There was the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.
Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity.
Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way of answers.
Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.
I was a coward. I went to the war.
The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over.