Sirens shrilling, firetruck arriving, ambulance and police cars converging on the parking lot where a man lies still as death. Happily for him, some of his native brothers are with him and surround him as if to protect him.
The fire truck with its burly firemen and their bags arrive first, then the ambulance and the police. All ready to help this unfortunate man lying so still on the ground.
People, cutting through to the McNabb platform stop to stare and then hurry on to catch their respective buses. A moment's though, no more, for this man.
A back board is brought from the waiting ambulance and ever so gently, the man is placed on it and then lifted onto the waiting stretcher to be whisked off to the nearest hospital.
The scene changes as the man is taken away and his friends walk away.
This parking lot has quite a story to tell, if it could but talk. It would tell of street people sitting in the alcove drinking out of paper bags, drunken laughter and of its use as a public urinal. It would tell of graffi artists sneaking there when nobody was around and decorating the walls of the C.I.B.C. bank with gang symbols.
It also would tell of ordinary folk parking there for business and/or pleasure, each individual with a different story to tell.
Such is life in the downtown core in a big city!
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