Lobsters, before they are boiled, are a dark blue. Next morning Dave and two other heavily-made-up Cat Sleepers escorted me back to the West End in total silence. I was pretty sure they’d been ordered not to speak to me and they were twitchy—quick to take aim at anything that moved. We took the same route as the day before: SkyTrain tracks to Granville, then a quick march down the centre of Robson to Denman, past the scene of the previous day’s ‘angel sighting’ where a carpeting of new bodies were being feasted upon by dogs, cats, and miscellaneous birds. Dave and his companions snigger-whispered among themselves as the cats hissed and the dogs growled proprietarily. Thank God for the ocean breeze, because the city was beginning to stink. There had always been an edge of rot to the air near the ocean, but that edge was becoming decidedly sharp as it mixed with the growing reek of Nod. But then, people who extolled the benefits of sea breezes had always ignored the decay mixed in with the salt.
