Molasses

January 15, 1919. The temperature has risen overnight from below freezing to above it. A two-million-gallon tank of molasses stands on Commercial Street in the North End of Boston. He is not on Commercial Street when it happens. He is in an office on the other side of the city, reading a set of plans for a water treatment facility in Dorchester — doing the ordinary work of a man who assesses structures and writes what he finds and goes on to the next structure. He hears the tank go. Then the proceeding, and what remains.