There is a building in Mississauga the same colour as the sky

, a (newly completed) short story nine months in the works,

In this moment, I saw his love start
and end with your beauty.
                                    Manahil Bandukwala, Monument

1.

If you look too quick it might not register, providing the illusion of a floating line of gold squares beneath untethered rooftop. I had to stop the car. A blue-dusty calm above this horizon-line of perpetual suburb. It was startling, soothing. I bled right into it.

Mississauga, Ontario: situated on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabeg people, as well as the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, from whom the city derived its name, a word originated from the Anishinaabe word Misi-zaagiing, meaning “[Those at the] Great River-mouth.”

And still: if this city mere sandbar, not even an island. How one bleeds into surroundings.

2.

The Bora Pharmaceuticals website lists the 170,000 square metre Mississauga facility as one “designed for flexible, high-quality, cGMP drug contract manufacturing, offering unique capabilities and experience to supply the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world.” It was announced in 2020 that they had selected this location as their North American headquarters, purchasing GlaxoSmithKline’s facility.

Cornflower blue. I wonder if local birds can spot the difference. They must, I’d think. Or if one could identify from above.

3.

The grid-systems of Calgary and Edmonton, the back alleys of Toronto, Montreal’s absent street frontage. City-suburbs such as Mississauga exist as a sequence of highways and strip malls, between which swirl clusters of side streets and crescents that curl and meander, labyrinthine deep into the impossibility of themselves. There is no core. Where there is no such thing as emerging out the other end: the only way out so often the way in.

The grid sprawl of Vancouver, the rail line prompting Lord Strathcona to build speculatively. Hotel taverns in Vancouver, Edmonton. The cornerstones of their eras.

4.

Mississauga: my wife was born there. Valleyland, tableland, wetland.

“Hurricane” Hazel McCallion (1921-2023), the feisty former Mayor who began her career in the town of Streetsville, and held the post for thirty-eight years. The intricacies of legacy: how she successfully held the boundaries of Toronto amalgamation to the Mississauga border. We will not submit.

Streetsville, named after its founder, Timothy Street, who landed in 1818. Streetsville High School, with noted alumni including Steve Smith (“Red Green”) and Vancouver writer Anne Stone.

Rembrandt, north light. His signature style, depicting illumination, always, from the left. Positioning his subjects on the same side of his long-standing studio.

The moon, I have heard, is older than we think.

5.

I park the car. This Oakville hotel a curious way-station, surrounded by industrial patina, parkettes and highways. This crafting of thicket. Every tree in this landscape is transplanted, organized. Rows of saplings, arranged. The rear margins of box-store cluster opposite the hotel foyer and parking lot, one I was required to circumnavigate to access. I inquired at the front desk: Can I walk there from here? They responded with horror. The resulting walk, a depth of eight minutes. Unfathomable.

6.

Who are these sidewalks for, I wonder. What few sidewalks there are. Perhaps a decorative margin, or a smaller footprint of lawn to maintain. Perhaps for snowplows to pile snow, protecting manicured plots from plow blades, or parking spots from snowy overflow. We need somewhere to pile.