In early spring, for more than twenty years, two old doctors and their fishing guide motored to a Barkley Sound float cabin on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. In a hallowed place where all men were equal before fish, pure sea air cleansed their souls. The central epiphany of every sacred ritual occurs in the wilderness. This time, there would be more particles than waves.

Eli and Dasco and Kenny didn’t know about the storm or what would come after. Like a solar flare reflected in their naked eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed. In a quest for salvation, they made it to nowhere, along some ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. And the fishermen poured milk into the sea.