Leonard Cohen in Heaven

I look forward to meeting Leonard Cohen in heaven. If heaven is heaven, this must be one thing that happens there: you get to meet the people you always wanted to meet, and spend some time with them.

My best buddy back in college, James FitzGerald, now an accomplished author, used to play this game with me: who do we want to meet and talk with in heaven?

I imagine a little bistro in Montreal, perhaps on Crescent Street, but not in a fashionable area, where the lads meet regularly who built this thing we call Canada. 

Cohen meets and greets, but deeper in the recesses of the establishment, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I can make out William Kurelek, the artist. There is Thomas D'Arcy McGee, whom he is sketching, talking politics, Irish and Canadian, with Guy Carleton. James FitzGibbon, always gallant, entertains Lucy Maud Montgomery, but seems to be trying to listen in. Stephen Leacock is reading on stage, in his best suit.