I think I've spent too much time in the city. Every time I find myself in the mountains now, such as when I went fishing with my stepfather a few weeks ago, I find myself terrified of bears, mountain lions, poisonous snakes, moose. I look through the forest and even if I am near town, I have a terrible feeling that any second now I'll find myself between a mother bear and a cub, or a giant moose will charge at me out from the mesh of bushes & trees. This is the guy who used to play hide-and-seek as a child in the Utah desert wilderness; this is the guy who went night diving off the coast of Barbados at the age of 12. Now I have nightmares of wild animals rising up out of rivers and lakes, things made of tentacles & thousands of tiny scrambling legs, coming after me to get revenge for the fish I take out of the Washington Park pond. I'm even afraid of the carp at that pond, those big, fat monstrosities that look like they have mutated from city pollution into something brown, fleshy, scaly & terrible. I've never reeled in a carp, but if I did I'm sure I'd be afraid of him. Yes: I am perfectly comfortable in the city, but nature is another story: nature is chaotic, unpredictable & unforgiving. It does not work by rules such as "Be submissive & forthcoming with police officers" and "Don't stare those roughnecks on the street in the eye." I've learned the city rules; but they will avail me nothing when a hungry brown monster comes at me in the wilderness, its claws & teeth ready for a fight, its belly urging it on to the kill. Nature lets you die without mourning you; there is no such thing as justice to nature. There will be no mention in the paper of my innocent life snuffed out by a senseless cruel act; there is no one to blame when a bear eats you, no trial for a weeping family to demand vengeance through, no lawsuits from mourning widows & children. No: you are eaten, you die, and everyone merely shrugs and says, "What a pity; you never know what those bears will do."