vancouver

Oh, I__ Chrissy Mackenzie, I__ from Vancouver but I came here to study environmental journalism,_ the girl exclaimed with way too much enthusiasm. __ou got any advice?___earch me,_ Mandy muttered, spooning another ice cube from the empty glass on the table in front of her. __ like pollution, I write in favor of it, and environmental journalism most often implies that it__ in favor of all that __o green_ hippie crap._ __h, well_._ Chrissy seemed taken aback, offended, and Mandy sighed a fourth time. __amn it, I__ really sorry,_ she apologized, smiling dismally at the aspiring writer. __t__ just been a really lousy day for me and I wasn__ really thinking. My advice? Find your own cause to represent, not one thrown out into society by a ton of environmentalist dopes. Find something new, something you think could be improved, and work from there._ Chrissy smiled with a look of total ecstasy as if the words of some nobody woman were important. Mandy momentarily noticed the groups of laughing, drunk, giggling people, all acting childish_ and for a moment she wished she could be them.

Oh ParisFrom red to green all the yellow dies awayParis Vancouver Hyeres Maintenon New York and the AntillesThe window opens like an orangeThe beautiful fruit of light("Windows")

A bus drives past and I__ nauseated by a whiff of exhaust. Then rotting fish. The rancid stench of sewage. Is it garbage day? I__ trapped in the pungent fog, in the dreary suburban-style shops, the rat race of city life. The city, even on the west coast, has the power to beat us down, to suck us of passion, to crush our dreams.

The forest is blanketed by the greenest ferns and moss and bonsai-like trees, a wild majesty that beckons hobbits and pixies and elves and dreamers.