The brown, tanned stump of one of his legs is visible beneath his hospital gown, and a small tower of IV’s and various bags of fluid loom over him. It’s a hot, gritty day, and he stares blankly across the street at a Tim Horton’s, indifferent to the people passing by. He doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him. These are almost certainly amongst his last days. He has a large bottle of Jack Daniels he’s taking hits from, and this seems some manner of providence, as if a last wish granted.

And then, two new mothers, each one wearing sweat pants and with a baby strapped to her chest, walked serenely down the street. They were almost glowing, almost hovering, and they walked in geisha silence, as if having moved passed language to an inalienable home that would be forever present.

She had a shitty day and was tired, and right before her she saw a man who had his knapsack on the seat directly beside him. Politely, the woman asked if he might move the bag so that she could sit down. The man called her an airhead and told her to get the fuck away from him, before eventually stomping on her foot and pushing her away. Much of this was caught on camera and posted online. It became a huge story, with the now widely despised man in question being dubbed the TTC Leprechaun. All sorts of vigilante investigations have been launched, one of which turned up the Leprechaun’s Diary:

Monday, September 22, 2014

Put on bright red shirt and piano key tie, accessorized by a black beret. Didn’t feel right. Changed piano key tie for a bolo tie and knew I was rocking it. Took a new picture for my Tinder account. Still nothing. Got on bus. Nobody challenged me so I spit on my hand and then rubbed it on that stripper pole thing that everybody with poor balance holds onto.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Today it was a sleeveless t-shirt and a do-rag. I don’t care if it’s only 9 degrees out, a man sometimes has to show his dominance and make a display. Waxed my beard and loaded up my iPod with the underrated Tom Cochrane.

He’s just as fucking good as Tom Petty, I don’t care what the loser critics say. Got on bus. Rubbed up against a teenager. She didn’t know what to do. Made my point.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Put some poison out on the fire escape for Ms. K, the neighbour’s shit-festival of a cat and then checked my Tinder account. Nothing. Checked Grinder. Nothing. Watched a few beheading videos. Took some selfies and then bought some really cool dude jewelry on Etsy. Wore my sleeveless t-shirt again today and also put on some Axe body spray and a bowler hat. Made a sandwich. Got on bus. Coughed in the face of a woman and then said, “sorry,” with really heavy sarcasm. It was pretty funny. Later, I called the cashier at Tim Horton’s a Fuck Bucket when she screwed up my order.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Refilled fire escape poison. New frames arrived in the mail. Very excited. Put on lucky, bright green shirt and bowler hat. Got on bus. Confused an old woman looking for directions, making her get off at the wrong stop, and then flirt-shoved a woman that wanted to sit beside me. We had good, playful banter and I think we had some real chemistry as I saw her sneaking a photo of me.

Thin and trembling, he had a big, bushy grey beard and a pitiless look that suggested a hard, unforgiving life. Anti-social and hostile, he shot me a dismissive look when I was first wheeled into the room. “Goddamn it, “ he rasped at the nurse, turning his body away from me as if disgusted, “ what have you done with Carole? I want Carole, not this guy!”  In spite of his fulminating, it was clear that he was not used to getting his way, and without further event he carried his disappointment back behind the separating curtain to his small bed.

Suffering a very serious respiratory disease, each breath was a battle for him, his life reduced to a war that he struggled angrily through everyday. His middle-aged children, bearing Tim Horton’s coffee, appeared every morning when visiting hours began and left much later at night. They talked quietly but without tenderness, as if jockeying for position as their father neared death, and when the nurses walked out of the room they whispered racist jokes to one another. It seemed a display of solidarity rather than love, and embedded within was the unspoken and unsentimental hope for reward.

It’s spooky at night in the hospital. The directionless sound of heavy equipment rolling down the hallway echoes off the walls, and suddenly, startling you from sleep, nurses wordlessly appear, their flashlight beams passing over unfamiliar walls like spectres. The rooms here, they’re not haunted by the past, but by the present.

And in this nocturnal climate, the man changed. He refused to sleep, choosing instead to sit in a chair at the end of his bed, breathing heavily and staring hard. Frightened of dying, of the darkness of night, he talked to himself until dawn, his unknowable interiors made briefly audible, cryptic fragments shaken loose from his speeding mind:

That dirty slut is going to end up in jail.

I’ll be back in the mud again.

There are only four directions in this world.

The meadows will never get greener.

And sometimes he’d move about. Bent like a terrifying hieroglyph or a primitive cave painting, he’d tilt into view, looming prophetically, and existing between worlds he’d stare furiously through me, holding fast to the small things that remained to him before eternity swallowed him whole.

In the Shopper’s Drug Mart a nearly elderly woman with a walker clunked slowly along in front of me.  Very cheerfully and talking to nobody, she chattered to herself, “Oh, look at all the rubbish that’s on sale, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish!”

The line-up was customarily long and so the cashier called the cavalry. A woman, brusque in every conceivable manner, came and staffed one of the registers, announcing that the next person waiting in line should migrate over. But instead, the last person waiting in line darted over and seized the opportunity. He had all manner of sinus medication in his arms and looked sullen and sour, like somebody who just lost at the dog track. I gave him an “I Know What You Did” look, to which he responded by trying to look sicker.

Back on the street we passed the man who always calls our dog Fritz. He’s tall this man, crooked, with floppy white hair and a cane. He looks like a British genius given to saying thing that are just a moment beyond one’s grasp and as he leaned against the Tim Horton’s he tipped his cap, “Herr Fritz, a good day to you!”

A little further along was an obese man plugged into a pair of earphones. He moved slowly and erratically, as if movement was difficult and he really wasn’t very interested in what direction he was headed. When the dog and I passed him he snarled, “Get your fucking dog out of here!” “You really must miss something,” I said in response, but he did not hear me and continued in anger.

Immediately after, as if in response, we bumped into a woman who wanted to tell me about her Dachshund, Brandy. Lived to be 18. She said that they had a Cocker Spaniel, too, but Brandy, Oh, and then she put her hands to her heart and smiled, smiled, smiled.

We then passed a dog walker. Energized by something she spoke excitedly into her headset. She had thin legs and moved like a boy, like somebody who always wanted to be the quarterback during pick-up football games. She yanked at the dogs, “Come on Huckleberry, hurry up Rizzo, we’re not stopping here!” And then a woman just leaving a nursery jumped from the fifth step down onto the walkway, and as she did so she kicked out her legs like she was in a gum commercial. I could not let this unguarded moment pass, so I said, “Very athletic!” The woman kept her head down and did not respond, heading swiftly down the street to whatever joy beckoned.