Smoked Paper

Before sunset this evening, as I biked through Parc Jacques-Cartier beside the Ottawa River, I turned a corner and noticed -- something -- on the asphalt pathway that was giving off a thin stream of white smoke.

When I braked for a closer look at this, I saw that it was a burning paperback of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Someone had set fire to the inner pages, and they were smouldering beneath an undamaged cover.

An unshaven young man in a blue shirt walked up and without pausing for more than two seconds, poured beer from a can onto the book, then kicked it off the asphalt and onto the grass. He went on his way.

After he was gone, I stomped on the book until it stopped smoking -- not the way I'd prefer to treat a book, but conditions at the time were slightly weird.