these lakes we come to

flow from earthly rivers
we cannot help but travel.
We sit by weekend fires
in our manufactured heart of hearts,
crowded by our drunken neighbours
finding their own peace.

Why ruin thse savage hearts
with intimation of a slower beat?
We are a warrior-people
who follow the erratic drum
of mathematical precision--
and so when Sunday passes
find ourselves driven to
the voluntary teeth
with shield abandoned
where we made our rest.

ON MY SHELVES

First, I want to apologize for not posting anything in the last several weeks. In the last month I've been more of a reader than a writer. However, I have written a longish non-fiction piece about reorganizing my library. What follows is the beginning of this piece. By the way, comments are still very much appreciated for Boyhood, Manhood, Fatherhood, Death.

*

Behind my desk, in my room, there is a large bookcase divided into twenty-five cubes, each measuring 33 by 33 centimetres. On the wall which my desk faces there are three bookshelves, each 120 centimetres long. Instead of a table, there is also a shelf on my bedside, this one 79 centimetres long. Beside my desk is an additional bookcase, the Billy model from Ikea, which holds six 76 centimetre long bookshelves. All this shelf space amounts to 1720 centimetres, or about 17 meters (a humbling number, when one thinks of the Strand bookstore, in New-York, which advertises its 18 miles of bookshelves).

So why have I turned my attention to my bookshelves and not what stands on them? Well, I am reorganizing my personal library, and so I need to know how much space I have for my books, in order to accommodate the existing space for a logical, efficacious, and personalized classification system for the books I own, which currently amount to just short of five hundred volumes.

I realize, of course, that my endeavour is not a very great one. I do have a considerable number of books, but by no means would I call my collection large or unwieldy. Even if there is little classification to my books as they now stand, it is still very easy for me to find anything I am looking for, taking at most a few leisurely minutes of skimming through titles. (Where on earth did I leave that Bukowski collection with the charming title of Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until Your Fingers Bleed a Bit? Ah, there it is, with a bunch of other thin, rebellious books. That hideous pale orange, how could I have missed it?) My library is in no way as large or needing as much of an overhaul as Susan Hill’s, who recently published Howards End is on the Landing, about her year spent reading from home, rediscovering the books she owns, which are scattered in dusty piles and rows everywhere in her house, an idea sparked by her search for Howard’s End. Forster’s book, apparently, was not on the landing, “but plenty of others were,” which sparked a year of rereads and discoveries.

I never finished Howard’s End is on the Landing — Hill’s pleasurable, gossipy tangents about her own life and authors she knows soon turn into the pedantic ramblings of a vain old lady stranded for too long in her mouldy country house (she lost me completely after stating that “with [Alice] Munro, the problem is Canada”, something about stories blurring together because of a sameness in characters) — but I still think the idea of taking out all the books you own from their shelves every once and a while and asking yourself “should I keep this one?”, “did I really enjoy this one?”, “have I finished this one?”, “where did I buy this one?” is an exercise that must be done in order to really know your library. I’m only twenty, and as such my library is not a lifetime’s library. It is only the nucleus of a true library, with burgeoning interests, mistakes, discoveries, a few treasures, and several shortcomings.

As for the organization of the books, well, I must say that in its current state the classification is far from optimal. Most of last semesters books are still on the shelf above my desk and deserve integration with the rest of my collection, instead of groupings by course reading material. My mass-markets, no matter the genre or author, are all together on the shelf above that, simply because I hate the format and ended up placing them above eye-level or easy reach. My French books are all together in my Billy bookcase, two shelves of ivory spines, which has an interesting effect, but also has the result of separating the Penguin edition of Chekhov’s Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895 from the French translation of Chekhov’s (or, as it were, Tchekhov’s) plays, published by Folio in two paperback volumes.

Similarly, the current state of my books creates rifts between ideas and eras, or tensions where there shouldn’t be any. For instance I have two large paperback volumes of collected poems, one of Ted Hughes, and one of Allen Ginsberg. They are both piled up on the shelf above my desk because I was too lazy to make room for them in the cubes behind my desk. So Ginsberg is a room apart from his friend Kerouac (if that shouldn’t be enough to bring them together, Ginsberg even took the pictures on the cover of On the Road, which I think calls for neighbouring spots on my shelves), and Hughes is very far from all of his Faber friends, Graham Swift and T.S. Eliot, and his wife Sylvia Plath. In the cubes there are other inconsistencies: Junot Díaz is between the single volume Chronicles of Narnia (which is itself separate from the individual paperbacks of the three first books, and the Spanish edition of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and Anne Michaels, associations which hurt everything I stand for in literature; Hemingway shares his shelf with Amitav Ghosh, Toni Morrison, and Nabokov; The Castle of Otranto and The Monk are side by side (although separate from Frankenstein, Dracula, and Melmoth the Wanderer), but nearby stands poor Gabriel García Márquez and Greenblatt’s biography of Shakespeare, Will in the World, on the shelf above the actual Shakespeares.

At least some things make sense: Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, thankfully, stand side by side (and yet, I wonder if that is such a good thing — the two authors share incredible talent, popularity, Canadianness, and are also friends in real life, but do their books share enough stylistic and thematic elements to deserve a place together on my shelves?); John le Carré and Robert Littell are near each other (although divided by Neil Strauss, how he ended up between those two monuments of espionage literature I have no idea); the three volumes of His Dark Materials stand beside worn hardcovers of Shell Silverstein, which I find oddly fitting; while books by Manguel and Borges touch (when The Library at Night is there, anyway — more often than not it’s on my bedside shelf for easy skimming before going to bed, or lent to a fellow bibliophile, as it is now, at my girlfriend’s place, where she is savouring it chapter by chapter, as it should be). Yet, when I see Eco’s The Name of the Rose on one shelf and his collection of essays On Literature on the opposite wall; or The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot, in the first Faber edition, isolated from the ugly Dover The Wasteland, Prufrock, and Other Poems and my second hand copy of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, I know it is time to take all the books out, dust off the shelves, and start again from scratch.

the outdated use of sugar cubes.

I forget what day I'm supposed to be posting on...I always assumed it was Sunday or Saturday but I could be totally wrong. Anyway. enjoy.


Don't be so quick to assume that I am evil.

I always loathed these tea parties. Tabby invites me every Sunday over for some Orange Pekoe with the girls, and most of the time I have a pretty well prepared excuse as to why I cannot make it (sore throat, punctured left lung, slipped on the soap and bruised my septum making it horribly unpleasant to drink out of cups) But this Sunday I was unable, somehow, to shake her off. Even when I explained that there was a mysterious fungus growing on the bottoms of my feet and that it could be contagious, she pulled the ex-husband card on me. I may hate these women but I do love hearing them complain about their failed marriages. Within an hour I would be in my shitty Nissan heading over for tea.
I sit quietly on the couch and keep the cup up to my face as much as possible to mask my smiles of delight when they burst into tears or go on raging rants about how he would always leave his chest hair on the soap. Then I squirm uncomfortably when they try to comfort each other; I'm always afraid this will result in some kind of group reaction, like a hug of some sort, and I will be expected to participate actively. The mere thought of hugging a crying grown woman makes my skin crawl. I often bring up the subject of these tea parties with my own husband and he is convinced that all we talk about are men and where to get a decent pedicure. If only my husband knew what I put in his coffee in the morning.
"He was always telling me how much he loved me, every morning!" Wailed Dorothy Amble, my neighbour with poor taste in flower arrangement who's daughter got accepted to Yale because her mother fucked the headmaster (I know people who talk), "But then I found out he was sleeping with the--"
At this moment, all the women in the room try to conceal their excitement. They want to know who her husband replaced her with and depending on how dramatic the choice was, they'll gauge the decibels of their "Aw! Dory we're so sorry!"
"He was sleeping with the gardener!"
I drop my sugar cube into my tea cup a little louder than I expected. Now this is a first; her act of infidelity can be excused now because she simply supported another player for one night. Her husband completely switched teams.
"The gardener? Allan!? I asked him to trim my hedges on Monday...he's gay? Really?"
"Well, a man who handles flowers so delicately..."
"He must have the softest hands..."
That was Pruda Lolowitz. She never seemed to understand the gravity of a situation and had a distinct fear of newspapers. Supposedly the ink was toxic to her airways and she would clam up and begin panting if ever you touched her with one. I'm pretty sure she had some kind of hand lotion fetish. In a month's time, we would find out that Allan is in fact bisexual and she would have tested her soft hand theory.
It always baffles me how concerned older women are about getting older. There is never some kind of plateau of satisfaction with one's appearance or age. There's always something you wish you were younger for. Naturally, the conversation would turn to younger people, namely our daughters and sons. I just can't pay attention to a room full of women gushing about how wonderful their children are when I know deep down they want to scream like banshees and steal their youthful skin.
"It's so hard to keep those boys off of my daughter," Pruda complains, "I should have known I would have trouble with her when she started cheerleading..."
"Cheerleading? That's nothing. My daughter is head of the debate team and you should see how horny those boys get watching her shoot down straw man arguments and red herrings. I can't let her go to meets in other cities because I'm sure she'll get pregnant!"
"What about you, Sarah? You've been awfully quiet all this time! How's your daughter?"
I almost choke on my tea. All of a sudden there's this cloud of attention floating over me and I have no idea how to deflect it.
"My daughter's a lesbian." I answer bluntly.
And now I revel in the uncomfortable silence I have created in a stereotypical housewife's suburban home. The five of them exchange nervous glances before simply smiling with those creepy squinty eyes that say "That's nice...and we're all fake!"
"And I keep her in a cage in my basement. I only let her out when she goes to school so I don't need to worry about people corrupting her or boys molesting her because she has very little contact with the outside world. Makes my life much easier." And I take a long sip of my lukewarm tea. It was Mirabel's turn to drop her sugar cube, but she was not as lucky as to drop it in her tea. It scuttled across the carpet and rested by Dorothy's right shoe.

All five raised their cups to their lips, wide eyed, and drank in silence.
It comes to dawn on me then that these tea parties aren't so bad...it's nice to get something off your chest from time to time.

Strange Noises From The Basement

I walked by a cat today.
It wasn't much of a cat anymore.
It was roadkill.
I gagged and started to cry.
It was still, its fur blowing in the wind of cars swerving to avoid it, with its tongue on the pavement and fragments of skull and brain painting the road more of a pink than red.

I looked at it, in the middle of the road, and wondered.

Was the driver just not paying attention or was the driver hopeful that the cat had made it across safely? Did the driver intentionally crush the cats head or did the driver spend time texting their friends? Did the cat succomb to the temptation of curiosity of what it may be like to be run over or did the cat know of the consequences, intentionally and carefully positioning its neck for the vehicle to catch the skull and crush it instantaneously?

I prefer to see this as cat suicide with a voluntary assist from the driver.
I'd rather know that its wish was fulfilled than know that it failed. I'd rather know that things went according to plan.

(Perception is a wonderful thing)

The Chair

“What were you thinking? Go to the chair.”

Time out used to be dreadful. I had to sit in a chair, plain and wooden and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. A few times I tried talking to myself, except I always got shushed. As soon as I had entered that space between reality and time out, I became sullen and mad. I never deserved to be there, no matter what my parent’s opinions were. It was never my fault that I threw tantrums. It was never my fault.

The chair was conveniently located in a nook next to a Chinese armoir. The patterns sketched into the wood would be my only source of entertainment. I traced them with my little fingers, waiting until the moment that I could go back and watch tv.

I used to try and fall asleep in the chair, but I was always screamed at. I wasn’t supposed to be comfortable, or enjoying myself.

As a child, I had quite an active imagination, yet every time that veil was infiltrated and my little butt was seated in that chair, my mind went blank.

Tears never helped, nor did threats. I always felt as if my mind was slowly shutting itself off, and I would eventually die of boredom.

“ OK, your five minutes are up, you can leave now.”

Freedom had never tasted so sweet.

To See Her Stand There So Still

left him breathless. She, embodiment of the law: for every action a reaction. She, the inevitable thrust of a loaded spring. She, shadow lurking in the obscurity of “NO,” green eyes aglitter. And now she, sullen woman, her silk shoes soaked asunder, crumbling at her feet. She held in one hand the amputated heel of the left; her toes gripped the tattered sole. How he wished to do the same.

He wished to speak the same words to her: don’t don’t don’t – the same as he had always spoken; and he cursed himself that he had. He cursed the unforgiving word that like a stamp pounding incessantly in red rectilinear ink had denied all, forbidden all to her. But now that it was the time for it, this single utterance was denied to him.

She did not shiver, simply pinched her eyes against the wind that lashed the hair about her face; that flew up across the water, haptic sirens urging her to the sea. But even these could not entrance her, and having failed in their seduction dissolved into a whispering howl inside the conch shell of his ear. Whirling anguish, an ocean of it – a tidal wave unseen until it reached the shore and the pink, frothy crest of it rose between his teeth.

“Lara,” he said, and it died.

This name which had once been the proclamation of assault, the instigator of action, the breath of life against the flame, died amidst the greater winds. Simply lay down, and died. Norman wished he had been wise enough to see it endangered, at the brink, somewhere among the still-living, still – Living.

Still.

She was.

“Norm,” she said, twisting the gold band free.

A moment of silence passed.

“Don’t.”

[Hey guys, sorry for the inactivity lately. I haven't had time to comment although I have been reading the posts. Thumbs up! :D]

Reckless (bonus post)

The first scene of a screenplay I began writing on a whim tonight, loosely inspired by Hunter S. Thompson & Max's "Whores, Dears and Red Convertibles." Makes up for my lack of post last week.


FADE IN:

EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY
The day is scorching, heat rising from the asphalt. A red 96’ Pontiac Sunfire, both windows wide open, speeds down a Montreal highway recklessly. It dodges cars, switching lanes back and forth nearly knocking the back bumper of every other car in sight. The engine rumbles loudly, smoke peering from the creases of the hood.

INT. PONTIAC SUNFIRE - DAY
UNCLE JACK is at the wheel, frail and tanned with a sweaty face and a greasy, unshaven beard. A jittery fellow, he is barely paying attention to the road as his eyes shift and hands move from the dials on the radio to adjusting his thick glasses. A cigarette in desperate need of ashing is hanging loosely at the tip of his lips. A Molson Ex rests in his cup holder and he grabs for it at takes a sip. He wears a stained dress shirt, the buttons all undone, hair protruding from his chest.

BILLY is in the passenger seat, barely eighteen years old, pale, freckles. He is shitting his pants.

UNCLE JACK
(looking directly at Billy)
You see Billy, the thing you gotta’ learn about Montreal is--

He blasts his wimpy car horn.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Fucking piece of shit! The thing you gotta learn is, every man on the road in this God forsaken city has to fend for himself. It’s a fucking dog-eat-dog world out there, man, everyone’s got places to be, things to see and money to make. That don’t mean these fucking French peppers should get in your way!

He slams the gas, swerving across three lanes, cars all honking at him. He gets off the highway at the exit he barely makes.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Take for example that whore I used to date-- your aunt, Candy. Esti putain de merde that bitch was, I tell you. Sucked off every bastard in head office. Every separatist shit disturber. Anyway. Things are a little better now. I figured I’d get over my addiction to her with a new addiction. I thought, maybe cigarettes. Tried a couple, and now I’m hooked. Thought, what doesn’t kill you, right bud!?

Billy continues to sit terrified in the passengers, ready to be sick. Jack looks at him.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Hahaaa! You okay there Billy-boy, looking a little green. Don’t you worry, I got a little pitstop to make anyway.

They pull up to a Best-Buy zooming through the packed parking lot and he speeds into a handicap parking space, slamming the breaks as they screech. When he shuts the engine, the entire car sounds as if it will collapse.

BILLY
Are we allowed to even--

Jack opens the glove compartment, parking and speeding tickets all falling out. He pulls out a handicap parking voucher and hooks it up onto his review mirror.

UNCLE JACK
Let’s roll Billy Boy.

Trapped

Hello! Hope you don't mind sharing your day Marta. Also, I hope everyone's summer is going well.

"Ah! Good God!" are the words I think immediatly after being startled. It only takes half a moment for me to emit them.

The man who has intruded my space and mind lets out a hearty laugh and follows saying.

"Did I scare you? I'm sorry."

He then pauses and waits for my response. I am slightly caught off guard by the fact that his question was followed by a statement. Not only that; I am still recovering from his initial disturbance. I immediatly answer after choosing to go the stoic route.

"No not at all! I was merely suprised!" I respond. Stoics are never scared.

"Do you mind if I sleep with you?"

Before I can induce humilition with an puzzled face, the man laughs again and corrects himself.

"I mean sleep here. I'm a bit lost and without the sun I don't think I'll find my way again."

It's my turn again. I laugh to signal that I am not offended by his comment and that I am open to pleasent interaction. Immediatly after laughing I begin talking to make my laugh seem genuine.

"Of course! It's nobody's land but God's." I say.

I've made a mistake. I spend an instant praying he's a Christian.

"Alrighty!"

He elongates the "All" and even more so the "right" and I realize he is not a Christian.

"Goodnight then" I say.

This man won't be my friend. I sigh. I'm lonely.

"Ok. Goodnight!"

I stay quiet.

Pathology

[Poetry in the form of prose (it was meant to be another prose poem, but sadly not everything can take that form and I shifted it into paragraphs in the end)]

I see a meteor burn a line in the atmosphere above the smog smeared city, stranded for a few lonely seconds among the skyscraper sentinels watching over the wild streets of sleepless Montreal.

“A shooting star”, I say, eyes wired wide from lack of sleep and my first few drinks in months, excited over the fact that I’ve encountered an astronomical phenomenon more than anything else.

“You get to make a wish,” you say, sipping your special French liquor that I’ve already forgotten the name of, and laying the icy rim-chipped mug against a segment of your sunburn.

“Yeah. Oh yeah. Forgot,” I say, even though I didn’t really because when it comes down to it I could never forget, and doubted anyone ever could, this wishing business having been burned like infection or a cancerous spread deep in the psychosomatic human race so that when something as rare as a shooting star should shoot into the range of vision for that split atomic moment like a flamed fleck of ash from a campfire sparking up into the air, or sometimes onto your knees, you have to fight the impulse to make a stupid on-the-spot request from the cosmological space above to try and remember to beg for something worthwhile for once.

I wish.

I wish for that stupid on-the-spot request because there isn’t anything else I want anyway. Or at least I tell myself that, because I wish before I’ve even finished telling myself not to wish.

I tip my glass against my lips to take another drink, and decide, as it hits my tongue, that I really don’t actually like it, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings since you’ve spent a good portion of the night gushing about how it’s your absolute favourite drink and I told you I thought it was good before I’d really made a judgment call, so I force it back, feel the warmth and grit my teeth against the gin-licorice-Bengay sensation. When it comes down to it, I’ve had worse combinations. I’ll leave it behind for you to drink after I’ve gone home so as not to waste it on a non-appreciator.

Meanwhile you irrigate the lines between constellations, looking for your own piece of luck, but only find airplanes, the metal frames denying their gravity like a father disowns the responsibility of his fatherhood. “If only planes were shooting stars,” you say. “I’d have so many dreams come true.”

We sit and stare out the balcony, the words settling like a thick-shagged dusty carpet across both the night sky and the concrete wall that is our view from these chairs.

Breakup

prose in the form of poetry


“the realization:
I am generally sad in life,
but life without you
for the past couple weeks
has made me
exponentially more miserable.”

This was the last text
[a very post-modern
characteristic
of this poem (along with the use
of square brackets,
let alone,
a sidenote within double brackets
[right?])]
The last text
on the last day of our last break-up
of the day of the last day
in which we ever talked to each other.

This would be a lie.
We have been broken up
since god made us
or since a monkey evolved into us
nobody is ever born together

It always acts out like this:

Love is possession.
Happiness is relief.
Sex is possession.
Orgasm is relief.

redo:

Sex is suffering
orgasm is relief
love is still possession
happiness is the dirt under my nail

to sum it all up:

life is a fake orgasm

I felt so bad
about myself
tonight
that I gave money to
a homeless person
to try
and feel better about myself,
and it never works
like you expect it to.
Or if it does,
it is excessively temporary.
He didn't give back
any change.

Joey tells me
There are a lot of other fish
in the sea
But
When I drink from the fountain
he tells me to save some for the fish.

Sometimes my mind
runs a little too quick for my speech
and I slur meaningless grobble.
Grobble isn’t a word.
Grobble grobble grobble.

Birth is grobble,
Love is grobble,
death is grobble,
Everything in between is filler.

Dancers
move
but
singers
move
and fishers
fish and
workers
dance and lovers
fish and they are all

taxes.

i know what effect such horrors have on the delicate psyche of an angelic being

(this is stream. I really wanted to post today but I made a point of staying up until 4ish to write the first thing to come to mind. funny enough parts of this are in my latest song. my friend's brother isn't doing too well. and my other friend is part of a broken family and broken home. life has become incredibly depressing when taking a closer look. i'll set my binoculars and magnifying glasses down for a while because the surface is jovial. at least most of them are. no comments necessary. if you have nothing to say or can't find the right way to say what you have to say, don't bother. it's alright.)

my mother
told me
i was
a stillborn.

i didn't
believe her.

she finally
confessed
that i'm
really just
an accident.

her motto
has always
been
"no regrets"
yet she
has assigned
this title
to me.

i am
the eldest
of four
children.

my father
speaks in
grunts.

the soundtrack
of our
lives is
the sound
of parents
arguing.

it was
then i
realized that
i was
never the
problem.

Beams, Reverie

Wow, I have not posted anything on here in what seems like months. Writers block had its firm grasp around my hand. So to hopefully make up for it here are two poems.

Beams

I used to smile

until one day it became forced

The corners of my mouth grew weary

from the lack of usage

so I sewed my lips shut.

(For some reason the word usage bothers me but I left it in there)

Reverie

Too long have the words dried up

left aside by an abandoned highway

where a suicide once took place

The crumpled papers mock

as the words bleed out of a fools mouth

and drip so ever slightly upon my skin

staining it.

Fingernails are bitten off

raw and bloody

and lifeless

They match the eyes of the woman sitting next to me

a living corpse

even though her breathe tickles my neck

as her whispered words lull me to sleep

It reminded me of the time when

I slipped

when I was younger

by telling them (the others)

about the man behind the nightmare

I tripped

falling up

yet still landed on my feet

I Carry My Heart (with apologies to Edward)

i carry my heart
like a late-evening stroll
like residual flame
like a campfire torch

i carry my heart
like a trembling bird
like a sentence that came
when I'd run out of words

i carry my heart
far away from my head
unaware of the fact
that biology lays

i carry my heart
like it's waiting to fall
onto sidewalk or street
onto nothing at all

i carry my heart
to be shown to the eyes
that don't quite shy away
that don't quite say goodbye

(i carry my heart
in your heart)

Scrapbooking in Hyperspeed

(I remembered writing this about a week ago and read it every day since thinking about how I can make it better. It speaks to me even though I wrote it, which is a strange feeling. I remember people speaking to me about this already (on my blog) so I understand if comments are scarce. HeartRape. Mike)

There was a wall.
It's been torn down.
Here is a piece.
It says "Love".
I don't believe
in this person's
"Love"
because it's only
partial.
Besides,

it might just be
conditional.

Prompt: Collaboration

So as a prompt suggestion that's a little different, write a piece that two or more of you co-write - you get to choose with who. You could get together over coffee or something if you want to do it in person, or just Skype (or msn if there's really no other way :P) if meeting up/distance is a problem, and just throw ideas around, brainstorm, plan, and then see how you can manage to create a coherent narrative by each writing bits of it. Like when we all tried each other's styles, this will make us think outside the box, and hopefully if anyone's stuck for ideas it'll be helpful unsticking that nasty potential writer's block. Plus it's an excuse to get together and see each other again! :)

The Stenographer

a first short part of a story i've been messing around with in my head for a while. tell me what you think. this is still in the rough stages because I want to eventually flesh it out a bit more and make it into a longer piece, but since this is sort of new territory for me, I want to ask what you guys feel works and what does not. thanks.


She wrote in squiggles.
Squiggled little lines and arcs which criss-crossed the off-white page like a ballerina dancer trying to keep up with the rhythm of the classical composition leading. Christ, she was even wearing pink. Ivan, eyes glazed and puffed, beard uneven and greasy like a rodent-- simply narrated his thoughts, eyes lost staring at the roof or floor, not giving her the slightest bit of attention or thanks. Not that she cared, of course. It was simply a contract gig, go in, record, transcribe and punch out with an extra ten-grand in her purse.

It had been a couple weeks since she had been paired up with Ivan Rolovich by one of his big name publishers. Rolovich, a prominent writer during the 1980’s had fallen into a rut following the messy divorce with his wife, leading to the abandonment of his only son, who chose to live with his mother in Maine. Ivan’s former novel, The Glade, had been nominated for Mann Booker and he was even listed by the New Yorker as one of the most prominent writers to look forward to in the future. Unfortunately, as Sonia noticed day after day alone with him, Rolovich dug himself a hole in which he could not climb out of, let alone fly.

He talked, and her job as one of the few stenographers left in the province, was to record and transcribe every single word said using shorthand, a system of alphabet different from normal english. This system of squiggles and arcs was to avoid writing down redundant words and combining them into phrases in order to directly record what Ivan was saying, word-by-word, without any flaws, without missing anything. Ivan directly ordered a stenographer and not a typist, as the clicks and clacks of the typewriter "slowly delved him deeper and deeper into my madness," so he says.

The novel had a deadline. That is truly why she had been hired. His publishers were pressuring him into finishing his final manuscript so his contract could finally end with them and they could finally drop him. His last two novels over the past ten years had been mediocre at best. Simon Says was about addiction to social norms as a result of the loss of self-identity, but it was morally “holier than thou” and Ivan dictated the entire novel which flowed uneasily with the shallow little plot. His followers still loved it. But with Blind Eyes he had lost everyone. The novel’s protagonist died within the first four pages and the rest of the novel was a hunk of depression, and the manuscript was nearly rejected when Rolovich denied to edit it and praised it as a work of spontaneous prose which did not require editing. The piece stood alone.

Though his present condition was futile, Rolovich was undoubtedly a genius. Initially, Sonia noticed this by his use of figurative language, which, though dense, left her in awe when she began recording his words. She could not believe the creativity, the beauty of his loneliness, spat out on a whim, without any ideas or plans prior to her coming. But as of late, it had only been description. Description of everything, of sound, of taste, of loneliness, of sex. Lots and lots of sex. And he had not even had a plot, just a sole man living through depressing experiences.

He dictated:
“His room was desolate. A lonely pigmented yellow meant to be white. Dead plants... dead. Death, the undeniable irony of life, and plants. And..."

This was outside of her job description, but Sonia could not handle it anymore. She was tired of his melancholy. Every day she would finish work and go home sad because of his boring and black sensory detail.

“Um Ivan..”
He looked into her eyes without addressing her. 'Fucking pretentious writers,' she thought.
“Um, I hate to interrupt.”
“Well that is what you are doing.”
“Yes.. yes I know. But, what is this novel about, really? I mean, what you describe is beautiful, yes. But where is the plot? Where is the meaning?”
“Plot is meaningless. Description is the plot as it is in every day life. There is no plot in life.”
“What?.. I mean..”

“I am writing thought, Sonia, not a story. But a thought process. That is why you are here to record it.”

He began again.

Sean Turner Files; Case number 17a. Transcript of Interview.

(the names of our agents and case studies are changed in order to maintain anonymity)

[clicking, then a shuffle of papers and a long exhale]

Mr. Johnson: I don't want you to feel uncomfortable so just tell us if you want to stop and we will.

David Bronson: Us? We?

J: Me, just me ok, David? Are sure you still want to do this?

D B: Yes... yeah I do. Where do I start? How much do you know?

J: Why don't you start at the beginning?

D B: So yeah Sean Turner huh...

J: Who informed you this interview was about Sean Turner?

D B: No one, why else would you be here?

J: Good point, please go ahead.

D B: Well it was about three days ago, I was on Sherbrooke just west of the Roddick Gates waiting for the 24. Late I remember I had left the library after studying it was like 9:45 or 10 pm I think. anyway it was pretty hot outside so I was wearing shorts.

J: What kind of shorts were they?

D B: How is that pertinent?

J: Please just answer the question.

D B: Grey brown plaid shorts.

[silence, some scribling]

J: Please, go on.

D B: So as I was saying I was at the bus stop in the shelter and it was really hot. I had just missed the 24 so I was going to wait for another 25 minutes. I looked around and not many people were on the street. Anyway, that's when he showed up.

J: Do you mean Mr. Turner?

[...]

D B: Yes... So I was sitting down and he just stood in the doorway of the shelter. I hadn't looked up yet so I didn't know who it was at that time. After a little bit I thought I felt him stare at me so I looked up and our eyes met for just a second and then he looked away. Funny he looked sort of embarrassed. He sat down but like two spots away you know... ever take the bus?

J: No, I am sorry please explain.

D B: Well in bus shelters there are like three spots on the bench separated by two metal arm rest things. I sat on one end of the bench and sat on the other and there was an empty seat between us. So we sat there in silence, nothing happened for five minutes. Then he grunted as if he wanted my attention so I turned my head and he was staring into nothing, so I looked back down the street to see if the bus was coming. It wasn't. When I looked back at him I caught his eye again and thats when I noticed who it was. I was mildly surprised and I smiled, he turned his head and he saw me smiling at him. That's when things changed.

J: What do you mean?

D B: I mean that's when things got bad. He got up and sat next to me. Oh and he didn't smile back, that was the first sign that things were wrong.

(end of side 1)

If You Wish to Play God

I'll butcher a lamb in the hallway,
A lamb sent up to my lord.
My arms outstretched towards Him,
My hands holding intestines,
I paint my skin.

"I am inside you,"
I shout to the Heavens,

"I'll take it from here."

Birds, In Rain, Sing

[So this is a bit of a non-fiction piece...I recently brought my cat to the vet, who discovered a large mammary tumour on her, possibly cancerous. My family and I were deciding if the best choice would be to put her down or not when we noticed the bird on the car. Please comment, as I'm not too sure about the end of the third stanza. Also: are the italics too obnoxious? Thanks.]



Its neck was bent back,
Calcium nubs against stretched, translucent skin,
Eyes squinting at the sun,
Legs bent in mid-stride
Like an ostrich;
Archaeopteryx
In stone.
A baby bird.

It was glued to the car.
Bird sweat, rotting meat,
Baked against the hood in the
Sweltering heat.
Tufts of down amongst
The brown mottled plumes.

I wanted to stare death in the face
With all the indifference,
Curiosity of a tourist.
I snap pictures on my phone;
Wonder if I’ll be the one to
See her undone:
A tumorous cat.


Soap-soaked foam brushes
Flap-flapping the windshield,
A rainbow in jets.
Baby bird in final flight.
Nature’s tragedies, I think,
So easily swept away
By modern man
Or a needle.