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and go back up.
    They looked at the night sky and rid themselves of the jalapeños, which only Steve ate, by seeing who can throw them the farthest. Melted mozzarella then started sliding down their neck-pipes, clogging up their arteries by the minute. Seeing the whole bay at once,
even Oakland,
which they made the point of avoiding, with all its commotion, looked only peaceful from high up here. Airplanes took off from both Oakland and San Francisco airpots, cutting across the cloudless fall night sky.
      Frank was reminded of the time they saw the strange light up in Berkeley Hills, when he was a kid, but that was well over three decades ago, long before he was alone.
      He downed the last few ounces in the scotch bottle. That memory had to be drowned out at this moment, for he had his promotion to Head of Biology, a great academic achievement, to celebrate. He wondered whether he had ever told either Allen or Steve, though they had been friends long, about the incident with the light. He didn’t want to bring up his family with them, because, well, it was always a bummer, and Allen always got the look of a constipated-puppy on his face, as if he felt that Frank might have though they were all shot in front of him just yesterday. It’s been a long time.
    Within minutes, with Berkeley fall weather being what it was, fog rolled in rapidly and visibility plummeted to zero. Fall had indeed fallen like a sack of coal, and they couldn’t see as far as the closed hotdog stand covered in jalapeños, hundred feet below.
    “Allen, can you come pick me up at 5?” asked Frank. Although he was thoroughly drunk, he was also well aware of the morning’s advantages.
    “PM? A little late to start, don’t you think?” Allen asked with fake hope.
Frank answered Allen only with a look.
He’d need to get home soon to tell his wife what the plan was. After brief goodnights, Allen shared a cab with Steve, both going to turn in early to anticipate tomorrow’s ‘field trip’.
    Frank started for the hills on foot, as his house was a mere 20 minute walk from the campus.
    It was a straight shot across the campus and then uphill. Back in the 80’s, when the criminality wasn’t as high as it was now, they never used to lock the doors. The worst thing that had happened back then was when Frank was still a kid.
He awoke one night hearing noises from downstairs.
He crept downstairs expecting to find one of his parents down there brewing coffee or something. But the noises were strange. They sounded soft and quick, and there were many of them. When he got to the bottom floor and saw through the opened kitchen door, there was nothing, but few small wet spots on the ground and a few scratches here and there. Frank had trouble with sleeping since, and though he knew why, he’d never share.
In the morning Walter and GraceGrace decided their fridge was left at the mercy of neighborhood raccoons, and ‘that criminality has indeed risen’, so since then the front door was always locked and preferably never used.
    In the time it took Frank to get up to the house,
  the steep hill and frosty night fog sobered him up considerably.
As soon as he got home and took a shower, he went straight to bed, but was unable to rest.
The orange street lamps’ dim haze kept his mind from resting, as it still had something on which to focus.
So for the sake of falling into sleep and dreams,
he got up again just to draw the blinds,
and fall into a black feverish sleep.

Chapter Three
    Asea

    Saturday early morning, Allen pulled up to what he once knew as Frank's parent’s house. He loved it almost dearer than his own. It was probably the only house he’d ever seen that had a kitchen both downstairs and upstairs. The bottom one was for storing all their groceries and cooking complex dishes and the top was for sandwiches and snacks. It was connected to a living room, so it's always just been the floor on which the family used to entertain guests.
    Pleasant room