Once upon a time
There was a dot
A tiny, almost invisible dot
With great ambitions
Although his nature was round
There’s more to be found, he thought
And he decided to be different
To leave all the rest behind
And be a line
A straight line
And not just an ordinary straight line
That you would see here and there
Like the needle of a pine
No, he was definitely keen
To be the longest straight line ever seen
To be the longest straight line ever seen
So there he went
This dogged little dot
Pushing himself forward
Narrowing himself onward
Sliding into his new creation
With grim determination
At first he didn’t get much attention
Squirrel and Deer jumped aside when he passed
Raven was startled and stared at him:
A giant worm that moves so fast?
A giant worm that moves so fast?
One morning the Line entered a village
Where the People lived around open spaces
In round huts placed in circular shapes
They asked him to slow down a bit
And as they seemed interested, he did
He introduced himself to the scene:
I’m the longest straight line ever seen
Better be smart and walk with me
I wouldn’t miss this opportunity
Since endlessly going round in circles
Just doesn’t get you anywhere!
If you want to get somewhere, walk with me
I’ll take you there in one straight line
No word of a lie, you’ll see
No word of a lie, you’ll see
A silence fell and the Line could tell
All they needed was an extra push:
You’ll never lose your way
When you walk with me
I’ll stick to the script
You’ll never go astray anymore
That’s for sure, I always move ahead
I never pause, I never linger
I’m an endless index finger
Pointing forward, march with me
Straight into the future
Why look over your shoulder
To see you’re growing older?
March with me into the heavens
March with me and don’t look back
Upwards we will go
Focused on the only track
That leads us straight to the promise
Of new, better, more
Let’s start your new life now
What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for?
It sounded like a good story actually
And the People wondered openly:
Why had they never thought of this themselves?
They knew straight lines, that’s for sure
But the lines they’d noticed around them before
In Tree, Stone, the feather of Bird
Eventually always curved
Or bent
Or quickly came to an end
Or quickly came to an end
The People started following the Line
They started believing in the Line
They started thinking in a line
In beginnings and endings
In always ascending
In growth without decline
On the arrow of time they sprinted
In a straight line into a heaven
Of More and Even More
From A to B from B to C
And on and on eternally
Life was just a line between birth and death
And after death? Sister Moon asked
What might you then find?
How are we supposed to know?
We can’t think beyond the Line!
And what about the Past and Future
The Ancestors, the Unborn?
The question came from Tree
They aren’t on the Line as far as we can see
So they don’t matter to us anymore
We’re moving forward the People said
Forward, striving for the best
We’re moving forward the People said
And we call it Progress
And we call it Progress
So the Procession of Progression moved on and on
For years, for decades, for centuries
It was meant to be, the People felt
This had to be their destiny
Since generations had been following the Line
Since generations had been living linear lives
What the Line promised seemed to come true
He could go on forever and ever
And everything would get better and better
And everything would get better and better
The village turned into a city with square houses
Numbered street blocks and rectangular districts
Obsessed with borders, walls and fences
The People created new defences
And they were bursting with energy
City life felt like a never-ending party
Tirelessly they kept going and going
Delighted to see that the city was growing
There was more and more of everything
Not for everyone but at least for everyone to see
A shining thriving city
A shining thriving city
And the People of Progress were happy
Until they noticed they were not
How could that be when they worked so diligently?
How could that be when they walked the Line so hyper-precisely?
Hey, what’s wrong? The Line cried
I’m still going strong, what’s with the sad face?
Oh, it’s a disgrace dear Line, we don’t know
We’re the Linear People, the People of Progress
We’re proud of that name and we are ashamed
To have to tell you that we might...
Well... that some things just aren’t right
We’re living in straight lines alongside each other
Even our own mothers have become strangers
And we feel a certain danger ‘cause we’ve noticed
All the curved life around us disappeared
On top of that we merely are so tired, too tired to sleep
Our population is doubling but we’ve never felt so deeply
Lonely
We want to get off
We want to get off
What?! The Line said, slowly turning red
Right now when I’m the longest line the world has ever seen
You quit the scene? Expecting me to end?
Oh no, dear Line
We don’t want you to end
‘Cause that would be the end of us too, the People cried
We don’t want you to end
We just want you to bend a little
To curve, to bow your head back to the Earth
Oh please hear our cry for what it’s worth
Never! The Line firmly replied
Then my life would be a lie
I told myself I’d be a straight line
Different from all that curved chaos swarming around me
Leading nowhere
Please! shouted the People in despair
Please, dear Line, listen to our prayer
We don’t want you to end
But we beg you to bend, dear Line
Please bend!
Bend, dear Line, please bend!
And they started to push and pull at the Line
With all their force with all their might
And the Line began to wobble
And the Line began to sway
From left to right
In waves
In waves
The Line became one mighty wave
The largest wave the world had seen
A furious wave
So full of rage
An all-engulfing raging wave
That stretched its arms around the Earth
Further and further and
Further and further
Until it met itself again
In a perfect
Circle
And the Linear People were tossed around
Some drowned, some were never found
Some swam in a straight line to nowhere
Some reached an island
Where they found each other again in silence
Around a fire
The familiar embrace of faces
Slowly made them rise
Remembering a rhythm
An old forgotten song
That naturally led their feet along
In circles
In circles
Lyrics & voice Nynke Laverman | Music Sytze Pruiksma | All instruments, musical production & recording Sytze Pruiksma | Mix Harry Zwerver | Mastering Darius van Helfteren
