Arlington Road

I ripped this off of some stuff going around the 'net. -Aaron



Klaus: The London job went off without a hitch, Leo. Once we land this plane, you will learn all about it

Leo: London job? What London job?

Klaus: Arlington Road, Leo. Remember the operation I called Arlington Road?

Leo: Yeah. The political thing named after the movie, right?

Klaus: Yes.

Leo: So what happened in London?

Klaus: When you watch the news, you will learn that up to four bombs went off in London, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. It will, of course, be blamed on 'terrorists'.

Leo: What was your modus operandi?

Klaus: My methods? Simple. The cover was a terror drill being conducted by a consulting firm we hired. They were given a scenario very similar to what eventually unfolded. We had them conduct the terror drills at precisely the same locations where we expected the bombs to go off. To add realism, we hired four young Arab-looking men.

Leo: Where'd you get them?

Klaus: We recruited them from mosques. Each of the men were given backpacks full of what we told them were 'dummy' explosives. They were 'red team', and we had several agents on the 'blue team'.

Leo: sort of like a cat-and-mouse excercise then.

Klaus: No, not really. The dummy explosives were delivered to the red team members the night before. They were given the train numbers and were told to board those trains. Also, they were told to carry identification in case they were caught. They could prove that they were a part of this excercise, the perfect cover. Red team members were given precise instructions not to lock their doors when they left. After red team left their homes, blue team were told that they were delivering the dummy explosives when the red team was already enroute to the targets.

Leo: So what's the point of that?

Klaus: To give the authorities something to discover.

Leo: So they left their doors unlocked so blue team could plant explosives in their homes, correct?

Klaus: Yes. Exactly. Part of the excercise required authorities to warn guests at the Great Eastern Hotel, near Liverpool Street Station.

Leo: Did it go off without a hitch?

Klaus: There was one error. One of the red team members was out with some friends the night before and likely slept in. He was running late and took a bus to the rendevous point. After he heard reports of the other bombs going off in the Underground, he likely tried to defuse the bomb. Already there are reports of an agitated man fiddling with his rucksack.




Related:
* 5 miles up
* Interview Interruptus
* Jocasta awakes
* Prosser meets the police
* Delta Smith
* Keith Prosser

5 Miles Up

The phone call had come at 3 a.m., exactly as Klaus had said it would. The call display showed no number, and Leo had a hunch that his phone records would show no such call had been made. It’s how it has gone down before.

Leo had just arrived at the small landing strip near the “Indian” Reservation. He always felt like such a bigot for referring to aboriginal peoples as “Indians”, but that is what they are called. Reserves. And they had Indians on them. It had taken him nearly two hours to get here, and the Cessna had already landed. Two men, armed to the teeth with what looked like an array of SWAT gear, stood outside the airplane and Leo had a hunch that this plane ride would be different from the others.

“Park the truck over there” said the man on the right. He had a terribly scarred face that looked like he had once flossed his teeth with barbed wire. He motioned to an area behind some large shrubs, 12 feet tall maybe. Leo started his truck, turned off the radio and maneuvered it in behind the shrubs.

“Cover it” said the other man, tossing Leo a large bundle of 3-D camouflage. “And make sure you tie it down well” snarled the scar-faced man.

Leo finished covering his truck with the large bundle of burlap and shredded rags and headed for the Cessna. It was black with a silver aluminum underbody and had a red, round circle on the tail. There was some sort of pattern, a rose or something in the detail, but Leo couldn’t pinpoint it. He didn’t want to look too untrusting. The number 8008135 was written in white just below it, Leo noticed just before getting patted down by the two guardsmen.

Leo was escorted aboard the plane. Inside it was sparse. It was cladded in riveted aluminum inside and featured two chairs near the pilot's cabin. The third chair faced the back of the plane and was situated inside a type of cubicle, also made out of metal. It had a television and a couple of speakers, and that was it.

Leo took his seat in the odd-looking cubicle and immediately noticed something. He couldn’t move his legs. As he sat down, the chair immediately latched around his ankles and knees, and one of the guards moved to secure a pin to keep the latch from opening. There were more even more straps.

“It will be a short flight” said 'scarface' as Leo had already designated him.

The chair was obviously there to prevent him from moving about the plane and the blinds were situated such that he could not see out the windows. Little use, though, as the window shutters were all pulled down.

After securing Leo’s arms, chest and legs to the chair, Scarface tripped the red switch on the cubicle, causing a high-pitched whine to emit from somewhere within its walls. Initially Leo had thought that the television was turned on, but it wasn’t.

“This will keep you from pulling any smart moves again, Leo” the scarfaced guard smirked.

Last time, Leo had figured out the flight path of the Cessna using his internal compass. It was something the tribes had taught him as a boy, and he honed it as a young man by riding in trunks of cars and guessing where he had been taken. His parents would yell at him whenever they caught him, but basically took it all in stride until he figured out that his father wasn’t bowling on Saturday evenings, but was in consort with a woman his mother had once called a whore.

The cubicle was obviously some device that Klaus had purchased or developed to prevent Leo from figuring out where he was being flown this time.

After the Cessna had climbed to 30,000 feet, the television came on and a figure appeared on the screen. It was Klaus.

“Get him his headset!” Klaus exclaimed, obviously yelling at the guards. Leo was surprised when it became evident that the headset seemed to have been made by minions of Dr. Moreau rather than Motorola. It was a hastily-prepared metal headband with nodes, pins, rivets, circuits and wires attached to it. As it was placed on Leo’s head, he noticed that the high-pitched hum of the cubicle had increased. It was louder.

“That’s to stop you from transmitting, Leo. It’s only you and I now, so let’s get down to business”.

“As we agreed, gentlemen” Klaus said, bluntly.

The scarfaced guard took a small red box out of his pocket and pulled out two needles. He handed one to the other guard, and they removed the protective cases from the needle tips. Within a split second, the needles plunged into their thighs and they collapsed in their chairs. Unconscious or dead, Leo hadn’t a clue.

“Leo, it’s just you and I right now. The plane is in auto pilot. It’s my new software, capable of flying any plane anywhere in the world from any one of my flight simulators. Your plane is actually being flown from Saskatchewan right now, Leo”.

Leo found that one hard to believe. And he’s seen a lot. Klaus seemed to be given to wild claims and meeting this way was his idea, ever since Leo hooked up with Jocasta. Klaus claimed that Jocasta could sense things, but that her perceptions did not extend to the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Leo and Klaus had been meeting five miles up ever since.

“I went to Zurich last week, Leo. I have sent the jewels to New York. They will arrive in one month. . . ”



Related:
* Interview Interruptus
* Jocasta awakes
* Prosser meets the police
* Delta Smith
* Keith Prosser

Photo in the box

It’s been six weeks since we’ve moved and Gurpreet refuses to unpack all of her boxes. We’ve got a room full of what she calls “not necessaries” in liquor store boxes. I was hoping to be rid of Captain Morgan and his buddy Silent Sam by now. I tell myself that she’s just insecure about moving away from her parents. Moving away from home.

*

I don’t like moving. I know this now. I don’t like the packing, the unpacking, the focus on how much useless stuff I actually have. I don’t like not having my sisters around. They’re off living their teenage years and I’m not there to tell them that they’re doing it all wrong. Riti is just getting in to boys and Mahi refuses to get way from her studies. They need someone to make sure they do the right thing—without the iron fist of my mother. If only they would be home when I stop by.

*

I understand the lack of desire to organize your belongings, but it’s over a month already and she can’t be moved in until she has at least half of her boxes. Perhaps this was a mistake for her. This was swift and unprepared.

*

I did start unpacking. Honest. I did two boxes before I stopped. The third box made me not want to continue, though. I know he wants me moved in, but I haven't even moved out yet. How can you move out when everything you called home isn't able to be packed up into boxes small enough to load into a van?

*

I was hoping we'd find a place to own by the end of the year. Perhaps that is the stall. She thinks we'll be moving again and doesn't want to get fully settled. Maybe I should give up the house hunting until she's comfortable being in a place of her own first.

*

Do you have any photos, Mark? No, I mean of when you were a child. Where are they? Do you ever wish you had a copy of any of the pictures? Like the one of you in your grandfather's cowboy boots and diapers. I don't know; to look at? To frame? To go through and remember the smell of your first bedroom?

Gurpreet, did you bring any photos from your childhood? Can I see it? You were a bit of a mess, weren't you? That was your backyard? Nice. They all turn into supermarkets, don't they?

*

It was my mother's box. I must have grabbed it accidentally from the garage when I was loading up the van. on top was a sari she used to wear, before Riti was born. And a framed picture of me from the same time. There was a shirt Mahi wore in all her pictures that was shredded with love, and possibly garage mice. My dad's old hat that had seen better days was squished underneath a box of hair and teeth. Possibly the most creepiest, yet endearing, object a parent could possibly retain. It was my baby locks and the first few teeth of Mahi and myself. I don't know why she bothered labeling them with Ms and Gs in a black marker that was aging blue. My teeth were pristine. Mahi's were both laced with black from the time she fell face first onto the sidewalk when she was two and broke them. At the very bottom was my mother's attempt at keeping a baby keepsake book for me. I was too much of a handful by the time Mahi was born, and Riti stood even less of a chance, for any other attempts. It was feeble. She got through listing the shower gifts she received from co-workers and described my first birthday before quitting on me. I'm glad she chose to spend time with me rather than write about the toys my uncles would send from India for my first few birthdays. I know she's mad with me right now, and I would do almost anything to change that.

*

If I were more insecure I would think she wanted leave. Those weeks leading up to moving out were tense. I wasn't even allowed over to help her pack. It wasn't until our two month wedding anniversary that they invited me over for dinner. And that was probably just a ploy to make Gurpreet stay for greater than half an hour before fleeing from the tension. I didn't think I'd be a peacemaker as a husband, but apparently, if I'm not around there is a lot more burning glares.

*

Penpal

“Shit yeah.”

Oh great, Penpal's a poet.

“I seen ‘er come out the trees ‘n’ fall on ‘er face, man.”

I just bet you did, you cracked up son of a bitch.

“She was all cryin’ and bleedin’ an’, an’...”

And what, you worthless piece of trash?

"An' dat's when dat bigass hairy dude came out b'hind 'er."

So you can read, then. That was in the paper, Penpal.

"This motherfucker was naked as hell, man, an' 'e 'ad... uh..."

What, old man? Aces full of queens?

"The guy 'ad fuckin' tennacles, man! No shittin' ya!"

Okay, that wasn't in the paper. Paul Stevens chewed on his tongue for a second, and tried hard not to smile at the old-time cart-pusher.

"I know it's crazy, man, but I bin clean for a month!"

That's true; we checked your gear when you stumbled into the station, and it hadn't been fired up for a few weeks at least.

"Tennacles! What de hell is dat?"

Stevens leaned forward and put his weight on his elbows. Penpal flinched at first, but didn't back away.

"Look, Penpal. Imagine you're me," said the burly detective with as much bored compassion as he could muster. "You've got a known user who frequently gets picked up for disturbances and petty theft."

The old man's wide, panicky eyes shifted floorward.

"He claims some hairy half-man, half-octopus slithered onto the Seawall."

Penpal cleared his throat uncomfortably and sat on his hands.

"Then he says this," he looked at his notepad for effect. "He says this 'mutant-dude', to quote him directly, raped an old lady right there in plain view of seven passers-by."

"No man, this hairy dude didn't slither!" Wringing his hands, Penpal shook his head violently. "Naw, 'e kinda... floated in the air, man."

Stevens tried to look surprised. It wasn't difficult.

"Floated?" Just like Jocasta said. But...

"An' man, 'e didn' rape 'er!"

"No?"

"She was screamin' an' kickin' fer a minute," Penpal's voice dropped to a phlegmy whisper. "But then she went all quiet, man. I hid behin' a tree, an'... an' 'e..."

"Go slow, friend. What happened next?"

Penpal went as white as a sheet, looked to either side and leaned forward. He's terrified, and not of me. What the hell is going on here?

"Turn off the machine, man?"

Stevens reached over and hit the stop button on the desk recorder. We have got to update our equipment around here, for Christ's sake. Penpal leaned ever closer, and waved a bony grey finger to invite the detective to do the same. Stevens could feel the man's hot, unclean breath on his neck. I want danger pay for this shit.

Penpal whispered so low, Stevens had to strain to hear it.

"Come again, Penpal?" How the hell did he know that?!?!"

The bum repeated his statement slowly, and Stevens nearly fell down trying to get out of the room.

He closed the door and barked at the officer sitting behind the one-way glass. "Get Penpal locked up and put a guard on Jocasta Smith."

Officer Park only blinked. "What'd he say, boss?"

"NOW!"

As the junior cop fumbled for his cell phone, Stevens leaned on the glass to watch Penpal chewing his own bicep. "This crazy bastard's for real, and so is that bullshit Smith told us in the hospital."

His badge hooked into his belt, a shoulder holster loose underneath a mid-grade tweed jacket, he had one forearm above his head pressed against interrogation glass, the other planted on his hip. Stevens knew he was filling every police stereotype imaginable at the moment.

"There isn't anything cliché about this case, Paul," Stevens said to the empty room. Just like the god damn movies.

Penpal got up and moved to the glass, eerily putting his ugly, unwashed mug just four centimetres from the detective's ponderous face.

"And you, you wacky old fart, I don't blame you," Stevens said with wonder. "Anyone'd be nuts after seeing a Greek monster put a syringe in someone's eye."

Tessa makes her move...

5:30 p.m. Friday

I have always been a pacer. Nerves are my battery power. Back and forth, back and forth. It's past dinner on Friday night and I'm supposed to go and get my pills from Jacob, but, I'm so freaking nervous. I feel like he could tell that I'm nervous and that makes me even more nervous. Nervouser? Is that a word?

5:32 p.m.

Maybe I'll sit for a minute, muster some courage. Maybe I'll just see what's on. OH! This is the episode of Oprah I've been waiting for, I better nuke some pizza and grab a throw blanket. I'll go over after Oprah. I couldn't possibly be expected to miss the 'Releasing Your Inner Sexpot' episode?

6:02 p.m.

Ok, I have to go now. Maybe he has plans for tonight and he's waiting on me. Maybe if I wait a few more minutes he'll go and I can just go and see him tomorrow. No, I have to do it tonight. I've wanted to be near him for months and now I have the opportunity I can't just be a wuss and go and wuss out, all wussy-like. I'm not a wuss. Ok, I'm just going to go and get changed and go over there.

6:34 p.m.

CRIPES. I don't have one thing in here that fits me right. Is my ass getting bigger? Maybe the sundress. No, that's too obvious. I have to look like I just stopped by and am wearing what I was wearing before, but good, better than good. Easy and beautiful. Maybe my tight black pants and that sparkly tank? No, that's not it, too hooker. Jeans it is. Jeans and my safety shirt, the one that makes my boobs look big and my stomach flatter. That's it.

6:48 p.m.

I can't cover this pimple for the life of me. He's going to stare at it and think I'm disgusting. I'll wear a band-aid and tell him I cut myself making a sandwich. Making a sandwich? I'm such an idiot. I'll just keep my face facing a little to the left. Maybe he won't see it. That's impossible, it's massive, it's like the size of my face. CRAP. *sigh*

6:56 p.m.

Ok... *sigh*... just walk. Left, right, left, right. Ok, now knock. KNOCK. Ok.

*Knock, knock, knock*

Oh, ok. I did it. Oh god, I'm so nervous. What do I say? I never thought of what to say. Maybe he's not there. Oh god, I hear something. Does he have a dog? Maybe he's in the shower. Maybe he didn't hear me.

*Knock, knock, knock*

*Thump, thump, thump. Click. Clank.*

Oh my god he's coming, oh my god, oh my...

"Hey Tess"
"Uh, Tessa, but that's ok"
"Oh, right, sorry again"
"It's ok, really"
"So, what's up hun?"

Oh my god, did he just call me hun, my face is getting hot. I hope he can't tell I'm nervous. Oh god, is he looking at my pimple? Face to the left...

"Um, well, I wanted to..."
"OH! The pills, right"
"Yeah"
"Listen, about that, I couldn't get them"
"Oh... oh, well... that's ok"
"If you don't mind my saying, I don't really think you need them anyway"
"Oh, ha... thanks, but they're not for me"

Good way to start Tessa, tell a lie. Dumb-ass.

"Good, cause honestly hun, there's no need"
"Ah, thanks"

Give him that look, bashful but sexy, head down, eyes up, keep your face to the left...

"Ok, well, thanks anyway"
"Hey, don't mention it"

Ok Tessa, walk away now, you're staring. He'll think you're weird. Go!

"Hey Tessa... have you eaten yet?"

Interview interruptus

Henry MacIntosh came back from his interview with a headache. The story should have been easy enough to write: yet another woman victimized in a sex attack in Stanley Park. There had been a string of reported sexual assaults in and around the park over the last few months. Several women had reported a man had groped them as they jogged past, and one woman was grabbed by the wrists by a man who attempted to pull her off a trail and into some bushes. All had fought their attackers and gotten away safe. But this time, it wasn't a youthful jogger and the victim wasn't so lucky.

Henry sighed deeply and took a giant gulp of the lukewarm coffee on his desk. The office brew was awful stuff, but it was either that or spend ten bucks a day on his five-cup habit. With the baby on the way, there were more pressing uses for that fifty bucks a week, or so Penny insisted. No one goes into journalism for the money, but if it wasn't for Penny's salary Henry'd be lucky if he could afford to eat every second day on the lean, and often late, cheques he picked up freelancing. He still wasn't sure how they'd afford the drop in income when she went on maternity leave. Henry was on a temp gig at City Scoop, a new free bi-weekly locally referred to as the Pooper Scoop for its shitty content. He was filling in for a reporter who was herself on mat leave. Penny was hoping the paper would keep him on permanently after the contract was up but Henry was secretly glad there was an end in sight to the daily grind.

Henry set his tape recorder on the borrowed desk. It was made out of laminated particleboard and aging poorly. The thin strips of wood finish were peeling at the corners. When Henry wore knit sweaters they sometimes got caught on the edges, not only catching the yarn and pulling holes in his sleeves but also further destroying the desk's cracking facade. Henry prudently rolled up his sleeves and began reviewing the notes for his story.

Jocasta Smith was found in Stanley Park two days ago, a week after she was reported missing and nearly a month since the date she was believed to have disappeared. The 65-year-old woman appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Witnesses called police when they spotted her emerging naked from the trees, visibly battered and bruised, in the middle of the day.

Henry supposed he could write it that way. But there was so much more to the story.

Police had a suspect in custody, a man she apparently had a date with the day she disappeared, a Mr. Leonardo Oliver. Oliver was in town trying to establish a B.C. arm of his Winnipeg landscaping business. How he and Jocasta met was still a mystery - Jocasta's daughter cut short the interview and herded him out the door as soon as Jocasta started talking about the bear ...

It wasn't that unusual for the timeline in this sort of thing to be a bit fuzzy, Henry supposed, especially when a person wasn't immediately reported missing. As far as he understood, it took three weeks for anyone to suspect something might have happened to the elderly woman. No, what was getting to Henry was Jocasta's tale itself. It was, well, just plain weird.

He plugged headphones into the tape recorder and pressed play.

"... not sure just what it was, just a big dark shadow ..." Jocasta's voice was a bit distorted by the tape, hushed and brittle. Henry stopped the tape, tossed the headphones back on the desk and rewound to the beginning of the interview. There was no way he was going to write in the story that she thought a fucking bear raped her. Henry wasn't about to speculate about a mystery rapist either. There had been no official response to the media on the issue. The police would only say they were investigating, and the doctors that examined Jocasta were, of course, forbidden to discuss what they found.

The blinking cursor in the blank Word document seemed to mock him. Clippy the Office assistant squirmed on the bottom right corner of his screen. Three hours to deadline. The figures in Henry's bobblehead collection stared at him from atop the computer monitor. He tapped each one on its nose, first the emaciated chihuaha, then the Christmas elf, the pig with the maple leaf eyes (Canadian bacon, eh) and finally his three prized Canucks players, Bertuzzi, Naslund and Jovanovski. Creepy little fuckers, he thought, looking at the grinning, nodding gallery.

The tape recorder clicked when it had finished rewinding. Henry donned the headphones. His voice always sounded tinnier and more nasal than he heard it in his head.

"Ms. Smith, I appreciate your being willing to talk with me ..."

"Remember, 10 minutes only," the daughter, Delta snapped. "She's very shaken up. Remember, momma, you don't have to tell him anything you don't want to. Are you sure you want to give this interview?"

Henry remembered thinking the pain in the daughter almost seemed more acute than in the mother. Jocasta, oddly calm, just nodded.

"Thank you Ms. Smith," Henry heard himself say. "So, let's get started. What happened?"

"Well, Leo came over to cook me dinner ..."

Related stories:

• Jocasta awakes
• Prosser meets the police
• Delta Smith
• Keith Prosser

A girl named Sparrow

I sat nervously at the table, nursing a latté and admiring her honey-coloured hair. Her eyes sparkled tentatively, hesitant freckles dotting the bridge of her nose.

It was an hour before I realised, she spoke without pause, seeming not even to draw breath. Those eyes, that nose – they were the only shy things about her.

“Everyone keeps talking about this ‘SkyTrain.’ I was like, ‘I haven’t seen it, and I drive,’ you know, like, ‘where is it? I see the sky, sure, like, but y’know, where’s this train you speak of, dude?’”

It was like those Tibetan throat singers who chant continually, using mystical, alternative breath control to keep a constant, droning tone for 30 minutes.

“I turned off the stove, you know, like totally turned it off, and everything, and went to watch this completely hilarious show on TV, that I like never miss, and by the time the show was like, half-finished, the fire alarm went off, and I was like, ‘what is that?’ You know, totally ‘Am I hearing something?’ because we’ve like never had like a practice drill or anything, so I went downstairs, totally to the street corner and everything and I was utterly freezing for like an hour before the fire department decided it was time they came and like wouldn’t let us back in until around like four a.m. or something like that and they like asked to speak to me, like, oh my god, I was like, ‘Like I’d date a fireman,’ y’know, and my roommate was like, ‘Like a fireman would date you,’ and she’s such a bitch sometimes, and like it was hilarious, you know, cos the cookies kept cooking even though the oven was totally off, you know?”

Constant, droning tone.

Like bagpipes.

“Spooky, don’tcha think?”

It had been so long since I’d been invited to take part in the conversation, I’d forgotten how to speak altogether. My larynx had devolved into a vestigial organ, without use or purpose. Teams of scientists had formed committees, written papers and wasted millions in government grants trying to establish the biological function of what remained of my voice box. The sternocleidomastoid muscles – the ones that wrap forward from the base of the jaw to the front of the sternum – had atrophied so dramatically that moving my head from side to side took both hands and nearly all of my effort.

At one point, what had once been my vocal cords had become little more than nerve ganglia – they inflamed and threatened to burst; a top ear, nose and throat surgeon had to be flown in from Bavaria to perform the tricky operation, cleverly transposed from a text book appendectomy. Through weeks of intense physiotherapy, however, I’d learned to communicate using a complex system of hand gestures, clicking noises and knuckle cracking; while I’d waited several lifetimes for her question, she didn’t have to wait long for a response.

Click crick wave, snappity crack clap.

“That’s so sweet!”

Shake click.

“That reminds me of this vacuum cleaner I had a while back, like, so worthless, you know...”

And that, Sparrow, is how I met your mother.

Jocasta awakes

I woke up naked, shivering on a mass of sodden leaves, a giant yellow slug oozing over the ground right next to my face. I lay on my side, knees tucked up to my chest, hands folded over my heart. My nipples were stiff with cold, my skin covered in goosebumps. My limbs felt like hard plastic, like the dolls I played with as a child whose arms and legs would crack if you tried to force them to bend. I ached all over.

The slug oozed closer to my face. Disgust urged me to sit up, and I heaved my stiff old body up onto my knees. I immediately wished I had heaved more gently. The dizziness nearly made me fall back down, but I put a clumsy hand out just in time, nearly squishing the banana slug. Suddenly I had a vivid picture in my head of slug guts squishing out from under my palm. I vomited on the slug.

My head was pounding, but I forced myself to stand up. I saw beetles and wood bugs crawl among the leaves where I had slept. I combed my tangled hair with icy fingers, shaking loose ants and bits of plants. I wondered when I let down my hair.

I looked down at my body, streaked with dirt, plant stains and blood from dozens of shallow cuts. I wondered what happened to my clothes.

My brain felt as though it was moving at the pace of that slug.

Blackberry bushes ringed the glade. From the looks of some of the cuts, I guessed I must have blundered through sometime the night before.

I tried to remember how I came to be there, but my scattered memories were pearls from a broken necklace. I despaired of ever stringing them back together.

Sizzling scallops in a pan; Leo seared them before adding them to the seafood fettucine. An old family recipe, he said. He cooked me dinner, even did the dishes before pouring us each a second glass of red wine. We talked about feeling lonely, about missing family that's far away.

Leo's eyes, dark mirrors gleaming in the candlelight. I half-expected to catch my reflection in his gaze. For no reason I can say, he reminded me of my ex-husband just then, though Leo's shoulders are narrow and Richard's are broad, though Leo is short for a man and Richard so tall he had to double over to kiss me.

I didn't want to leave without washing the wine glasses. We'll do them later, he told me.

Outside, a balmy night, too warm for early spring. I looked up at the full moon. It seemed to dominate the sky. I thought then, as I always do, that the sky looks strange with so few stars. I pleaded with Leo to take me someplace where the sky wouldn't seem so empty.

We wandered through the shadowed city. Hungry eyes stared at us from nests of salvaged blankets in alleys and under awnings. One feral man staggered past Leo and me on the sidewalk, muttering curses. Leo put his arm around me. I felt safe.

Walking past Lost Lagoon. A skunk watched us from the edge of the pond as we entered the woods. Inside it was black. I stumbled over every root and rock, but Leo was surefooted. He held me steady and led me through the path.

Deep among the trees I was blind, but Leo's warm, thick fingers were a comforting pressure on my arm. He kissed me among the pines. It had been a long time for me, but my body listed towards his just as it did for Richard when we were young.

Suddenly I was alone. I called out for Leo but he didn't answer. I heard twigs snap underfoot, somewhere to my left. I tried to follow the sound, but I tripped over the uneven ground and my ears played tricks on me. I started to sob. A big black shadow appeared before me.

"Leo?" I whimpered. "Is that you?"

I heard a low growl and I ran.

---

Related stories:

• Prosser meets the police
• Delta Smith
• Keith Prosser

A Family Emerges: Mark, Gurpreet and Rajah Ashworth

Lee mentioned he was going back at the end of his schooling when they first moved in together. He liked Canada, but after being a student for the 6 years before and with another 2 remaining, he missed his parents and older brother. It wasn’t as though Mark had no notice when he packed his boxes. And there certainly wasn’t a custody battle to be won.

Mark had saved up nicely by having a roommate while working full time as a roofer. As one of six children in his family, he wasn’t interested in ever living on his own. The silences of the first few nights in which Lee had class or volunteered drove him to wander the streets until Lee was scheduled for return. Mark was certain that Lee’s sudden desire to get a golden lab puppy was not a selfish act. Mark only needed to be convinced as to why Lee’s dislike of dogs vanished so quickly.

When the young pup arrived, they had settled on the name Stalin until Mark’s then-girlfriend insisted that the puppy was far too affectionate and loved for such a violent name. Instead, she began calling him Rajah and the name stuck. Not only did Rajah create excuses for Mark when he was tired of being alone, but also ensured that there was no “alone”.

Mark spent the months after Lee’s announcement that he was graduating at the end of spring looking for another person to move into the ground floor of the house he lived in, only minutes from the school. After repeated failed attempts to get someone to move in at the beginning of the summer, he realized that the only person he wanted to live with was his girlfriend. She wouldn’t be available in the month and a half’s notice he was ready to offer her.

Her family would want marriage before she moved out; and ideally not with Mark. Mark had some rough spots when he and Gurpreet were first dating. He went out of his way to please her parents, but it wasn’t ever enough. She and her parents came to a deal in which she could see Mark, but not talk about him to her sisters unless it was about “just a friend”. It was an arrangement that she appreciated, but Mark protested. Gurpreet won out in the end and Mark was restricted from affection with her in her house.

The proposal was brief and over a coffee on Sunday morning. There would be an elopement with a Marriage Commissioner when he had a spot available in the week. Lee and Jill were to be present as witnesses. She still wanted the full wedding in a year’s time and that only her family was to know of the technical marriage.

With her parents unable to undo what was done, the fact that it was done to appease them and the excitement of the eldest daughter getting married, the blazing anger only lasted the weeks in which Gurpreet prepared for moving out.

To her confused sisters, it looked as if she eloped to a good friend.

Admin note

A few people have expressed concerns about keeping track of who's doing what in terms of story threads. I've made a post (now linked from the sidebar, along with Troy's character chart and plot convergence) where we can leave a comment "claiming" a character or plot thread we're working on right now.

This method okay with everyone? If it's not working after a bit we can try something else, but I want to try and keep the main blog page story-focused as much as possible.

The other thing I was thinking about is that maybe when we write a story that draws from previous stories we can include permalinks back to the originals at the end of each piece. That way it's easier for people to follow the story threads backwards. What do you think?

Ronnie

Ronnie had never liked the nickname her husband had given her. All her life she'd gone by Veronica, but within a week of dating he'd started calling her "Ronnie" and she was too infatuated with him to say anything. Now, six years since their wedding and eleven months into their trial separation, she still uses the name as a reminder of him. As if it'll bring him back.

She'd moved into the neighbourhood five months ago, as a necessity. Her husband had left her with both the house and the mortgage, and she had been unable to continue payments with her single salary. The bank had forclosed on the mortgage, and she had had to move into a bachelor suite with as much of the furniture as could fit inside. She had gotten rid of the dining set and many of her books, but had kept his leather rocking chair because its smell reminded her of him. Because she could still picture him sitting in it and reading his newspaper, as he had done every evening.

Ronnie felt that his leaving really was only a trial, a trial for her to become a better person. She realized that she hadn't been as good a wife as she could've. So now that she had this free time she busied herself with self-improvement. She took classes on cooking, on sewing, on many of the things she'd seen her mom do as she was growing up. She practiced yoga every day in her apartment, pushing aside the furniture to make room for her mat. She wasn't losing the weight she had wanted to, though, so she started cutting back on food, and the pounds had dropped. She was tired a lot, but she thought it was worth it for when her husband came back to her.

Having lived in her apartment nearly half a year, she still had yet to know her neighbours. The building manager Keith liked her because she paid her rent on time, but because of this he'd never had any reason to call on her and so their conversations were reduced to greetings in the hallway. She smiled at everyone she passed on the street (she had read somewhere that men preferred their wives to be cheerful at all times) but she didn't want to bother them with talk. Mitchell had liked her best when she stayed at home with him, so she'd lost the art of making friends. All of her friends had been his first, and she hadn't heard from them just as she hadn't from him.

The only other person she knew by name in the building was Jill, who had introduced herself when Ronnie first moved in. Ronnie had been polite in return, but she otherwise declined the younger woman's invitation for Irish coffee. Not that Jill didn't seem like a nice person, but Ronnie couldn't understand her. What sort of woman doesn't want a husband? What sort of woman would have muscular arms, and ride around on a motorbike, as if she were a man? Ronnie was well aware of homosexuals, and Jill had declared herself one when they had first met, but still her presence had a negative effect on Ronnie's emotions.

Ronnie refused to admit to herself that it was envy she felt.

The Book

Oak Island, Nova Scotia. April, 1901

The Oak Island Money pit. It lies on one of two islands at the mouth of the Gold and Gapreau rivers, the only place in Nova Scotia where oak trees grow. Some say pirate treasure is buried here; others, the secrets of the Knights Templar and the myth of the Holy Grail, the legendary chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper from which the nectar of everlasting life flows. On April 1, 1397, a Scottish Lord named Henry St. Clair, or Sinclair, of Rosslyn, landed his boat near this place, beating Christopher Columbus to North America by almost 100 years. The Miq’Maq Indians have his legend incorporated into their history; he is known as Glooscap.

"Glooscap was the first,
First and greatest,
To come to our land -
Into Nova Scotia...
When the Master left Ukakumkuk,
Called by the English Newfoundland,
He went to Pictook or Pictou,
Which means the rising of bubbles,
Because at that place the water is
Ever strangely moving,
There he found an Indian Village
A town of a hundred wigwams."

- Frederick Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair

The men sat in their sweat lodge underneath the Oak trees this evening, pounding on drums and wailing to the Great Spirit in search of a sign. Their Chief, who had taken ill, lay near the heated rocks to the left of the small shelter, which now sheltered the stout Chief and six of the tribal leaders for this evening’s rituals. The moon, full, was obscured by clouds and a dense, chilled fog. Although the sweat lodge contained seven of them, they felt a sudden blast of cold move up and down their bodies as a black bear walked through the door of the makeshift hut. As the bear entered the wigwam, none of the elders felt the remotest sense of alarm. The bear was tremendous; as the light of the fire was glimmerring off of his black coat, the Chief heard these words:

“The child”.

The bear sniffed the dirt below its feet and snorted loudly. Its eyes welled up with rage. Then, without warning, the bear took on a human form.

North Vancouver, that same evening:

The bloodline. Few people, save for the Inner Sanctum of the Brotherhood knew about it, and the spring festival of Walpurgisnacht, which fell on April 30 was fast approaching. This night, far away from the events in Oak Island, they gathered in the grotto, a small clearing amongst the old-growth cedars, just a few hundred yards from what is now known as Lynn Canyon. The site was ancient; the trees harnessed the energy of the wind and sea currents and flung it upwards to the stars. A fire roared amongst the stones in the middle of the grotto and thirteen hooded figures surrounded it, each clutching a cedar bough as they hummed in unison. One hooded figure read from a heavy book and then broke into a chant. The rest followed.

Regina, caeli, laetare, alleluia:
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia,
Resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia.
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, alleluia,
Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

When they had finished, they had a moment of silence.


The hooded figure who read from the book began to read; this time in English.

“Let us pray.

O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; grant, we beseech Thee, that through His Mother, the Virgin Mary, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Regina Caeli. The song was Gregorian, but to the Inner Sanctum it had a dual meaning; that of the Great Queen of the Sky, Isis. The monks were there to dedicate an altar unto the Queen mother and celebrate the birth of their resurrected Savior, the child.

“The woman travails” spoke the figure with the book. “Bring her”.

Two thuggish-looking men who did not care about their anonymity enough to wear their hoods dragged the young girl, sixteen perhaps, towards a stone slab on the North side of the grotto. She would have birthed hours earlier, but the two men had bound her thighs together with leather straps and she groaned in agony, concerned more for the survival of the child than her own life. The men had failed to remember that, during the Inquisition, the binding of a birthing female’s legs together was seen as an excellent form of torture by their order's enemy; the Jesuits.

Back in France, she was of the nobility, and had come to Canada to escape persecution by the Church. She married a man from Montreal in a marriage arranged by her father. The man’s name was Pascal Falcon, who was himself French. Their persecutors had caught up with them in Montreal two years ago and he had moved her to Vancouver to safety.

After they untied the leather lashes binding her legs together the birth was swift; the fact that the child did not cry after being born meant only one thing. After burying the child in the Church graveyard, the Brotherhood disbanded; the book passed hands several times amongst would-be Bretheren who could never understand its secrets and for almost one hundred years lay in a wooden crate somewhere in the back of an elderly woman's attic, mistaken for a hymn book.

Until she found it, two years ago to this day.

Day 122

May 27, 2005
Sunny with light showers in the afternoon

I've finished the puzzle tonight. I also finished the last of the pizza. I'm going to run down to the hobby shop on 6th tomorrow and get another puzzle. I would have a garage sale to get rid of the growing number of puzzles if I could do it elsewhere. Anywhere but here.

I wanted to find home again. This is not it. Mom's not here. I'm not here.

I've been thinking about Lee since running into Mark. He went home after school. I went to Cardigan. Sure, Sandy was good to my mother and I. The Noonans were probably the kindest people I'll ever meet without judging their sincerity. "Uncle" Bradley, while not my uncle, was like the father I was supposed to have. It was a "swell" community. It's hard not to talk as if it weren't 1924 about the people of Cardigan. The place was locked in the past. Everyone knew you.

Coming back west was some sort of attempt to find something that wasn't in Cardigan. Anonymity? I don't have that here either, even though I've tried. Mark is bound to tell everyone that he saw me. I always got the news from Lee, via him, before. I miss the lot, but I'm not ready to talk to anyone. What do I tell them? That my mother killed herself while I was out getting vegetables from the market? That she was a very ill woman, but told no one, not even me? Everyone knew my mom.

I wanted to get my line unlisted, but I'm not sure how much I have to do. I checked superpages and I'm listed. Address, phone, everything. And "E. Brennan" was just another thing we had in common. I couldn't find a way to get it removed from there. And then there is the business with the phone books... if anyone still uses those. I don't even know if I'm in any of them. Why couldn't I have thought of any of this when I was learning how to even get a phone line?

I guess I'm going to go down to 6th tomorrow and get another puzzle.

Wes' good deed

“Blackberries. Faaaaack!” Wes muttered to himself as he picked the thorns out of his palms, angry, but not angry enough to swear outright. Somehow, “fack” was never “fuck” to him, probably because it sounded more like a drawn out expression of malcontent and disbelief than a cuss word. He had just fought and lost a battle with what he thought was a small embankment while riding his mountain bike back to Kitsilano, the western part.

He was just returning from the café he made a point of visiting at least once a week. It was a step up from a rural coffee shop, and he enjoyed sitting by the window where he had a pretty good vantage point of people, women in particular, parking their cars to go to the beach, which hadn’t been as good as he remembered. He was always fortunate enough to come back to this city in the midst of a dry spell, but he was beginning think that he may not have been so fortunate at all. It had rained solid for the past month and not until today did he see the sun’s rays hitting the north shore.

He initially thought that a branch had snagged his courier bag mid-air, but further inspection of his pant-cuff revealed that his jeans had become snagged in the chain of his bike, sending him off his intended target and into a blackberry bush at the bottom of the muddy embankment. He now realized why so many people either tucked their right pant leg into their sock or wore those yellow reflective Velcro things he saw at MEC.

Wes had nothing against blackberries themselves; in spite of this unfortunate encounter he had always loved blackberry everything. Blackberry pie and blackberry frozen yogurt were always appreciated. But not Blackberries. Those were for pretentious pomos and dot-commies. He never understood PDAs, as he preferred to go analog with a Moleskiner and some index cards. He read about it on a blog somewhere.

Just as he picked the final thorn out of the fleshy pad below his thumb, he could sense someone behind him.

“Hey there!” a flamboyant and effeminate voice screeched before he had a chance to turn around.

“Uh, hello”

“I’m Corey, but my friends call me Queen Corey. Mmmmhmmm.” Said the dark-skinned man as he snapped his fingers like some sort of a diva.

“K…..”

Wes looked at the man, who was short, slim and obviously a flamer. Wes immediately ran through his exit options from this strange situation.

“So, are you from out of town?” Corey asked.

“Yes. From Alberta. How could you tell?”

“Queen Corey knows, honey”.

Wes tried not to laugh, but Corey was talking a mile a minute. He was from Jamaica, was bisexual and HIV positive, Wes found out. Corey was in his mid-thirties and had trained in the National Ballet of Canada, but was now a recovering heroin addict and pulled tricks to get by.

“Listen, I’m kind of embarrassed about asking you this.. but….”

“Sorry dude. Not interested. At all.”

Corey gasped, feigning outrage, but smiled.

“Oh you thought…. Well, I must say that I’m a professional and that I never mix business with survival. I have never done this before, but would you happen to have some spare change so I could get some milk and eggs? I haven’t eaten in two days and….”

“Oh, well, hold on man.”

Wes thought about that Bible verse about how Jesus said something like “I came unto you seeking food, water, a blanket, and you never gave unto me. Depart from me. I never knew you”. He rarely gave money to people who sat outside gentrified chain stores, hoping that people would heap pity on their half-assed calls of “spare change man?”. But if someone asked for the basics – food, water, clothing or shelter, Wes would step up to the plate and do whatever it took. He was good that way. Deep down, he felt that encounters such as these were tests from the Almighty. Plus, if he paid the guy enough money, he wouldn’t have to put others at risk of HIV transmission, Wes figured.

“Here you go, Corey. Knock yourself out!” he said, trying to put a positive spin on the situation.

“Oh, you just made my week! ThankyouThankyouThankyou…” Corey gushed as he tucked the twenty dollar bill into his black leather purse.

Wes stepped back to avoid getting hugged or something.

“I gotta get going” said Wes as he hopped on his bike. His good deed for the day was done, and he had to go home and scrub his hands. They had open cuts on them, afterall, and Wes was paranoid about stuff like that. Nevertheless, while Corey met every stereotype of a gay man the media had instilled in Wes, he realized that the guy was human, and obvioulsy in need of social contact.

"Later, Corey"

"Laterrr!"

Wes and Yoga

She was right, the barista with the dark eyes and the mocking tongue. It did taste like warm ice cream. Still, I can't bring myself to throw away the $4.63 worth of curdled milk. I still don't understand why people keep drinking this crap, but there must be something to it, or why would everyone else be holding the same cups? I'll figure it out eventually.

I'm late for my yoga class. My old high school buddies would laugh if they could see me, with a too-tight tank top and trendy little jogging pants. You know, the kind without the elastic at the bottom. Elastic isn't hip; the lady at Lululemon assured me of that. I can't blame my old buddies, these days I'm getting more male attention than female. It doesn't help that my yoga class is in the middle of Davie Village... aka, Gay Central. I'm a little uncomfortable around here, but I try not to show it. I'm trying to be more enlightened, ever since I was having drinks with my landlord and he told me the biker chick next door was gay. Okay, so knocking over my rye wasn't the most graceful response.

Too bad, though. She's pretty hot. I'm told that "you just haven't found the right cock" isn't a good pickup line for dykes. Wonder what might work better?

I can't get sex off my mind. If you went to my yoga class, neither would you. Have you seen these women? These perfect little tight bodies in their perfect little tight shorts? I think that's why I still go. It can't be so that I can make my body into the perfect Eagle pose, that's for sure. Look ma, I'm a bird.

I've got my mind on another type of bird, thanks.

There's one particular girl, I usually position myself behind her. This way, I can watch her in the mirrors, and it looks like I'm watching myself. She's something else. A lot of the women in my class have that sweaty, disheveled look afterwards. Not her. Every blonde hair is still perfectly placed, her little pink lips still exquisitely made up. She usually wears these ultra-short shorts and a sports bra that usually only look good on mannequins, but on her... I just want to bend her over her yoga mat and well, you get the idea.

I really should try to get her name first. Maybe offer to buy her a latte.

By the time I get to class, the spot behind her is taken. I glare at the skinny dude with the blonde-tipped hair behind her, and find an unoccupied spot far behind her, and well to the left. No staring at her today, it would be too obvious. I've missed the first 10 minutes and worry briefly about pulling a muscle. Gently resting my latte next to my mat, I join the class with a perfectly executed Eagle pose. Damn, I'm good.

Lee's Roommate

Sometimes Jill didn't give two shits about her neighbours. Most of the time she tried to stay out of the way, but sometimes, she really could care less about what Jackista, the old biddy, or Les, the urban cowboy, thought of her.

And when she heard her phone ringing at the end of the hallway her giant boots made crashing thuds all the way down; each door getting a louder thump than the last. Her next-door neighbour Lucy, or Landy, or Lettuce, would have heard the heavy metal door crash into her wall as Jill burst through her entryway and threw her helmet on her couch.

huff"Hello?" huff "Gurpreet! No, I haven't heard from Mark." huff "Really? Where?" huff "When did she get back?" huff "I haven't heard from her, either." huff "That's very odd, indeed." littlehuff "Sure, where are we going tonight?" inaudiblehuff "Sounds good. I'll just get changed and I'll meet you guys down there."

Jill hadn't seen Edith Brennan in over a year. Last time it was at some house party of Mark and Lee's. As she got changed, she contemplated where Edith might be, if she had moved back into the old house on Cherry Street or if she had found somewhere else. She kind of disappeared last year when she moved to Prince Edward Island in the summer. No email, no calls. Just vanished. And then she reappeared. Only to Mark and gave no indication as to where she is now, except that she was in the Buy-Rite parking lot the other day.

Very strange, she thought.

Barrista

I'm a barrista. Actually, I don't know if I'm a barrista. That might be trademarked. But it sounds better than "coffee maker".

I bitch about the work to my friends, co-workers and even my parents, but I secretly love it. I thought I would be sick of the smell of fresh ground coffee, but it gets better every day. I thought the "just above minimum wage" was going to kill me, but it hasn't yet. I thought I'd hate my co-workers and loathe the finicky regulars, but those are my favourite people. The finicky regulars have character. I know a handful by name; an even larger number by drink.

I have to say I fancy the Double Shot Latte with Vanilla man the most. He's trying in his own way to fit in with the latte crowd, but there is no way you're going to get him to drink something that doesn't taste like coffee. When he realized no amount of shots will cure a latte, he asked me how to fix it. I told him to stop trying to get it to taste like coffee and more like warm ice cream. He laughed at the idea and at least once a week he's in getting his Double Shot Latte with Vanilla.

Last week I got personal with him. We're not forbidden from being friendly and we've been given permission from the head cheeses to flirt with whomever we fancy. His name? Wes.

"As in Wesley?"
"Naw, just 'Wes'."
"How long have you lived here?"
"Do I look out of place?"

Turns out he's "one of them thar good ol' boys" from farm country. Tried to check his temperature about me, but I was shut down by my co-worker shouting "Double Shot Vanilla Latte". He always says it wrong.

Delta Smith

When I got the call, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. My eldest brother, his wife and children were in Italy, the next oldest brother and my nephew were in Greece staying with a cousin and my older brother was at sea.

It was only on my way home from work, trapped in the snarl of traffic that I realized that finding out what happened to my mother was far more important than editing my peers' reports. With nothing packed, no one notified and no one to keep me there, I was at the airport buying a ticket at the counter for YVR. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last impulsive action I have taken.

I spent my in-flight hours reading the magazines that were provided. Full page ads for Shangri-La condos and golf courses in Mexico caught my eye. My mother loved Mexico. She wanted to live in a high-rise. Even the jewelry with absurd engravings of roman numerals reminded me of my mother.

My parents were married in the fall, maybe October, of 1961. She was 21 and he was 35. Her family had emigrated from Greece when she was 4, his maternal grandfather was Métis, the rest of the lineage was European-Canadian, Heinz 57 Varities. I was the youngest and the most planned. My father wanted a daughter and my mother kept trying. After Endre, Linus and Nemo came Delta. My mother named me "fourth" to remind him of her efforts.

I wasn't surprised to have landed in the midst of rain. I had never been to Vancouver, but the atmosphere made me feel like I was destined to be a Dick Tracy or a Sherlock Holmes. Only in search of my mother's whereabouts.

A cab took me to 344 North Avenue, somewhere in the city. My mother's apartment was there, and I was to meet with a Mr. Keith Prosser in regards to the keys and lease. Instead I met with a sign on the manager's door that read:

"On a break
Be back in 5"

My doubts ran high. I stood in the hallway and stared at the green and gold tiling that my mother probably ignored. Unlike her, I had the opportunity to count the tiles. The mailboxes provided some distraction as I searched for "J. Smith" or "Jocasta" or anything that would signal that I was at the right building. Privacy was noted by all those with the family name "Occupied". Not seeing her name, I had to assume she had joined the cult, too.

A man in his 30s came around the corner and tipped his hat at me. I echoed a hello with a nod of my head. I searched his eyes for signs of a Prosser. He went out the front and remained one of the "Occupied"s.

A younger woman stood outside the door fumbling for her keys in her bag. I reached for the door to let her in and she stared at me sternly.

"You shouldn't let just anyone in."

"I didn't. I let someone who was looking for her keys in. I'm sorry."

She stuck her nose, in the most clichéd manner, upwards, checked her "Occupied" box and stormed towards the stairs.

Is it a wonder how a woman could go missing from this apartment? No one wants to know each other aside from minimal acknowledgment. I'll have to start organizing something so we can start looking after each other's neighbours. I should probably let work know I'm unlikely to come back in the next couple weeks.

"Ms. Smith?"

"Mr. Prosser?"

"You look very much like your mother."

Jacob (Kapel) Seiler

From: Jacob S. {speedpeddler1@gmail.com}
Sent: May 11, 2005 10:17:12 PM
To: EZRA H. SEILER {e_z_seiler@hotmail.com}
Subject: Re: from the holy land

hey ezra,
I'm holding down the fort just fine, thanks for trusting me.
Actually, we broke up after the night she had a bad trip. She's with some guy from the suburbs now. Not too worried. There is a girl at one of my deliveries that wants to go out next week. Seems a little more stuffy than most, but then again, I see her at her work.
Got word from mom and dad. They're planning on heading west for chanukah this year. We won't be dealing with the whole family, again, it'll just be them and Deb for a couple weeks. And they won't be staying here. Dad has someone he knew from the university that he'll be staying with. Dr. Carlson?
Just wanted to give you the heads up, in case you get inspired to stay on longer to avoid another holiday chaos. If you're not back for chanukah, I'm laying claim on your stuff.
Hope you're keeping safe and enjoying your time in Israel.

-Kapel

-------------------

From: Jacob S. {speedpeddler1@gmail.com}
Sent: May 24, 2005 11:14:45 PM
To: Cats Meow {har23blind_fur@hotmail.com}
Subject: order

65 - 25mg ephedra

$40?

-Jacob


-------------------

From: Jacob S. {speedpeddler1@gmail.com}
Sent: May 25, 2005 2:21:52 PM
To: Hymie Seiler {hseiler@yorku.ca}
Subject: Ezra

Ezra emailed me last weekend and he said he's coming back at the end of June. He wanted to know if I could take a week off so we could have some time in Toronto before he heads back here. I won't be able to make it. La Grande Baguette tends to get a lot of wedding orders at that time and I'm already short-shifting the courier gig to make sure I don't lose my job with LGB. Any help from home would be appreciated.
Tell Deb and Mom I say hi and that I am sorry I won't be able to make it out this summer.

-Kapel

-------------------

From: Jacob S. {speedpeddler1@gmail.com}
Sent: May 26, 2005 1:35:02 AM
To: Cats Meow {har23blind_fur@hotmail.com}
Subject: Re: order

New customer. $48 okay?

-Jacob


-------------------

From: Jacob S. {speedpeddler1@gmail.com}
Sent: May 26, 2005 2:43:19 AM
To: Hymie Seiler {hseiler@yorku.ca}
Subject: Re: Ezra

How am I supposed to go to school when I work two jobs? I just don't have the time for it.
I'm not going to abandon Ezra out here because you'll put me up again for school. I was lousy then, I'll be lousy now. I seriously doubt Ezra's moving back to Toronto when he gets back from Israel. And if he does, I'm not going to abandon the friends I've made here. And don't start about how they're "no-good, dead-end junkie bums". Not everyone is an academic.

I appreciate your concern, but right now I just want to enjoy my time outside of school. Can't you ever let up on "my path"? I'll find "my path" eventually. I don't see what getting on my case is going to help.

I'll see if LGB will give me the time off. The courier place is overstaffed, so they're not going to mind if I need the time. I doubt I'll get a week, but I'll try to get a weekend, okay?

-Kapel

Tessa Kinney

(from the television) "... exhale pressing to down dog, inhale to plank and then exhale back to down dog..."

"Ouch, SHIT",

Tessa Kinney is losing her mind slowly, however surely. She is a thirty-one year old woman who is pretty attractive in her own right, she's slight if anything and she doesn't really have to try. Regardless, she thinks she does and becomes increasingly exasperated with herself upon failed attempts at self-improvement. My prediction, too much spare time.

Her latest strategy has been yoga videos. The problem she has been encountering this time around is weak wrists. Years of laptop use have weakened her wrists and made some of the yoga postures uncomfortable for her. Truth be told, she's mostly just lazy. Her wrists would get better in time but she's really just looking for a way to get out of forcing herself to do the videos.

She does this every time. She used to ride a bicycle to work everyday and she stopped after only a few weeks claiming she smelled like sweat when she got there. In actuality she did smell a bit like sweat but she went to the gym in the same building as her office every morning before work anyway and showered there before she ever stepped foot inside.

Excuses, excuses.

"I want to die" she would ever so dramatically say to herself after every bag of chips, after every cookie, but she just continued to do as she always had done. She never really wanted to die, she just wanted her will power to work, or at the very least, for it to exist.

This latest round of self-delusion took a turn for the worst. Tuesday, in the lunchroom at work, Tessa ran into Jacob. Jacob was a bike-courier she knew from her apartment building. She was pretty sure he was into drugs but he had always seemed so docile and safe to her. One night she saw him in the hallway with a woman, a girlfriend she had assumed. The woman's face was covered with running mascara, she was looking at the floor and he was wiping her damp hair away from her eyes. She couldn't tell if they were wet and upset or sweaty and passionate but whatever they were they were alive and she couldn't remember feeling like that. It had been years since she had felt much of anything, short of self-pity. He turned and looked at Tessa, caught eyes for a moment and turned back to his lover. She fled the scene with haste.

She dreamt of him that night, and countless nights since. She couldn't explain it to herself. Maybe it was loneliness, maybe it was lust. Maybe, just maybe, it was a premonition.

Before she thought she spoke,

"Hi Jacob" and instantly her face was flushed with heat and red.
He turned to her, they met eyes and, "Oh hey, Tess right?", he said smiling.
"It's Tessa actually. Listen, I need to ask you something. I'm a bit embarrassed"
"Ok..."
"Um, Can you get pills?" not able to believe herself, how could she ask that?
"Yeah, sure. What are we talking about here? Vitamins!" he said with a smirk.
"Diet pills"
"Sure, yeah, I can get them for about a dollar a pop but it would take a couple of days" he showed confusion, or maybe surprise, with his eyes and burrowed forehead. She could never distinguish between the two expressions.
"Thanks, really. Thanks. Here's sixty-five dollars. I'll drop by on Friday to pick them up, ok?" She quickly put the money in his hand and turned to walk away.
"Tessa?" he called to her back.
"Yes?" she said turning to face him again.
They paused and held an awkward glance.
"... nothin', see you Friday."

She couldn't wait to see him again but she couldn't believe what she had done.

Jill Hudson

The voices were coming closer. Jill pressed herself closer against the cement pillar, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She listened closely, trying to identify them. Ah. It was the redneck yuppie and his friend, not the landlord. She stepped out from behind the pillar, casually leaning against her silver '03 Ninja 600.

"Seen Keith?" she asked. Wes raised an eyebrow and looked at her curiously. They'd never spoken more than a polite hello in the lobby. Or at least, he would give her a polite hello, she would give him that porcelain stare that her face never seemed to crack from in return. In fact, he wasn't even sure he'd ever heard her speak before. This girl was definitely never the captain of the cheerleading squad. He shook his head and moved on. Jill let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, tucked her helmet under her arm, and walked towards the lobby.

Still cautious, she stepped inside the door, her armored leathers creaking with each step. Not the best outfit to wear when trying to move silently, she thought. She glanced at the managers office as she slipped by, willing it to stay closed. It didn't. Fuck.

"It's the fifth," Keith said dryly. Jill reached up and tucked a lock of her black and blonde hair behind her ears nervously.

"I'll have it by friday," she said in that rusty voice that sounded like she'd been raised on cornflakes and whisky.

"Every month, you're over a week late with your rent, Jill. This is getting fucking ridiculous." Keith was more surly than usual, Jill noticed. Hell, Keith being surly at all was unusual. He was a hardass when she was late paying her rent, but had never sworn at her before. Jill felt the old familiar temper rising. But before it had a chance to fully flare, there was a loud rapping at the door behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder, and felt Keith push past her to open the door for the police, her overdue rent forgotten.

Keith Prosser

The alarm clock in Jocasta Smith's apartment beeped from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. every morning for three weeks before the tenant next door found the nerve to knock on my door and ask me to check it out.

I've been a building manager long enough to know this can't be good.

"Sorry, what was that Edith?"

She stares up at me like a mouse asking a cat to pass the cheese.

"I said, at first I thought maybe someone was just on vacation? And forgot to shut off their alarm? But then I thought, what if something's wrong?"

Edith Brennan moved into the bachelor suite next to Jocasta's just under two months ago. I have never heard her speak in more than a breathy whisper. Every time I talk to her I start wondering if there's something wrong with my hearing. She also tends to end her sentences on a higher pitch, as though she's asking a question.

She looks like she's waiting for a signal to leave, standing there fidgeting with her sleeves.

"Don't worry," I sigh. "I'll check it out. I'm sure it's nothing."

Edith murmurs something that could be 'thank you' and scurries back to her apartment. I take a deep breath and follow her down the hall.

I've had this gig for five years now. I can handle the plugged toilets, the dripping ceilings, the periodic battles with roaches and ants. I can play the heavy when the rent's overdue and I can coax old Tony Tsui, who owns the building, to spring for a new dryer when the old one stops working. But oh God, I do not want to deal with this.

I lived in an apartment as a tenant once where someone died. The dead man's apartment and the two next to it were roped off as a biohazard. The next-door tenants were put up in a hotel for a month while all three suites were scoured clean by men and women in yellow hazmat suits.

The smell didn't respect the yellow tape. I don't know how far gone the body was. The sweet rot smell crawled into your nose and down your throat. If you breathed through your mouth you tasted it on your tongue. It's impossible to describe just how revolting it was. The reaction to the smell is hardwired into us: stay away, don't come close.

I'm at Jocasta's door. I knock, because despite all I am an optimist. Predictably, there is no answer. I sniff the air ... if Jocasta is in there, she's not ripe yet. There's a faint smell of cooking bacon and, oddly, cat piss. No pets here. One more thing to check out.

Enough delay.

I knock once more, for form, and turn the key in the door. I'm sweating and cold. The hair is standing up on my forearms.

"Jocasta? Are you here?"

But there's nothing. No one around. The apartment is immaculate except for one meal's worth of dishes drying in the sink and two wine-stained glasses resting on coasters on the coffeetable. I walk into her bedroom and turn off the alarm.

I wipe the sweat off my face with a sleeve and heave a big sigh. No calling hazmat this time.

Then it hits me: the door was unlocked. Who goes away for three weeks and doesn't lock her apartment? Who does all the dishes except for a couple of wine glasses, and yet uses coasters?

Not hazmat. Police. Damn.

Edith Brennan

Her mother told her that the Atlantic was her calling; it was not Edith's. At the time, Edith felt she had little choice but to pack her boxes. Mixed tapes, plastic dinosaurs, her movie posters. The room that would have inspired Jackson Pollack himself looked wilted within the week. And in four more weeks she was living out of a U-Haul with her mother for a glorious 6 days, 5 nights.

Within the year, Edith returned home. The apartment's smaller, the bathroom seems bigger and the stove does not work. Her childhood relics reside in the barn of the Noonans' back in Cardigan. Her mother remained at St. Andrew's Cemetery. She returned home, knowing she could be anyone she wanted. The only change she made was to start fresh.

She waited a few months before letting anyone know she was back, but even that was an accident. Avoiding her old stomping grounds, having Small Potatoes deliver, keeping public transit-free, working for a small accounting firm (the kind that exist on second floors between shops), and staying away from main streets proved successful for the first few weeks. Having lived in the region for her entire social life (kindergarten onward), not running into someone was an effort. But there will always be parking lots.

It seemed innocuous to Edith. He was the roommate of a former classmate that she had socialized with on occasion for the year prior to her disappearance to the abysmally small town. He recognized her immediately and had chased her down, leaving his shopping cart full and his trunk wide open.

“You’re back!”
“I am!” She was socially rusted and her desire to be left alone sounded harsher than even she would want. “I’ve been getting set up, again; starting fresh. You’re still around, I see? How is Lee?”
“Moved back after graduation. Was to be expected.”
There hits a point in conversations where it is to early to leave without a believable (true or false) excuse without looking impolite, but Edith wasn’t rehearsed enough for it and he wasn’t going away without an explanation for her quiet return. Grabbing the ends of her coat sleeves, she tried to find the watch she never wore or the comfort that she found in hems. Neither was there.
Just as Edith found the “Exit” sign: “So, when did you get back?”
“March,” She wanted to use her escape hatch, but the conversation was en route again.
“Fantastic! Seen anyone yet?”
“No.” (Except you.)
“A bunch of us are going out tonight, if you’re free.”
“I don’t know… I’m still getting set up.” (Not really. I’m working on a fabulous 2500 piece puzzle of kittens.)
“Still? Do you want me to stop by to give you a hand? Where are you two living now?”
“Where are you going to?” (It’s just me and I don’t think you’d enjoy the kitten puzzle.)
“Not sure. Want me to give you a call when it’s all set up?”
(Think. Should I lie about my phone not being in?) “Should you leave your groceries out like that?”
“Oh, shit. Hold on a sec.” (But I didn’t.)

Character Sketch: Wes

Wes is new to the neighbourhood in one way; in other ways, he’s returned home. He has no idea why he moved back; he just moved for its own sake. He left the neighbourhood at the age of six years old when his family to northern Alberta to seek out better economic opportunities related to all that oil up there. His family raised him in typical Alberta fashion: on a farm, out of the way of “big city” influences such as drugs, crime and punks. Weekends were reserved either for church or traveling the snowy Alberta highways in a blue Oldsmobile station wagon en route to a hockey game in some other small town. In a personality test in one of his sister’s Cosmo magazines, he once used the words “curious, honest and sensible” do describe himself.

In his mid-twenties, he calls himself a “British Albertan”, and figures, jokingly, that if one wants to truly appreciate what the people of B.C. and Saskatchewan have accomplished with hard work and ingenuity, one has to move to Alberta. He likes Alberta beef, but still remembers what good salmon tastes like. To his disappointment, most of the salmon for sale in the neighbourhood stores is farmed and pumped full of hormones, just like the beef in Alberta. He doesn't like corporate farming and voted Green as a protest vote.

Wes is a “Non-cowboy” Albertan, meaning that he’s clean-cut, drinks Rye and prefers to ride a snowboard rather than a horse. Only slack-jawed yokels wear Wranglers, in his opinion. He has a weakness for whiskey and women and his strength is that he can hold both quite well. Generally, he thinks people are idiots and that they are getting more stupid as he gets older, but it’s really just because he’s getting older and his education has instilled in him a healthy sense of cynicism.

Although he’s changed quite a bit since he moved out of his parent’s influence, he still has plenty of adjustments to make before he can truly fit in with the rest of the residents of the neighborhood. They generally view him as a Redneck, no matter how many yoga sessions and lattes he takes in. He doesn’t realize, though, that imitating his own stereotypes of his neighbors isn’t what will make him “fit in” because the neighbourhood is a pretty diverse and accepting place. He’ll figure it out though.

Here's who's working on what ...

Members: leave a comment here if you want to lay claim to a particular character or plot progression so that we don't accidentally double up. Only do this if you're sure you're going to write it reasonably soon. Make sure you leave the date of your "claim" in the comment as well.

About this weblog

We are a group of writers who are collaborating on a series of short stories about the same pool of characters. Each of us writes in his or her own voice, and each has the power of God over the characters and plot while they are under his or her pen.

The stories that will appear here will vary in voice, tone and even genre. The only limitation we are giving ourselves is that we must respect the "histories" that have already been written about these characters.

We are aiming to create a loose patchwork of short tales. Each story should stand on its own, but taken together should paint a picture of a community. We have no control over what fates other members choose for our characters.

If you would like to join us, send an email to breebop [at] gmail.com. Please include a character sketch introducing someone new to the 'neighbourhood' and we will use that to judge whether you'll be a good fit here. You can feel free to bring in guest stars from other stories, and create relationships between your character and others'. Your character is "yours" in this first story, but after that his or her fate depends on the whims of the writer gods...