WE SLEEPWALKED the ten minutes to Grant MacEwan University, though I did note the large grey towers on the horizon, an architectural anomaly that always made me think of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. But I rarely felt a sense of magic or fantastic escape as I approached. This morning was no different. The bodies and the faces, as usual, grew younger as we neared the campus; it was as if the falling autumn leaves had burst into spring life on the way down off the branches. Youth! How much promise and time and hope – yet who is more woe-laden than the young? Their strong, vital bodies so often house the hearts of marble statues. I looked away from their faces. I had none of that vampiric desire some teachers have to suck on the jugular of youth’s spirit. In fact, I had always been
