6 June

Eats – chutes – and leaves. Drenched in Skin So Soft. Yet those waterfalls really take me round the bend – several times over.

The calm blue water of Lac Monroe betrays the horrendous things going on behind its back up on the mountain trails … the flies, all of the goddamn flies … a bloody horror movie, is what it is.

The lake is none the wiser, and hey that lake is already pretty wise.

I drink in the outrageous shoreline scene, thinking … it’s highly likely I’ll never see this again.

Despite the rowdy clouds of mites, it’s a reluctant departure. At Lac-Superieur, a signal: head due south.

To Saint-Jerome in the sun, where the doors to the cathedral will open if you persevere. Where the rotund cardinal was a ruthless businessman, talking shop and building railways.

Yeah I’m descending the mountain now, along a multi-lane concrete ribbon flowing conspicuously through the thick dense woodlands of spruce and pine, occasional towns dropping in stage left and stage right.

Every day I strive for a beautiful picturesque view from which to eat my cheese sandwich lunch, to reflect on my morning endeavours, and engage with the surrounding nature (blah blah). Yet today the best I can do is a busy drive-thru parking lot, just off the freeway, 40 miles north of Montreal.

When I leave these heavily franchised stables by the motorway, I’m so overcome with the mundaneness and banality of so many people going about their everyday business in the junk-food saloons and the 24-hour gas stations, that I almost have a head-on collision trying to get back onto the freeway.

Through an intake of sharp breath, and an exhalation of heavily unsubtle words, I simultaneously manage to raise an apologetic left hand to the near-missee, while angrily shaking my right fist at the swerving truck driver, who is already long gone anyway.

Shortly afterwards, I’m stuck fast once again in the gloop of city suburb roadwork misery, which continues into downtown Montreal (an archeological site), where I’m sent around in circles by a man in a dayglo orange vest waving flags.

“I live here!” I silently protest.

When I eventually dock at my destination, I’m going fully illegal on the kerbside, in full view of a teenage crowd.

On the steps of my hostel mansion, a hostile crowd – arrived here on yellow buses.

It’s a swamp I struggle through, whereupon I’m rewarded with the key to life itself, which is presented today as an electronic card, giving me access to an air-conditioned room and a complimentary half-bottle of warm cava. Hey, I’m really living now.

To bring myself back down to earth, I escape all of humanity and the free alcohol to go and sit in a cold, dark basement, where I’ll attempt to abandon parts of my existence, and my rental car. There are no surcharges for this.

Suitably refreshed, Renee Levesque guides me through the skyscraper skyline in a straight line to a cafe bar on the side street, for a rendezvous with Claire.

The ocean waits for her, but will never wait for me.

Sitting in the sidewalk window talking Canadian life, as it passes by, and subsequently taps us on the shoulder – it’s been behind us all this time. Neither of us knows how this happened, but then it is now well after 5pm, and all of Montreal suddenly needs a hard drink.

Claire gives me the lowdown on city life, and points me in the right direction to Where It’s At – Peel Street.

I find myself in amongst organised chaos – horses, motorcycles, snakes, police cyclists, fast cars, and Leonard Cohen, all queuing up to jump a red light.

As well, the latest Williams F1 car, the driver having temporarily abandoned it on the sidewalk, for a pitstop at the bar, for a roadside beverage (and presumably to take away a Red Bull, arf arf).

A plastic verre of shit beer later, and suddenly it’s New Years Day. Who the hell invited U2 … ?

Quite apparent that anything can happen around here, and it usually does.

It’s a surreal street scene of AKA Idiots, watched over by a maudlin poet.

I send myself down to Brutopia, to drink beer with the equally melancholic part-owner.

He occasionally cracks open into a thick grin, approximately once every five minutes, when he catches his fleeting enjoyment of an anecdote he’s remembered, and delivered to me, semi-eloquently.

We drink beer together and I eat a cooked burger, while he tells me of the ongoing struggles to get everyone to speak in goddamn French in this city.

We say farewell – after he obliges me to pay my bill, in full.

Back in the hostel basement, things are warming up, and the vampires have managed to successfully negotiate the staircase for a seat at the bar.

I take two tallboys – bonjour – high.