I saved a life

University Avenue
5:30 pm.
First snowfall of the winter.

Toronto somehow forgets there will be snow every year and that we live in Canada so it is always a mind-numbingly dumb production.

Women wearing stiletto-boots and sliding down Yonge Street; no car in its right mind remembering how to signal at King West; streetcars screeching to an icy halt, passengers running amuck out of the offices at Bay with briefcases o'er top their heads like umbrellas and fighting over cabs.


( I had proper footwear and always think it is a little pretty and Christmas-y, what with Dundas Square being lit up like a Christmas tree of luminiscent dazzle).



I stomp around in my less-than-aesthetic but wholly practical boots and come across a young man in toque just outside the Four Seasons Centre at Osgoode Hall, nose stuck in a book.


I will never say a nay to the nose stuck in the book, thing. Howe'er, it was rather silly last night what with the snow throwing people into dervishs of insanity and it was not the ideal circumstance for read read engrossingly read read followed by the rhythmic blowing of snow of off his book page.


He lagged behind me a bit til we neared Sick Kids hospital and the slope to Queen's Park.


I skidded to avoid a near-changing traffic light accosted by stupid, non-signalling, speeding Torontonian drivers, but fair reader failed to note, and stepped out into the mayhem.

I grabbed his arm instinctively and pulled him back.

He looked up. Thanked me.

I just asked him to tell me what book he was so into.

First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer.

to which, I smiled: " That's a good way to go!"