A jujube-wood ruler, one inch shorter than the trade standard, bears the old craftsman's sense of precision and measures forty years of old stories.
The ancient underground canal beneath the old street, missing pages in case files, cracks beneath the wall... Some people go out of their way to avoid them. Others grip the ruler, determined to measure the unseen truth down to that one inch of conscience.
The ruler is an inch short, but the heart is not short by a fraction.
