Carolyn Roberts

In the lecture hall without windows, all students sat on the same plane. A projector was all that lit the room and it's light bounced off the wall onto the faces in the audience. From behind, student mentors were lined up, all in their blue football jerseys, Kennebecasis Crusader style. They were running a welcome pep rally and I was in attendance with all the new students. There were many people there, mixes from my high school and university careers including my favorite professor from Ryerson, Don Snyder. He was seated off to the side. I walked over to him and after some small talk, he went on to listening to the lecture. I stood beside him, searching for more to say. As I stood there, I pulled out pieces of home made bread from my trench coat pocket. Rather nervously I picked at them, ate some, and put other pieces back into my pocket.

When the lecture ended, I followed a small pack of the blue jerseyed mentors out the room into the main lobby of the school. It was the lobby of my old high school, brightly lit. One of the mentors, a black woman with curly hair, asked me about my school experience. I told her I had just finished at OCAD.

Out in the sun, it was warm and breezy. Many cars were driving around the school indicating the day was through. The student parking lot was busy, the roads that surrounded KVHS were congested and full. There were tunnels that came out the sides, spewing out car after car, all in a frenzy to leave.

I went off to one side of the school, through the teachers parking lot to where an old wooden bridge used to be. It was replaced by a concrete overpass, below more cars emerged from what looked like underground parking for the high school. Then an old brown VW Jetta came out of the tunnel and stopped directly below me. Carolyn Roberts looked up at me through the sunroof and offered me a ride home. I cast off the bridge as if in water, and swam through her sunroof to ride shotgun.