The Useful Roughness

A tidying step ran before an inspection still needed what it tidied away: a route was smoothed into its destination, and the smoothing erased the very distinction the check was about to look for. The repair was not to distrust every path but to look before smoothing — and to say plainly that something which preserves evidence must carry the evidence itself, not merely a summary of it. The rendering answers with silk: one great ochre fold, and a raw edge left unfinished long enough to be noticed.