I’m early and just want to do paperwork and be somewhere else. It’s one of those days where you’re doing fine but the world isn’t and you don’t want to tune in to it’s channel, so you’d rather just be somewhere else and hope it’s darkness doesn’t reach out and find you and touch you and corrupt you and make you one with it. Those days are slowly becoming the norm, coming in with the heat wave at the beginning of summer like a Trojan horse.

The elevator from the parking lot opens and I’m faced with a Downtown Vancouver Renaissance scene. Behold, the future is here, I think. A quick assessment leads me to conclude that somebody had a good time here. The area usually smells like piss and hopelessness but today it just smells like stale city air. I prefer piss and hopelessness to be honest.

There looks to be pieces from more than one clean needle kit. That’s a good sign. I support people being safe. There looks to be an empty McDonalds apple pie box. I think that’s good. It’s been a while so I don’t remember if that’s good or not. It also looks like there’s a needle cap. No needle around.

That’s not good.

Either there’s an exposed and used needle nearby, or some poor soul is dragging their chains around with it still in their body. I don’t see any bodies and consider this is good too.

There’s a hunger, a certain kind of hunger, you only feel when you’re addicted to something. It hurts and it feels good all at the same time. It’s a bleeding itch you can’t stop scratching and the hard truth of it is you don’t want to stop, no matter how raw it gets. Whoever had that hunger last night didn’t anymore, or if it’s been long enough they do again.

That empty box is making me hungry.