Where The Hell Did They Come From?

*** continued from previous post ***


As I reach to open the doors, I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the glass. I look like an alien astronaut that might have pulled a ham-string or is suffering from a really, really bad crotch fungus.

Now, as I peer inside, and before I pull the door open, I notice that the place is just chock full of older Canadians. Packed. There is a scattering of younger people, some families, (oddly enough, all fighting for the last of the STD pamphlets), and a few people that looked shell-shocked. This brings me up short, I mean . . . where the hell did they come from? I look to the parking lot, then back inside. Unless everyone of those Volvos and Subarus parked out there doubled as clown cars then something is amiss. It's like a doorway to another dimension. A dimension with a much higher population than ours, and with a penchant for Helen Reddy songs.

Oh Canada! Land of mysteries, why must you taunt me so?

I debated turning around and heading back to the bike, or stepping through the door to meet my fate, whatever that may be. In the end, I stepped through the door. I had to pee, and parallel Canadian Dimension or not I was willing to take the chance.

As I pulled open the glass a wave of welcoming heat blasted my face and hands, reinforcing how cold I really was. The heady aroma of tea and wood burning in a huge fireplace tickled my nose, and the cacophony of a hundred conversations assaulted my ears.

At least until I stepped through the door.

Then, like a record player winding down, the place went silent. Dead silent. Much like when the gunslinger pushes his way into the bar room of a spaghetti Western – if that happens and you just know the shit is going down! Somewhere in the recesses of the Centre the dying notes of a honkey-tonk piano plucks it last discordinant notes, and the echo of the tuneis-interruptus hangs as heavy in the air as smoke in a Junior High bathroom.

I swear that for a brief instant, as I hovered in the threshold, a bolt of lightning struck behind me, outlining me in blazing glory. Hundreds of beady Canadian eyes fall on me. I spy a couple of stuffed Mounties on a table and a couple of beavers manning an information counter. I shake my head. Those aren't beavers, just some sort of Canadian Ranger with an abundance of facial hair. On the guy it was okay, but the woman . . . well not so much. And the Mounties on the table turned out to be --- stuffed Mounties on the table. No doubt road-kill victims brought to the taxidermist so they could be put on display in their native habitat as an educational attraction. You don't want to waste a dead Mountie.

I thought to myself that I'll bet your mother felt vindicated. There were Mounties. There were Beavers. There was nary a cannibal in sight.

*** the journey continues ***