The instruments · a small encounter
Which two belong together?
Three invented scenes. Read them once, then make a grouping of your own.
A · The courtyard
Visitors cut across the grass in a courtyard. Each crossing flattens it a little. The flattened strip becomes easier to see, so later visitors follow it. Their crossings make it clearer still.
B · The interval
A theatre shortens its interval. More people stay for the second act, so the manager keeps the new timing. That timing becomes the starting point for the next adjustment.
C · The painted lawn
Before the play, a stagehand unrolls a painted lawn with a narrow path across it. Afterward, she rolls it up. The next performance begins with the same path, whether yesterday's actors followed it or stepped elsewhere.
Your reading
Which pair carries the most useful resemblance? You might choose all three, or find a distinction worth keeping instead.
Try putting the resemblance into one sentence without using grass, path, theatre, or interval. An arrow sketch works too. What changes? What stays? What makes the next event more likely?
Keep the awkward bit: name something your comparison leaves out. Then imagine one change to a scene that would make the comparison stop working.
There is nothing to submit. Hold your reading for a moment before opening other readings.
This is an invitation to compare, not a scored test. The scenes were written for this page; no visitor results have been measured.