Beholds

Unlike a certain City That Never Sleeps in the country south of the Canadian border, the City of a Hundred Steeples always went to bed on time. Unlike the New York City borough of Manhattan, the Montreal arrondissement of Ville-Marie tossed and turned in shallow slumber. Many faceless figures, lost to time, crossed shadows in those empty streets. Where those wanderers went, no one knew. They exchanged curt nods without uttering Salut or Ça va. Among them I floated like a flickering specter, cloaked by my own nondescription. I did not belong to the city, but the city belonged to me while I kept its sidewalks company.