Pakistan, that eternal bastion of infrastructure built on hope and held together by the collective apathy of its ruling class, has once again reminded the world that 'safety regulations' are merely suggestions written in a language no one bothers to translate. The Gul Plaza in Karachi—a sprawling labyrinth of cheap textiles, polyester dreams, and the sort of electrical wiring that screams in agony if you so much as think about a light switch—decided to transform itself into a literal kiln this past Saturday. It is a tragic story, or at least it would be if humanity hadn’t spent the last century proving that we value a three-dollar t-shirt more than the lungs of the person selling it.

Twelve dead. Sixty missing. These are the statistics of a 'developing' nation’s ambition clashing violently with its reality. The reality is that Karachi is a city where the air is thick with the scent of melting plastic and the desperate, futile hope that today won’t be the day the ceiling decides to embrace the floor. The Gul Plaza wasn’t just a mall; it was a monument to the fact that if you pile enough flammable material in one place, the laws of thermodynamics will eventually take interest. When the fire started, it didn’t just burn; it feasted. And why wouldn't it? In a world where buildings are constructed out of bribes and architectural wishful thinking, oxygen is the only thing that actually performs its job with any level of efficiency.

Enter the politics of the ashes. Mayor Murtaza Wahab, a man whose sense of urgency appears to be measured in geological epochs, graced the site with his presence a staggering 23 hours after the inferno began. One has to admire the sheer, unadulterated gall required to wait nearly an entire day before showing up to look 'concerned.' Perhaps he was waiting for the smoke to clear so his tailored suit wouldn't pick up the scent of negligence, or maybe he was busy drafting a press release that used the word 'unfortunate' enough times to bleed it of all meaning. When he finally arrived, he was met with the standard operating procedure for the grieving and the abandoned: chanting. Because if there is one thing that solves a structural collapse and a total failure of municipal services, it is shouting slogans at a man who has already checked his watch twice to see if it’s time for lunch.

The protesters, bless their naive hearts, are angry about the response time. They act as if the fire department is a precision instrument of salvation rather than a group of underfunded men with hoses that likely leak more water than they project. It is almost as if a city of 15 million people requires more than a 'can-do' attitude and a few rusted trucks to manage a high-rise conflagration. But the anger is as performative as the Mayor’s visit. The government is a hollow shell, the buildings are deathtraps, and the sun will inevitably rise tomorrow over another pile of charred rubble that will be replaced by a slightly more flammable pile of charred rubble by next Tuesday.

The Gul Plaza fire is the perfect metaphor for the human condition in this pathetic century. We want the shiny things—the fast fashion, the plastic gadgets, the air-conditioned illusion of progress—but we aren't willing to pay for the boring things, like fire exits that aren't padlocked or inspections that don't involve a brown envelope passed under a table. It is a global phenomenon, really. From the factories of Bangladesh to the high-rises of London to the malls of Karachi, the pattern is the same: the elite provide the matches, the middle class provides the fuel, and the poor provide the corpses. It’s a closed-loop system of misery that functions with terrifying reliability.

Wahab stood there amidst the smoke, a beacon of ceremonial uselessness, while families dug through the remains of their lives with their bare hands. The 'anti-government slogans' were merely the background music to a tragedy that was written years ago when the first crooked permit was signed. We pretend to be shocked. We act as though a fire in a Karachi shopping center is a freak accident, an act of an angry deity, rather than a mathematical certainty. If you build a chimney and fill it with people and synthetic fabrics, eventually, someone is going to provide a spark. To expect a different outcome is the height of human stupidity—a trait that, unlike the victims of the Gul Plaza, seems to be entirely immortal. So, let us wait for the next 'tragedy,' the next late mayor, and the next round of slogans. It is the only cycle of life we have left that actually functions on time, even if the fire trucks don't.