Editing Trip to Toronto

'''TORONTO AND OTHER LIVES'''

The heat only increased the moisture on the window of
the Greyhound bus at the York Street Station. As the seats filled up and the
din died down he numbed out the noises and pulled out a book of short stories
to read on this midwinter trip to Toronto. He sat next to the window wishing
the seats were farther apart as he wedged his long legs behind the chair in
front of him. The smell of diesel began to seep into the bus and the driver
closed the door, putting the tickets away in his briefcase. He began his own
repetitive journey.

      The bus pulled out of the station and after
it went under the Via Rail tracks at Richmond Street, turned easterly along
Hamilton Road. Hamilton Road below Adelaide was the old working class and now
working class Portuguese section of London, Ontario. The in‑town drive wasn't
conducive to relaxing or reading so he just gazed out of the grey, cloudy
window and watched the dark brick houses and businesses pass by him for a long
time. The bus eventually turned south onto Highbury Avenue and headed for the
401 East.

      White.
Don't focus your eyes and your concentrated stare is clothed in white. Winter
snow white. Open your eyes and the white is spelled by bare branches and fields
left fallow with stalks of dead plants. Mostly snow. This was an organized snow.

       Her car
was covered all week with about two feet of fallen snow encasing the white
Buick like a marshmallow in a plowed parking lot on the other side of town. He
looked down to his lap, opened the book of stories and began to read. As the
turnoff to Ingersoll approached, he raised his eyes and saw the exit disappear
in a curve towards Highway 19 and become engulfed in the snow that was falling
and flying past the bus on the long black road away from her snow-covered car.
His eyes focused on the bare rows of Hawthorn branches that lined the 401 and
he tried to envision the new spring leaves and their openness compared to the
transparent veil of snow and bark. Out her snow‑veiled window would be a white
sky and a botanical specimen of Pinus niger, growing outside the patio for
forty years or more. Not so along the 401 where deciduous flora outnumbered
evergreen. Field after field of planted and harvested snow passed before his
thoughts. He continued reading. Flash fiction.

      Heat
bothered him more than cold. The closeness of the air on the bus and the
constant hum of the fans blowing the heat around the fifty‑two seats while all
the passengers were wearing their winter wear, seemed ridiculous. Two hours of
sitting on a hot bus dressed for the outside weather that no one would have
contact with for at least the length of the trip, was not logical, but what did
logic have to do with it? The cold and the snow he didn't mind for as long as
he could remember. He had grown up on an island province in the far north east
part of Canada where there were four seasons: before winter, winter, after
winter, and summer. The bus rumbled on. The pages turned. The snow remained.
She thought about cleaning off her car. She thought about a lost love who had
cleaned the snow off her car on a regular basis. He didn't remain, just in her
veil of memories.

      The small
rolling hills of southwestern Ontario could still be discerned under the
blanket of snow as the bumps and furrows on the fields were not wholly blanketed.
The difference between the trees and the shrubs was quite distinct now in the
grey shadow of the winter sun. The V shaped Maples, the U-shaped Oaks, the
crossing branches of the Sumac and Hawthorn soon blended into lines of dark
with striations of light between the hedge rows and tree rows lining the
highway until the bus rolled past the indolent town of Woodstock. He looked up
from the book of short stories as the asphalt ramps and exits appeared more
regularly just outside his window. The heaters on the bus continued their
useless hum and rhythm and the large green directional signs began to increase
along the 401. He would rather be out there. Out in the cool refreshing skin of
snow.

      She stood
on the tiles in the dining room in her pink nightgown and stared out the patio
door at the snow. Her apartment was very warm and she liked it that way with a
small crack opened at the base of the patio doors. A small cool breeze blew in
and swirled around the bottom of her nightgown. Past the tall Pine out her
window, past the Russian Olive that borders her neighbor’s fence, past the
snow, she set her gaze on the road that ran between her apartment and the farm
land on the other side of the road. Snow and bare branches and fields left
fallow with stalks of dead plants. Mostly snow.



      Four exits
and two S curves defined Woodstock, well, along the 401 at least. Little
population change since he had lived there as a teenager in the 1960's and in
the time it took the bus to pass by the city; he would not have had the time to
help increase the population of the town. Four exits and two curves and the bus
was past the town but the snow kept falling outside his window. The towns and
cities grew closer and closer together and the furrowed fields grew sparser and
sparser but the veil of snow remained the same.

      He was
beginning to read the last flash fiction story and returned his eyes to the
white pages with the black lines of words like the fields of snow just past the
peripheral vision of his right eye . . ''."Happiness
replied that she was there all along; going down the road to school, to
friends, to parties, to parents. Happiness replied that she and her sister
Sadness travel hand in hand. That's life. That's living but certainly not
Sorrow . . . for many years Happiness takes over her life and she is seen
smiling in a photograph beside a lake tucked away in an album somewhere seeking
memories of Happiness and Sadness . . . lean on me from now on said Happiness
for I am in the harbors and the small towns, distant cities and even on our
street, in your room, and in your heart. Happiness said I am here when you rise
and when you sleep. I am the only one here for you now. Certainly not Sorrow .
. ."''

      The bus
rolled past Mississauga and Brampton and now all the fields of cold snow were
gone. All the lines of trees and shrubs and fields were gone and replaced with
more asphalt and green signs and yellow street lights. He put the book back in
his carry‑on suitcase and stared out the window as the bus rounded the 427
curves to the QEW and headed toward the bus station in Toronto. 

       She closed
the patio door. She thought about getting dressed, turned slowly to the right
and entered the small living room and sat on the edge of the couch in the warm
room. She reached over and turned on the light which sat on the table beside
her. She reached for the coffee cup she had placed there just the moment
before. She couldn't see the snow anymore. It was just a vague memory already.
She crossed her legs on the table in front of her and looked at her bright red
painted toenails. The message light was flashing on the phone.

      There is no
real life on the highway, on the 401 or any other highway for that matter.
There are living things on the highway though and with the humming of tires and
the exhaust in winter you would think that the highway was alive and breathing.
Families and individuals in their automobiles, lonely transport truck drivers
sitting above everybody else thinking of the ones they love or ones they are
just thinking of. Animals sit in the back windows of vehicles and stare out at
the snow and the humans and not knowing the language, wonder what is going on.

      The real
life is back off the highway where it is rarely seen by the people on the
highway. Someone probably stands and stares at the highway longer than the
traveller stares out the car window at the house or apartment building in their
view. He wondered if he was the only one thinking of these things as he looked
around the bus at all of the bored and tired passengers getting ready to get
off the bus as it pulled up Avenue Road and let the first batch of people off
at the Union Station stop on the west side of the Royal York Hotel. The noise
of the city overpowered the slow steady hum of the bus. He looked out the
window and watched intently as the students and other passengers grabbed their
luggage and headed to the train station for their own connections and their own
lives. 

      He thought
about the bus being stopped in traffic on the Spadina Ramp just minutes before
it drove into the city. He had thought about the woman he had loved and
recently lost in the breakup of their relationship and pulled out his cell
phone. As he dialed her number back in London, he looked out the window of the
bus and into the eyes of the driver of the transport truck directly across from
him. He too was dialing a number on his cell. They looked each other in the eye
and nodded. The Greyhound bus continued on to the Elizabeth Street Bus Station
and he took his carry‑on suitcase with him as he walked out of the bus doorway
and into the cold snow‑filled streets of Toronto. He also called his daughter
to let her know he was on his way to her house. 



      She sat on
the couch for the full length of a slow cup of coffee and stared at the
flashing message light on the telephone. The distant traffic noise had died
down and the only sound in her apartment was the hum of the fan on the heater.
She put down the coffee cup, placed her bare feet on the rug, stood up and
headed for the red flashing message light. She took the phone off the hook and
sat back down on the couch, lifted the phone to her ear, punched in the pass
code and hoped to hear the smile in his voice somewhere in a transport truck
sitting above everyone else, passing cars and buses and other vehicles along
the cold black highway. 

      She had two
messages. The snow in her heart began to melt and she would have two road weary
smiles in her ear. She put the phone down and walked over to the patio door,
opened the curtains and watched the snow fall covering everything with a fresh
new coat.

''' '''
[[Category:Flash fiction]]
[[Category:Toronto]]
[[Category:London, Ontario]]
[[Category:London Ontario]]