FOUR DOLLARS AND TEN CENTS

Four dollars and ten cents per gallon. Eight hundred and fifty dollars more per year per household. The number lands. And Identity catches it before the math does. One person sees a president failing. Another sees a necessary sacrifice. Same pump. Same price. Same fuel entering the same tank. Two completely different wars. Neither is about gasoline. The hypothalamus does not care about political affiliation. It registers scarcity. Cortisol rises identically in every ideology. But The Mind does not deliver the raw data. It delivers The Story. And The Story says this price is someone's fault. The pump does not distinguish between voter registrations. The nozzle does not care about your yard sign. Molecules move through a hose. Liquid converts to vapor. Combustion continues regardless of opinion. But the animal at the pump has already decided what this is about. Before the receipt prints. Before the tank fills. The price was set long before the gallon.