The Indian camp

Sometimes, the only response to death and dying is silence

The Indians* must have set up camp overnight as there was no sign of Indian activity on his ride home the previous afternoon. Now, early in the morning, after taking his usual trail down through the University grounds and on into Queens Park, he was confronted by an entire Indian village set up across the paths, gardens and broad manicured lawns at the front of the provincial parliament building. The people in the camp were waking as he wove his bicycle carefully around the mass of their tall conical tents. Although all was quiet, the smell of smoke and cooking wafted through the air. Two women silently tended a fire and he swerved around men unfurling a large banner as they emerged from the largest of all the tents. He cycled on, mystified by this world he had suddenly entered into and from which he just as suddenly emerged out of and onto the busy city avenue leading to the hospital where he worked.