[URBAN NOTE] Two Days Later

[rfmcdonald]

I passed by the site of Monday's murder. The Foot Locker was, surprisingly, open, with a police officer standing guard by the spot where the young woman--still anonymous, but according to various accounts a top student and an athlete of note--was slain. Hard by one of the storefront windows, placed so as not to impede pedestrian traffic, was the impromptu memorial, now composed entirely of bouquets of flowers with a single forlorn wet brown teddy bear.

There was a new poster today, made of two computer-printed white pages laminated against the precipitation. The top was a segment of John Donne's Meditation XVII, "No Man Is An Island," set to verse, below that an appeal to Torontonians to take action against violence in general. I don't know how effective this appeal will be. I do know that I was the only one looking down.