The other day I took our dog for a stroll up to Old Chinatown. Along the way, on the sidewalk near the Chinese Baptist Church, I found a set of keys. This discovery was both exciting and mysterious.
The keys, they could unlock anything!!
A time machine.
A medicine factory.
A treasure chest.
I felt like I had been invested with a great responsibility and that unknowable eyes were watching, waiting to see how I responded. I decided that the keys likely had some connection to the church, and that I would go in there and hand them over to whatever authority figure was present. Although I could hear organ music, the place seemed to be entirely locked up, and so I left the keys, and all the potential they represented on the church steps, just like a newborn baby.
On Gerrard, the dog kept her nose to the ground and never once bothered to use her eyes, but just inhaled the scent of every new twist and turn the day presented.
Ginger root!
Lost sneaker in a puddle!
Lobster shell!
Blue plastic bag with a tiny footprint on it!
Chicken bone!
Through sad looking Asian women and indifferent men, we turned onto Broadview. We paused and looked in a hair salon that contained just one customer–a 160 year-old Asian woman with a big frown on her face and a roller coaster of curlers in her hair.
Directly beside this place was a closed barbershop with a big sign in the window: “After 48 years of cutting hair in this neigbourhood, I am now retiring. I just want to thank all of my customers over the years, in particular the second and third generation ones.”
The beauty and sadness in this distillate nearly broke my heart.
An angry looking woman with an unnaturally tanned face and platinum blonde hair walked toward us. I expected to see a weathered, slightly bitter face, evidence of a reckless life of fun and sun, but no, she looked utterly polished. When she saw Heidi, who was digging by a tree, the faintest twitch of pleasure began to animate her face. Seeing this I smiled, but when she saw me looking at her, her face once again became hardened and defensive. She looked quickly away, and swinging her ass, stomped away, a tattoo peeking out from the gap between her sweat pants and the Canada Goose Expedition parka she so proudly wore.