The Staircase

A Meditation on Vertical Romance

Montreal's exterior staircases are architectural madness, especially in winter. But here's what nobody tells you: they're also the most honest metaphor for love this city has. You're always climbing toward something or descending from it, always exposed to the elements, always one misstep from catastrophe.

I'm hauling groceries up to my third-floor walk-up when I meet you coming down. We do that dance: you go left, I go left, we laugh, try again. Your arms are full of moving boxes. Another ending, another beginning.

"Game over?" I ask, though it's obvious.

"Game over," you answer. And I understand because aren't we all, even when we stay in place?

You set down a box to let me pass. Inside, I glimpse books in both languages, a coffee maker, what looks like a lifetime of accumulated maybes. We could be friends, lovers, nothing. The staircase doesn't care. It just demands we navigate each other.

Later, I'll see the moving truck pull away, wonder where you're going, if you'll find better stairs, a first-floor love, something that doesn't require so much climbing. But probably you'll find another walk-up, another set of impossible stairs, another chance to meet someone suspended between floors.

We're all just trying to get home, carrying what we can, hoping someone will step aside or offer to share the load.