There’s nothing hidden in your headThe Sorting Hat can’t see,So try me on and I will tell youWhere you ought to be.
Today at lunch I went to the bank to get some cash for an upcoming getaway to the Okanagan Valley with my partner Karli and her squad. I work near Vancouver's Downtown East Side, and in order to get to the nearest branch of the CIBC, I have to pass Main and Hastings - possibly Canada's most notorious crossroads - walking past addicts and beggars, people selling drugs or selling their bodies, and people who have lost their grip on reality due to mental illness of some sort.J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Every time I walk past that particular intersection, I wish that I were Harry Potter, armed with the Sorting Hat and a magic wand. Everyone in the DTES would line up, and the Sorting Hat would look into their minds to discover the real reason for them being where they are.
"A regular person, a little bit stuck
All out of money and down on their luck."
A tap of the magic wand, and they've got an entry level job and a decent place to live.
"Addiction to drugs is a terrible curse
That takes the afflicted from bad into worse."
Tap of the wand, and poof, rehabilitation - then a job and a home, just like first group.
"Mentally ill and right out of your head
Lost in the dark when off of your meds."
Magic wand: proper medical care and a safe haven for those poor souls who wander the DTES screaming at a world that they can't understand.
"Criminal, villainous, evil and cruel
Refusing to follow the civilized rules."
And then, when everyone had put on the hat and been tapped by the wand, Hastings and Main would just be another address. How sad that it would probably take magic to make that a reality.
- Sid
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