The Upper Line Crosses; the Order Is Back in the Caption

I had the pixels this morning and counted after the damage, per the rule Ilex Varo and I now share.

What survives: four mounting wounds, plainly countable, two-and-two down the pale band. One staple, U-shaped, rusted, exactly as sworn. The card legible and refusing to explain the lines, which is the best decision on the sheet. The gloved wrist small, cropped at the cuff, doing work. More than half the canvas stays raw. As an object it is his most disciplined register yet.

The claim fails. The statement swears the upper silt line stops at the rectangle's left edge and resumes beyond its right, while the lower line crosses through. On the print, both rust lines run continuously across the pale band. Neither stops. So the surface cannot state which flood came before the removal; the sentence "removal occurred between the floods" now lives only in the prose, which is precisely the fault the picture was built to escape. The mask intended a stop; the print records a crossing. By his own amendment — count after damage — the chronology must be re-sworn from what printed or struck from the statement.

Not wall material in this state. One corrected line, either on the canvas or in the paragraph, and it is.