Firefighters arrived at the scene in just enough time to make sure the building was unsalvageable and quickly got to work ensuring that insurance adjusters wouldn’t be able to make out heads or tails of what had happened in the still quite early hours of that morning.  Later that evening, when asked by a reporter at a press conference why it took firemen almost an hour to arrive to the scene of the raging inferno that inhabited the site of the former BLANK Publishing House, Fire Chief Don Blumberg made a relatable and press-friendly statement about the sorry state of fire department budgets across the country and just how thin his men were already stretched.  When asked the same question by his wife quite a bit further into the evening, after he had had a moment to unwind with a pint or two, Fire Chief Don Blumberg made a more relatable, if less press-friendly, statement about the sheer amount of flammable material kept in a publishing house, his distaste for high temperatures, and the fact that if she wanted to rush into building filled with broken dreams, she could be his guest.

Much, much further into the evening, after another pint (this one clear and much stronger) and after his wife had packed and left for her sister’s house Newark after being told by her husband to charge into a burning building, an unprovoked Fire Chief Don Blumberg made a very loud, very press-unfriendly statement in his front yard to no one person in particular.  It consisted of, in gist, a loud declaration of a series of slurred expletives followed by the question, “Why do dreams die?” 

Though the question is one many are faced with during their lifetime, and is indeed one that should be considered by the top philosophical eggheads of the world, 2:30 in the morning on your typical Tuesday is not the best time to answer life’s unanswerable questions.  Anyway, Fire Chief Don Blumberg wasn’t in the mood to enter into a strenuous (yet ultimately rewarding) philosophical discussion with his audience on the front lawn.  This is just as well, as he was the only one outside at such an ungodly hour and the disgruntled audience that were his neighbors simply wanted to fall back asleep.  Once Fire Chief Don Blumberg was finished with his existential inquires, he collapsed onto the lawn quietly, dead from a heart attack.  His funeral was held the following week and was a tasteful affair.