Conditional Reality

Evergreen Passinglane played her bagpipes on the courthouse lawn every Friday evening. If she missed a week people worried about her. What’s happened to Evergreen? they asked. Is she okay? They were always relieved to hear her pipes after an absence, and Evergreen was glad people missed her. Eventually she got tired of the pipes. Instead of playing, she just sat on the lawn and fed the birds. The birds told her they never really cared for bagpipe music. I didn’t know, said Evergreen. The bugs like it, said the birds, but we eat bugs, so we really don’t care.