When I drove into the City early this morning for a ten o’clock appointment with my jeweller I could tell that people had already abandoned their professional duties in favour of the upcoming Easter Weekend which I suppose technically starts tomorrow Good Friday. It made the drive on the Queensway a comfortable one – though naturally I arrived too early for my appointment and was forced to lean against a stone wall awaiting the appropriate time to meet with the jeweller.

It was shortly after 9:30 am that the jeweller materialized strolling along Sparks Street from Elgin Street. We chatted briefly at the doorway to his shop. He then unlocked the premises, invited me in and momentarily went to his office. I sat at the most interior counter. When he returned from conducting what I assume were his usual performances upon arrival at his place of business, we prolonged our idle chat. We began as usual with one’s health and the weather, graduating to travel then familial matters. It was the latter subject which spirited us both. He shared with me intelligence regarding his two sons. I mentioned similarities with my niece. We agreed that while young people are singular – and thankfully so – they are bound by the elemental qualities of humanity. We then rambled about his literary and my philosophic undergradate studies and how they prefaced our careers as gemologist and lawyer respectively.

The immediate reason for my meeting with the jeweller was to enforce a transition on my part from the current level of ornamentation to something new and more befitting a decrepit old fogey such as I. The entertaining feature of the meeting is that it was the jeweller’s father who, many years ago, had made the first rendition of the new piece I had in mind. I know this because that piece was made for me. In a subsequent moment of expiation, I delivered that piece (and many others) to Dupuis Fine Jewellery Auctioneers in Toronto.  After these many years I have decided I can no longer bear the deprivation of the piece. Hence the new order.