It happened at 0400, in the middle of a deep sleep. In the middle of a dream: metal voices, down the vaulted concourses of some European airport, distant rituals of departure. Darkness. The hiss of climate-control.
I sit bolt upright in my bed with an over-whelming feeling of anticipation. The touch of cotton sheets. Sounds of traffic, all tension, panic, are gone. I remember the atrium bar, music, faces. I become aware of an inner balance, a rare equilibrium.

Someone is coming: a woman. I don't know who or why. All I can do is hope.

I walk quickly out into the strange GTHA streets. I look at the morning around me. The QEW hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from this desolate spot of land. We live in a valley of ashes. The sun attempts to make its way through clouds of minuscule particles: garbage burnt through air.

Sewage culverts empty out into Cootes Paradise. When the drawbridge lifts, huge barges pass through. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track. Passengers on waiting GO trains often have the opportunity to stare at this dismal scene for as long as half an hour. Above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor M.T. Kretschmar. These eyes too are grey - their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Some days hang over these eyes like a huge pair of unseen pincers, threatening to squeeze them open, or pop them out.

Makes me wonder, is it more important to see or to breathe. At the intersection of Barton and Earl, I cross against the light. I walk by a huge man wearing a black suit, carrying a newspaper under his arm. I lightly touch his sleeve.
"Excuse me sir, could you tell me how to get to West 5th... "
He looks at me for a moment, and squints.
"What's a five-letter word for deadly?"
I smile and wave, "Woman. Whoa, man. Get it?"
"Who do you think you are, Charlie McKenzie?"
He looks down again and attempts to cross the street. As he's heading over, he motions to a bus stop a block away.