Lines are easy to draw.
Living with them is expensive.
The pause didn't last the night.
It couldn't.
By morning, the city had already stepped around it—not loudly, not proudly. Just the way water moves around a stone once it knows where the edges are.
The notice still hung near the transit stop.
TEMPORARY PAUSE ON UNSANCTIONED OPERATIONS
People read it.
Then did what needed doing anyway.
Arjun noticed first."They're not even reacting to it," he said.
"Yes," I replied."That's when lines stop working."
✦
Power hates that moment.
Not because the line failed—but because its failure was boring.
No confrontation.No outrage.No moment to capture.
Just irrelevance.
✦
By midmorning, the response came—not as enforcement, but as definition.
A coordinator addressed a cluster of volunteers calmly.
"To be clear," she said,"anything not routed through official channels will not receive institutional support."
Support.
The word did the cutting.
Not banned.Not illegal.
