Someone's converted what was left of Roy Thompson hall into a big booming dance club, the kind of place with strobe lights and nekkid dancers.
It's been so long since I was at a bar. Last summer. When they first ascended to the mothaship. I feel like an intruder, though I notice about a million half-familiar faces among the dancers, people who I met or shook hands with or drank with or fought with, some time in another life.
And then I see Daisy Duke. Six months have been enough for her to grow her hair out a little and do something to it that makes it look *expensive*. She's wearing a catsuit and a bolero jacket, and looks sexy and kind of scary.
She's at one of the ridiculously small tables, drinking and sparkling at a man in a silver vest and some kind of skirt that looks like the kind of thing I laugh at until I catch myself trying one on
We make eye-contact. I smile and start to stand. I even point at my knee and grin. Her date says something, and I see, behind the twinkle, a total lack of recognition. She turns to him and I see myself in the mirror behind her.
My hair's longer. I'm not wearing a bathrobe. I've got some meat on my bones. I'm not walking with a cane. Still, I'm *me*. I want to walk over to her and give her a hug, roll up my pants and show her the gob of scar tissue around my knee, find out where Tony the Tiger's got to.
But I don't. I don't know why, but I don't. If I had a comm, I might try calling her, so she'd see my name and then I wouldn't have to say it to her. But I don't have a comm.
I feel, suddenly, like a ghost.
I test this out, walk to the bar, circling Daisy's table once on the way and again on the way back. She sees me but doesn't recognise me, both times. I overhear snatches of her conversation, "— competing next weekend in a black-belt competition — oh, man, I can't *believe* what a pain in the ass my boss was today — want another drink —" and it's her voice, her tones, but somehow, it doesn't seem like *her*.
It feels melancholy and strange, being a ghost. I find myself leaving the bar, and walking off towards Yonge Street, to the Eatons-Walmart store where Tony the Tiger worked.