The hermit

Few old folks live on Kingsmill Avenue anymore. One by one the small, tired houses pass on and receive renovations, new rooms budding off the sides like embryonic cells.

Halfway down the block lives a hermit. Maple saplings shroud the windows of his house. The backyard is shady as a tomb.

Last night I walked shirtless down the street, savouring the stillness against my skin. A dark sky embraced the city, few stars penetrating the sodden darkness. Distant lightning prickled, while televisions cast manic lights across inner walls. Air conditioners breathed like oxygen machines alongside houses. The trees stood still as tombstones. A feline shadow slipped across the sidewalk and vanished. In the turnaround at the bottom of the street two young people sat talking and laughing in a car.

With the avenue otherwise empty, the hermit had come out to sweep his front walk. I crossed the street to avoid startling or disturbing him. Clothes hung on his tall frame like rags on a skeleton. His head was bent in shadow. He attacked the front steps with a broom, as if scouring with steel wool. His porch light glared at the neighbours, but the house behind was closed, blind.