The foam is hard, and light, and durable, and I imagine the houses of my
parent's suburb, the little Process enclave, surviving long past any of us,
surviving as museum pieces for arsenic-breathing bugouts, who crawl over the
mummified furniture and chests of clothes, snapping picts and chattering in
their thrilling contraltos. I want to scream
Here and there, pieces of the old, pre-Process, pre-foam Toronto stick out, and
I rub them as I pass them by, touchstones for luck.
#
Spring lasted about ten days. Now we're into a muggy, 32 degrees Toronto summer,
and my collar itches and sweat trickles down my neck.
I'd be wearing something lighter and cooler, except that today I'm meeting my
Dad, at Aristide. They've got a little wire-flown twin-prop number fuelled up
and waiting for me at the miniature airstrip on Toronto Island. Dad was *so*
glad when I got in touch with him. A real Milestone on his Personal Road to
Lasting Happiness. There's even one of the Process-heads from Yonge and Bloor
waiting for me. He doesn't even comment on all my fricken luggage.
#
I hit Stude's place about ten minutes after he left for his trip to the
mothaship. I had the dregs of the solvent that he'd sold me, and I used that to
dissolve a hole in his door, and reached in and popped the latch.
I didn't make a mess, just methodically opened crates and boxes until I found
what I was looking for. Then I hauled it in batches to the elevator, loaded it,
and took it back to my coffin in a cab.