We descend through an abandoned orchard, kicking fallen lemons out of the way, hit some hill-streets, trudge down the hill past letterboxes with old, yellowed mail from two years ago. There are riderless bicycles, spilled recycling bins. Mummified garbage. Wild cacti, overgrown berms.
It’s dusk now and the sky is tea-coloured. Our day together has gone dark. As the buildings rise and block out the setting sun, my bladder feels tighter and tighter. My thighs shiver. I knock a bottle off a park bench and jump as it follows me, calling.
We hit a strip of suburb, some nice apartment buildings with empty playgrounds, then walk along Moorhouse Avenue for a couple of silent miles until we’re in the dim, unlit central business district, where hardly any light gets in as the towers crowd out the
