I'm in Edmonton. It's not the Edmonton I remember, not the Edmonton that's ever been, narrow streets lined with old sandstone buildings, green awnings over the pavement, grey and wet outside, warm and inviting shop windows, pedestrians. I've run into Nicole, haven't seen her for years, she's with a couple of friends, we're talking, catching up, when Steve walks by. He doesn't notice me, I haven't seen him for years either, he looks good, craggy features, well dressed, I recognize Steve but he looks more like Daniel Craig from the Bond films, he's going somewhere with an intent look on his face. I excuse myself from Nicole and her friends to pursue him. I'll find them later in a cafe, one of the old-school long and dimly lit diners, yellow lights & nicotine stained walls, vinyl booths, jukeboxes at every tables, chinese & western food... . .
I run down the street after Steve but he's disappeared. I cut through a high sandstone building that seems only to be there as a shortcut, a stairwell in, downstairs, high ceiling, another stairwell up and out at ninety degrees to the first. People inside talking about how the building is there to prevent road rage.....
Outside, still no Steve so I walk down the street, find my apartment, a walk up, too bright lighting inside, I'm on the top floor, walking up the stairs I go too far, come to a wall, turn around, go back down to the landing and enter my apartment. Through the kitchen to a bedroom, squalid, small, I've never been here before either. "She must still be at work" I think to myself as I fall asleep, I'll tell her about seeing Steve when I wake up, there's something very wrong with this, how could I live here? And I wake up and she's still not home and I realize she's not coming home, she's never lived here, how could I have forgotten. And I wake up again, strangely out of sorts, another odd dream....