July 25, 2016
Late summer sun hung low in the sky, illuminating the horizon with a fiery glow. The redhead was outlined by this glow as she leaned on her car door. Meara slipped her hand into her pocket to retrieve a cell phone, sending a text to her mother to announce her safe arrival. A hand reached to open the back driver’s side door, leaning in to grab her purse and violin case so she could keep her most valued possessions close as she started to head down the street in search of the hostel she had seen on Google. Apartments seemed to be hard to come by, so it seemed that the place was growing. Always a good sign for street performers like herself.
Meara had arrived in Toronto, ON in early December after driving her car northward from Greenwich Village. She had been living in the Village for nearly 6 months, and overall had loved her time living among the artists, dancers, and performers that made the place home. She had dabbled in odd modeling and accompanist jobs alongside music lessons as she saved up for her busking permits and auditioned to be a MTA sanctioned performer. All of these costs were starting to add up, almost to the point it costing her more to try to get established than keeping a roof over her head. So, Meara stuffed her hatchback full of her belongings again, and drove northward to the next great adventure: Canada.
Much to her surprise, Meara found Toronto had all of the benefits of New York at maybe a third of the price. Within a week, she had already secured a month to month studio to rent and had gotten a variety of permits. As it was winter still when she arrived, Meara preferred the sheltered warmth of the subway system. Things seemed to be on the up and up, and she was starting to get a little bit of a following, which resulted in daily takes close to 500 dollars on her best days.
During lunch on a sunny July day with a few of her fellow performers she had befriended, they would often talk about the latest gossip they had overheard as well as discuss trends in foot traffic. Meara’s little collective as she liked to call it, was much like the group she left in Asheville. Happy to help each other out and keep each other safe from the undesirables that tended to stalk them. One of the other performers, a trumpeter, mentioned he had heard about some strange dealings in a small town called Harper Rock, a few hours to the north of the city. He regaled all of those assembled with a vampire story that sounded straight out of The Vampire Lestat. They all shared a laugh about the grandiose nature of the tale, and commenting on how unlikely it would be for bloodsuckers to set up shop in such an uninhabited place. They would surely starve to death before too long if they didn’t have enough blood sources.
When Meara had gone home that night, she scoured the internet, reading every newspaper article she could find on the vampire menace in Harper Rock. A few clicks down the rabbit hole and Meara found that people had been travelling there in droves. Meara contemplated for about a week before deciding she would chase the droves of tourists, go make a quick buck, and then come back to Toronto to take up residence in the subway for the winter. So earlier this morning, Meara shoved all of her belongings back in her car, said bye to her roommate, and set out on the road. She got lost a couple times trying to navigate the rural roads, but eventually she made it.
And thus here she was walking doe-eyed down a nearly empty street in search of the new adventures she might get into.
