They leave their front doors open in the summer, and beyond the dark hallways, you might make out a glow coming from the back of the house. There are toys on the lawn, and bundled bikes; there are wind chimes, and haphazard constellations of bright stickers on the windows behind which children are sleeping. Once in a while, on the front porch, you can spy an old car seat, like a throne.
Sometimes there are voices: people you can't quite make out, on a balcony somewhere above you, whispering mysterious, intimate things. Leaves rustle in the breeze, which, for a moment, trails a faint whiff of reefer; a fat man is watching an infomercial on television, sitting alone in a darkened room.
"May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you be well-loved," you mutter, as a car passes.
You bless the banal, secret lives sheltering behind the flimsy walls that line the streets and alleys of Verdun. And you are genuinely moved, because, as your restlessness carries you still deeper into the forest of the night, you realize that with every step, you are coming closer to the place where the tyger burns and darkness gathers.
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