Law that forbids Females, under penalty of death, from walking or standing in public spaces without constantly moving their backs from side to side, so that people behind them can see them better.

Other countries will sometimes demand that any Woman in public should be followed by one of her male family members or servants, and still others ban Women from public entirely, confining them to their homes except during religious festivals.

But our wisest of Circles and Politicians have found that having so many restrictions on Women not only leads to the weakening of our society overall, but also to an extremely high number of domestic murders, to the point where the number of Men killed as a result far outnumbers the accidents that the Law was attempting to avoid in the first place.

Because when the temper of a Woman is stoked by being confined to her home, or having to deal with harsh, inconvenient restrictions when in public, they are likely to unleash their fury upon their husbands and children or siblings. Several times, in countries with highly restrictive laws, the entire Male population of a town has sometimes been wiped out in just a few hours as the Females simultaneously and violently succumb to their wrath.

And this is why the first three laws I’ve outlined here are good enough on their own for the better-run countries such as the one I belong to, and can be used as a rough summary of the Female Code.

After all, it’s not the Law itself that protects us so much, as the instinct for self-preservation in the Women themselves.

It I true that they can inflict instant death by simply moving backwards, but it is also true that unless they can immediately remove their stabbing-end, their own fragile bodies can easily be shattered by the death throes of their victim, and the Woman will be killed along with them.

The power of Fashion is also on our side.

I said above that in some less civilized countries, Females are not allowed in public without swaying her back from side to side, but in my country, our high-ranking and ambitious ladies have been doing this of their own free will since as far back as anyone can remember. The idea that a law would have to be passed to guarantee this behavior, (which should be instinctive in ladies of high breeding), is extremely embarrassing.

The rhythmic and, if I may so say, well-modulated undulation of the back in our ladies married to Circles is envied by the wives of Equilaterals, who, trying their best, can only create a regular twitch like the ticking of a clock.

But even that simple ticking is admired by the wife of the ambitious Isosceles, who wishes to raise her family’s status, so that she becomes the first in all her family line to practice the art of back motion.

So you see, in every family worth considering, “back motion” is as old and ingrained as time itself, and the lucky Male members of these families enjoy their immunity from invisible attacks.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying our Women don’t care about their families— it’s just that, unfortunately, their emotions in the moment overpower their other feelings, driving out every other thought until their anger passes.

This, of course, is the result of their unfortunate Configuration as Straight Lines.

They have no Angle to speak of, and thus are mentally and physically inferior to even the very lowest of the Isosceles. They are, as a result of this lack of Angle, completely devoid of brain-power, and are completely incapable of self-reflection, judgment, or planning, and barely any memory at all.

This is why, when they are in a state of fury, they have no idea what they’re doing, or who they’re doing it to. They will not recognize their husband or even their children.

I’ve actually heard of a legal case where a Woman murdered everyone in her whole household, but then half an hour later, when she’d calmed down and the fragmented bodies had been swept away by Police, asked them where her husband and children were. She didn’t remember a thing.

So it should be obvious that you shouldn’t annoy a Woman if she’s able to turn around and stab you. But when you have them in their apartments – which are built so narrowly specifically to prevent them from turning and attacking – you can say or do whatever you want, because they’re incapable of reacting in any way except through speech, and in a few minutes, they won’t even remember whatever it is you’ve said or done that they’re threatening to kill you for, nor will they remember the hasty promises you’ve made (with no intention of keeping) to get them to calm down again.

In general, we get along pretty well with our Women, except in the lower classes of the Isosceles military. These Isosceles, lacking in angle, also lack in tact and discretion, and many times this has caused indescribable disasters.

These Isosceles rely too much on their sharp points as weapons instead of the shield of common sense and knowing how to react to different problems, so these reckless Creatures often fail to properly follow the safety code for building Women’s apartments, or irritate their wives by insulting them when out in public, and then to make matters worse, refuse to immediately apologize.

And, being simple Creatures who are too fond of the literal truth, these Isosceles refuse to make the kinds of lavish, impossible promises that Circles readily deploy to pacify the would-be murderess.

The result of this lack of careful handing is massacre, but you shouldn’t see it as a tragedy – on the contrary, these outbreaks eliminate the more brutal and troublesome of the Isosceles, and many of our Circles view the destructiveness of the Thinner Sex as one of many favors Providence has given us for naturally suppressing the population of Isosceles, and helping to nip Revolution in the bud.

But even within the families that most strictly follow the Female Code, even with our closest-to-true circles Circular families, I have to admit, our idea of “domestic bliss” isn’t as full of affection and comfort as it is with you in Spaceland.

There is peace, (if the absence of slaughter can be called peace) but it is impossible for there to be shared interests or hobbies between Man and Wife, with the Man’s safety paid for by the loss of true comfort and companionship.

Since time immemorial, the Women of our Circular and Polygonal houses have had the habit – which has now become a kind of instinct – of always keeping their eyes and mouths pointed towards their Husband and his Male friends.

If a lady in a high-ranking family turned her back on her Husband, it would be seen as an omen of disaster threatening a huge loss of social status.

But, as I will soon explain, this custom, while insuring safety, is not without its problems.

In the house of the Isosceles Working Man, or the Equilateral Tradesman, where the wife is allowed to turn her back on her husband while performing her household duties, there are moments of peace, where the wife is neither seen nor heard, except the humming sound of her ever-present Peace-cry.

But in the homes of the upper classes, these moments of peace are few and far between. There, the loud and bright face of the Wife are always directed at the Master of the household, and not even the never-changing Light is more persistent than the never-ending Feminine Chatter.

The diplomatic skill required to avoid a Woman’s sting has no power against a Woman’s mouth, and, since the Wife has absolutely nothing meaningful to say, and no intelligence or conscience there to prevent her from speaking anyway, more than a few cynics have been quoted with saying they prefer the death-dealing but mercifully silent sting of a Woman’s back side to the obnoxious volume of her mouth.

To my readers in Spaceland, the condition of our Women may seem truly miserable, and indeed it is, without question. A Male of even the lowest type of Isosceles can look forward to some improvement of his Angle through hard work and dedication, and eventually the increased rank of his entire degraded caste, but no Woman can ever hope for such things for her own Sex.

“Once a Woman, always a Woman” is a Decree of Nature; and the very Laws of Evolution seem to stack misfortunes against her.

But at least we can admire the wise arrangement Evolution and Nature have given us, so that even though the Women have to be miserable for our great society to exist, at least they’ll soon forget it.

Lo

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