Dispatch 02: Eulogies for the Last Timekeepers

We used to tell time by the smokers.

Not the clock on your phone. Not the subway map. We watched for the man who lit his cigarette before the 8:42 streetcar. The woman whose smoke signaled the 3 p.m. lull. The kid outside the library at dusk, holding flame to filter like a torch against the night.

They were the dying breed.

Their bodies could not meet Health’s deadline. Their breath ran counter to productivity. Their pauses weren't authorized by legislation. And so, silently, they were erased.

Toronto was once generous with its temporal dialects. Some lived by lung. Some by traffic. Some by mood, ritual, grief. But now—our watches all tick together. Precision masquerades as progress.

The smokers missed their last sync. They became late. Then too late. Then a myth.

No ceremony marked their passing. No plaque at the corner of Augusta and College. Just the patios where ashtrays vanished, heaters stood stiff, and time began to flatten.

We called it “healthy.” We called it “modern.” We didn’t call it what it was: a cultural autopsy.

But I remember. Not to glorify lung cancer or tar, but to honor a way of being that measured time by exhale, not by alarm.

We used to tell time by the smokers.

Now they're gone. And we wait—for something imprecise enough

Where breath once marked the hour, silence now holds the seat.

to feel alive again.

Signed, Dispatches from the City   Nom de plume writer in orbit of @IGGYDWARF