The same town, the same factory, the same people — the same streets, the same faces, the same familiar routines, the same ordinary days passing by in much the same way as they had passed before, and before that, and before that again, continuing onward in the same general manner, following the same patterns and taking the same shape, with the same things remaining in the same places and everything continuing much as it always had, or at least much as it had continued until then. The streets were still the same streets, extending in the same directions and remaining where streets had always been, while the faces were still the same faces, recognizable in the same familiar ways, and the people were still the same people, being the same people who had been there before. The factory was still the same factory, standing where the factory had stood, and the town was still the same town, remaining the town that it had been, with nothing truly different except for what had been written over it.

There was simply a different name, a different name placed over the name that had already been there, a different name written across what was already familiar, covering what had existed before without changing what lay underneath it. The old name was no longer the name that could be seen, because another name had been put in its place, but the putting of the new name in that place had not, by itself, moved anything else. It had not moved the streets, or the factory, or the people, or the faces, or the routines, or the ordinary days that continued to arrive and pass in the ordinary way. It had only changed the name that appeared where the previous name had appeared, replacing one name with another name while leaving everything surrounding the name as it had been.

And beneath that different name, everything else remained exactly as it had been — the same streets, the same faces, the same routines, the same days, the same people, the same factory, the same town, all continuing in much the same way as before. Nothing had been altered merely because something had been renamed. The streets did not become different streets simply because the name above them was different. The faces did not become different faces simply because they belonged to a place whose name was no longer the name it had previously carried. The people remained the people, the factory remained the factory, and the town remained the town, regardless of what particular collection of letters had been placed over the older collection of letters.

The same things were still there, in the same general places, continuing to occupy the same spaces and existing alongside one another in the same familiar arrangement. The factory continued to be the factory, and the streets continued to be the streets, and the people continued to be the people who lived and worked and walked along those streets. The faces continued to be seen in the same familiar surroundings, and the routines continued to repeat themselves in the same repetitive fashion, as routines tend to do when they remain routines. The days continued to follow one another, one day following another day, and then another day following that day, with each day remaining an ordinary day in much the same way that the ordinary days before it had been ordinary.

Nothing had really changed, except that something had changed its name.

That was the difference, and it was also the extent of the difference. A name had been replaced by another name, and because the name was different, the name was no longer the same name. But everything that was not the name remained what it had been. The streets did not change their streets-ness. The factory did not cease to be the factory. The people did not become other people. The faces did not become unfamiliar simply because the name written above the familiar place was now unfamiliar. The routines remained routines, the days remained days, and the town remained the same town beneath the different name that had been placed upon it.

It was, in that sense, a change that changed the thing that was being called something without changing the thing that was being called. The word had changed, but the place had not. The name had changed, but the streets had not. What was written had changed, but what had already been there remained there. The surface of the name was different, while everything underneath the name continued to be exactly as it had continued before. One name had gone, another name had taken its place, and the town had continued being the town.

So the same town remained the same town, even though it was now being called by a different name. The same factory remained the same factory, even though the name associated with the town and the factory was no longer the name that had previously been used. The same people remained the same people, even though the words used to describe where they were remained different from the words that had been used before. The same streets remained beneath the same feet, the same faces remained among the same familiar surroundings, and the same routines remained part of the same ordinary existence.

The new name covered the old name, but it did not cover the streets.

It did not cover the factory.

It did not cover the people.

It did not cover the faces.

It did not cover the routines.

It did not cover the days.

It covered only the name.

And because it covered only the name, everything else remained underneath it, unchanged in all the ways that mattered for it to remain what it had already been. The town was still there. The factory was still there. The streets were still there. The people were still there. The faces were still there. The routines were still there. The days still came and went. Everything continued, and because everything continued, everything remained much as it had been.

The name was different.

The town was not.

The name was different.

The factory was not.

The name was different.

The people were not.

The name was different.

The streets were not.

The name was different.

The faces were not.

The name was different.

The routines were not.

The name was different.

The days were not.

And so, despite the fact that the name had changed, the same things remained the same things, in the same places, among the same people, during the same sorts of days, following the same sorts of routines, beneath the same ordinary continuation of everything that had already been continuing. The different name was there, clearly different from the name that had been there before, and yet the presence of that different name did not make the familiar unfamiliar, nor did it make the unchanged changed.

It was simply a different name.

And underneath it, it was still the same town.