I park my van on a narrow gravel driveway next to Repurposes, a condo complex made of shipping containers. My friend Craig comes out of the first house and waves me in. "I'll make tea," he says, disappearing inside, while I wrangle my two cats out the side door of the van and in through his front door.
Craig starts the kettle and then opens the back door. Both cats shoot through before I can say anything.
"They are indoor only," I begin, but Craig interrupts me, reassures me that his is a completely fenced yard. He points through a small porthole to a skinny strip of grass with tall fences on both sides. But the fence stops short of the ground and as we watch, both cats wriggle under it easily.
"Oh. Sorry," says Craig.
I rush to open the back fence gate. My fluffy orange cat is at the bottom of a cliff; I have no idea where the other one is. I call and he climbs towards my voice. The cliff begins as a shallow slope at the bottom but the incline is negative by the top so that it is a mild overhang. I have to close my eyes as the cat negotiates his way back; it's too nerve-wracking to watch. I scoop him up at the top, heart pounding, eyes still shut, and shut the gate. I stroke him and he feels sleek. Opening my eyes I realize this is a short-haired black cat.
I leave Craig's. It's darker now. I've parked my van much farther away than I thought. The neighbourhood seems much more urban.
I walk under a freeway underpass and a medical student in scrubs steps drunkenly from the passenger seat of a parked rusting car. He's frantically emptying a hat onto the ground and somehow I know to hold my breath even before feces begin raining from it. He takes a few steps then vomits copiously on the ground from the stench.
I pass a sleeping bag with two bodies sleeping head to toe. The bag is unzipped in the middle, so the heads at each end are covered but two mirror imaged white naked pelvises are exposed. I wake exhausted, scared, and sad.
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