Horror Film: The Gibbard Block

The Gibbard Block is the establishing shot of a horror film where a nice young couple chooses to honeymoon local in an elegant building that’s lasted more than a century. It’s romantic in a way that suggests some things withstand weather and time with grace. Branded with age, the block stands regal, all weathered red brick and cornice brackets, colored off-white by the time they’ve spent exposed. The first tier of the block is adorned with a green awning, the second, a neon sign that reads La Boheme in legible cursive. In spite of its charm, it’s not hard to imagine that a place that’s survived this long might have a ghost or two. “You’re here about the ghost,” says the hostess, with her lips pursed and her attention divided, standing behind a table decorated with a sheet of dense floral print. “What?”
I walk to the middle of the High Level Bridge. I am halved, standing in the space where red lights change to orange. They’ve begun to install suicide barriers, but only thin drapes of tarp clinging to a few tethered wires and some unfinished, ambiguous construction material linger on the walkway at this time of night. The river is about a hundred and fifty feet below. The only life on the water tonight is the trembling of downtown Edmonton’s muted reflection. Trusses dice the bridge into thin, industrial portions, still as stone, even when cars behind me shove the stale, cold air against my back as they speed past. In the centre of a bridge that connects a city in two parts, soaked in the light of sixty thousand LED bulbs, it’s impossible not to wonder whether all of the people who have stood here planning to jump felt some sense of absolution. It’s easy to pretend that there’s something more to this than standing on a bridge. The sky only looks as far away as the river below, like I could reach both if I tried. It’s nice to believe I could, even just for a moment. I cross to the end of the