With all the babble of the world, maybe demagogues and griffins will rest for awhile. Apocalypse now and again has its day, and we'll let it simmer in the pot. The longer it crocks in gentle heat, the easier to digest.

These winter glooms host feasting and spiced drinks. Festivals and cheerful customs announce the solstice. Small sparkling lights fill cloudless nights

To mention all this in passing, I have no further intent. Let it be, just as beans slowly soften. Honorable in their traditional clothing.

With a bit more heat, I might chuckle. Damn the demagogues, full speed ahead! Moods are chemically explained, say our scientists, which is why they can't catch up. There is -- there is a chuckle in spite of our dire circumstance, and it's not by design. These birds fly on their own.

“We're going to build a wall, folks.” Flap, flap, flap.

Three billion years in the making, a solar flare to outpace Russians hacking at our power grid, and a fence? This goes way beyond anyone's ancestors, to people who could never have imagined taxes. Or perhaps it's the moon does this.

Of course a reasonable story – even horror stories are reasonable – might be required. Especially when calling up griffins and gargoyles, scary good. Damn the demagogues, I say. In books and other media and over back yard fences, stories begin and end. But I have nowhere except this soup.

Here with the alphabet and noodles I simmer. Words are slippery. Would I buy the Campbell's version packaged in a can? Well, that used to be the case until my floating fortune cookie deciphered something indigestible.

Three billion years and a three dollar bill. Is that deflation or what? Digestible?

Who would have imagined it? Small sparkling lights around my head.