Evening.
A darkened sky, the light beginning to emerge from the those corporate windows across the way, allowing their interiors to be more clearly revealed. And as I look at this checkerboard of light and darkness, a vacillation catches my eye. I move to get a better view of the two windows and see what looks to be a disco ball with garlands of bright lights running from wall to wall, and, somehow, a beam of light — like a searchlight — sweeps across the tableau. I see this several nights in a row and now I am truly curious.
Days later, I gaze over at the same scene, now reflecting the sky, buildings, and grounds — that are hidden from me, for they are behind me — to the north of here. I try to look closer, feeling like Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window” but looking for my binoculars (I have none, at present).
Details emerge and resolve, as does the meaning of the mystery. I see a rising lansdscape, and atop it, lights flashing exactly where the “disco ball” had appeared. Indeed, the lights are flashing, even in the wild-fire smoke-muted sunlight of the Montréal skies. And now, I understand.
I spent some time yesterday, observing this reflection, periodically, as the day transited from a yellow-gray morning, through the equally yellow-gray afternoon, and finally into the welcoming cool of night. What I was seeing was the warning lights arrayed across the top of the promontory that hulks behind me, rising up and North of me. This, and nothing more.
Today, the reflection is muted by the aerial pollution of smoke from the Prairie fires — I had forgotten just how pernicious that smoke is on what our skies look like, after experiencing it in Wyoming and Alaska — and I cannot see the Mount or much other detail. But it is there, waiting for the fall of darkness.
