Imagine

This is a story about Layla.

She cut her Civic's gas outside her father's house and looked out at it. It was the squarest house in the whole subdivision, it was all white with mascara window-frames, and it was what she would always consider home.

She went into her father's house that afternoon because he was three hundred miles away visiting his sister in Western New York, and it had been assigned to Layla to see there were neither floods not fires nor leaks nor cave-ins to be discovered upon his return--and she had promised to do so next day.

According to the weatherman, there was going to be a terrific thunderstorm than night at around midnight, and lots of rain was expected to fall before eight a.m. A big July storm, expect it to be dramatic. Layla knew what to do. Layla had a plan.

Prevailing winds during the storm, expected from the west. Layla knew where west was. The west side of the house; the side her bedroom had been on, with the kitchen directly under her.

She loved storms. The more dramatic the better.

She went up to her bedroom which was had changed itself into a musty storage-room in her absence of twenty-five years. But the window was exactly the same, with its tiny hairline cracks in the lower left corner. She went to this window, pushed aside the rough orange curtains, and worked at the little plastic claspy thing that held it tightly shut. Stiff. Not opened in some time. Probably not even thought about in some time. Or at least he wouldn't be able to understand it, not in the least.

Finally the plastic thing thunked open. Layla slid the window open. It felt almost rusty, as if glass could rust. Perhaps glass gets brittle over the years. In any case, the window was now fully open. The sky was grey. It was time to get home, before anyone noticed her absence. She went downstairs and out and into her car and drove to her house two miles away.

This is a story about Layla's daughter, Julie.

Juliet had gone out earlier, leaving Layla alone (to go to her father's house and return quickly, as said above). As a matter of fact, Julie was entering the downtown post office when Layla arrived at her father's house.

Julie went through the post office to the clerk who took care of the post office boxes. She produced identification and the clerk went to look. He came back with a single letter and handed it to her. Her heart leapt. She quickly left and went across the street to a cafe in which she had read more than one letter over the past three weeks.

She ordered a coffee and mint coffee cake and sat at the window. She opened the envelope (addressed to P.O. Box 18, Arcadia) and opened out the two sheets that lay within, gently counter-creasing the creases of the sheets.

She read the letter three times.

An answer was required. Naturally she had with her three sheets of precisely the same paper as the letter with the same type of envelope. Naturally she had a pen too--but sadly not the same type of ink as the ink on the letter received. That pen had run out a week before.

She wrote the letter slowly, getting a second cup of coffee when she reached the end of the third paragraph on the verso of sheet one. She wrote, thinking though to a time in the near future when everything would be sorted out.

Julie finished the letter, folded it carefully, and put it in the envelope. On the outside she wrote an address. The address was to a place twenty-three miles distant. Quite a hike it would be; Julie knew the bus she could take to get there. She would never take that bus in the end. In just a little while she'd be taking a bus to a different place entirely.

She went back over to the post office and slipped the letter in the mailbox just outside the building. Then she started on her way back to her house (to which her mother Layla had returned a half-hour earlier).

This is a story of Layla's son, Mike, brother of Julie.

He was sitting in the living room with Julie's mother when Julie got back from the post office. He smiled at her. He said, "I'm back."

Julie said, "Why aren't you in Spain?"

Mike stood up quickly and practically jumped on her. "It's so good to see you, sis!" he cried.

She shoved him away, crying, "What's all this about? What happened? Where were you?"

Mike let out a yelp of a laugh--something new--and told her, "I had some trouble at the border."

"So where have you been for the last two weeks?"

"Well," he began, but stopped there for he didn't want to tell her the truth. "I've been hanging around here. They wouldn't let me cross any borders, so I just ... hung around."

These three people shared features such that everyone could tell they were related. Julie looked exactly like her mother had twenty-five years ago. Sometimes for a moment some people thought they were sisters. They both had straight blonde hair, button noses, and narrow chins. Michael was taller than either, but with the same hair colour and features. They were certainly a family all right.

Layla said, "I'm glad you're home, Mike. What do you plan on doing?"

Mike fell on the floor, on his side, and started running in circles like the Curly Howard. He leapt up with a hand-high flourish, shouting, "Hawks and handsaws! Hawks and handsaws!"

"Oh my, Mike. Are you going to continue your study of theatre? Marlowe and all that?"

"Ah, the divine Marlowe! I believe I will, mother-o-mine."

Something was wrong in the house. Layla sensed it; so did Julie. Was Mike sensing anything at all? Julie said, "You still haven't said where you were these last two weeks."

"A riddle," he replied. "There are nine of us between the inside and the outside. What are we?"

Julie thought for a moment. "I don't think I have enough information."

"Ah, that's because you're on the inside. I have things to do. I'll talk to you all, every one of you, in three hours."

This is the story of Julie's correspondent, Layla's daughter's correspondent, Gerald, Mike's sister's correspondent.

Gerald waited for his sister to return to the table. She'd come to visit him; she was the only person (other than Julie) who knew where he was, twenty-three miles away from Julie. He stirred his coffee as he waited and he fingered the vialed philtre in his pocket. Finally she returned.

He said, "Is Mike back yet?"

She shook her head anxiously. "Nope." She was in love with Mike, Julie's brother. (It's not unheard of for a brother and sister to love and marry a sister and brother. This is a fact.)

"I guess he's up in all his research. Any letters?"

"Not one." She stared into the cup she held on edge. She sighed then said, "So what about you, Gerald? How you going to settle this?"

He pulled out the vial and showed it to her. "This is a paralysis potion, believe it or not. I bought it from a gypsy. When I drink this, I'll appear dead. Our folks will put me in the family tomb, then Julie will rescue me, and we'll run away together."

"That sounds convoluted. Why not just ... run away?"

Gerald thought for a moment. "I can't remember exactly the reason, but we can't do it that way. There's some snag. I can't go through the reasoning again. Something to do with money, I think."

She looked out the window. "So you're gonna come home to do this? Drink that stuff?"

"Yeah. Will you help me with this? Get me back in good with the folks?"

"That'll be easy. But what about Julie's cousin? The one you stabbed in the arras?"

"I've got a disguise." He put on the disguise there and then. "No-one will recognize me now. See?"

"It's quite the disguise."

He stood up. "Okay. Let's go back to Arcadia. I'm ready. This all has to happen tonight."

His sister stood up. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"It's all written in the stars, sis. I'm destined to be with Julie."

"Never heard of such a thing before."

And returned they to Arcadia and their parents' home.

This is the story of Gerald's parents, his sister's parents too, Otto and Mary, Julie's correspondent's parents, Layla's daughter's correspondent's parents, Mike's sister's correspondent's parents.

While Gerald and his sister were returning to Arcadia, a terrible scene was going on at their parent's house.

The blame lay entirely on Otto's subordinate accountant. Just because he was a rotten guy, and passed over for a promotion (maybe on account of his being a rotten guy), this subordinate, this Chuck, had made Otto jealous. Even after thirty years of marriage, Otto was still capable of being made jealous. So all that day Otto had been goading Mary, trying to get her to inadvertently reveal the name of her lover--which was the name of Otto's preferred employee.

"Come, dearest," he said to her. "My new promoted employee--he's very much of a lady's man, is he not?"

She was backed into a corner. "If you'll simply put away that cord, I will answer your questions. Why do your eyes bug out so?"

"Because, darling, I have my suspicions."

"I have done nothing untoward. I am entirely innocent."

She was not to be believed. There was no precedent to this type of behaviour. Nothing in her wide reading had prepared her for this.

Fifteen minutes later, Gerald and his sister came home to find their mother strangled upon the floor.

They rushed to her. She gasped, "Willow, willow, willow," and died.

Gerald stood up boldly. "You were lied to, father! I know all about it! It was all a lie! She was as innocent as snow! You beast!"

Otto recognized his mistake brought about by his naïveté. "How could I have done such a thing? It must be my military experience that's to blame. In Aleppo it was that I caught a kraut by the neck, and strangled him thusly." And as if by a miracle Otto managed to strangle himself. What an event! Surely worth a short story!

It started to rain.

This is the story of Layla's first husband, Julie's father, Mike's father, Otto†'s son's girlfriend's father, Mary†'s son's girlfriend's father, Gerald's girlfriend's father, Julie's father, Philip, a ghost.

He is lurking around the house, choosing not to be visible to anyone. Last time he showed himself--to his son Mike--things didn't go especially well. Mike didn't want to believe him. Can you believe that? Do you know how much ectoplasma a ghost has got to use up to make an appearance? Ectoplasma doesn't grow on trees, you know. Mike was hesitant, and he was still hesitant. Kids these days....

He sees his son Mike acting strangely. But is it an act, or is it genuine? Philip the ghost has adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Meanwhile he's more concerned with his daughter Julie. Her boyfriend Gerald, so knows Philip the ghost, is going to stage his own death in order to run away with Julie, in a convoluted way that's entirely unnecessary. Philip the ghost, low on ectoplasma, has to wait-and-see about that, too.

What did Philip the ghost's brother--now Philip's widow's second husband--have against this Gerald fellow anyway? He killed Nick†, nephew of both Philip and his brother (naturally), but Nick† was a loser-idiot, mostly just a joke to them all. He'd done everyone a favour. And now Gerald (so noted Philip the ghost, in tune with the astral planes and so on) had lost his parents: Otto† and Mary†. He was an orphan through no fault of his own. Maybe this new thing would mean that Gerald would reconsider his cockamamie scheme. Gerald and Julie! Just run away!

The rain was coming down heavily. It was pouring into the home of Philip the ghost's widow's father's house. Philip the ghost didn't know what his widow was up to. How could she do such a thing?

Philip the ghost wondered what William Shakespeare would have made of all this if he hadn't been stabbed to death in May of 1953 in Deptford. What would the author of the Richard III and the Comedy of Errors have seen here? Would he not have found such a family dramatic?

This is the story of Philip the ghost's brother, Layla's second husband, step-father of Julie and Mike, Gerald's correspondent Julie's step-father, Claudius by name, also Otto† and Mary†'s son's correspondent's step-father.

Claudius was in his study when it had started to rain, writing his confessions. And boy did he ever have a whopper. Fratricide. Yes, the crime of Cain was on his conscience. If only he could make it up to the boy Mike, who appeared to everyone to have gone utterly insane. Was it because of Gerald's sister what's-her-name? Had she rejected him in some way? Claudius thought about how jealous he had been when his brother had stolen Layla away from him. The devil, he remembered, had gotten a hold on his soul to inform him that jealous murder is not a real crime. And Claudius had believed it at the time.

A knock at the door. "Come in." The door opened. It was Mike. Mike with a big hunting knife.

"Hello, Mike. What can I do for you?"

"You can die for me."

Claudius sighed. "I had no choice in the matter. I am your father now. Put down the knife and gimme a big hug."

Mike gripped the knife fiercely. "Now I finally know. Now you've confessed."

"I feel bad about it, Mike. So gimme a break, and a big hug."

Mike rushed forward and stabbed his step-father to death. There was blood everywhere. The place was a mess. Claudius fell to the carpet, and was no more.

Mike looked upon Claudius†. He looked at his bloody knife. "Oh my God, I have killed my mother's husband! What else am I but ... a parricide? Or at least an avunculicide. My God, I'm probably both! My madness returns!"

Layla rushed into the room. She cried, "Is that a dagger I see before me?"

Mike said, "No, it's a hunting knife."

"You've killed my husband! My incestuous husband! I cannot live!" and with that she took the dagger and stabbed and stabbed herself and was no more.

Mike took the dagger up. "Let these horrid crimes end now!"

And soon he was no more too.

This is a story about a gravedigger not related to Layla†, Julie, Gerald, Mike†, Otto†, Mary†, Nick†, or Claudius†.

The gravedigger was drinking some coffee in the cemetery office around about one am when a noise from the cemetery gate alerted him. It was a woman climbing the gate in the rain. She was crying, "Gerald, Gerald!"

Now, there had been a lot of action in the cemetery world that day, what with the corpses piling up and all. But the gravedigger knew who Gerald was. He was a corpse they'd interred in a family tomb earlier that day under unusual circumstances. Rumour had it that a young man had shown up saying he had a body to inter in his family tomb. When asked who was the dearly departed, he answered, himself. Well, it was his family's property, wasn't it? No one had a quality counter-response, so they let him in. He drank something from a vial and lay out on the floor and died. How curious!

Now there was a young woman in the cemetery crying, "Gerald! Gerald!" And now she was heading for that family tomb previously mentioned.

The gravedigger quietly followed her through the rain.

She went down into the tomb. This tomb didn't have cobwebs, it didn't have skeleton hands sticking out the sides of caskets, it didn't even have bats. It was more like a lounge, with warm hues, throw pillows, and a big-screen tv.

The gravedigger saw the young woman fall on the corpse of the guy who'd come to die that afternoon. She cried, and gasped, and pulled out a dagger and stabbed herself repeatedly.

What a shock!

Then the formerly dead young man came to life! And he looked at the body beside him and let out a most unusual cry. Wow! The gravedigger watched as the man took the dagger up, and repeatedly stabbed himself. Double wow!

The gravedigger left the tomb. Everything could be sorted out at eight.

Wow! What an entry for his blog! (Rated #8 in cemetery-related blogs in North America.)

This is a story about King, father of Layla†, father-in-law of Claudius†, grandfather to Mike† and Julie†, Gerald†'s girlfriend's grandfather, Otto†'s son's girlfriend's grandfather, Mary†'s son's girlfriend's grandfather, and Nick†'s grandfather (I think).

King cut his Civic's gas outside his house and looked out at it. Home sweet home. And what a trip he'd had. Now it was back to his house. Almost.

He got out and looked at the sky. It looked like it had rained overnight. Everything felt moist and fresh. He could smell worms. He felt ten again ... like seventy years had never passed. His long life, his wife†, his children†, his grandchildren†...

He veritably hopped up the steps to his front door and opened it up and went inside. It was quiet, and he sighed. His house, that wasn't his house, not in deed--for he had signed it over to his daughter Layla†, wherein he was living rent-free so long as he could be judged competent. And King felt mostly fine, in mind and body. Mostly fine.

But there was a sound in there--some kind of a dripping sound, from over there.

He went into the kitchen. Oh God! A flood from above! How could this have happened? He threw down his two tea towels and shoved them through yellow water on the floor with his foot. He looked up--the water was from up there, in the storage room that used to be Layla†'s room.

Up the stairs he went to aforementioned room only to see the window wide open. But that's impossible, he hadn't been in that room any time recently ... as far as he could remember. No, he certainly had not been in that room.

So maybe my daughter is right. Maybe I am going senile. Maybe I should be in an old folk's home. Some things I am simply doing absentmindedly, and I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have this house. It's not mine. I've given it away.

Maybe that was a mistake....

Michelangelo Theme and Variations

Attention your attention please, bus now boarding in bay three, bus boarding in bay three, for Sacramento, Oklahoma, Death Valley, Arkansas, Delhi, Arcadia, Arcady, New Delhi, Ontario Delhi, Jamaica, Barrie, Bala, Heaven's Gate, Scarborough, Brooklin, Brooklyn, Gormenghast, Paris, Mongolia, Jones Street, Basement, Judique, Lagos, Mabou, Tuscaloosa, Shangri-La, Anaheim, Heaven, Hell, Tulsa, Destiny, Paradise,New Glasgow, Portland, Florence, Bottom-of-Glass, Thule, Rome, Aldebaran, Africa, Oslo, Moscow, 221B Baker Street, Salem's Lot, Pottersville, New York City, Mariposa, Orillia, Vancouver, Turkey, Calgary, Muckanaghederdauhaulia, the House of Lancaster, the Hebrides, London, Iceland, Greenland, Dartmouth, Ottawa, Dickens, Chaucer, Beethoven, Florida, Stolo, Economics, Politics, History, Hades, Koss, Apple, Chrysler, Shoefall, New South Wales, Machu Picchu, Dune, the End of the Road, the Next Township, Belbec, the Depths, Hungary, Venice, Miami Beach, the Shire, Tannersby, the Book of Kells, Heart, Budapest, Coffee, Tea, Me, Petawawa, Abdekal, Louisville, King Street, Queen Street, Mexico City, Tulsa, Las Vegas, Berlin, Munich, Singers, Painters, Lodz, Red, Yellow, Blue, Dundas Street, Bay Street, Dovercourt, Hallam, Logan, Gerrard Street, London again, the Internet, Cuzco, the Internet of Things, Cuba, the aorta, the brain, the lungs, the guts, Peru, Mongolia, Australia, Jupiter, Saturn, Detroit, Buffalo, Sarasota, Dubuque, Los Angeles, Tara, Oz, Zabriskie, and Bataslava. All aboard."

 

*

Michelangelo Variations

 

The boy came to my room tonight. He is getting more and more uncannily human every day. I am almost fooled; tomorrow night, I may be completely fooled.

"Geppetto," he breathily whispered. I had not programmed him to whisper breathily. He must have learned it from one of my other creations. "I'm lonely. Please don't make me leave. I'll do anything you want."

He is a fast learner. He didn't wait my response. He slipped in bed beside me, passing his left arm and leg across my chest.

I said, "I was rather drunk when I made you, you realize."

"In vino veritas," he whispered. He sounded like a sigh. He laughed. "How's my little Latin?"

"It's good Latin," I said.

"What's it feel like, getting drunk?" He knee was gently sliding up and down over my lower ribs. "What's it feel like?"

I sighed, genuinely. "You get light-headed. You feel things more deeply. You get silly, you get not so self-conscious."

He frowned. "I don't like that."

"Don't like what?"

He moved his leg away; his foot was no longer caressing me; I felt his simulated frown. He said:

"I don't like that you can be self-conscious at all."

 

My monster said to me, "I will be with you on your wedding night," and I believed him because I knew he was not made to lie.

I feared marriage therefore but as time proceeded to tick sickly from future to past I eased myself in complacency and betrothed Elizabeth. The monster, I mostly reasoned and believed, was frozen in Antarctica.

And yet! and yet! still, on the wedding night, so fearful was I that I had difficulty, though with my bridge before me buxom and beautiful, in maintaining what vulgarians call good wood. As I stood before her bemused gaze, pulling and twisting and shaking and rubbing my super-saturated cactus, there came a knock at the window. I returned my self to my drawers and went to the window. Of course, it was he.

He smiled crookedly at me. "Victor. I am what you want."

Under a strange hypnosis I said, "I made you. I lacked you."

I looked over to Elizabeth. She appeared to understand the situation completely.

I led the monster to Elizabeth. She put her hands on its shoulders.

And I thought: Did I know things would end this way? Is this what life is for?

 

"Dear Penthouse Forum. I never believed it would happen to me. For a couple years I had been lusting after my wife's sister. My wife's sister, understand, began her adult life as one of those hot cheerleader types and stayed as one of those hot cheerleader types. Always happy, always damn sexy. So last weekend we got a call from her. Seemed her car had broken down outside town, she'd just found a payphone, it was starting to rain, her clothes were all wet, could one of us come to get her? My wife told me to go, and I was happy to go, not knowing what would happen. I drove out to the payphone and there she was, all wet and clingy, in a phone booth. It was a very dark night. She got in my car and said, 'Since it's so dark, do you mind if I take off some of these wet clothes?' I said, no, I didn't mind, and I tried to keep my eyes on the road as she disrobed--"

"Sorry, Hal. I'm just not in the mood. My mind's on the AE-35 unit. Can we save this for later?"

"Whatever you say, Dave."

 

Being a misogynist, i.e. hating women as much as women hate each other, I turned away from the world and got into artifice. I started by drawing pretty women straight from the imagination, and then I got into the plastic arts. I started with hands, using my own as models, and I got good at it so I started making legs, using my own as models, and proceeded therefrom to model part by part until I had a good sense of how to sculpt a woman.

So I sculpted a woman, a magnificent woman, from my own imagination. And howdy boy did she ever look hot! But how to give her life? I'd heard that Venus could do stuff like that, so I prayed day and night to Venus and visited her shrine whenever I could. Pray, pray, pray was all I wanted. "Make her real, Venus! Make her real!"

Then one day I came home and saw that the skintone of the sculpture had changed. I touched my artificial woman, and lo and behold, she was growing warmer and warmer! My sculpture came alive, in my very arms! And she had a cock just the right size for me!

 

Pris looked out the window. She saw the open pit of the dark asteroid, with conveyor trains pulling out all those heavy metals that were used in the construction of those like herself. She wondered how much of herself was originally here, on this asteroid. She wondered how much earth she was.

She turned her head and looked in, into the bordello. One of the new girls--Kitty--was busy deepthroating a filthy sewageworker. (Pris had already turned off her olfactories.) She looked to her own space, her own bed. Pencil hatches over the bed showed statistics. All day, all night. Her record was seventy-eight in one 24h period. All happy customers still. Pleasure model.

A phone call came into her. Yes, Pris here. Hello, Pistol Pete. A friend? Bring him along. I've got holes enough for three. Special what? Special request. The youngest? We have Kitty. She's made as nineteen. That's all. I don't know why either. I don't see why. Come by. We'll see what we can do.

Endcall.

Pris reached for her oil. As she lubed herself, she thought about it. There's no reason why not. Why not ten years old? It wouldn't be human, after all.

 

"Sorry, pops, we need some younger blood. We'll be auditioning Magi in six months, maybe we'll give you a ring."

The old man said, "Too old for the Almighty?"

"Muscle tone's all wrong. Look, don't call us, we'll call you."

The old man left.

Michelangelo turned to his casting director and said, "What the fuck was that? I said older, not oak-ancient."

The casting director said, "You're so hard to please!"

"Do I have to fire you? Get out there and find me a God! I've got my Adam, now find me my God!"

The casting director slinked out, leaving Mitch alone. "Where am I supposed to find a good God?"

And the heavens opened, and down came God in all colours and splendours.

God said, "You called?"

Mitch cried, "Holy ... You! Wow! If there's anyone who doesn't an appointment it's You!"

"Do I get the part?"

"Yeah, sure! Stick out Your arm like You're touching Adam's finger. You know, giving him life."

God stuck out his finger.

"What fantastic definition on Your forearm! Can I get sketching?"

God shrugged. "If there's anything I got it's time."

Mitch started sketching.

"I created you from dust."

"Stretch out that finger."

 

*

 

The cabin has recently been painted a dark red, by spray, by covering up all the doors and windows with paper then letter red paint rip all over it, powered maybe by a gasoline generator. On the side there's a small window (white) and a screen door. Between them is the stone of the chimney and the (now redder) horizontal logs.

Don't knock your head on the protruding drainpipe on that corner. The water, see, has to drain well away from the cabin because the cabin has no foundation to speak of.

Around the left side there's another little window. That's the window for the bathroom. It used to be just a storage room, and now it's a bathroom. Beside it, around a little corner, there, there's what can be considered the front door, closest to the road. See there, there's names pressed into the poured concrete. Six names. Whose names? I don't know. I don't know anyone by those names.

Barbecue near the door.

The protrusion on this side, side to the left now, that's where a table sits within. A table of thick wood, magnificent.

Here's the closed-in porch. Sit. You can see the lake spread before you.

 

*

 

Crummy Jobs

 

It was a call down to the Holiday Inn near the 401. I went there and about fifty people of various ages got pitched on how to sell these great vacuum cleaners. They practically sold themselves they were that good.

Roofing. We went out to a place in Whitby. First part of the job was tearing off the old roof with pitchforks. All morning with ripped off roof. The guy I was with made a dirty joke about the Lady of the House. It started raining. I was stranded in Whitby. I had to call my dad to pick me up. I phoned to resign.

Census work. At least I knew the neighbourhoods I was going into. Sort of. There was one stretch of buildings, six apartments apiece, on Lansdowne Drive, rear deadbeats there. In the end I made up statistics for some houses.

The supermarket. I had to gather up the goddamn carts from the lot, as many at a time as was possible. They crashed into cars.

Ah, the jobs I had, or avoided--if it weren't for how I got out of really doing them, I might not be the loser joke I am today.

 

*

 

Afterwards we all agreed we had seen it coming; we also agreed we were frightened of discussing it because we didn't want our fears confirmed. So when it happened, none of us were surprised. The only surprise came later when we found we were all in unison sentimentally.

We were flying over the Atlantic at the time: me, my brother and my sister, my parents. Mom had been agitated as usual, fearing she had left the stove on or a door unlocked, such that any little bit of tomfoolery by her children was met with dagger-eyes and wrist-slaps. She was trying to concentrate, dammit!

My brother dropped his ice cream cone on his new pants. That was the last straw.

My mother shouted, "Okay, that's it! Stop the plane!"

My father said, "It's dangerous stopping a plane in midflight."

"I don't care. STOP THIS PLANE!"

The plane stopped. What was she up to?

She said, "I'm getting out. I'm going home. Enjoy your vacation." She got up, opened the door, and was gone.

My father, resignedly, "She'll catch up later."

The plane started again, and we flew on.

My father was right. She caught up with us at De Gaulle.

 

*

 

Ode to a Down-Viewed Blouse

 

Oh whitest blouse, with fasteners separate

Below the collar for three buttonholes,

So made of purest cotton freshly cleaned,

With sleeves (I guess) and cuffs (I further guess),

In colour same or complimentary,

You blouse! You curtains of the swelling scene!

I waited for your parting as a bike was locked,

Revealing on your stage between your pure

White travelers a sight beyond all ken:

I think myself returnéd to that day,

To try to fix the vision into words,

But yet I can't express too clear the sight

I fed upon, a starving folk at glass

Of mighty lords, a jungle beast that sees

The waterhole at which his dinner plays,

Copernicus perhaps rotating balls!

 

Oh blouse from elements you do protect

The residents within and keep them safe

From cold and heat extreme and idle eye

But still allow for chances of delight

When stockings need a lift or shoes untie;

Oh bless designers, bless the sweatful shops

Wherein these fabrics sheen are drawn and stitched!

A glimpse, and then it's done: and time does wink

And all that life is for through eyes is seen,

And flowerstalks do stiffen from the sight!

 

*

 

It is a good thing to change your schedule. You don't lose your earlier one; rather you're adding one layer of complexity to your behaviour.

Be a plagiarist. Maybe the extra oomph of your personality will elevate otherwise mundane comments to a stellar level. Give it a try.

Something wonderful. My mother is now living in Brooklin, Ontario. It's great to see the heterogeneity of vehicles passing through the intersection of Winchester and Anderson. So much life is involved. Old cars, new cars, trucks, gigantic trucks, pulling boats, ATVs, in winter snowmobiles. In the city you miss all this. Just Fiats and Cooper Minis and silly sports-cars conspicuously consumed.

Likewise, the people there are heterogeneous. (And better musicians, but that's another fable.) In the city, everyone thinks the same. In the country's where the eccentrics really are.

Perhaps it's all too obvious or axiomatic.

On Manitoulin Island we came across an abandoned house; rapidly abandoned, as if the residents had fled at midnight pursued by goblins. An exercise book lay open on a spruce bedside table, with the tallies of an unfinished euchre game pencilled into it.

It remains for us to discuss youth and age, and life and death.

 

*

 

Brief Memoir

 

Laundry.

Cat.

Telling Helen what to bring.

Newspaper suspensions.

Walk to airport.

Start reading Endless Things.

Ottawa, then Halifax.

Cab.

Freeman's restaurant.

Hotel Atlantica.

Sleep.

Intimacy.

Breakfast at Athens Greek restaurant.

Up to Summit Street.

Down to record shop.

Atlantica again, for shuttle bus.

Liverpool, NS Sobeys.

Liquor store.

White Point Beach Resort, Tidewatch vacation home.

Salmon and halibut etc. for five.

Drinking.

Sleep.

Bacon and eggs for five.

Walk to lodge and back.

Dog, and poo.

60th wedding anniversary party.

Drinking.

Barbecued chicken etc. for ten.

Champagne.

Talk of Calvin.

Apology for talk of Calvin.

Into hot tub.

Hot tub and moon.

Out of hot tub.

Balcony and moon.

Sleep.

Intimacy.

Sausages and eggs for six.

Into Liverpool for steaks, liquor, sauerkraut, chowder blend.

Drive around Liverpool.

Back to Tidewatch.

Walk to lodge.

Beer in lodge.

Back to Tidewatch.

Steaks etc. for five.

Drinking.

Dog.

Theology.

Balcony and moon.

Sleep.

Rest of eggs, rest of steak, rest of salmon for five.

Dog, and poo.

Goodbye, goodbye.

Drive to lodge.

Goodbye, goodbye.

Shuttle to Halifax airport.

Beer and BLT.

Airplane.

Ottawa, then Toronto.

Walk to King St.

Streetcar to Langley.

Walk to Logan.

Pizza and "The Killing."

Sleep.

 

*

 

The Green Imp

 

Once upon a time, a flame and a candle decided to set up house together. The flame worked as a seamstress and the candle was a barber. They made good money, and they were happy together.

One day, the mother of the candle came to their house, all in a dishevel. She said, "A green imp has moved into my house and chased me away! What is to be done? Oh, oh!"

The flame thereupon got his horse and rode to the mother's house, transfiguring into an ant along the way. He knocked, and the green imp answered.

"Imp!" said the flame who was disguised as an ant. "I have discovered a wonderful tablecloth that fills with delicious food whenever one says, 'Open, food!' to it."

"How is this my business?" asked the green imp.

"It's high in a tree by the stream, and I can't reach it!"

So the 'ant' led the green imp to the stream. Just then the flame became a flame, and the green imp in fright leapt into the stream and was eaten by a shark.

The flame returned to his house, singing to his mother-in-law, "The green imp is no more!"

 

*

 

"When you're out there, be wary of the poisonberries."

I said, "Poisonberries?"

"Yeah. Eat anything you want, but look out for poisonberries."

"Um, what do they look like?"

The camp counsellor who was talking looked at the other camp counsellors. "Any you guys want to field that question?"

One of the counsellors said, "They're very small. Pea-size. And they're red going on purple."

Another said, "They grow in bunches, usually twenty to a branch or bristle or whatever."

There was no moon that night. We had the fire, then black all around. Things were in the bushes.

"In any case," said the camp councillor, "It's only for four hours. What could go wrong?"

Another councillor nudged him. "But Jake, there's always the possibility of getting lost."

"Yes, that's true. Like last year."

"Yeah, last year. I wonder if the kid's still out here."

"Could be, could be."

I said, "Did that really happen?"

He sighed. "Things like that: they get covered up. The owners pay off the parents. And the kid is just: gone."

One of the other councillors stood up. "We should get in our tents before the snakes come."

Everybody stood up.

That's what it was like, Nigel.

 

*

 

I was listening to Blonde on Blonde when the Shadow Kids entered my room at 2:30 in the morning. They hadn't knocked; they never knock; they're never expected to knock. I switched the stereo over to the A speakers and took off my headphones, keeping the volume the same.

The tallest one put his index finger to my Ming vase and sloooowly eased it off my bookcase. "Oops," he said.

The shortest one said, "What's this music?"

"It's Bob Dylan."

"Never heard of him."

The one who was neither tallest nor shortest said, "Dylan. Isn't that a Jew name?"

I said nothing.

He continued, "So anyway: what crimes you want us to be burdened with?"

I thought for a moment. "Sorry. Nothing this week."

The tallest one picked the needle off the record and put it on the paper label. Rough hiss filled the room.

The shortest one shoved his hands into his dirty jeans. "You're such a liar. We know it all. And you're a liar to boot."

"So why do you visit me if you already know it all?"

The one neither tallest nor shortest said, "We read somewhere that confession is good for the soul," and laughed.

 

*

 

Hey, the other day I got talking to this pretty girl in the local library. Yeah, a library. Hey, you look like you read a book, which one, see, I didn't think so.

So anyways, we're talking ... about Copernicus ... and she asks me, "Hey, you wanna go for coffee?" and I say, "Sorry, can't. Doctor's orders. I'm not supposed to get too sexually aroused."

That's what I told her, hey. Hippocrates, do no harm and shit.

Funny thing about doctors. Surgeons. Do they rank themselves after doin' the knife? "Boy, I really botched that one!" But who're they gonna apologize to? Not the patient, 'cause he's dead. So next-of-kin: "Sorry, it was all ... complications." Complications. Geez, who else but a doctor can use that excuse? "Gosh, sorry about the nuclear meltdown: but there were ... complications."

Oh God we all go through life and we make such mistakes! We remember them for the rest of our lives. Somewhere out there there's an old geezer thinking, "Can't believe I thought Casablanca was gonna tank!"

Anyway, I didn't really tell the chick in the library that stuff about getting sexually aroused. I try not to talk to women. Complications.

 

*

 

A cup of red lace with a snuffbox attached

Two lemmings with both of their jawbones detached

Three cardboard umbrellas to keep in the rain

Four art nouveau knights chiselled contra the grain

Five brave and true djinns with ten puppy dog eyes

Six playwrights who drink seven sycophant lies

Eight tubs of blue paint all arranged in a star

Nine books with the covers nor near and nor far

These are the things that you are, you are,

These are the things that you are, you are,

These are the things that you are.

 

Nine socks with their toes sopping wet from the snow

Eight dogs with ten leads and the pigeons they owe

Six bricks in a circle of seven white hens

Five tea out their bags with their oxygen pens

Four days in the heat of a note on the door

Three wrens in their cells 'cause they won't talk no more

Two nuts with no names in an old folding car

One red fish one blue fish one mountain one jar

These are the things that you are, you are,

These are the things that you are, you are,

These are the things that you are.

 

*

 

Someday soon maybe I know what will happen. I will go to a doctor to find out about the causes of the terrible headaches I will have been having for some time. I'll get scans, pricey scans, all over my head. Then the doctor will give me the news.

"John, it's a tumor. Seriously. We have to operate immediately."

I'll say, "It's my second-favourite organ."

"Congratulations. You're my hundredth brain patient to use that joke. Stolen."

I'll think for a bit. "How will it affect me? My personality and stuff?"

"That's impossible to determine."

"Can it be that I won't change a bit?"

"Nope. Zero. You'll be different. How different is the question."

I'll make preparations for the operation. I'll be in a hospital, natch, and I'll write the future me a little note. I'll give him instructions on how to turn on the laptop, open up Microsoft Word, and get story-writing again. I won't be able to describe to my future self much more than that.

Then they'll wheel me into an operating room and remove an unknown bundle of brain. I'll return to my hospital bed. I'll read my note, I'll open my computer, and I'll write

vreovneibmnkelbenb;ehgoi;heogfkdvlfndvkl;nerkvlr;ehgklernvreklvnrkelvenrvrioe;ghuiroeegnfklvnklfnklghreiogerh;iovnerklvnkrle;hr;ohgiorh;egioh;rb;erjkg;fdhgiero;whioghiorvhnifnvkl;nvieroerhgiroeghriehg;rioevbhierovhriovhniero;hisoghrsog;rhsgoerh;iovnrioghiroehgierso;vbhriosg;hreigorhigorvnvlfndlsv;fvnjr;ghrj;ghjfvbjkrtev;btrbvuwerohgueoevh;ueo;bneuo;bnerugneroovner;ngergu;nero;gnerhuowg;neuwgn

 

*

 

Here is an account of a super hush-hush meeting of the secret cabal of public choice theorists that control our nation's bureaucracy. Don't ask me how I know this. I could get disappeared.

A woman said, "We've shovelled it out there so many times. Overwork Kills! The Hazards of an Imbalance of Work/Life! But it's just not working!"

A man said, "Yeah, those innovators in the private sector are providing too many goods to the people, and we're not involved at all. If we didn't have all the guns, we'd be in serious trouble."

Another woman said, "So what's to do? Any more croissants?"

The first woman said, "Came to me in a long dream. We've got to push indolence."

"Brilliant! The health benefits of doing as little as possible!"

"I'll get the science department to cook up some research! It worked for cholesterol and salt!"

"No one likes working, not really. We get them lazy, and we look less lazy. Because it's a spectrum!"

"You should dream more often, E.M."

"It's noon. Let's call it a day."

And then they sat there, thinking about it all; and if they haven't gotten up to do something, they're sitting there still.

 

*

 

The New Tamburlaine: A Novel

Book Two

PART TWO

Chapter Two

1.

 

And what did Whatsername tell Frederick Stout?

What did he need to know? What's need got to do with it?

<digress>Margaret MacDonell defended her friend (whose name I don't recall) from Cape Breton distillery bullies by shouting at them, "You need to leave my friend alone!" and said bullies backed off. That was the first time I heard this particular usage of the word need. Must have been ten years ago she told me about it, referring to an event five years before then. Say 2000. Need.</digress>

She said, "We've been created for this moment. Aren't you supposed to rape me now?"

Frederick Stout said, "I've forgotten my motivation."

She said, "Clarissa. You're Lovelace, I'm Clarissa."

He said, "Right. How do I know this?"

She said, "The narrator's made you know it. So, C'mon. Rape me."

He said, "Is this almost over?"

She said, "The narrator--no, the author--seems to have pulled us out of the æther tonight. Maybe he has nothing else to write about."

He said, "I suspect he's a bit drunk too."

She said, "He's given me a cunt. He's given you a cock."

 

*

 

Part One

 

"By all means, keep your sense of humour; 'cause you're gonna need it."

Before I fell out the kitchen door at David Smookler's house, I was out front smoking, and his neighbour's daughter, Doris Dooney, (daughter of Frank Dooney) came to visit her father. I know her father well; I've known him for almost thirty years. Now he's invalid.

Doris and I talked. It was dark, so I couldn't quite see her nice eyes. Then David came out to take photographs. Then she came into David's house. She sat in the kitchen. She drank some beer. I was like one metre away from her.

She said, "I always found myself all intimidated by you guys (ie me, David, and Linda). I'm the only one in my family to go to university. You were always such intellectuals."

What else, what else did I see? I saw her nice eyes. I saw her hazellish eyes, maybe simply green, captivated, caught. Since we were talking about our interpersonal experiences, I had to say, I had to declare, that I, years ago, had had a crush on Doris, and that it had never gone away.

Yadda yadda, then she had to go.

 

Part Two

 

I told Mary then, with Linda there, that I had asked Doris out, like on a date, a couple months before I met Mary. I said, quite sincerely, that if Doris hadn't been busy (she had been genuinely busy, not saying no, not at all), I would have wound up being married to Doris Dooney. Without a doubt.

I was trying to express the nature of chance. Everything could have been so different. Mary and Linda were having none of it. Linda thought I was being presumptuous. How could I assume that I would have married Doris Dooney?

How could I have told her about that affection that was evident between Doris and me?

Then I fell out the kitchen door. David had taken the steps away. I was going out for a smoke. I didn't go out the front door because I didn't want to risk meeting Doris. So I stepped out the kitchen door. Where there were no longer any steps. I plummeted two feet. On my ass, more or less. David came to the door. I was no longer laying on the asphalt. Too loud I said,

"What did you do with the fucking steps?"

 

*

 

Lost and Found

 

At three in the morning local time, Jim came home from a vigorous bout of gambling with his friends. He hadn't lost that much, not that much at all, so he treated himself with a beer. He turned on the kitchen light and saw it on the table. The green box of 45s that had vanished from amongst his possessions some time in the past--no less than fifteen years prior. He opened it up. It was the same box with the same rips. The same 45s, in the same torn sleeves. How had it gotten there?

Meanwhile, halfway across the universe, 45,000,000,000 light-years away, a man by the name of Jim came home at three in the morning local time; he'd been winning at poker, so he treated himself to a beer. He turned on the kitchen light. The table was denuded. The green box of 45s he'd been going through nostalgically that morning, that yard sale box he'd picked up eighteen years previous, had vanished. He looked on the chairs, he looked under the table. No, they were definitely gone from the kitchen. He searched for fifteen minutes but it was gone. It had vanished.

 

*

 

For a week before I left for camp, my mother was seldom to be seen. I didn't have a clue what she was doing in her little sewing room; she was in it every night, and whenever I'd knock she'd say, "Come in," and when I'd come in she'd be simply sitting there doing nothing. Suspicious!

So they shipped me off to Camp Tomahawk. I didn't want to go really, but they made me. It took three hours to drive there. Along the way my mother told me what she'd been up to. She'd been sewing name tags into all my clothes, even my panties and training bras. "All except for what you've got on, of course. So please don't wear what you're wearing now tomorrow."

The good-byes were quick; after all they had to drive three more hours home.

I unpacked my clothes then. I wanted to see the name tags. There they were: Janice Jones, Janice Jones, Janice Jones, in very nice green embroidery. Only thing was: my name wasn't Janice Jones. Not by a long shot.

Next day I called home but there was no answer. And no-one came to pick me up in two weeks either.

 

*

 

On the snowiest late afternoon of the winter so far, with drifts reaching bookshelf heights and winds like salad forks gouging cheeks, Henry decided it was time to go to a big rock concert. He called a cab and went out into the street to wait for it.

The street was a wayfare of four lanes. The two outermost were usually used for parking, but there wasn't anyone parked on that snowiest afternoon, because plows have to plow. The cab fishtailed around the corner, fishtailed past Henry, fishtailed back and onto the sidewalk, and fishtailed to a stop.

"You called for a cab?"

"I've changed my mind."

The cab fishtailed off with a curse; then a different car showed up. A 1958 Packard convertible with the top down and in it was a woman who had maligned Henry ten years before. She said, "Here," and handed him a pack of smokes and a jumbo bag of Maltesers.

"What's this for?"

"I was wrong ten years ago. I only found out this morning. This is my idea of a peace pipe."

"Aren't you getting wet?"

"Yes. But priorities are priorities."

"Okay."

She nodded and drove away.

I went back inside, smoking.

 

*

 

The (Great) Leap (Forward) Manifesto

 

-Say, did you hear about that 100-signature thing from the NDP?

-Sure, bud, I heard of it.

-D'ye think it's some kind of a Bozo Eruption?

-Nah, not at all.

-Then what d'ye think it is?

-I think it's a Bozo Tsunami With Connecting Earthquake Causing Tornadoes Of 199 Proof Jim Beam Firenadoes That Sweep Across Entire Provinces With Burning Angry Rattlesnakes Within Aloft Spitting Poison Like Heavy Rain Through Entire Metropolitan Areas With Said Rain Of Poison Causing The Earth To Buckle And Split Apart Revealing The Burning Pit Of Hell Below And From Which Climb MechaStalin, MechaHitler, MechaMao, MechaMussolini, and MechaPolPot Who Proceed To Decimate A Thousand And One Times Over The Population Of The Nation Plus Destroy National Landmarks And Treasures From Sea To Sea To Sea Plus Cause More Tsunamis And Hurricanes And Even Volcanoes In Metropolitan Areas And Smaller Picturesque Townships Where People Vacation Yearly Plus I Failed To Mention The Sharks In The Tornadoes Just Like In The Movies That Now In Retrospect Are Almost Naive In Their Sentimentality Come To Think About It Eruption Of Silly And Sad And Stupid.

-You may be right.

-I'm pretty certain, yep.

 

*

 

Five hours before the world ended, Tim and Tina were finishing up the dessert course. Tim was about to say something fascinating about the colours of dawn when he spotted Trudy coming into the restaurant. He forgot what he was going to say.

Trudy looked at him and winked. Tim saw her sit as he talked about the greens of the sky. Tim saw her gesture to him while talking to the waitress as he talked about the, the levels. Tim saw her come over to their table and seat herself as he said brightly, "Oh my goodness it's Trudy!"

Trudy looked at Tina. "Hello, Tina."

"Hello, Trudy."

"How's it going?"

Tim's optical nerves were aching.

Tina said to Tim. "I've known, Tim. So. The three of us are going to bed together tonight."

Trudy said, "We're both a little ... bored with you."

"We had no objections."

Tim could only think to answer, "Where?"

Trudy said, "I've made up my place."

Tina said, "Plush donkeys and trance."

"Let's be civilized. Should I pay for this?"

"Sure!" Tina stood up. "Oh Tim are you too humiliated now?"

Tim muttered, "Two girls one-"

Tina said, "More like two girls one half."