There’s been a pattern. Wake up, big breakfast, explore a museum or gallery, late lunch, nap, dinner. Rinse and repeat.
I decide to break my vacation cycle and take my camera for a walk before the early morning light turns into late morning heat.
J’t’aime vieux Quebec. Details like a door knocker with the face of a lion charm me. Enchanté, little fern.
The streets are mostly empty. Coffee. Croissant. A barista with a Freddie Mercury mustache and a vintage Carhartt disapprovingly clucks and corrects my Carleton County pronunciation of the latter. I don’t even attempt boulangerie or petit-dejeneur. I’m just a tourist here, guy, let me play the game.
There’s history here, but the antique ambience is a little lost in the McGarbage piles left to remind us of beauty’s transient nature. Ancient stones and the detritus of modernity. I’m drunk on metaphors.
Suddenly, I’m right in front of St John Gate. St Jean. I recall an anecdote about bodies being piled outside this very spot. Sobering.
I read somewhere about the first winter the British occupied this capital after the carnage on Abraham’s plains.
Prior to the fighting, the British, eager to lay siege on the French stronghold, had destroyed the city’s shelters with bombardments and the surrounding farms with fire.
After the blood was shed and the French capitulated, a few thousand British victors were left to occupy the ruins they’d made.
Among them, Malcom Fraser, who had been with the 78th Highlanders under Wolfe’s command, later that winter wrote “Numbers of sick and dead since September 18th, 1759: Sick: Two thousand, three hundred and twelve. Dead: Six hundred eighty-two. The skin of the dead turned black and their limbs bloated into obscene balloons. The ground was frozen and they were buried in snowbanks, waiting for spring.”
I bet it smelled like the McGarbage pile.
I descend back into the street, bustling now as the city awakens. Workers have removed the garbage piles, and others come behind them to sweep up whatever bits are left. Rue St Jean a palimpsest, alcohol and excess hover their quill above the sidewalks.
Outside Paillard, a boulangerie I cannot pronounce, a small series of beautiful, disconnected tableaus plays out for my lens. A new façade to layer on top of the old one.
I overhear someone behind me, bemoaning the leadership they elected. I wonder if they know about the door knockers and the cats and their faces.
I watch someone take one big bite of a McMuffin they’ve just moments prior purchased and then discard the rest.
I brace myself to climb the hills back to my hotel. The sun is out in force now. I need an air-conditioned nap. I bemoan the shape I’m in.
There’s been a pattern.
