Varsity Stadium on Bloor
Sunday afternoon and there is a game of pickup cricket at Varsity stadium.
The shouts and instructions of the players echo behind me, the language familiar but impenetrable. So many voices, so many people out on this day. A middle-aged man in a suit sits blowing soap bubbles. They drift away from him, rising above the pedestrians on the sidewalk beneath. Given breath, they hover there for a moment, an impossible glistening, before popping and vanishing into sky. It’s a beautiful spring day and people, optimistic after the long winter, are out in the sun. It’s a kind of parade, really, and every one of theses people is the star of their own movie, an unknowable plot churning within that’s just waiting to be realized.
A woman coasts on a bicycle. Her hair shorn down to a grey, jagged buzz. Something that indicates trauma. She slows, glances over to the stadium. It looks like she is going to smile, like maybe the day is a relief to her, too, like maybe all her suffering had been a passage to mercy. She twists her body and spits, a wild and violent hatred in her eyes.
A reminder.
Even on a day like this.
And past her, across the street, shaded by trees and the tall buildings surrounding it, is a little Parkette. A couple, barely visible, are about to sit on a bench. The ice cream cones they hold are a vivid white. They shine like torches. The pigeons, summoned, come softly down from hidden perches, landing like angels to feed on this mortal light.
