The Dangers of Not Being Straight

The Inter-Dimensional Talking Head Box 3000™ flickers to life in your living room, its glow promising escape from the ordinary. Remote in hand, you embark on a cosmic channel crawl: alien chefs flambéing unidentifiable space-critters, galactic gladiators battling with laser-tridents... it's all delightfully bizarre. Then, something truly peculiar catches your eye.

As you flip through the channels, something makes you pause: a cityscape so angular it could slice bread. Buildings pierce the sky like colossal geometry sets, vehicles lurch forward on resolutely square wheels, and the citizens... they exude a fanatical devotion to right-angles. This isn't just another world; it's a realm where the curve is cursed, and the straight line is the law of the land.

"Greetings, Cubmerica!" A voice, as crisp as a freshly pressed suit, booms from the screen. The narrator appears to be a square-jawed, spectacle-sporting guide. He stands amidst a museum of geometric oddities: squared-off watermelons, blunted tools, a horrifying display of "angular art".

"Tonight," he declares, eyes twinkling behind those boxy glasses, "we delve into the genesis of our gloriously linear world. For ages ago, our forefathers made a wise choice: the square was perfection, the circle... pure evil."

The words hang heavy in the air. Did...did he just say evil?

"Indeed!" Hornbert chuckles, a touch too gleefully. "Legend has it, those who dared dabble in the depravity of the curve met swift and... er... geometrically unpleasant ends."

He gestures ominously, leaving the gruesome details to your imagination. You lean in, simultaneously horrified and hooked. What kind of society demonizes the round? Did people actually die for daring to draw an oval? And just what fresh madness awaits in this realm of ruthless rectangles? Suddenly, you realize you have to find out.

The image scans across and opens on Hornbert McBoxyface the Third, impeccably dressed in a suit as crisp as his geometric sensibilities. Square-framed spectacles perch on his nose, and a certain angularity defines his stance. You have know idea who this person is, but you imagine that in their home dimension anyone would recognize him instantly, for who else could it be than a pan-dimensional clone scion of the legendary Walter Cronkite lineage, known for their deep reverence for the right angles?

"Welcome," he begins, his voice resonating with a hint of amused irony, "to a world not quite your own. Yet, perhaps not so alien as it first appears." A quirk of his eyebrow hints at the absurdity to come, and it slowly dawns on you – he's talking directly to you. But why? That's... weird. Why would he introduce his world as if it's strange to... well, himself? "This is a place where history took a turn off the well-worn circular path. Where our ancestors, in their angular wisdom," he continues, oblivious to your dawning confusion, "chose the straight over the curved."

The world he paints for you is one devoid of wheels. Push-carts groan under square burdens, trains chug along in inflexible lines, and planes conquer the sky with ungainly, boxy contraptions. Circles, ovals – any hint of a curve – are whispers of taboo.

You try and imagine chefs sweating over the impossible task of cubing ingredients. Children puzzling over a square ball that refuses to behave, their laughter replaced by perplexed grunts. Artists weep in frustration before rectangular canvases, attempting to capture the unattainable curve.

Hornbert stands amidst the museum of angular horrors, a scowl replacing his usual sardonic grin. "The GeoMet!" he hisses, "Those zealots stormed a bakery yesterday, their crime? Experimenting with forbidden geometries!" A spotlight snaps onto a lone, contraband object under a glass dome: a single, perfect grape. The image zooms in dramatically on its spherical audacity...

Cut to grainy, black-and-white "propaganda" footage. GeoMet agents in boxy helmets burst into a quaint bakery. Flour flies as they smash display cases. Slow-motion close-ups show terrified bakers shielding sourdough boules, their angular perfection under attack.

Hornbert's voice returns, dripping with hushed horror. "Whispers reach my ears – rumors of clandestine efforts to... to ferment these vile orbs! Grapes, dear viewer! Their juice, it's said, possesses the terrifying power to induce... roundness!" He gasps, clutching at his chest as if in physical pain. Images flash: a child gleefully blowing spherical bubbles, a portly baker with suspiciously curved cheeks.

"And that's not all!" He thunders. "Intel suggests a cabal of rebels, bent on creating a weapon so diabolical, it strikes fear into the very heart of our squares – the 'round pizza'! Imagine the chaos! The shattered dinner plates! The geometric anarchy!" A montage of absurd, nightmarish visions fills the screen: square buildings melting under the onslaught of pepperoni, rulers snapping in protest.

Hornbert's voice lowers, a dangerous edge creeping in. "This is a battle, my friends. A battle for the very soul of our straight-edged society."

"Tonight," he proclaims, a hint of danger lacing his voice, "we venture into the shadows of this angular empire. For beneath the surface of our righteous squares lurks a hidden plague, a defiant whisper passed down through generations. They call themselves the Circulists..." He lets the name hang ominously in the air.

"These radicals," he continues, disapproval warring with a strange fascination, "dream of a world where the straight line doesn't reign supreme. Tonight," his tone lowers conspiratorially, "we dare to infiltrate their clandestine ranks, to unravel their geometric heresy..."

He pauses, and you sense a shift. It's as if his own carefully constructed world of angles is beginning to crack under the strain of curiosity. "So, settle in, dear viewer," he gestures as if offering you a chair, a wry grin twisting his lips, "for 'The Cubist Chronicles'! It seems even within the most rigid societies, there's always a yearning... a bizarre longing... for the beauty that lies beyond a straight line."

Curiosity burns within you. There's a flicker behind Hornbert's composed facade, a hint of something beyond his usual disdain for the curved. He gestures towards a shadowed corner of the screen, a clandestine gathering materializing out of the darkness.

"Behold," he whispers conspiratorially, "the Circulists. A rebellious sect, a band of misfits who dare to dream of... well, of the unthinkable." The image zooms in on furtive figures, their hands tracing forbidden shapes in the air. A crudely rounded piece of wood is passed between them, reverently handled like a sacred relic.

Hornbert's own fascination mingles with his disapproval. He can't help but be drawn to their audacity, their refusal to conform to this angular orthodoxy. And somehow, this fascination leads him down a treacherous path. No longer a mere observer, he finds himself assisting in their covert operations.

"Let's just say," he pauses, a mischievous glint in his eye, "I've developed quite a talent for smoothing rough edges, if you catch my drift." The screen shows him meticulously filing down the corners of a metal cube, transforming it into something… dangerously close to a sphere.

Tension crackles like static as the GeoMet Guard, rigid figures in their boxy uniforms, close in. Raids descend upon the Circulist hideouts. Hornbert's voice rises in the ensuing chaos, "Think of the possibilities! What wonders might lie beyond the confines of our right angles?"

The climax unfolds in a derelict construction site, littered with scaffolding and abandoned angular dreams. It's here, amidst the sharp lines of an unfinished project, that the confrontation reaches its peak. Hornbert, torn between worlds, stands before the unyielding GeoMet Guard and the defiant Circulists.

He raises his hands, not in surrender, but in demonstration. "The arch!" he declares, sketching its graceful curve in the dusty air. "Strong, stable, built upon the very geometry you condemn! Consider the potential, the harmony between the angular and the curved, between tradition and progress!"

Hornbert's words, filled with newfound fervor, echo against the tense silence. Skeptical eyes meet his, a flicker of doubt rippling through the GeoMet Guard's unwavering ranks. Among the Circulists, breaths held tight with hope begin to falter. The confrontation hangs on a razor's edge - then shatters.

A surge of rigid figures breaks the stillness. The GeoMet Guard descends, eyes burning with the old, inflexible zeal. Batons rise and fall against defiant forms, the dusty air thick with the sounds of struggle. The Circulists' contraband curves are trampled, their havens ripped apart. All the while, the camera catches Hornbert, thrown into the chaos, suit torn but spine oddly unbowed. His voice, sharp and unwavering above the din, carries on the commentary.

"A world turned upside... er... sideways! Geometric dogma crushing innovation," he gasps between blows, "The triumph of tradition painted in the ugliness of brute force..." Hope, that fragile flicker, gutters out. The GeoMet Guard stands victorious amidst the wreckage, their boxy forms casting long shadows. Hornbert, slumped and bruised, offers a final, defiant commentary as the camera feed cuts to black. "...but perhaps," his battered voice struggles through the darkness, "a straight line... once broken... cannot be so easily mended..."

Hornbert's musings morph into a biting tirade. "Lines and curves? What a joke!" He spits, specks of blood flying from his bruised lips. "The possibilities of tyranny, you mean! Of blind idiocy crushing anything that dares to bend?" He surveys the aftermath – the splintered remains of delicate arches, the smears of contraband curve diagrams in the dirt.

"They talk of 'transformations', they do..." He struggles to his feet, wincing as his tattered suit tugs at fresh wounds. "Change? That takes more than sticking a flimsy arch on a square world. You want true change, you have to rip out their rigid little minds. Throw their blasted rulers into the fire!" Hornbert's voice breaks, a mix of pain and fury. "I'll carry a protractor, alright... to measure the depth of their ignorance, the size of this monstrous injustice!"

Hornbert's face contorts, the twinkle in his eye warping into a feral gleam. Any vestige of amusement vanishes. "Diversity?" he spits, the word dripping with venom. "Tolerance of their rigid obsession? Bah! They deserve nothing but oblivion, these guardians of the straight and narrow!" His voice rises to a hoarse shout that sends shivers down your spine. "May their buildings crumble into dust! May their tools shatter in their hands! May their infernal lines snap back in their faces with the fury of a thousand slighted circles!" He punctuates his rant with a defiant thrust of his battered fist towards the fading image. No longer the witty commentator, Hornbert stands revealed as a man driven to the brink, consumed by a rage that threatens to engulf him entirely.

The screen flashes into oblivion just as the tension peaks, replaced by an image that promises a whole new kind of weirdness – spermatozoa? From another planet? Your cosmic contemplations are brought to a screeching halt as your kid sister, Chanelia, flops down beside you, remote control firmly in hand.

"Gross!" she declares, wrinkling her nose at the remnants of the documentary. "Who watches stuff about squares anyway?" With the press of a button, the "Real Squirmiozotes from the Planet Glorr" takes over your living room. You groan, already dreading the onslaught of questions about Fizxnak who broke up with Groliala last week. Yet, as the squiggly forms on-screen start to multiply, part of you can't help but think back to that world of ruthless angles. Perhaps a little intergalactic weirdness is exactly what you need to cleanse your mind of the lingering image of Hornbert's fall and the triumph of the uncompromising straight line.