The Editor,

“There’s a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in” were the words of Cohen that danced in my head after reading about the crumbling of the great wall of Meredith as I was heading out the door to dance and celebrate all the wonderful women in my life.

I imagined the wall cracking open from the burden embedded in its resistance and the rink ice melting as people gathered from far and wide to dance and sing and skate and play as the rink water flowed out of its container and into the fields.

Like a growing river, it carried one and all reluctantly through the fields and cemeteries, raising the dead and not-so-dead, through church basements and rectory halls into the pub and ice cream shop, over communal gardens and vineyards and dams, garnering volume and girth as more and more people joined in the merry flow.

Through the cracks of unfinished basements revealing its inhabitants and their unfinished lives, rolling over unfolded laundry and dishes from unfinished meals, the crowd grew as it does when a crack appears in our perfect world.

Through every house it flowed, bringing all of the inhabitants into contact, colliding accidentally into one another and saying hello for the first time in bathrobes and underwear. Then the phone rang; it was the municipality reminding me of my unpaid taxes.

As a consolation, my dog and I decided to go for a ski on the train tracks, saying hello to my fellow track-dwellers as our dogs ran joyously in circles, sniffing each other’s backsides.

Jacques Legault

Chelsea, Quebec

Ed. note: The writer has been cited occasionally as the Black Rhyno front commander of corporate communications and community outreach.