These days, the old Dalhousie train station, now
hosting art events, has two benches set against its northern wall. On each
bench sits a man—both Black. If you look down the stairs from Notre-Dame Street
to Saint-Hubert Street at 12:30 p.m., you’ll surely see these two men. And if
they’re not there, you’ll feel their absence. At first, you might not pay much
attention, but with time, you begin to observe and realise that these two men
share nothing in common except their skin colour.
One of them is just as you might expect at first
glance—one of those homeless men who sleep on benches at night. His body is
slumped forward with exhaustion, his hair unkempt, his hands constantly moving
and rummaging through his belongings, which are scattered across the bench. He
is one of those whom Montreal’s politically correct crowd gently refer to as SDF
(Sans domicile fixe = without a fixed address).
The other, though from a distance may appear to be a
similar dark silhouette, reveals on closer inspection a completely different
picture: neatly pressed trousers, a smart jacket, a dark shirt to match,
spotless shoes, perfectly trimmed hair, an upright, dignified posture, and a
well-kept physique. Clearly, this young man does not sleep on the bench. He
always sits with his hands clasped on his knees, one leg stretched forward, the
other tucked under the bench, gazing straight ahead in stillness.
Once you notice this difference, the man with the
clasped hands, sitting as if burdened by something, begins to occupy your
thoughts. What could be troubling him? You may conclude that he’s lost his job
but hasn’t been able to bring himself to accept it—so he dresses each morning
as if going to work and leaves home. Perhaps it’s such a deep blow that he
hasn’t even told his wife. He spends his day sitting on this bench, deep in
thought, only to return home in the evening as if coming back from the office—just
like in a film.
You begin to obsess over seeing him there at
lunchtime. Wondering if he sits there all day, you start to keep watch even
from your home. You realise that his presence there isn’t random—it’s rooted in
his inner world. Eventually, you notice that he spends only about an hour and a
half there each day. You think, perhaps instead of joining his colleagues for
lunch, he uses this window of time to think, to weigh his troubles. Perhaps
he’s religious and occasionally folds his hands to pray. Or maybe he just closes
his eyes to rest.
To one man, the bench is a bed he sleeps on every
night, his home. To the other, it is a place of retreat, a spot to gaze into
the distance and unload his sorrows. Though they’ve long been aware of each
other’s presence, they have never spoken.
Yet if you delve into the well-groomed young man’s
mind, you’d learn that his father has been homeless for some time. After living
for a year in an old caravan, he has now been missing for a month. Grieving and
hoping to find him, the young man has developed a growing curiosity and
compassion for those living on the streets. Had his wife agreed last year, he
would have offered his father the small workshop annex with a separate
entrance. But now, with his father having sold the caravan and vanished, the
guilt gnaws at him. He has started greeting the man on the next bench in the
hope that he might learn something from him. Still, he hasn’t been able to
strike up a conversation. Even when the homeless man doesn’t turn up, the young
man never gives up coming to the same spot.
These benches, nestled in the cosmopolitan swirl of
Montreal, serve as a sanctuary and space of calm. They are the place to which
these two men have been brought by hardship and weariness. In this quiet corner
of the city, far from the crowds and noise, by the old station wall and its two
benches that sit before a park, life continues to unfold—and these benches
continue to bear witness to the lives of these two men.
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