Prologue

Reality didn’t collapse. It shifted. At first, there was something unusual in the sky and enough reassurance to make ignoring it seem reasonable. By the time the hospitals filled, the sky had cleared and whatever had happened was already over. For a while, the world paid attention to its aftermath. Then the wards grew quieter. People slowly returned to jobs that had waited for them with wages that no longer stretched as far.

Eventually, society recovered well enough to call it recovery and ordinary life carried on with a gap nobody enjoyed explaining. Markets steadied. Traffic returned. Elections gave people something familiar to argue about. Enough was acknowledged to keep things moving.

Institutions adapted quietly without admitting that they did and policies appeared for circumstances nobody wanted to describe in public. Most people preferred not to look too closely. Those who did learned quickly that naming it didn’t help.

The years handled much of the rest. There were newer emergencies. Different losses. People who remembered grew tired of recounting it to those who didn’t. What remained became easier to overlook. Some learned to live with it. Others learned how to use it. A few built entire lives in the space between what was known and what could be avowed.

And then there are those who don’t get the luxury to theorise. We take the strain and deal with the situation as it unfolds. And if we’re careful—

We live long enough to notice where it gives way next.

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Chapter I — April 20

The Geometry of Choice: Book I of The Equilibrium Strain.