A tree died on the promenade by the water’s edge. There’s a long row of them about 10 feet apart. They’re each planted in a round hole in the concrete about 4 feet in diametre with a raised concrete lip about 2 inches high. The tree on the end died. It was always in the way, because the path gets narrower there.  The next path is angled in a way that makes it hard to get around the massive bed.

Actually, I don’t remember the tree, but I remember the stump. For months I looked at and navigated around it.

They finally came and took it out, the tree stump, at which point someone probably said, What are we gonna do with this big hole? And someone else probably said, I know! Let’s fill it up with the same colour gravel. It’ll be almost like it’s not really there!

Almost.

At dusk a street lamp casts a shadow of another tree on that exact spot. It really does look like it’s not there. But it’s there.

The way the connecting path is situated it leads exactly through the centre of the invisible hole. The day after they took the stump out of the hole and filled it up with gravel I rode through it. It was also the day after I got my new bike. I felt myself go over the edge, sink down into the gravel like sand, panic, and come out the other side with a big lurch that threw me up off my seat. my feet off my pedals. When I landed back on my seat. My shin hit the pedal, and made a big bruise.

The next day I called 311. What’s the address, the bored woman on the phone said.  We had to determine if the area was city property. I don’t know the address. It’s a park, I said. It’s behind 55 Harbour Square.

We agreed I would navigate her there from the nearest intersection on a map she was looking at. That took at least 10 minutes. From there you go towards the lake, then you turn left, I said. That’s east? Yes, you can’t go west, cause that’s the quay.

I really don’t think she figured out exactly where it is.  And I also really don’t think she understood what the big deal was. I explained it to her a couple of times. Someone is going to get hurt. That took at least 10 more.

She took my name and phone number and email address. I’ll pass it on to my supervisor, and we might get back to you in case we have questions, she said.

That night I saw a fresh tire track trough the gravel pit. The following night I watched a man ride through it, lurch, look back to see WTF. I was going to roll a garbage can into the centre, but they’re all chained down.

It’s been over a week. No one has bothered to mark off the area, paint the edge, stick an orange cone in. There is now more gravel around the pit than in it, There’s a new tire rut in it every time I pass it. It’s still invisible in the dark.

I have some pink spray paint! Maybe I should take care of it myself, but I don’t want to get caught vandalizing city property.

Well, at least I know where that hole is.

After two more weeks of no action and more fresh tracks through the gravel pit almost daily, they finally came and planted a skinny new oak tree.