The world will burn. Thinking of this as a kid in a science class gave me mild anxiety. Our sun, just like any other star, will flare up—engulfing its surrounding system, including our planet, in its solar flames. It will either collapse into a black hole, or become a dwarf star that will leave us in unsurvivable cold and darkness. Luckily, it will be about billions of years before that happens.

Right?

But there are these small fires ravaging our planet at this moment. Grand and life-changing in our terrestrial perspective, but oh so tiny incomparison to the rest of the universe we live in. Still, we are all here to witness it. Nuclear wars, climate change, forest fires. Whether it’s a solar blast that will kill us all even before we know it, or the slow burning embers that drag on for god knows how long, the world is burning. The world will burn.