Autumn arrived, air chilly; almost cold. A dog runs down from the trail, grabs a few licks of gritty water, runs back to its master, skipping from rock to rock, the creek shallow but determined to reach sea's salty body.

Where is this journey taking place? It was planted in desert sand, but blooms in humus, the fat of the land. Shadows slip over tops of trees like kit gloves, a spider receives and processes all somatosensory input from the body (touch, pain). Fibers from the spinal cord are distributed by the thalamus to various parts of the parietal lobe the connections form a "map" of the body's surface on the parietal lobe. This map is called a homunculus. The homunculus looks rather strange because the representation of each area spins its web in the wake of a rotting log.

This morning, city streets dappled with leaves washed down by rain, I rode backwards in a trolley, ruin-bunting brick facades with peeling skins of paint, behind which buildings in various frames decline.