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In the woodstove, steam hissed from the ends of burning logs.  A reddish, armored centipede whipped along the length of one.  Misled by a hundred million years of evolution, it searched desperately for a crevasse to hide itself within.  In and back out.  Then out of the smoke and flames it tumbled from the firebox onto the stove's front ledge.  But instead of heading for open safety, it drove its sinuous body back under the rim of the stove's hot door.  And there it died, true to the imperatives of instinct. 

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