THE MOST NATURAL EVENT ON EARTHRight in the middle of the construction holidays in July, the summer was hijacked by a heat wave. Day after day on the AM radio, Environment Canada repeated the same remorseless information: clear skies, high 32°C, 101.3 kPa pressure on the rise, no wind. The Amazon rainforest.Sweltering days were followed by stifling nights, and Hope began to suffer from insomnia. There was nothing terribly surprising about this—everyone was having trouble sleeping—but Hope seemed to be more affected than most. She ran on automatic pilot during the day, occasionally conking out or feeding the wrong documents into the shredder. Then, when the sun went down, she grew restless, and by midnight she was completely wired.For nearly six days she had not slept more than one hour a night, and that hour was fraught with nightmares. There was nothing new on the subconscious front: as always, Hope would see, over and over, processions of exotic animals invading the Pet Shop. Wildebeests in the bathroom, boas in the sink.
