Then came the question of fire, its striking immediacy. It had to do with all that changes suddenly, but we were there to describe what was. A separate matter. It was decided.
When it came to outlining the real, we would omit this strange incandescence––unnatural, wasn’t it? ––to better focus on the unburning parts. Research hummed along after that, with machine-like efficiency, without distraction by the looping songs of grieving souls.
What is this? We would say, of each non-burning specimen. And where there was no name, we could invent one, and all of it fell under a single decision, and it was Progress and we went with it, marching.
