Across the street was a garden. I should have found solace here, amongst the weeping tots, the cooing couples, the snoring elderly. But now other sounds could be heard, the chirping, grunting, groaning noises of partygoers celebrating the return of wilderness. No doubt that they were watching me, not as a threat, as it used to be, but more likely as a wholesome treat, 180 pounds of shouting, kicking, thrashing meat, a welcome addition to the ongoing feast. One week ago, while I was searching for canned food in the few shops that hadn't been pillaged over and over, I was almost trampled by a zebra, with two lions in hot pursuit. No-one had paid attention to me (déjà vu from a previous life). The city had found its own fragile equilibrium, one that would keep everyone happy while it lasted. Grass and weeds, which had first sprung from cracks in concrete, now grew everywhere in the streets, providing abundant pasture for the herbivores. Parks and squares had turned into overflowing jungles that provided shadowy retreats for the shy or murderous kinds. Cackling families of parrots insulted each other from the upper floors of patrician mansions. Wide-eyed lemurs slept in mossy kitchen sinks. Happy flies buzzed everywhere, looking for tear ducts and untended wounds. How did I fit in there ? How could one become a part of the new world order ? Who wants to be just another link in the food chain ? This may look like irrelevant questions from a person who had to find unpolluted water every day, but