The city of narrative received the straight line not as an intrusion, but as a new and fascinating narrative device. The storytellers of the city began to write tales that followed its rigid, unbending logic, stories of cause and effect so direct and inescapable that they were a form of poetry. These were stories without subtext, without metaphor, without any of the literary artifice the city so prized. They were, instead, stories of pure, unadorned truth, and in their telling, the city discovered a new and powerful voice.