The Wrong Tune

It had the outward appearance of a fire engine, but Spouse and I heard only the toothsome chimes of an ice cream van. We heard strawberry-sweet chirps as the speedy red truck made a dash, lights twirling, to rescue some stricken soul.
"How is that possible?" asked Spouse as we watched it streak up the street, past the library and out of our sight.
"It looked like a fire engine," I said, "but it was singing the wrong tune."
"I think," said Spouse carefully, after a moment, "that there is an ice cream van very close by. The fire engine was actually silent. All we heard was the ice cream van, all we saw was the fire engine, and we put the two together."
I concurred, but I mourned the mystery all the same.
We belong, not to a world in which fire engines might jingle pleasantly like ice cream vans, but to a society of short-lived adventure and too-brief moments of wonder; one in which the spell of possibility is frequently extinguished by a blunt explanation.