THE most important item on the agenda of Senate that day was the creating of two different departments for Forgery and Rococo instead of keeping them in one department. There were initial comments on the spelling of Rococo. Should it be Rokoko or Rocoko or Rokoco or even Raukaukau or Raucaucau? When it was decided that the movement should be from the known to the unknown it was decided to keep the spelling as originally spelt Rococo. But this discussion of the spelling took so much of the precious time of the Senate that there was only a little time left to decide to separate the two departments.

A vote was taken and the decision was that the two departments should remain one department but that there should be two heads of department, one to head forgery and the other to head rococo. Some members of Senate wondered why the two departments should remain one while there are two heads of departments with equal qualifications, earning equal salaries and giving equal number of orders and directives to the administrators of the departments; why they should not be called two departments. Those who wanted them to remain one spoke of the indivisibility of forgery and rococo and the sacredness of their unity forever. Moreover, the greatest argument made said that the unified department saved money on administration since there would be no double staff. While the discussion moved to the choice of the head of rococo there was a report from the ground floor that there was fire in the house.

Nobody, not even the security, could say precisely where the fire was coming from. The President, (the university system had done away with vice-chancellors long ago and every former VC is now president) the president who was chairing the session of Senate instructed the security to go and find out where the fire is and let the august body know. In the meantime the discussion continued as to the learned colleague who would head the Rococo section of the department of forgery and rococo. The person who headed the joined two departments is a specialist in rococo and only slight interest in forgery.

He would like to be made the head of department of the rococo section. But because he came there first, he would prefer that the department be renamed as the department of rococo and forgery to show the pre-eminence of his subject in the relationship. During a philosophical trip by a French-speaking colleague, there was a further information to the effect that the source of the fire had now been located in the roof of the building. In addition, there seemed to be another indication that there might be another fire coming from the basement. In the meantime there was no reason for panic.

At this point precisely, the head of department of health and wellbeing wanted to know from the president what was the state of the fire department since that department would be in charge of putting out any fires no matter where it might be coming from. At this interjection someone raised a point of order insisting that the discussion and decisions going on, on the topics of forgery and rococo should not be interrupted. Nothing should stop the process of taking final decisions on these very important matters. As a result of this point of order the discussion of forgery and rococo continued. There were comparative presentations on the cvs of the two potential heads of the one department, although the one who headed it before insisted that he was not in the race since he has already won his own position etc.

There was a loud cough from the air conditioning unit and there was a hiss of hot air. Someone said in a loud whisper that we were back in Africa thanks to the hiss of hot air. From below on the ground floor of the building fire was burning, heating the offices so badly that the staff had begun to pack their bags and food containers and making their ways towards the doors. From the roof of the building fire could be seen miles away and there were calls asking if the people in the building knew that there was fire on their building. The fire had funnelled itself from the ground floor to the floors up to the ninth where the Senate meeting was taking place.

At precisely this moment in time a point of order and a point of information were fighting which one is the more important and which one should be provided immediately before the other. Some insisted that in the order of things, point of order is more important than point of information no matter how important the information may be. By the time the point of order had been elected as more important than point of information, the fire had arrived at the chamber and members of the august Senate had begun to get up and seek where they could escape from the burning building.

It was at this point that the discussion on the fire fighting arrangements was begun. There were contributions from the various departments that had input into the fire fighting efforts of the institution. Finance said that the money budgeted for fire fighting had been veered from the relevant account and moved to do other urgent things that the president needed doing. The works department said that they had already built the foundation of the fire station and all that was needed now was for the plumping to be installed and the water from the dam led to the fire station where it would then be directed to any place on campus where there is a fire or threat of fire. The president wanted to assure members of the Senate that everything will be done to ensure that the fire station would be completed very soon. There was no reason for panic since the presidency had given the instruction for the fire fighting building to be built as soon as possible. There were so many hands raised to contribute to the discussion when the building collapsed on the Senate . . .