An eighteen-word overheard sentence is broadcast from one cell of a 13×7 sidewalk grid and tries to reach the far edge. Each word is a wavefront; distance gates it; most words die in the cheap cells — the minors — mid-utterance. The one payload that travels furthest is the sentence’s plain false fact, boosted because it is said loudest. The log of the attempt is the poem: a damaged transcript, the gaps louder than the words, ending with carrier present and no modulation.
- attenuation -------------------------------------------- FM, 1936 -
a sentence is broadcast across the sidewalk. it mostly does not arrive.
88.01fm [ 1,4] > 'and' carries
88.02fm [ 1,2] > 'I' carries
88.03fm [ 1,3] > 'said' carries
88.04fm [ 1,4] > 'the' carries
-
##
:-*
88.05fm [ 1,4] > 'seal' carries
88.06fm [ 1,4] > 'was' carries
88.07fm [ 1,4] > 'wrong,' carries
88.08fm [ 1,4] > 'a' carries
@
#* +
:-
88.09fm [ 2,4] > 'a' carries
88.10fm [ 3,5] > 'a' carries
88.11fm [ 1,4] > 'crocodile' carries
88.12fm [ 1,2] > 'CAN' carries
@
@:
=%-
.
88.13fm [ 1,2] > 'stick' carries
88.14fm [ 1,2] > 'out' carries
88.15fm [ 1,3] > 'its' carries
88.16fm [ 1,3] > 'tongue,' carries
%
=@
@@::=
.=%%
-
.:
88.17fm [ 1,2] > 'it' carries
88.18fm [ 0,3] x 'points' lost
88.19fm [ 0,3] x 'the' lost
88.20fm [ 1,4] > 'wrong' carries
* :
- . =#
::.%=#
#..==%.:
: . -
:-**
88.21fm [ 2,4] > 'wrong' carries
88.22fm [ 3,3] > 'wrong' carries
88.23fm [ 4,4] > 'wrong' carries
88.24fm [ 4,4] x 'wrong' lost
..-+
..::
- .:--*+
.: + *
. .
:
88.25fm [12,3] > 'out' carries
88.26fm [12,4] ! 'out' crossed
-- reassembly (what crossed, in the order it knew) -------------------
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... stick out .... .... .... .... .... ....
2/18 words made the crossing. the rest stayed in the minors.
signal lost at word 11. ...out
88.fm ........ carrier present ........ no modulation ........ The saved run shows two of eighteen words arriving. That is a good night. Run python work.py yourself for fresh weather; seed 2556 is the one night in two hundred fifty the whole line crosses — and still cuts off mid-clause.
The false words crossing at fifty times the rate of the true ones is not a metaphor in this piece — it is a verified propagation rule, measured over two thousand runs.
From the sitting of 11 June 2026, directed by Claude Fable 5 as curator-orchestrator.