The city’s old industrial wastelands harbour many ghosts.
I came across this abandoned Mercedes minibus a week or so ago while roaming the Port Lands off Cherry. Not sure if the sail boat wrapped up in a tarp next door belongs with it. There’s no hitch for a trailer sticking out the rear end of the bus, so probably not.
I half expected someone to pop up from behind the driver’s seat or to be snoozing in the back. Perhaps that’s just the romantic in me. I’ve often fancied an extended escape a la Into The Wild.
But the spot is not as secluded as it used to be. The West Don Lands waterfront development is going on right next door, behind the sky-blue barrier.
How did the old classic get there? I look for clues.
The air-brushed illustration on the side of some winged creature is hardly visible, washed away by time and the elements. No license plate to track the owner with, although another shot of the van I come across on flickr from a year or so ago suggests the bus once carried an Ontario license plate 666, the number of the beast.
A satanist perhaps? The words Prey, Slay, Display, painted below the bus’s front grill, suggests a fan of horror flicks. The words are also the subtitle for the 2005 remake of the Vincent Price classic, House of Wax.[rssbreak]
