As I stepped out onto Queen Street from my apartment, a little girl who was alone in a parked car spotted me and immediately locked her door. She smiled and waved, letting me know– in her way– that she was just following her parent’s instructions and not to take it personally.
On the streetcar rumbling up Broadview, the driver stops the vehicle and lets on a man carrying two coffees. With a big smile on his face, he hands one to the driver. Familiar and animated, the two men act like this moment was absolutely the best part of their day.
A large, slightly scary looking man with a severe expression on his face sits by the window. I can’t help myself, and for whatever reason, keep stealing glances over at him. When we make eye contact, he quickly looks down and away, as if ashamed.
On the subway platform at Broadview, two boys with hockey sticks pass a crushed Pepsi can back and forth while waiting for the train.
At the corner of Bloor and Bathurst, shoppers comb through a table of bootlegged DVD’s. An old Asian man, shifting his weight from leg to leg, presides over the table. A man in his mid 30’s has a slight mental impairment, and he’s excitedly relating a long, rather wandering story to the Asian man, who responds by smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. The customer wants him to save a copy of the Star Trek movie for him, but first he has to go home and ask his mother if it’s okay for him to spend the money.
“You will do this for me because I am a very good customer, right?” he asks.
The Asian man smiles and nods, smiles and nods.
Happy, the man heads toward home to speak with his mother. He turns around, yelling from the sidewalk, “ I will be back in 40 minutes to buy the Star Trek movie, okay?” and then he starts to jog.
In Yorkville, an expensively attired couple, sit across from one another sipping coffee. They’re both focused, busy on their iPhones, never making eye contact.
The woman’s phone goes off, and in a trilling, luxurious voice answers, “ Hello my baby, how are you?!”
“How was the show?”
“Glad to hear it!”
“Yes, we’re at the café at Holt Renfrew!”
The man, still on his iPhone, has yet to look up or change his expression.
In front of the Bay Subway station beggars, in a drunken call to joy, shout Christmas carols at the passing pedestrians.