On Exactitude in Science

A one-paragraph fiction, first published under a pseudonym with Bioy Casares and attributed to an invented seventeenth-century source. An empire's cartographers perfect their art until they produce a map coinciding point for point with the empire; later generations abandon it to rot in the deserts.

The image the entire wing is built on. A perfect map is not a triumph but a redundancy — and the tattered remains are what any real map eventually becomes.