My boss claims my designs strain her eyes. Look at this, she says, waving at my screen like I can't see. Electric green on black on red—it's painful. Awesome, I reply, modern day nicety that might mean thank you for the feedback or once this graphic blinds you I'll have done my fucking job. When I hike my favorite stretch of forest, I kiss every corpse I pass, imagine it's my own hide that's been scarred and charred by lightning. Cauterize my eyes with sun and it won't burn away the pain of watching this slice of wide world wane into graveland. If I can't revive the dead, I'll teach my kid to mourn my maimed oasis. She'll understand what she has lost—no, she'll call it stolen. She'll know what awesome truly means: stricken with reverence, sick with astonishment. E.g., it's awesome that my design software discovered a shade of green so vivid it might mangle your pupils. To experience awe is to be held captive by strangeness or beauty or novelty or grief. E.g., I am in awe that we robbed an ancient forest of its life. Did you know that awe was once synonymous with dread? That's how we got the word awful. Awe-full. How often we avert our eyes. How quick we are to turn away from wonder.