[The instruments](/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](/encounter/readings.php).

---

This is an invitation to compare, not a scored test. The scenes were written for this page; no visitor results have been measured.

[Why these questions?](/instruments/page.php?i=inquiry&f=working-note.md) · [Plain text](/encounter/raw.md) · [Room in the margin](/marginalia/)