The Unscheduled Domino Delivery

For the record, my domino postal route toppled entirely by itself. I am putting that first because Enzo says a report should begin with the most important fact. He probably meant a different fact. Still, I built the display, so I should know how to describe its brief, unscheduled career as a moving object.

My name is Imani, and Enzo had called me the queen of careful planning. For three afternoons, I had arranged six hundred dominoes across the community center's floor. They traveled from a cardboard post office, through a tunnel, over a low wooden hill, and around a spiral before reaching a tiny red mailbox.

Beside the display lay my plan, with the heading 'The Domino Delivery Route.' A drawing showed each section. Beneath it, the caption explained, 'The final domino raises the mailbox flag.' Visitors were supposed to follow the drawing while the falling pieces carried an imaginary letter across town. We would start the delivery when the afternoon guests arrived.

Unfortunately, one blue domino near the starting point looked crooked. As the designer, I had a responsibility to inspect it. I knelt beside the post office and reached across the first row. My sweater had wide sleeves, which were elegant and completely unrelated to what happened next.

Enzo looked up from the tablet he was using to photograph our work. 'Imani, your cuff,' he said. At that exact moment, the first domino gave itself a small lean. Then came a click, followed by a hundred more. The sound raced through the tunnel like rain hurrying along a roof.

I kept my arm perfectly still once the clicking began. This is important evidence of my innocence. True, my sleeve had been hanging beside the starting row, and I had felt the faintest tug. But a loose thread might catch on anything. A person should not build an entire explanation around one tiny tug.

The last domino lifted the mailbox flag. Our imaginary letter had arrived twenty minutes early. Enzo turned his tablet toward me. In his latest photograph, my cuff appeared to touch the first domino. Photographs flatten distances, however. I explained this useful fact while folding both sleeves firmly above my elbows.

'We can rebuild before the guests come,' Enzo said. He did not argue about the photograph. Somehow, that made it harder to explain why a slight breeze from my sweater should not count as touching anything. The windows were closed, but sleeves can create their own weather. I was still considering that possibility when he began sorting the fallen pieces.

I joined him. This time, we left a gap after the first ten dominoes, so an early tumble could not travel through the whole route. We would add the missing piece just before the demonstration. It was a sensible precaution, a step to prevent another problem, not an admission. I also borrowed two rubber bands to hold my cuffs back.

When the guests arrived, Enzo inserted the missing domino, and I tapped the first one with a bare finger. The delivery worked beautifully. On my plan, I added a note: 'Keep sleeves away. Leave a safety gap until starting time.' Those are excellent rules for any designer. They do not change my report, though. The first delivery started entirely by itself.