Death in the neighbourhood

There’s a laneway at the corner of Dufferin and Eglinton where I think three people died. At the end of the laneway there’s a little nook. It’s a doorway at the back of a building. It has a folding gate that guards a small, enclosed doorstep. On my way to work, I used to see skinny people with baggy clothes and skeletal faces, roam around there. Sometimes they sit at the doorstep, staring at the ground.  Anyone could see them, but no one really looks. And now they’re gone.   

A police report in the news said that four people had overdosed in four days in the area. Three didn’t make it. The police wouldn’t disclose the exact location. But I thought, where else? I wasn’t the only one. When I went to the laneway, CTV was already nearby. The CBC came minutes later. Three news guys looking for the scene of the crime.

I saw an old sleeping bag left behind at the southwest corner. I saw empty cartons of food on the sidewalk. I saw a dirty pillow in the laneway leading up to the doorway. But no people.

I don’t know if the overdoses happened here, but I can imagine they did. I haven’t seen any lost souls wandering the laneway since.

Who were they? Faceless, nameless people who died in pain. They came and went like ghosts. They’re gone now, but the problem is still here.

Toronto’s drug problem is complex. We don’t want to look at it, hoping it will just disappear. Until we dare to look, new people will keep coming, suffering, and dying in the neighbourhood.