from Edmonton, AB
I’m on my way.
The first night in Edmonton, I am rudely awakened at four in the morning by a furious banging on the door. Falling off Jason and Anthony’s couch, I stumble into a pair of pants and contemplate the possibility that drunken hoodlums are marshalling their forces in the hall, prepared to ambush me and hang me naked by my ankles from the frozen balcony.
What a pleasant surprise! The police. My still-slumbering mind slips into an odd calmness. It seems somewhat less likely now that the night will end in an ankle-hanging.
What do I know of the garbage being launched from one of the balconies down into the deserted, snowy street sixteen floors down? Nothing. I dozed off watching some silly television show in the dark. But apparently there’s a suspicious black item flapping from the balcony railing, so I let the officers in to have a look.
My attention having been drawn to the deadly nylon folding-chair cover being fished off the balcony, I am somewhat confused, yet somehow unsurprised to find myself making shirtless smalltalk about Australia with eight overly-tall officers of the Edmonton Police Service, all of whom appear to be decked out with flack jackets and guns. At four in the morning I can’t decide whether this is unusual. Anthony continues to sleep soundly in his room.
After a few minutes spent discussing the finer points of recreation on Australia’s east coast, the whole lot of them wander off to combat evil elsewhere, leaving me to return to the somewhat uncomfortable embrace of the couch.