While walking down Yesler this morning I came across yet another dead animal in the same stretch of street (between 14th and 15th). This time the victim was a black cat. Last week it was a fuzzy squirrel; a few weeks before that, it was a black cat and a fuzzy squirrel (almost side by side). I can no longer accept these deaths as accidental or natural; something related to humans (crack, poison, traps) is killing the creatures on the south side of the street, which is dense with homes, trees, and bushes. The cause of the deaths could also be supernatural, or the consequence of some rustic ritual that has survived urbanization. The heart of darkness is now in the heart of the city.