If I'd been down there where life grew I might have seen it.

If the sidewalk vents blow-dried my hair, if my eyes had been scanning in the cracks the subtle moss of the brick alley walls, instead of the subtle perspiration in the valleys of passing breasts, I might've noticed the carbon dioxide sighs slip-sailing all through the granite passageways of this Humanity-laden island beast.

As it was I was caught unawares when the restless earth heaved its asphalt back, sent us all funhouse tumbling, and shoots sprang thirty stories high, reaching for the miserly sun.

The tunneling roots wrestled to submission the long metallic worms gliding on wheels through their intestinal tracts.

Beauty parlors and delis and newspaper stands served as the appetizer.

The foresty burp of some Eden reclaiming itself shattered my botanist eardrums, and I knew the main course was yet to come.