In December, when we’re stirring the embers of this season with a stick to see if anything still burns, it will be hard to remember the sixth game of the season - and what we do remember will be partly true memory and partly an amalgam of whatever else was floating around in the world at the time. It’s inevitable, this marriage of simple memory with a larger narrative; without the tentpoles, the fabric flies away, a victim of the persistent headwinds of the future.
Which means that our memories of the Fire’s astonishingly complete 1-0 defeat of Columbus will be adulterated, not only by mixture with the shockingly bitter waters of the Fire’s recent past but also by the undetermined colors and flavors of the games to come.