it's been rainy here all week, an odd thing since denver is the sunshiniest place since california and the sun. the clouds, I think, do to denver residents what the full moon does to warewolves. example: I'm walking home in a drizzle last night and there's an old man on the corner of university blvd. scattering popcorn on the ground in front of him. when I step around him and his popcorn he says, "gotta feed the birds." I say sure, since what can you say to a man throwing popcorn on the ground? he gestures to a white cat behind him. "say hi to fluffy" he says, and just as the words "hey fluffy" escape my lips, hanging in the air like one of those cartoon dialogue bubbles, I realize that this popcorn throwing old man is plotting a massive bird-feast for fluffy, and that the popcorn was food for death.

as I hurried across the street away from the old man and his cat, I wondered how many birds are going to show up to satiate fluffy, 8 o'clock at night and in the rain.