[ for a moment, he thinks he is back home again. lines of trees and foliage no longer stretched on endlessly from every horizon; instead a skyscape of stone buildings, withered and weathered by time and man. a people tucked into its crevices, huddling away from the ones that have the right to call themselves such.

for a moment he sees nina. alex. dr. theo.

worick.

even little betty, too thin but scrappy despite of, because of, her long black tail curled around her body while she laps at the water worick always pretends they have too much of.

back home, it is rank. the streets always smell too much of the darker parts of humanity, of sex and smoke and drugs and blood and flesh. it smells like man and monster and death, sometimes all at once, usually in that order.

he smells that now, too, and maybe that's why he'd gotten so confused. blood and flesh and man and monster and death — all from one, all from him. the celebre must be starting to wear off.

time to go, he thinks.

he picks himself up, and his feet start to move.

come on, pal, he hears. time to go home. ]