The first thing our next-door neighbour asked us when we moved in was “what made you move here?” She also told us that the ice cream at the convenience store will clog up your pipes if you let it melt down in the sink. We haven’t really talked to her since. Her daughter goes to McMaster.

Whenever I am back, I walk around during the night. There aren’t that many streets, you could walk every part of the neighbourhood in two hours. It becomes very dark, which seems to make it easier to see. There are less sources of light obfuscating each-other: light from the moon shines parallel and silhouettes of trees and buildings become sharper. When the moon is full, you can see for a few hundred metres in the forest.

I found a sign from 2017 commemorating one-hundred-fifty years of Canada during the early part of the pandemic. It was perfectly preserved, as large as my own body, thrown behind a shed near the soccer field. I don’t think anyone had touched it in the three years it had sat there. I wanted to take a marker and write a message on it for whoever would find it after me, but I never did.

I was walking in the forest once at night when I came across a house being built. I walked up to the edge of the property and shined my phone’s flashlight at it. I couldn’t see much, but the frame of the house was already built. It seemed to be made out of wood. I wanted to go walk on the floor of the frame but I was too scared to go in. The next day, I went back and there was a sign that said the site was being surveilled and that I should smile because I was on camera.