From drift, published by Anansi in 2006.
Their initial eagerness, then the disappointment on their little faces when you tell them it’s promontories not dormitories, hills not thrills, ports not Port . . . or portfolios— in short, that you have nothing they need screw you for. Though you can’t see why the essentialist should thrive: draws a box instead of a square, blot instead of a circle, spot on a globe, globe on a silly carousel, roaming speck on a vorticist’s dream of a cold, quiet, charismatic nada . . . But no attention to detail—Yonge Street versus Old Yonge, newcomers and Old Cummer, Grosvenor Square versus Grosvenors Crescent and Place . . . Forget it, you’ll chart the ant farms anyway, greenhouse to townhouse to bungalow— you’ve worked with illiterates before and got them all home in one piece (-ish). Once the ones are counted, it’s all about vocation —who’s on the hill, who’s in the trenches—while the tenants grouse and organize, haul fresh bodies home for dinner.