In the soot-choked annals of human 'progress,' there is a recurring chapter titled 'The Predictable Pyre.' This week, the southern Pakistani city of Karachi has provided a particularly grisly entry, with the death toll at a shopping plaza fire reaching a respectable sixty-seven. One must admire the efficiency of it all. Why bother with the slow decay of poverty or the tedious decline of old age when you can simply compress your life’s narrative into a few frantic minutes of inhaling burning polyester and acrid insulation? The officials are, of course, performing their usual choreographed dance of 'shock' and 'dismay,' as if a building constructed with the structural integrity of a wet cardboard box and the fire safety standards of a medieval torch-lit cave could have produced any other outcome.

Let’s deconstruct the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the situation. We are told by police and hospital officials that the number of casualties jumped significantly after body parts were discovered. It is a charmingly clinical way to describe the literal disintegration of human beings in the name of retail therapy. In Karachi, the shopping mall is the modern temple, a monument to the middle class's desperate need to participate in the global consumerist delusion. And like all good temples, it occasionally demands a blood sacrifice. Sixty-seven souls—or rather, the charred fragments thereof—have been offered up on the altar of bureaucratic malfeasance and structural indifference. This isn't a tragedy; it’s a mathematical certainty. When you mix a complete absence of fire exits with a surplus of bribes and flammable synthetic fabrics, the result isn't 'news,' it’s physics.

The 'investigation' has already begun, which is the international signal for 'we are waiting for the public to forget so we can return to the lucrative business of ignoring building codes.' We’ve seen this script before, and it’s as tired as a used car salesman’s pitch. A committee will be formed—likely composed of the very same bureaucrats whose signatures allowed this tinderbox to exist in the first place. They will convene in air-conditioned rooms, drink tea, and eventually conclude that 'fire is dangerous' and 'regulations should be followed.' Then, the files will be buried under a mountain of more pressing matters, like how to further squeeze the remaining population for tax revenue that will never find its way into fire trucks or emergency exits.

The global response is equally pathetic. From the West, we’ll hear the performative sighs of the 'humanitarian' crowd, who will briefly pause their scrolling to offer a prayer on social media before returning to ordering cheap electronics manufactured in similarly combustible hellholes. On the Right, the usual suspects will mutter something about 'over there,' as if their own crumbling infrastructure isn't just one budget cut away from a similar pyrotechnic display. The Left will blame 'global capitalism,' ignoring the fact that the local corruption that fuels these disasters is a bipartisan, multi-cultural effort that transcends economic theory. Everyone is at fault, and therefore, no one is responsible. It is the perfect, modern stalemate.

Consider the irony of dying in a shopping plaza. These people weren't seeking enlightenment; they were likely looking for a deal on a pair of jeans or a plastic kitchen appliance. The ultimate bargain, it turns out, was a one-way ticket to the morgue. The mall—that hollowed-out carcass of 20th-century aspiration—has become a tomb. And what of the survivors? They get to navigate a landscape where the authorities will promise 'strict measures' while simultaneously holding out their hands for the next kickback from a developer. It’s a closed loop of stupidity. We build death traps, we act surprised when they kill us, and then we build them again, perhaps with a slightly shinier facade to mask the scent of smoke.

In the end, Karachi is just a more honest version of the rest of the world. It doesn't hide its rot behind slick PR campaigns or the illusion of safety. It tells you exactly what it is: a place where life is cheap, electricity is intermittent, and the next fire is already smoldering in the basement of the next 'luxury' development. Sixty-seven dead is just a number on a ledger that no one is actually keeping. As the body parts are tallied and the officials retreat to their villas, the only thing that remains is the smell of burnt plastic and the crushing realization that as a species, we are far more interested in the spectacle of the blaze than the boredom of the prevention. Evolution, it seems, has hit a wall, and that wall was built without a permit and is currently on fire.