The recent (November, 2025) inferno that destroyed five high-rise apartment blocks in Hong Kong reminded me of this story by László Krasznahorkai. The narrator struggles to express his feelings as images of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center collapse constantly replay in his mind. Rather than an isolated terrorist event, he argues that the root cause was an “immeasurably vast” destructive power that arrived on earth simultaneously with humans and releases itself in cycles of destruction and new beginnings. Themes include the limitations of language in dealing with apocalyptic events and the unpredictable, cyclical nature of destruction and renewal.