Certain Half-Deserted Streets

I had to run into the city today, to pick up some equipment from my office. I haven’t really been downtown in over a month; it would have been the Wednesday or Thursday before the government of Alberta ordered schools to close. So…mid-March, perhaps?

At the time, our office building had already put various sanitary measures in place, and these were still in place today, supplemented by additional controls. I don’t normally have to sign my name in a logbook for access during daytime hours, nor do I have to use my access badge to ride the elevator to the floor my office is on, to note two easy examples. But these were easy to take in stride. And I go to my office either late at night or in the wee hours of the morning often enough that it’s not unusual (to me) to see the office in an essentially “shut down” state. I can find my way around the cubicles just fine even with the lights off.

What struck me, however, was the quiet. Not that there weren’t other people about; there were. And not that there weren’t cars driving by along the main road through downtown; there were. But there were a lot fewer. And fewer still parked in the available spaces on the sides of the avenue, for that matter. Normally, at about 9:00 AM on a Wednesday, I would expect to see dozens of people and a street full of buses and cars, the normal bustle of a downtown core.

Today? Nothing of the sort. And a truly eerie quiet.

As well, it was interesting – that may not be the right word – to see which of the shops and businesses near the office tower had closed, whether temporarily or for good. The bubble tea place was gone, stripped of its brightly coloured banners and menus. The florist up the street was also closed, “For Lease” signs now prominently displayed in its windows. Another business – a design firm, I think – appeared to still be in business, at least in the sense that its office was still there and betrayed no obvious indication of being available for lease as well. But it was clearly closed even so, probably for some weeks now…and a solitary bottle of hand sanitizer sat atop the receptionist’s counter, forgotten in the transition to remote work. And in the window of the nearby sushi place, a solitary – and obviously opened – water bottle sat atop a table by the window, dust visibly accumulating on it.

I didn’t stay downtown for long; I was only there to collect some equipment, which is now in my basement for me to work on over the next couple of days. The drive home was uneventful, and shorter than usual. There was much less traffic on the road, so getting from place to place was relatively easy. I’d say it felt weird, but it’s not something I haven’t experienced before…it’s just that I usually have to be driving around at 4:00 AM to experience it. Which, yes, has been known to happen now and again.

This lockdown, if we can really call it that, will end, of course. Already, there’s talk of allowing some businesses and facilities to re-open. But whether that happens next month or some months from now, the return to what was is now, to some extent, impossible. Maybe only a small extent…but for the now ex-florist who was until so recently situated my office, it’s not that small of an extent, is it? There will be a lot of losses felt in the wake of this thing, lives and life’s work alike over too soon. And even when the streets are busy again, I get the sense that they won’t be as busy as before…not, perhaps, for a good long while.