"They found the reason for my heartache. My left ventricle - it's enlarged."

His heart, I care, I really do. But he's five thousand kilometers away. It wouldn't work right now anyhow, not with me all wandering-eyed. It would take a love of gargantuan size to overide my love for this city.

(Oh the Lion's Gate, the railyards below reflecting the angled winter light. The cherry trees pinking the boulevards, the glass hirises sparkling like the swishing Inlet below. Pigeons and gulls riding the updrafts in the downtown core, Skytrain stations and bicycle couriers. 93-cent pizza. Spanish Banks and the tide coming in over the sun-baked shore. Coffee. Sushi. The Granville strip, Gastown. The seawall... oh God that seawall and False Creek and the mountains at night glowing white from the floodlights and the snowmakers. Enlarged heart?)

This afternoon I sacraficed mice. Hiss of the gas. They wobble and wooze and fall into the sawdust. Twitch once or twice. The pinkies you drown with tapwater in your glove. Then, if you only have one or two, it's a quick simultaneous chop on the head and pull of the tail, spine snapped, dead.

I seem to have a way with hearts.