Monsters.

There have been times in recent years when I've felt that I've somehow slipped across the line into some kind of shadow world*, a world that crosses the border into the sort of fantasy existence that's dominated my reading habits for the last 40 years.

The result?  Zombies block the downtown streets, my niece is apparently a part-time vampire, a good friend tells me in apparent earnest that she's a space alien, coffee shops complain about extra-terrestrial influences,  the Internet attempts to communicate with me via broken English, and then there's things like this:

Yes, monsters.  A little research reveals that it's guerilla promo for a movie coming out in October that echoes District 9's concept of an unexpected alien incursion - and, in the same fashion that District 9 resonates off its South African location, the extraterrestrial presence of Monsters is in Mexico. However, in the case of the sign above, there's another layer of (perhaps) unplanned irony. 

I took that picture near my workplace in Vancouver, about a block from the center of the infamous East Hastings slums, where it's not uncommon to see people unconscious on the sidewalks or wandering in the middle of the street in a state of drug-induced dementia, screaming psychotically at the sky or weeping uncontrollably in the park.

Am I saying that these people are monsters?  Although it sounds lacking in compassion, in some ways perhaps they are - there's certainly a strong resemblance to the traditional portrayal of zombies, at least. The woman I saw last week with her pants around her knees and her rear end out in traffic as she urinated into the gutter is an unfortunate but ideal example - someone who has so abandoned any remnant of self-respect that they would no longer even find it necessary to seek out an alley or a corner out of sight to perform the more fundamental bodily functions.

Imagine a situation involving a drug that twisted and warped people's bodies to the same extent that crack seems to have destroyed the minds of some of these people. In that case, there would indeed be a necessity for warning signs for monsters.

Hmmm - perhaps the basis for a fantasy novel...

- Sid

* "Twilight zone" might be more apt, but obviously there are copyright issues.