There was nothing good on TV.  All of the news channels were covering the fire.  Houses burned to the foundation.  Cars reduced to wrinkled tin cans.  Entire mountain ranges smoking in the aftermath and people crying.  That's all they ever seem to do, she thought.  Weeping, with only the clothes on their backs, about the half million dollar homes they'd lost.  And on the other channels: Cartoons, sitcoms, and other petty bullshit. 

She only watched for a few minutes, to feel grounded again, as a means of anchoring herself back into the mundane monotonous reality she remembered where creatures and objects stayed dead and forgotten.  A knock at the door and Sylvia entered, carrying a vodka cranberry on a tray.  

"Is there anything else I can get you,...

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