1

As soon as she opened the back door of the cabin—the cottage, she corrected herself—she looked right through it, through the wall-sized windows, to the lake. To the bright sun sparkling on the dark water, circled by a wilderness of trees. Yes. Yes. Her whole body, her whole mind, responded as if the most wonderful drug in the world were coursing through it. She stood there, letting it happen, welcoming it with every … with everything she had left.

She set her bags down then, and crossed the open-concept room. She opened the sliding glass door to the left of the windows, and stepped out onto the small deck. A slight breeze caressed her face, and she paused at the simple joy of it. Then she followed the short, steep path to the dock and— It was almost too much. Her eyes started to tear up as she gazed at the glittering cove, at the nothing-but-forest along the curving shoreline that ended in the pretty peninsula on the other side— Yes.

She stood there for a long while, a very long while, just staring out at the water, at the sparkles, as they were whispered by the breeze into a gleaming sheet, then as they separated again into discrete points of brilliance …

There must be a lounge chair in the shed—the garage, she corrected. She’d bring it down.

It was September, so it would be another couple hours before the sun disappeared below the tree tops. She had time.

First she’d unpack and get set up.

It took only two more trips out to her old Saturn, parked in the dirt driveway. She hadn’t brought much. She didn’t have much to bring.

The fireplace between the two large windows had an insert, she noticed, with a sort of bay window door. You could probably see the fire from the couch, she thought. Nice. She’d bring in some wood later.

The couch, a fold-away, was in front of the window on the right, but it was turned to face a large-screen television mounted on the wall dividing the main space from the rest of the cottage. She shook her head with disgust, and turned it to face the window instead, to face the lake. When she had it angled just so, she lowered herself into it. And sighed with contentment. It wasn’t quite right, but still. The view was quietly stunning.

There was a dining table with four chairs in front of the other window. She moved the entire ensemble away from the window, to the kitchen area.

The remaining corner had been walled off into what she presumed was the master bedroom.

God, how did people use that term without embarrassment?

She struggled to get the mattress off the bed and through the door, then dragged it to where the dining set had been. She opened the window. Now she would hear the loons at night. Unless they’d already left …

When she unpacked, she saw that they’d put up a wall in the adjoining room, to make two small bedrooms, and had managed to squeeze into each of them a set of bunk beds and a cot.

Right. That way they could say ‘Sleeps 10’.

She went back out then, not to her car, but to the shed. The garage, she corrected herself again. And there it was, at the back. A Pamlico 100. Not the fastest kayak around, but virtually untippable. While in it, you could give yourself over to the beauty. Completely.

She carefully extracted it from the clutter, the water toys and yard tools too numerous to mention, let alone need, then carried it out and gently lay it onto the grass. It hadn’t been used in a long while. She smiled. She gave it a thorough cleaning, then hoisted it onto her shoulder and carried it down to the water. Once on the dock, she eased it into the lake, then secured it. She went back up to get the paddle, a life jacket, and a seat cushion, cleaned them as well, then carried them down.

She glanced behind her at the sun. Soon it would be time.

She went back up, plugged in the kettle, then found the lounge chair. While her cup of tea steeped, she cleaned it, then took it down to the dock as well. She positioned it just so, facing the end of the little cove.

She followed with her a cup of tea and settled herself onto the chair. Perfect. She took a long sip of her very good tea. She’d splurged on half-and-half.

Then, exactly as anticipated, the sun, at just the right angle, started to light up the cove, bit by bit, as it slowly panned from left to right, filling it with the most incredible emerald luminescence— It was magical.

An hour later, during which she hardly moved, hardly breathed, she got into the kayak and paddled out. She wouldn’t be able to see the sunset from the dock.

She glided past the unoccupied cottages, past the other docks, many already pulled onto shore for the winter. Then she turned slightly and headed straight for the gleaming path of the setting sun, a dancing golden brick road. She glanced up every now and then, and as soon as it no longer blinded, she stopped paddling. And just sat there, in the middle of the lake, watching as the colours became visible, dusty rose, soft lavender … The sun edged the clouds with a bright jagged line of lightning … The colours crescendoed, slowly, imperceptibly, into fuchsia and purple … Then she watched them fade, dissipate, dissolve.

She should go back, she thought.

Or she could go on. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start.

So she continued, past the stream that flowed into the lake. The current would have been too strong in spring, but now, tomorrow perhaps … She passed the marshy part, where there would surely be duck nests, then paddled along the stretch of crown land that led to the next populated cove.

She looked for the slink of otters, listened for the slap of beavers. Around the next curve, the lake was no longer accessible by road, so there was just forest. Beautiful forest. She took her time, relishing every stroke. She made her way past the little island, all the way to the end. And then she settled back, rested her paddle across her lap, and just drifted. It all— It took her breath away. And then she didn’t need to breathe. The beauty was pure oxygen to her.

A loon called. And her heart— surged.

It called again. And received an answer.

Their haunting voices in the otherwise silence, the dark of the night wrapped around her, the moon glimmering shimmering silver on the water, her hand resting in cool of it— She felt such a complete peace.

She had a month. Just one month. But one whole month.

It was well past midnight when she got back, but she had no trouble finding her way. She retied the kayak to the dock, then carefully went back up the steep path to the cabin.

She set a fire and simply gazed at it, listening to one of the CDs she’d brought. It had taken a while to choose her top thirty, and on this first night, she played her favourite arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon. Over and over.

2

Next morning, she carried another good cup of tea and the first journal down to the water. She’d given herself one month. One month to figure it out, to understand—

Eventually, she opened the journal. September 1972. The very first entry was a carefully reasoned argument about why school spirit assemblies were stupid. Surprised, delighted, she smiled. If ever there was someone born to be a philosopher—

So what happened? Why hadn’t she become a Peter Singer? A Catherine MacKinnon? Or even someone close to?

She intended to go back through her life, through her journals, thirty-five years’ worth. Not exactly one a year, but close. She’d read one a day. She needed to understand.

How did she get here—from there?

How is it that the girl who got the top marks in high school ends up, at fifty, scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets for minimum wage, living in a room above Vera’s Hairstyling, in a god-forsaken town called Powassan somewhere in mid-northern Ontario?

She was the one who did all her homework and then some. She was on the track team, the basketball team, the gymnastics team. She belonged to the writers’ club and the charity club. All of her teachers loved her. She was supposed to become something. God knows she tried.

What happened? Where did she go wrong?

And how did she end up so alone? There was no one she could call and say, “Hi, it’s me.” No one.

She read on. Two days later, she’d written a critique of her school’s attendance policies and procedures. She’d argued for autonomy and against deterrence, though not in those words; she questioned the value of giving course credit for, measuring achievement by, attendance; she even pointed out the environmental irresponsibility of all those blue slips so laboriously filled out every forty minutes going to the dump, to be burned into air pollution.

Three days after that, she’d written about the fact that those students with a tenth period class couldn’t attend the speech to be given by the newly elected premier.

She noticed, now, that it hadn’t occurred to her to go to the speech anyway.

She looked up and stared out at the gently rippling water. Maybe that’s why she’d become so very critical. If you have no intention of following the rules, you don’t get upset by their injustice. Alternatively, if the rules prescribe what you would have done anyway, well, no problem.

So if she’d just been able to just break the rules—

Or ignore injustice.

But she was raised Roman Catholic. St. Louis was an impressive church, its ancient stone steps worn with use leading to a set of magnificently heavy wooden doors. The vestibule held a large marble font of Holy Water, and the church proper was glorious, with its high ceiling, its tall and narrow stained glass windows, its polished wooden pews.

She couldn’t remember ever entering through those magnificent doors. They always used one of the side doors, as if they were the undeserving or uninvited second-cousins to the—no wait, she did enter through the centre doors once. When her sister got married.

Right. Of course. Because getting married was so fucking important. Made you so fucking important.

Not only did they always enter through the side, lesser, door, they’d always sit about halfway up. Never at the front, but never at the very back either.

She remembered putting on her Sunday outfit and walking to church for the eleven o’clock Mass. Every week. She remembered the Mass with all its rules about when to stand, when to sit, when to kneel—rules that were so very imperative and yet so very arbitrary.

So why didn’t that, that insight, that fact, give you permission to break them, she wondered now about her younger self.

Well, she probably didn’t see them as arbitrary. Then. She probably assumed she just didn’t know the reason for them.

There were rules too about when to say something and when to be quiet. She remembered that at some point she thought it odd that you couldn’t ask questions during the Sermon. So she went to the Rectory on a Saturday to ask her questions. The priest—Father Meilling, she still remembered his name—was amused. She’d been so disappointed.

Didn’t know yet to be insulted.

She remembered her First Communion, her mother fussing over the new and very white Communion dress, as if that were the most important part of the ceremony.

Her First Confession, she remembered that too, she remembered waiting in the pew for her turn in one of the dark Confession booths. ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned, I argued with my sister twice last week.’ She never had more to confess than that—

Wait—argument, a sin? Of course, she thought now. It made perfect sense.

At her Confirmation, as she walked back from the Altar, brimming with the presence of the Holy Spirit, she couldn’t keep the beaming, beatific smile from her face, even though she felt that it was wrong, she was supposed to look pious instead.

Even so, she decided, then, to become a nun. The purity appealed to her.

She remembered the large bottle of Holy Water at home in the bathroom cupboard, from which they refilled the little vessels on the wall by the light switch in each of their bedrooms—actually, just her brother’s room and the room she shared with her sister, come to think of it—into which they were supposed to dip their finger and make the Sign of the Cross, blessing themselves every time they left their room.

They also had to say their prayers every night, on their knees by their beds. They were supposed to say the Rosary as well, especially if they had trouble going to sleep.

Oh, that’s rich. Religious belief as a sedative.

She went to St. Louis school, as did her brother and sister before her. So by the time she was eight, she learned that there were venial sins and mortal sins. There were sins of commission and sins of omission. There was heaven and hell, and purgatory, and even limbo, for those who died before they were baptized. Roman Catholicism was obsessed with sin. With right and wrong.

No wonder she went into Ethics.

No wonder ‘should’ had ruled her life.

(It would be decades before she realized that the ever-present ‘should’ was indistinguishable from what her parents wanted, which was, in turn, indistinguishable from habit and tradition.)

(Even so, it would take a lifetime to get out from under ‘should’.)

She recalled now that much was made of impure thoughts. It was wrong to even think some things.

When even thoughts can be sins, being a philosopher is the highest rebellion, a supremely subversive act. She understood this only now.

What she understood back then, though not until her teens, was that she was the only one in the family to take it all seriously. Yes, her brother became an altar boy, but he didn’t seem bothered by any of the dogma. In fact, he later became Baptist overnight. In order to marry his new girlfriend. And her sister probably didn’t understand any of it. And her parents—her parents stopped going to church as soon as the three of them were in high school. (Public high school, not St. Mary’s and St. Jerome’s. Because they couldn’t afford the tuition.) She never quite got that. Had they suddenly become non-Catholics? No, they said with irritation when she’d asked, they were just non-practising Catholics now. What did that mean? Did they still believe in the Catholic dogma then? The prohibition of contraception, for example? They shrugged off her questions. As if they were irrelevant.

But it had bothered her. Why did they suddenly think church attendance wasn’t important? And why had it been important up to that point?

Why. For philosophers, the prime question was always ‘Why?’ But, she came to understand, it was a question most people weren’t interested in. In fact, she realized now, accompanying her requests with reasons, with the ‘why’, made interactions worse, not better. People wanted to keep things simple, they’d rather not know— They’d just rather not know.

She supposed that going to church was her parents’ way of instilling a sense of right and wrong, something apparently achieved by the time one reached high school age. And yet, whenever she wanted to discuss matters of right and wrong, they just … weren’t interested. That was the best way to describe it.

Which meant her parents were either hypocrites or imbeciles.

Or both.

It was her acute sense of justice that in part led to her friendlessness. Groups by definition excluded people. And by the time she realized that such exclusion was at least sometimes justified, she’d refused to belong to so many groups …

Networks, she realized now. Far too late.

She looked out at the water, closed her eyes to the warmth of the sun for a few moments, then turned back to her journal.

She had written “awhile” and “alot” as single words and often ended with something trite, but all in all, she thought, with deep dismay, she hadn’t come a long way in thirty-five years.

Those pieces too had gone unread.

Why didn’t her teacher, the one who’d assigned the journal, suggest that she submit them to the school newspaper?

She turned a few more pages. Ah. Two weeks later, she’d written a critique of the school newspaper, describing what she would do if she were in charge: have a staff, regular meetings, regular issues, a standard cover, a table of contents, regular columns (sports report, student council report, library report), letters to the editor. She recalled then that the paper was haphazardly put out by a few of the cool kids. So even if she had submitted her pieces, they probably wouldn’t’ve been published.

She really hadn’t come any distance at all in thirty-five years.

So why hadn’t she started her own paper? Because she didn’t know anything about putting out a paper. But the cool kids probably didn’t know either. They asked.

She never asked. How was it, she wondered, that she had become such a passive person, never actively seeking what she wanted, accepting, consequently, a life of frustration since it was unlikely that what she wanted, what she so badly wanted, would ever be offered to her?

She remembered then, she must have been four or five at the time, her mother had prepared the bath for her, told her to get in, then went to answer the phone. The water was hot. Too hot. But she stood there, her feet and ankles turning red, as her mother talked on and on. She didn’t get out of the tub. It didn’t occur to her to do so. It certainly didn’t occur to her to turn on the cold water tap. Why not? She wasn’t stupid.

No. She was obedient. She did what her mother told her. That’s what good girls did. And she was a good girl.

She did exactly what her mother told her. Her mother had told her to get into the tub. She got into the tub. Her mother had not said, “If it’s too hot, get out.” She was doggedly literal-minded. Still.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t about obedience or literal-mindedness, but initiative. She’d since read the studies. Infant monkeys, for example, who’d been able to control aspects of their environment, even for simple things like food and water, later exhibited more exploratory behaviour than did monkeys who hadn’t had any control.

Her mother always made the supper. Then, at the table, she dished out the meat, potatoes, and vegetables. There was no need to ask.

Her parents looked after her. They knew best. They would provide. She trusted in that.

Which explains her immense anger when she realized they didn’t. Look after her. Know best. Provide.

They should have told her. Yes, she supposed the illusion was necessary for a safe and secure childhood, but at some point during adolescence they should’ve told her the truth. They didn’t know best.

As for asking for more, it just wasn’t done. She learned to simply accept what was given.

More importantly, the simple act of helping herself, choosing how much potatoes, which carrots, was denied. And so, she never developed initiative. Initiative presumes one is entitled to have, to therefore seek, what one wants. Not just what one needs.

So there she was, five, ten, twenty years later, still waiting for permission. And crying ‘No fair!’ when someone else just went ahead and did what they wanted, to get what they wanted.

And it wasn’t just that all was provided by her parents. All was decided by them. By her mother. What to do, when to do it, how to do it. She was never consulted.

Except on her birthday. Once a year, she got to choose what they’d have for dinner. But it was clear that she was supposed to choose from among two or three appropriate options. Roast beef. Roast pork. She couldn’t, for example, ask for hamburgers or hot dogs. That was what they had on Sundays. Even meatloaf, which she loved, was for some reason inappropriate for a birthday dinner.

It was her sister, her ‘slow’ sister, who asked for cherry cheesecake instead of the usual chocolate cake. How was it she developed the daring, the imagination—and not her?

She wasn’t bothered by ‘should’.

She looked up—she’d just remembered something else. Months spent making a set of coasters, as a Christmas gift for her parents. She cut out twelve squares of cardboard and dozens of teeny quarter-inch-wide strips of coloured paper. Then she wove the strips criss-cross, and when that was done, she got a needle and some yarn and sewed a line around the perimeter, to hold it all in place. It was an impossible task because every time she tried to weave one strip into the whole, the ones she’d already done would shift and come undone. Each coaster took days of frustration. She has no idea why it occurred to her to make them. (Paper and cardboard for coasters? They’d get wet from the sweating glasses.) The thing is, it hadn’t occurred to her to pin or tape the ends, to hold them in place, until she sewed them. Somehow that would’ve been cheating.

So, what—life was supposed to be hard?

And yet, she thought, it wasn’t like she had an unhappy childhood.

She tried to think back to her first memory. After a moment, she laughed out loud. Oh, this is priceless. Her first memory, her very first memory, was of walking beside her mother—harnessed.

She must have been quite young. Two? Three? Old enough to walk, but too young to be on her own. She imagined now that many people must have thought her mother cruel to put her child in a harness, like a dog, but her memory is one of joy. When she had to hang on to her mother’s purse strap, she had to focus on just that. Because what if she got jostled and let go? The very thought sent her into a panic. And it was awkward, uncomfortable, that reaching up and hanging on. But when she had the harness on, she could pay attention to everything, anything. More than that, she had the use of both of her hands and more range of movement. She felt free. And at the same time, safe.

She also remembered sitting on the porch, reading to her dolls. She remembered helping with the baking, kneeling on a chair at the table, stirring batter in the big bowl. She remembered getting to lick the frosting off the mixer beaters; she got one, her sister got the other. She remembered her blue princess costume for Hallowe’en—she wasn’t crazy about the colour, but it was the one year they were allowed to have a real costume, one bought from the store, instead of having to put something together from what they had at home.

So not unhappy, no.

But fearful. She realized now that she’d spent much of her life afraid of not doing the right thing, of not doing what she was supposed to do.

She was afraid of being late for school, for example. If she was late, the world wouldn’t end; she’d just have to go to the office to get a late slip. Still, it was unthinkable.

She even peed her pants once— She and her sister were doing the dishes. Her sister washed, she dried. “Hurry up!” her sister would scold with such irritation if she had to stop and wait before she could put more newly washed dishes into the still-full drainer. So if she’d stopped to go to the bathroom—what? It wasn’t like she’d be left behind if she couldn’t keep up—what was she so afraid of?

She was afraid she’d ‘get heck’.

Where did that come from, she wondered, staring out at the water. It was such an odd phrase. ‘You’ll get heck!’ What did that mean? She’d be yelled at? All that fear, just of being yelled at?

Well, yes. To be yelled at by her mother— Her mother was her whole world. If her mother got angry at her, if her mother didn’t love her—

And, she realized now, she was afraid she’d ‘get the strap’. The thick strip of leather was in the third drawer in the kitchen. She remembered getting a spanking, but she doesn’t remember ever getting the strap. Still, it was always there, an ever-present threat.

Like hell.

And then she realized— Our parents are our gods.

She remembered having to sit facing the corner once, as a punishment, for something she didn’t even do. She felt cast out.

So, yes, her mother’s reprimands were to be feared. They were punishment enough.

There was no mechanism in their family for apology, for forgiveness, for reconciliation. Her mother certainly never apologized. For anything.

And they would never ‘talk about it later’. Action, reaction. End of story. Any loss of love was permanent.

No wonder she was perpetually so afraid of doing something wrong, so afraid of her mother’s disapproval.

So she was a good girl. Such a good girl.

And still her mother disapproved, she thought bitterly.

She closed the journal. It was enough for one day.

• • •

Ten minutes later, she was paddling past all the cottages again, basking in yet another beautiful, sunny day. Maybe she’d paddle up the stream today. It was calm enough. Or maybe she’d just keep going, all the way to the end again. Or maybe she’d do both. She smiled at the thought.

Her attention was caught then by movement at the last cottage. Oh, right. It was Friday. People would be coming up for the weekend.

Surely it was too cold for jetskis, she thought. Fishing boats wouldn’t be quite so annoying, but their motors and fumes would certainly ruin her time out on the lake. Maybe even her time down on the dock. She hoped the forest wouldn’t be overrun by dirt bikes and ATVs. Perhaps she’d go for a long walk instead.

3

She settled onto the lounge chair on the dock again and just stared out at the water for a while, cup of tea in hand. It was black, really. Not muddy or silty, but still, you couldn’t see too far down. And that was what, she figured, made the sparkles so … sparkly.

There had been a lot of late night noise, most of it from across the lake, and dirt bikes had woken her up. It finally occurred to her that this was not just a weekend, but the long weekend. So she’d brought her earplugs, headphones, and portable CD player—all of which got good use when you lived beside the railway tracks—and loved music—down to the dock with her. Good thing. As soon as she sat down, a leaf blower started up.

Earplugs in, she pressed the play button, increased the volume, and Bach washed over her. Exquisite.

Eventually, she opened her journal to where she’d left off the day before, and saw a review she’d written of Jesus Christ Superstar. Although she hadn’t heard it in decades, she recalled every note, every anguished inflection, of Murray Head’s performance of Judas’ song— She’d actually recorded the middle bit, when he breaks out into the painfully impassioned “I don’t know how to love him,” over and over, filling the whole side of a cassette, so she could listen to it, just that part, over and over. It was so … tortured. It—

It spoke to her. It spoke for her.

In a way Donny Osmond never had.

She read the review, and was pleased. She’d attributed the rock opera’s success to its uniqueness; she’d called it a reaction to the religious brainwashing that had been going on for ages; she’d identified the humanity of Christ, and had said that the emotional quality was what was unusual, and attractive. It was pretty good, she thought. Well, except for the borderline appeal to ignorance in the middle—”At first we may scoff at the idea of Mary Magdalen as a prostitute, but there’s no reason to think she couldn’t’ve been”. Mentioning that there’s no evidence to the contrary was valuable, but not sufficient.

Despite her passion for ideas and argument, she didn’t join the debating team. She’d tried once. There had been an announcement one morning that said the debating club would meet that day in Room 231. And after working up the courage to just walk into the room— She’d wondered why no one else seemed to find that difficult. She didn’t realize that no one else walked into a room alone; they were always with their friends. People didn’t stop and stare in that case.

When she entered the room, she saw the two Rothblatt brothers on their feet arguing with each other. She was so thirsty, it felt so right— And it felt so wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. They were so loud, so cocksure. They glanced at her, then argued even more passionately. And she—she didn’t say anything. Eventually she left. And never returned.

She realizes now that they were performing. Ostensibly for her, but really for each other.

You were never expected to join in, she told her younger self. About life in general.

She remembered discovering philosophy. One of the suggested topics for her grade eleven history essay assignment was “The Continuity between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.” She was vaguely aware that they were philosophers. Certainly she’d heard of Socrates. Deep thought. Wisdom.

So she went to the library, found the shelf for Philosophy, and signed out all the books that had to do with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. There were seven. She also signed out three on Greek history and culture. And another four that were on the philosophy shelf that just looked interesting.

That weekend—

Her parents had bought a cottage on Silver Lake, and they went there every weekend from Victoria Day until Thanksgiving. She loved it. Going out in the canoe, going for a run on the dirt roads …

One of the first new things she’d done at high school was try out for the cross-country team. She’d never heard of cross-country before, but it sounded like something she’d like, and indeed, she fell in love with it: the distance running, the forest, the solitude.

She hated the evenings at the cottage though. Her mother would insist she join them after dinner to play cards. Canasta. Euchre. Something pointless. She had no desire whatsoever to sit at a table with a few other people, repeatedly subjecting herself to chance, having a near total lack of agency, engaging in something that required little intelligence, little skill, and for what—’I won’? But it was made abundantly clear that if she didn’t play, she was being rude and selfish.

That memory triggered another. A few children’s decks of cards in the drawer in the den. She had a favourite … Crazy Eights? No … Old Maid. It had the most colourful pictures, and—the picture of the old maid herself was horrid, she recalled now. A grizzled witch of an old woman, whiskers sprouting from her chin, a maniacal grin on her face.

God, it started so young, went so deep. ‘See, that’s what happens if you don’t get married.’

She hadn’t even known yet what ‘an old maid’ referred to.

That weekend, she set up a table and chair down at the water in the boathouse (after her chores were done), organized her fourteen books into three piles on her left, and set a pile of blank paper in front of her. She had her favourite pen (a BIC fine point with black ink) and she’d brought down a large glass of milk. She’d opened the door slightly, just enough to see the lake. Not the dock or any other evidence of other people.

One by one, the books moved from the pile on her left to a pile on her right. The sheets of paper became filled with her writing, her thinking. The breeze, the view of weeds, the water, the sun sparkling on the lake. She was sohappy. In fact, she had never been happier. She knew then and there that that was what she wanted to do. For the rest of her life. Live alone in a cabin on a lake in a forest and just read, write, and think.

It was an epiphany.

When her mother called her up for lunch, she resented it immensely.

She’d never understood why eating at a certain time was considered sacred. So sacred that it took precedence to everything else. Was allowed to interrupt everything else.

Once she was on her own, she dispensed altogether with the concept.

“Why don’t you come into town with us this afternoon to do some shopping?” her mother asked as she and her sister did the dishes from lunch.

Because she didn’t want to. She wanted to go back down to the boathouse to continue reading, and writing, and thinking.

“You spend too much time alone with your books,” her mother chastised.

Chastised.

She remembered one time she had gone shopping with her mother, to Yorkdale or Square One, one of the huge shopping malls in Toronto. Her mother had insisted. Because, at the time, she didn’t have a coat; she just had jackets. Which was fine, as far as she was concerned, since she had stopped wearing dresses. But her mother was adamant. She needed a spring coat.

She’d said it like it was a rule. Like it was uncontroversial. And perhaps it was. For her. Perhaps all of life was uncontroversial for her.

That would explain a lot. Her anger whenever you wanted to discuss something.

She’d much rather have stayed at home. And had said as much. But her mother had persisted, so she had acquiesced. If it meant that much to her— She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings.

When did her mother ever acquiesce to her desires? Took three decades to ask herself that.

Her mother picked out a pale blue one. She’d wanted the black one. But her mother disapproved. Apparently black was not an appropriate color for a spring coat. Or for a sixteen-year-old. Her mother purchased the pale blue one. It was her money. And she should have been grateful. But she never wore it.

Her mother was hurt.

And she felt bad about hurting her.

But her mother was hurt whenever she didn’t like the same things, didn’t want the same things. So it was inevitable that she would hurt her mother. Because she couldn’t change what she liked, what she wanted. Was she supposed to?

She looked up from her journal, hearing the fluttery whir of ducks coming in for a landing, and saw a pair of mallards, the head of the one gleaming like a hummingbird. She watched them for a while.

She also remembered discovering consciousness. That is, she remembered the moment she first became conscious of her life—as a life. She didn’t remember first gaining consciousness, which was odd, and a little sad, given how much she valued it. But she did remember her first moment of critical consciousness.

What was astounding to her now was the quality of her appraisal.

She was ten, it was a Sunday, and they’d all just come back from church. It was a bright, warm April day. They were milling about at the back door, by the patio where she often fed Chippy the squirrel, waiting for her father, already up the stairs and on the porch, recently painted green, to unlock the door. Just as she raised her foot to take the first step, to follow her brother and sister, she was … aware. Of her happiness, of her contentment. Simply put, life was good.

Well, you were ten.

She has since realized that not everyone develops such a self-consciousness. Not everyone reflects on their life. Not everyone is aware of their life, as a life. It’s a second order consciousness. A squirrel doesn’t have it.

Most of her neighbours haven’t had it.

She idly turned the pages. More of the same. A scathing critique of television. Another of football.

It was the beginning. Correction: it could have been the beginning. All her life, people had criticized her for being too critical. The irony. But no one had ever suggested she become a critic.

Just as her mother criticized her for always arguing, but never suggested she become a lawyer.

I could have been good, she thought sadly, staring out at the water.

Better than good. You could have been, should have been, a Globe and Mail critic by now.

But no one celebrated her propensity for criticism, for argument. Instead, she came to apologize for it.

Besides, girls didn’t grow up to become critics or lawyers. Not in the 70s.

And she didn’t even know one could become, one could be, a philosopher.

She wanted to be a writer. She knew people became writers. After all, she read books. And although she’d written a few poems as a child, her passion to become a writer didn’t solidify until high school. It was her Creative Writing teacher, Mr. Ledford, who had them start a journal: they were to write a page a day.

She would write several pages a day. For the rest of her life.

She joined the Writer’s Club at school, had her work published in its annual magazine, and won or placed in the local library’s literary competition every year. When her first poem was published in a ‘real’ magazine, she was thrilled. She thought she was well on her way to becoming a writer.

She actually thought she could become another Margaret Atwood.

She made the mistake of sharing her joy with her parents. Her mother asked how much she’d been paid for the poem. Not in a way that suggested that she thought women should be financially independent, but in a way that suggested that she measured value by price.

Her father asked “Where are they?” as if he knew, but had momentarily forgotten. And as if establishing the location of everything was absolutely critical.

Which it was, if you were a Neanderthal, foraging for your food and keeping away from predators.

Neither of them asked to read the poem.

She’d never make that mistake again.

And they never noticed.

later in the evening

long after the dinner and dishes were done

i came again to the kitchen

and this time

saw him.

our beloved budgie who delighted

in the flat chrome top of the fridge door

hadn’t turned quick enough this time

his tail caught between

and with the closing jolt

he lost his balance

flipped over the edge

to hang helpless

as he hung still now

his little bird feet clenched

into stiff fists

his eyes bulged wide and still.

i opened the door

cupped him in my hand

and wept.

how long, i wondered—

when last did someone—

what does it feel like—

no, i need not ask about the pain

of dying

with the people you love all around

oblivious.

• • •

By afternoon, the long weekend was in full swing, so she did decide to head into the forest instead of out onto the lake. Halfway up the hill to the logging road that went into the bush, a pair of ATVs passed her and then turned in at the logging road. Covering her mouth so as not to end up with a headache for the rest of the day, she sighed and turned around. Part way down the hill, there was a newer trail, too overgrown to be used by ATVs. Not as easy a walk in, but clearly a better choice.

She’d also wanted to become a composer.

Her parents had started her with piano lessons at the age of eight, and she practiced every day like she was supposed to. One day, when she was about fifteen, she composed a piece. She called it, optimistically, Op1. No.1.

Her piano teacher, Mrs. Aldrich, had not assigned, or even suggested, let alone encouraged, any sort of original composition, but at the end of her next lesson, she mentioned, shyly, that she had composed such a piece. Could she play it for her? But, of course!

The piece was a little simplistic, but nicely done. It opened with a pretty bit in a major key, then moved to a dramatic bit in a minor key, then returned to the pretty bit in the major key. Mrs. Aldrich correctly identified Hagood Hardy as an influence. (Although she hardly ever went to a movie, she had recently seen A Second Wind, drawn by the running theme, and Hardy had written the score.)

Her parents were equally surprised, and even more impressed. They made such a to-do about hearing her play it for them, sitting together on the couch in the basement rec room, holding hands with such excitement, nodding to her to begin, then applauding wildly when she had finished.

Somehow they discovered that Hagood Hardy lived in Toronto, and was willing to take her on as a student of composition. Her father drove her, once a week, to Mr. Hardy’s house. She quickly became his protégé, and by the time she was eighteen, had written a piece he felt was good enough to include in one of his concerts. Her career as a composer was launched.

In her early twenties, he introduced her to the wildlife sound recordist Dan Gibson, and they formed a partnership almost immediately: her piano pieces and his recordings of birds, streams, and so on. She found herself in the company of George Winston, David Lanz, and Paul Winter, on the cutting edge of the new age genre.

It could’ve happened.

It didn’t.

She waited for a convenient moment, for when her mother was on her way up the stairs from the basement, having just put a load of laundry into the washer. “Do you want to hear the piece I composed?” she asked. Her mother wouldn’t have to make a special trip back down to hear it; she could play it right then.

“Not now,” there was irritation in her voice. “The supper’s on.”

Right. Supper was more important. And it couldn’t possibly wait. Food always had priority. It certainly came before her daughter’s first composition.

But the implied ‘later’ was never mentioned. By either of them.

It hurt.

Thus she learned early to hide her pleasures, her prides, her passions.

burn victim

i am always cutting flesh

taking from one part

to heal another—

survival of the self

sufficient.

She did play her piece, at her next lesson, for Mrs. Aldrich. Who said it was nice and then sent her on her way; the next student had arrived.

Her parents attended her piano recitals, but she felt that that was only because they had to drive her there. She realized now that they could have just dropped her off. Still, she didn’t get the feeling they wanted to be there; she didn’t get the feeling they wanted to hear her play.

After all, her piano had been put into the basement. And whenever she forgot to close the door when she went down to practice, someone slammed it shut.

She turned off the trail onto the logging road. After a short while, she got to the little brook and was delighted to hear its burbling. She’d expected it to have been almost dry by this time of year.

She realized, eventually, that yes, it was annoying to hear someone practice a musical instrument, to hear the scales up and down, and up and down, to hear the same phrase over and over, to hear the stumbles, the wrong notes—but the door was also slammed when she was playing a piece she’d mastered.

At first, she practiced the piano every day because she was supposed to, but she soon grew to like the simple accomplishment of learning a piece.

Then she grew to appreciate other, far more compelling, reasons for practising. Certainly for the beauty of the music, which was apparent to her even in some of the simpler pieces she was able to master—some Burgmüller, some simplified Chopin, and most of all, Bach’s Prelude I.

But when she graduated to Bach’s two-part inventions, the quality of her life changed. Literally. It was then that she became attracted to the attention to detail, and the precision—the precision of the composition as well as the precision required for its performance, not only in the reading, but also in the playing, in mastering the subtle response of the keys to perfection—

It’s a pity she had just an old Heintzman. The first time she played on a grand, which was at her grade eight exam, she nearly wept. And was so distracted by the difference, she nearly failed the exam.

Many years later, she read somewhere about a budding pianist that “… money was found to buy a grand piano ….” The simplicity of the statement stunned her. In so many ways.

She practiced Hanons for a solid half hour. Then a solid hour. Although her wrists would be on fire by the time she was done, she was swept away by the sheer physicality of it, the perpetual motion of the pattern up and down, the ever so slight change then up and down again, as she moved seamlessly from one pattern to the next.

One of her parents’ friends, while visiting, heard her. “You should play Philip Glass,” she said. “You were made for his music. I’ll introduce you. Take you to New York next week, how would you like that? He’d love your technique.”

As if.

Instead, one of her brother’s friends, during one of his parties down in the rec room, set his bottle of beer on her piano. She’d come down to get something from the root cellar, potatoes she was to peel for dinner probably, and when she saw it, she asked him politely to please not put any glasses or bottles on the piano, please. Her brother scoffed and made fun of her concern. Well, at least she could close the cover, protect the keys. When she heard them banging away on it later, she sat alone in her room upstairs and cried. She couldn’t say why exactly.

The word ‘rape’ had not yet entered your vocabulary.

She worked her way through the Conservatory piano exams, adding the theory component when it was required. She remembered writing her grade three harmony exam. She’d never written a three-hour exam before. When the proctor said “You may begin,” she opened the booklet. “Complete the following sixteen-measure passage with the given figured bass.” She was writing an exam in which you had to write music! It was an amazing thing to her. At one point, she happened to look out the window and saw for the first time gladioli, or what she figured out later must have been gladioli. Stalks of flowers. Flowers on a stick! she giggled. And the colours were so vivid! She’d never really looked at flowers before. But there, in the middle of writing that exam, her senses were heightened, her brain was so excited, neurons must have been flashing like crazy …

She also remembered the grade four counterpoint exam. It was a take-home: they had forty-eight hours to write a fugue. Unfortunately, it was a weekend and she had to do all of the dusting and her share of the ironing first. Then, later, she had to stop, right in the middle of the development section, to help get dinner ready, set the table, sit at the table, eat, then do the dishes.

Until she was around twenty, the only music she’d ever heard, apart from the pieces in her piano books, was the pop and rock played on the local AM radio station. The Partridge Family, the Carpenters, Barry Manilow, England Dan and John Ford Coley.

It never occurred to her to change the station. She hadn’t known about the FM band.

She knew that her parents had some records in the stereo cabinet in the living room, but … Even so, she worked up the nerve one day to look through them. Among the Teresa Brewer and Engelbert Humperdinck, Glenn Miller and Boots Randolph, there was a James Last album—James Last in Concert. She put it on the turntable, careful not to scratch it. And— The music was so beautiful!

How was she to know there was more? She knew the pieces in her piano books were unlike what she heard on the radio, but it didn’t occur to her that the people who had written those pieces would have written other pieces that were on records somewhere.

Kadwell’s, the store at which she bought her precious 45s, must have carried more than the Top Ten, but she could afford only 45s. So she didn’t even browse the LP sections. In any case, there were no listening booths.

Later, when she could afford LPs, she fell in love with the Beach Boys’ “Lady Lynda,” not realizing that it was based on Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. And Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself” blew her away. Though it was really the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor that blew her away. Similarly Louise Tucker’s “Graveyard Angel”—Albinoni’s Adagio.

Once she showed interest in a Vanilla Fudge album her brother had bought, but he showed such contempt for her interest, she backed off. In any case, she wasn’t allowed to play it.

Of course not, she thought now, lowering herself onto a fallen tree to just sit—she had come to the stand of maple trees, and the sun streamed through the trees, brightening the leaves. Teenaged boys listened to music for the rock; teenaged girls listened for the romance. That’s why she’d listened to Donny Osmond instead of King Crimson. If she’d known about Stevie Nicks, Heart, Pat Benatar … No, she thought, even then … Girls are supposed to fall in love and get married. They’re not supposed to become rock stars. Either.

4

It continued to amaze her how two people could live in the same house, for almost twenty years, and never say a word to each other. She thought about her relationship with her brother a bit before she opened the next journal she’d taken down to the water with her. It was another warm, sunny day, but a few clouds were moving in.

They sat at the same table for dinner. But her brother was on one side; she and her sister were on the other.

Right. Must maintain the sexism.

She thinks her parents actually had an agreement whereby her father was responsible for raising her brother, and her mother was responsible for raising “the two girls”.

She’d hear him practicing in his room—the clarinet, and later, the saxophone—but despite the fact that she was also learning to play a musical instrument, they never talked about music.

Years later, when she saw someone her age talking and laughing with her own brother, she was astonished. She’d thought that that just happened on tv, brothers and sisters being close. Talking to each other.

She saw him occasionally sitting in his room at his desk. Their father had actually made a desk for him. The C student. While she, the A student, who brought home so many books every day and wanted to do nothing but study—she had to do her homework at the dining room table. Which meant she had to put everything away when she was done and get it back out the next evening.

They passed each other in the house as they went about their lives, but he never acknowledged her. She acknowledged him by getting out of his way.

And her parents didn’t even notice. Or didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

They certainly didn’t walk to school together. Once, they happened to pass each other in the hall. She broke into an eager smile—and he pretended he didn’t see her. She felt … shamed. But she … co-operated.

He got a chemistry set. She and her sister got dolls. She sat them in the old school desk in the basement and taught them something.

Like that would ever do any good.

He got Adidas. She and her sister got knock-off Cougars. Even though she was the one on the cross-country team and the track team.

He got an expensive Ingo sweater for Christmas. She and her sister got Warrens from the Sears catalogue.

He was entitled to so much.

They were entitled to so little.

Once he was sitting there, at his desk, on a Saturday morning when she had to do the dusting. That was Saturday’s chore. She did the dusting; her sister, three years older, did the vacuuming. She also had to “dust around” on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That took less time because she didn’t have to pick everything up, dust under it, then dust the thing itself before putting it back down; she just had to dust around the things. And on Mondays, she had to iron the easy things: the dishcloths, tea towels, and pillow cases. She and her sister also had to set the table before every meal, and then do the dishes after every meal. They took turns making the milk: they drank powdered skim milk, and whenever there were fewer than four quarts in the fridge, they had to make more in the big metal mixer bowl, bringing up the bag from the root cellar, filling the empty quart glass bottles with water to pour into the mixer one at a time, measuring out the powder, setting the mixer for a minute and a half, pouring the milk into the bottles through the funnel, waiting for the foam to dissolve, then capping the bottles and putting them in the fridge, and then taking the bag back down to the basement.

Her brother had to cut the grass once a week in the summer and shovel the driveway in the winter as needed.

She remembered clearly, that Saturday morning, his irritation when she’d had to disturb him so she could crawl under his desk, in and around his feet, to reach the baseboards.

She’d apologized.

Even so, she respected him. He was male.

And when he complimented her, she wrote about it in her journal. It was that noteworthy.

It happened twice.

It wasn’t until she was thirty that she started to understand what a totally unremarkable person he was.

And an asshole to boot.

She had said once, at the dinner table, quoting some famous Olympic coach, and merely wanting to share her delight at a truth she had not to that point realized, that you didn’t run with your legs, you ran “with your arms, on your legs.” Her brother had scoffed, his voice full of contempt and disdain. Told her she was crazy.

This from a person who had never run a mile in his life. To a person who had been running since she was thirteen and who was, at the time, running thirty miles a week.

But he was male. Therefore, he knew better.

He was a guy. He especially knew better about sports.

Never mind that you were quoting an Olympic coach.

She was horrified, now, to realize all the times she believed her brother, and her father, and Craig, her only ‘boyfriend’; whenever they said something, she accepted it as truth.

Years later, she realized they regularly presented their opinions as facts. Despite having no evidence whatsoever for those opinions.

She had been raised to think men were better than her. All men. They knew more. About everything. They were more competent. At everything. So she was intimidated by them, and impressed by them.

So every time she found out they didn’t know more, they weren’tbetter, she was not only disappointed, she was angry. Angry at them for lying, for pretending to know more, for pretending to be better. And angry at herself for her misplaced admiration.

She remembered her embarrassment when in grade nine science, as they took up their homework questions, she had proudly answered “How many gallons of water does it take to flush a toilet?” with “Twenty” because that’s what her father had said when she’d asked him the night before. The teacher had laughed. She was mortified. A teacher had never laughed at her before. And, but, she was right! Her father had said so!

When she told him that evening that he’d been wrong, he brushed it aside. She was puzzled. Didn’t he care that he’d gotten it wrong? Didn’t he want to know the right answer?

It took a few years for her to understand that her father (a) didn’t take her questions seriously, (b) didn’t take her seriously, (c) didn’t stop to think about things, or (d) didn’t know fuck all about anything.

Or, of course, all of the above.

Shortly after that, when her parents went to Barbados for a holiday, her mother left laundry soaking in the tub for her to finish. She was to scrub it with the yellow soap, wring it out, put it in the washer, then hang it up to dry. The tub had contained her father’s underwear.

Scrubbing the shit stains from your father’s underwear is a real paradigm changer.

• • •

She decided it would be a good day to paddle up the stream. Five minutes out, someone revved up a jetski. Damn it. She kept close to shore, paddling hard to get out of earshot as quickly as possible. He drove in circles, around and around— Trying to put in one last afternoon for the year? Trying to use up the gas in the tank?

At the stream, she carefully negotiating the whirlpooling current, paddled past the first switchback, then the second, then, having reached quiet, relaxed again into thought.

Because her older sister was ‘slow’ (she’d failed grade four), her parents spent a lot of time with her. Helping her succeed.

She herself didn’t need any such help (after all, she’d skipped a grade). And so didn’t get any of their time.

The message was that even though her sister wasn’t smart, she was just as important.

But the message received was that she was more important.

“I often said that of the three of you, you were the one I’d worry least about,” her mother would say years later. Explaining fifteen years of neglect.

So despite her straight As, she grew up thinking she wasn’t good enough. After all, she never got her parents’ attention, let alone their praise. To praise her for her accomplishments would make her sister feel bad.

And we can’t have that. Oh no.

It didn’t help her self-esteem—though of course they didn’t use that word back in the 70s—that according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, people were born in a state of sin. So even before you opened your eyes, you’d done something wrong.

Or were something wrong.

And even though she practically hid her straight-As report cards, lest they make her sister feel bad, ‘You think you’re too good for us’ remained an unspoken accusation.

She was supposed to do her homework. But she wasn’t supposed to acquire knowledge or competence.

Yeah, how does that work?

It was drilled into her: just because she herself was smart, she was not to think she was better than everyone else. Anyone else, actually.

So, since it was clear that effort was praiseworthy (they certainly praised every little effort made by her sister), she had to believe, then, that she was just born smart—that her being smart wasn’t due to any effort on her part, that when she got As, she was just lucky.

And, so, true to her acute sense of justice, she felt guilty for her good luck, guilty that she’d gotten extra IQ points, IQ points her sister should’ve gotten.

But years later, when she was helping her sister with the material in her Early Childhood Education program, as she went over, and over, the stages postulated by Piaget, she became convinced that her sister simply wasn’t concentrating, she wasn’t even trying to process the information, she wasn’t thinking.

She realized then that she had spent more time, far more time, doing her homework than either her sister or her brother ever had. Her sister gave up as soon as she had trouble. She herself persisted. On one occasion, with her high school physics homework, until tears of frustration welled in her eyes. Her brother went to Florida with his friends on spring break. She herself caught up on the assigned reading and her term papers.

Lucky, my ass.

And fuck the guilt.

Is it any wonder she actually chided herself every time she wasn’t interested in a man who had barely graduated from high school?

So startled by this new connection, she stopped paddling. Think you’re smarter than him? she remembered scolding herself. Think you’re too good for him?

But then her mother called her a slut. Because she’d have sex with anyone.

She stared at the water rushing by. She’d come back to that.

Proclaiming everyone to be equal was also a middle class thing, she supposed, as she resumed paddling. And it was hard to argue with democracy.

And yet she did. Years later. When she realized it simply ensured a tyranny of the masses—the average, the ordinary, the unthinking. People like her brother and sister, people like her parents.

Because deep down, she did think she was better than everyone else. She couldn’t ignore the evidence. She was the smartest kid she knew. And she didn’t know anyone else who was an accomplished pianist, who’d had poetry published in a magazine, and who could run five miles in thirty-five minutes.

The sound of rapids broke into her thoughts. She looked ahead and saw that there was no paddling around them. The water level was too low. And it would be a lot of work to walk her kayak through them. No telling how far she could go once she was on the other side before a fallen tree blocked her way. Maybe another day, she’d find out. For now, she nudged her kayak into a patch of weeds and just sat for a while, listening. Such a pretty sound, the water pouring over the rocks, bubbling into below.

How did she reconcile having such a low opinion of herself and, simultaneously, such a high opinion of herself? She’d never noticed the contradiction before.

Ah. She wasn’t better than everyone else. She was just better than all the girls she knew.

But then she would’ve had to have thought that the average man was, somehow, better than even the best woman. Which, she realized, was exactly what she had thought. It went without saying. All her life, growing up, it went without saying. Men were better than women; all men were better than all women. It was such a given, she didn’t even see all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary until she was in her thirties.

So how did she reconcile the fact that she was the smartest kid in the class, the one who always got As, with the belief that a full half of the class, the boys, were all better than her? She didn’t know. It didn’t create any cognitive dissonance. At the time.

Most likely she assumed she must be missing something. She must be too stupid to see their superiority. It must be evident in areas closed off to her.

Imagine her rage when she discovered the truth.

• • •

After she’d returned and had a slice of the large pizza she’d brought with her, she saw that there was a fishing boat parked about twenty feet away from the dock, so she settled into one of the chairs up on the deck. It had a different, but just as pleasing, view. Less water, more curtain of trees, and the eye was drawn down rather than across. She opened the journal and continued reading through her life.

She didn’t remember her mother, or her father, ever reading to her at bedtime. Which is probably just as well. It’s an appalling thing to do to a kid: condition them to associate reading a book with falling asleep.

She also couldn’t remember even one time she was comforted or soothed by her mother. Or her father. Not when she wasn’t allowed to play Red Rover with the grade fives, not when she didn’t make the basketball team in grade twelve, not when Scott dumped her, not when Craig didn’t write back.

Well, they probably didn’t even know about the last two. They took such little interest in her life.

They never hugged her.

The only touch she knew was sexual.

So no wonder—

She did remember that when they went to Church on Sunday, her brother led the way (of course), her sister followed next, and though sometimes she walked with her sister, other times she was just so happy—Sundays, going to Church, she felt the goodness of it all deep within her core—she insisted on walking between her parents, holding onto their hands and swinging between them, one giant step to their two steps. But she realized, even then, that she had to insist on doing that. They didn’t offer to swing her, and they didn’t seem to enjoy it. They tolerated her.

She learned she was someone who was tolerated.

Not someone whose company another person might actually enjoy.

Nor does she remember one serious conversation with her parents. Time to set the table, time for supper, what are you watching, time for bed … Nothing but daily trivia.

She turned the page.

four grown human beings

each half a lifetime used

sit around the table;

playing their new game of

Triple Yahtzee

because it’s Christmas;

triple strategy

triple excitement

triple fun;

it says so on the box.

they sit

passing the bright shaker of dice;

talking seriously

knowingly

of the best way to win;

it matters.

the properly-dressed woman of forty-five

yells “Yahtzee!” in glee

when the dice fall right;

she carefully counts and

records her score;

she’s happy now.

she turns to me and boasts

“I’ve had three Yahtzees this game!”

and i almost answer

i’m proud of you mom—

but i bite my tongue,

and my heart bleeds.

Whenever she approached her parents, about anything, they didn’t want to discuss it, they didn’t want to argue, they said.

To someone for whom discussion was lifeblood.

Or would be if she’d ever had someone to discuss things with.

And she wanted to discuss everything. But whenever they did discuss something, she’d end up hurting them.

How discussion could hurt someone, she never did figure out. Were they hurt by the mere fact of someone disagreeing with them?

Oh my.

No wonder she clung to the first person she met who was willing to discuss stuff. Her letters to Craig would eventually become forty pages long.

Later, her parents explained, “It’s impossible to win with you.”

She didn’t understand why her ability to deal with all of their objections, her ability to have a stronger counterargument, would upset them. Wouldn’t they be pleased? Maybe even proud?

It would be twenty years before she stopped accepting all of their admonitions: “You think too much,” “You’re overanalyzing it,” “You always have to go too deep,” “You’re too sensitive.”

No. You don’t think enough. You don’t analyze enough. You’re too superficial.

And you’re not, not nearly, sensitive enough.

Of course her parents never asked about her homework. The only time they showed any interest at all was when she’d mentioned the Plain Truth magazines of the Church of God that were appearing all over the city. She’d said she’d found the articles convincing. That is to say, she’d found their claims as convincing as those of the Roman Catholic church. Suddenly her father, pushed by her mother, set out to read the textbook for her grade twelve World Religions class.

But he never discussed it with her.

Years later, she realized he probably didn’t understand any of it.

Which is probably why they were such ardent Catholics.

nuns

habits of black and white

explaining their faith

After her careful but unremarkable line of reasoning led her from Catholicism to Christianity, it led her on to theism, and from there, to atheism.

Unremarkable, but still, such a weight lifted when she realized there was simply no evidence, or lamentably insufficient evidence, for everything she’d believed about god and religion. She wasn’t a sinner. She wasn’t going to hell. She didn’t have to believe “six impossible things before breakfast”.

That oppression, at least, lifted.

One of the pictures in the living room, that she had to dust every Saturday, was of the four of them: her brother in his cub scout uniform, her father in his cub scout leader uniform, her sister in her brownie uniform, and her mother in her brownie leader uniform. She understood, cognitively, why she wasn’t allowed to be in the picture. She wasn’t a brownie, so she didn’t have a uniform. And she understood, cognitively, why she wasn’t allowed to join brownies. She had music and dance lessons. So she already had an activity. Two, in fact. They were already paying for not just one, but two, for her. But emotionally—couldn’t they have let her be in the picture anyway?

You were only six, for godsake.

She remembered they’d said no.

She remembered having to stand off to the side all by herself.

She remembered crying herself to sleep that night.

Now, of course, she was glad, so very glad, not to be part of that family. She was an artist, an intellect, an athlete. A poet and a philosopher. A composer.

Not an office worker.

And yet, despite everything, she’d believed her parents did their duty as parents. They did what they were supposed to do. You couldn’t fault them there.

She doesn’t believe that now. She’s raised her standards for parenting. It is, after all, a completely voluntary endeavour. And such a very, very important one.

She closed the journal, then watched twilight become dusk become night.

5

It rained the next day, so she curled up on the couch with the next journal and her tea, opening the windows so she could hear patter on the leaves.

Part way through high school, her parents decided to stop renting out the rooms in the attic. They suggested that she could have one of them. But she’d have to clean it first.

Three hours later, she had a room of her own. She was thrilled.

It had a large oak table she’d cleaned, waxed, and polished, then moved into the corner. She put all of the chairs but one into the other room, then covered the walls around the table, the desk, with cork billboard.

She sat at the desk, her desk now, six neat piles on the scrubbed linoleum floor beside her, one for each of her courses. Pen, paper, typewriter on the desk. Turntable and records in the corner by the old chesterfield. It was all she needed.

Every day after school, she’d get an oversized glass of milk—she used the brown plastic milkshake shaker that had come with the Nestlé Quik one year—and go up to the attic, not coming down until she was called to set the table for dinner. Then, after she’d spent an hour with her piano in the basement, and half an hour with her dance lesson, also in the basement, she went back up to the attic to work until she went to bed.

She loved it.

She loved being so far away from them. From their chatter, which was like radio static, sound with no meaning. From their very presence, which was a constant reminder of—deep mutual disappointment.

But “Come watch tv with us,” her mother would plead from time to time.

She wasn’t interested in watching Mannix.

And she hated it when they watched All in the Family. Her father laughed with Archie at Meathead and Gloria.

Which is worse, she wondered, that he didn’t know or that he did? That she was Meathead. And Gloria.

And he was—he was Archie Bunker.

It would be one of the first times she was overwhelmed with inadequacy. Where to begin? To explain to him that he was—that everything Archie Bunker was—

She tried. And failed. And tried again. And failed again.

If she couldn’t change her own father, if she couldn’t make himsee, how could she ever hope to change the world?

Every time he laughed at something Meathead or Gloria said, something perfectly reasonable, something important, about capitalism or pollution or equal opportunity for women, she screamed inside.

Then cried.

No wonder she’d put up a wall.

Without it, she would’ve been crippled with pain.

And anger.

i wake.

the sky is like soiled snow at a spring sewer.

there are tears in the air.

every morning we leave the house

they go to work, i go to school.

we walk along streets

hearing the ebb and wash of the tide of traffic

as it sterilizes the pavement with carbon monoxide.

they go to buildings

that do not scrape the smog from the sky.

i go to a displeasing dome

by dubious decree.

and i remember

sitting in class

my gaze caught upon a cocoon

up where the ceiling is seamed

so pure and white

i felt its rough softness with my eyes

and when i saw it i dreamed

perhaps i will see

the butterfly burst out.

i listen to music

upstairs in an attic

that is my room of my own now

Beethoven boasts his beating heart and

Springsteen makes me move and

no one tells me turn it down.

last night, i listened to a song called “Sunrise”

the first few bars so wakened into glory—

in the morning, this morning

i rose

and bicycled six miles out of the city,

i saw gossamer glistening,

in the silver mist,

crystal veins dripping opal,

and as i sat in an open field,

i saw the sun rise!

and i thought,

i feel

therefore i am.

i remember hope and i remember despair

but i forget

which is the key for life—

Years later, reading This Magazine, Kick It Over, and off our backs, she discovered there were names for what she was. Social activist. Environmentalist. Feminist. Civil libertarian. Anarchist. Although it was sad, because she’d been trudging along, alone, in the soft, sucking sand, inventing the wheel when there were highways just a few miles away, it was also refreshing. To come upon a veritable oasis of kin.

But they were out of reach. They were theoretical kin. None of her friends—well, she didn’t often have friends. Not really.

When she was at St. Louis, it was decided that she could ‘accelerate’: she was told she could finish the grade five textbooks over the holidays and then, in January, join the grade six class.

The grade six teacher welcomed her and showed her to her new desk, but she knew she wasn’t really supposed to be there. She felt like she didn’t belong. Again.

It was a feeling that would accompany her throughout her life.

But that wasn’t all. Suddenly her best friends, Julie and Joanne, were no longer her best friends. She wasn’t even allowed to play with them anymore at recess. She still remembered that first day, in January, going out at recess to join the Red Rover as she had always done—and being told she couldn’t anymore, because the Red Rover was just for the grade fives.

And the grade sixes didn’t play Red Rover. Well, the boys did; the girls just watched.

She ended up making snow castles with some of the grade four kids.

And so she continued to feel different, to feel like an outsider. That was bad enough. She would never feel part of a group, part of a team.

But the grade six kids were as ordinary as the grade five kids. They were just doing different stuff. So, also, she continued to feel felt smarter than everyone else. And she was right. She was smarter than everyone else. Everyone else she knew.

If she’d had the chance to be in an enriched class (St. Louis had only a ‘special ed’ class), she would have found herself in a room full of kids as eager as her and as smart as her, kids with whom she could’ve been herself, without fear of reprimand for showing off or standing out. It would’ve changed everything. Her entire view. Her entire life.

Because as it was, she would never feel like she could ask anyone for help. And expect them to be able to give it.

Worse, when she finally met people who were smarter than her, it would always take too long for her to recognize that. To recognize that she could learn from them. Even if she didn’t ask for their help.

Asking for their friendship wouldn’t even occur to her.

In grade nine, she became part of a group of friends again, Lisa, Colleen, and Sandy. And that might have developed into something. Something normal. But then a new high school opened up and all three of them, because of where they lived, were transferred to it, so in grade ten, she was, once again, friendless.

She became friends with Heidi then, who was, like her, a ‘brain’ and an athlete.

Friends? She realized now that she really didn’t know how to ‘be friends’. Heidi was just the person she hung around with during the school day, if they were in the same class or had lunch during the same period, and after school, if they had basketball, gymnastics, or track practice.

They never did anything together outside of school. Partly, she was too busy: she spent several hours each night doing her homework; by grade ten, she was up to an hour a day piano practice, and by grade thirteen, an hour and a half; and she was taking not only jazz lessons by then, but also ballet and modern, intending to take her Associate’s exam; during the week she had cross-country and field hockey practice to go to or, later in the year, basketball, and then track; and on the weekends, and some after-schools, she had gymnastics, and a part-time job typing and filing at the insurance company her mother worked at.

In fact, she was so busy, so focused on her schedule, that one day—she remembered this with such guilt—while rushing to get to a class, or a lesson, or her job, on time, she saw a little girl who, while crossing a side street ahead of her, dropped a bag of pennies halfway across. The little girl wisely, or fearfully, didn’t stop to pick them up. But once safely on the other side of the road, she broke into a wail and just stood there, helpless. She knew she shouldn’t dare go back into the middle of the road and pick them up, but—

And she, the adult-enough who could have easily, safely, gone back and picked up the pennies for her, every last one of them, did not stop to do so. She just walked by. Left the little girl crying on the corner.

(Years later, she would atone, once stopping on a winter’s run to push a stuck wheelchair-bound man up a ramp, another time simply picking up a child frozen with fear at the top of a crowded escalator, his mother, encumbered with baby and stroller, anxiously beckoning him from the bottom, and riding down with him.)

But, she wondered now, was it because she was so focused on her schedule or was it because she’d never seen anyone ever do something like that? She had no role models for stopping to help someone. Certainly she’d never seen her parents do anything like that. They always minded their own business.

And already you were rejecting motherliness. Though you couldn’t articulate why, exactly.

The other reason she and Heidi never did anything outside of school was that she didn’t know how to initiate such a thing. It never occurred to her to ask for Heidi’s phone number. What would she do with it? Neither she nor Heidi were ever invited anywhere on Friday nights, so it’s not like they could go to parties together. Neither of them liked shopping; they didn’t want to hang out at the mall on Saturdays. Besides, she was saving her money for university. She didn’t need any help with her homework. Practicing the piano wasn’t something you needed a friend for. She supposed they could watch tv together, but what would be the point of that? And Heidi didn’t seem to be the type to want to discuss things; she was into maths and sciences.

What else did one do with one’s friends? She honestly didn’t know.

She still doesn’t, really.

But mostly, it just didn’t occur to her to initiate anything with Heidi outside of school. That would have required an act of imagination. Not just imitation.

Because she didn’t recall her parents ever going out with friends or having people over to the house. Or her sister. She didn’t know how her brother managed it. And she certainly couldn’t ask him.

All of which meant that she never had the opportunity to learn the norms of social interaction that would make such things easy.

Years later, when she moved, and some guys helped her unload, she didn’t realize that she should have said thank you not just with words, but with a case of beer. She didn’t drink beer. She’d never bought a case of beer in her life. She wouldn’t even know how. So it just didn’t occur to her. The men thought she was ungrateful.

And when, once, she was invited to someone’s house for dinner, she had no idea she should have taken a bottle of wine.

• • •

It was still raining, so she decided to go for a walk in the rain. In the forest. It would be lovely.

She took off her glasses off and put in her contacts. They were old, prescription-wise, but they’d do. Actually, she’d see better in the rain with them than with her glasses streaming wet.

Back in grade seven, when she’d first put on her brand new glasses, she was amazed. She could see all the individual leaves on the trees. Before that, trees were just clumps of green fuzz.

But what really stopped her was what happened when she went to the tuck shop after lunch. For the first time, she could see the individual chocolate bars on display behind the counter. That’s how everyone else always knew exactly what to ask for!

Years later, she realized that because of her myopia, she’d developed a habit of not looking very far around her. Why would she, since it was all out of focus? She’d developed a sort of tunnel vision, which would persist well into her forties.

In class, she saw the student sitting in front of her and the ones on either side of her, but that was it. She didn’t see anyone else. (She wasn’t supposed to turn around, so she didn’t.) So her friends were, or were not, those three girls. If they were boys, she was out of luck.

When she played the piano at recitals, she literally did not see beyond the edge of the piano. Surely that had exacerbated her performance anxiety.

When she entered a strange building, she never took in much beyond ten yards. No wonder she got lost so often. No wonder new places were intimidating.

The physical reality became a social habit. She simply didn’t consider what she couldn’t see.

And it became a hopeless circle. She remained intensely shy, unable to socialize, because she couldn’t ‘see’ others—and she couldn’t ‘see’ others because she remained intensely shy, unable to socialize.

And no wonder she never saw the big picture. She would never develop control over the big picture of her life.

• • •

When she got back—and it had indeed been lovely, walking along the logging road, forest on either side, inhaling the damp and stretching out her hands to the dripping—she brought in some kindling and chunks of wood from the adjoining lean-to, made a fire, then curled up on the couch again, which yes, provided a fine view of the fire. She stared at it for a while. The flames didn’t sparkle, but there was something similarly mesmerizing, similarly beautiful …

One day, out of the blue, Rick Bruendel, a boy who had been in the same grade at St. Louis, and then a grade behind her at St. David’s, called her for a blind date. For his brother Arnold. He was going to be honoured at some banquet and would she like to be his date? She was flattered. Pathetic as that was.

Such a neat trick, she thought, gazing into the fire. Make all women feel inferior to all men, and any woman will feel honoured to be chosen—by any man. For anything.

She was also excited. A boy had called her for a date! Her first date! She was sixteen. It didn’t matter that she had never talked to Rick. All she knew, really, was that he had several brothers. About six of them. Arnold was the oldest, she thought.

Her parents thought it would be okay. Her father vaguely knew of the Bruendel boys; they all worked at their father’s plumbing shop.

Several of them arrived in a car to pick her up, and they drove in silence to a rented hall somewhere.

After they checked their coats, Arnold took her arm and walked into the banquet room with her at his side. He pulled out a chair for her, she sat down, and—that was the end of it. No one talked to her. For most of the night, they were off talking among themselves. And she was too shy, too confused, to initiate a conversation. Besides, her mother had warned her not to let her intelligence show. As if it were some unwritten rule for dating.

If men are so superior, why are their egos so fragile?

And what about your fucking ego?

So she just sat there. Ignored. All night.

No, that’s not quite true, she remembered now. They did dance, once. Arnold took her hand, led her to the middle of the room, then turned her around and around while he pumped her arm up and down until the song ended. Then they sat back down.

She supposed she should smile. But she couldn’t figure out at what. So she didn’t.

She supposed she should be grateful. To have been asked to be his date. Sad thing was, she was.

You wouldn’t think it possible for someone so shy feel any more awkward. No wonder she didn’t ever again want to go to dinners, or dances, or parties, or any so-called social events. They just shone a spotlight on her social ineptitude.

Not once did he really acknowledge her. It was like he didn’t even consider her a person. He didn’t care what she thought. About anything. She was just this … thing. A body to fill the space beside him.

And despite her intelligence, it would take her several decades to realize—no, to accept—that that’s how it was. How it always had been. And how it always would be.

At the end of the night, the boys pulled up in front of her house again and sat in silence while she opened the car door and got out. And then they drove away.

Years later, she realized they must have chosen her in some way. Chosen the girl least likely to say no, the one most desperate. She was humiliated. Years later.

The upside to social cluelessness.

Why didn’t her parents say anything? Why didn’t they stop her? Tell her that he just wanted to use her. That he wasn’t interested in her at all. Were they as clueless?

Or did they think it was all very … appropriate?

That would be her only date during all of high school.

And yet of course she wanted a boyfriend. How could she not when every song every single song on the radio glorified having a boyfriend. Apparently, it was the best. And essential.

She never really understood why no one ever asked her out. She was attractive enough. And she was smart, she was artistic, she was athletic—

And all of that was why.

There were several boys she liked. At least, she liked the way they looked. She didn’t know anything about them. She didn’t know them. She never spoke to them. You just didn’t.

Or at least she didn’t. She couldn’t just go up to a boy and start a conversation. She couldn’t even do that to a girl. It’s a wonder she had any friends at all. If the teachers had never put them in groups for various projects, she probably wouldn’t’ve.

Boys were … out of bounds. Her brother never talked to her. Nor she to him. Her father never talked to her. Nor she to him. Boys hung out with other boys, girls hung out with other girls. In the cafeteria, boys sat on one side, girls sat on the other.

Who needs the Jewish mechitza? Or the Islamic rule about walking ten paces behind?

Unless of course you were married. Then that woman and that man could talk to each other. But the woman couldn’t really talk to another man, unless her husband was present, nor could the man talk to another woman, unless his wife was present. It had to be the one couple talking to the other couple. Even then, the man generally directed his comments to the other man. Ditto, the women. That’s how it was. How it is.

So she never spoke to the boys she longed for from afar.

And she didn’t know how to show her interest without coming right out and saying—what? I like you? I’d like to get to know you? I’d like to become friends with you?

She certainly didn’t flirt. Only bad girls flirted. That was teasing. In any case, flirting required talking to them. Or glances of a certain kind. Which she knew nothing about.

So instead she pined from a distance for boys who never even knew her name.

So why would any boy ask her out on a date?

Years later, she realized that most girls got asked out on a date after several group dates, occasions on which a bunch of girls and a bunch of boys hung out together. On these occasions, one particular boy might spend a bit more time with one particular girl, so after a few weeks, or months, it would be no big deal for that boy to call that girl. And ask her out on a just-the-two-of-them date. So she had been at a disadvantage, not being part of a group of girls that hung out with groups of boys.

Of course another way a boy and girl might end up dating is if they met at a party. Sort of the like the group date thing. But she was never invited to any parties. How would that have happened? She didn’t know.

Not every girl gets asked to the prom.

The fire had burned down to embers, so she put in another couple chunks of wood. And made a note to herself to see if the hardware store had those packets that, when you tossed them onto a fire, made the flames multi-coloured. She’d have to drive into town at some point anyway, for another pizza and more half-and-half.

The typing and filing job at the insurance office where her mom worked was her first job. She was sixteen, it was an after-school part-time job, and although it paid only minimum wage, because of it, she was able to pay for her piano lessons and music books (which her parents had stopped paying for once she had a job), her dance lessons, her school books (in grade thirteen, they had to buy their own books), her track shoes, a pair of jeans, and a few shirts; she put the rest aside for first year tuition, hoping she’d have enough in two years.

But she hated it. Specifically, she hated the people. With their small little lives, the women talking on and on in the cramped little lunch room about dieting, everyone all excited when it was Friday, then all subdued come Monday, and endlessly anxious every day in between about whether the renewal policies would get out in time …

The actual typing and filing, she didn’t mind. She was quick and efficient. And it was certainly better than being a waitress or working in a factory. The ability, let alone the desire, to wait on people with a smile was notan innate female characteristic, and the noise and fumes, not to mention the relentless repetition, of factory work would have made her ill.

She actually liked the attention to detail that her office duties required. Typing was a little like playing the piano. And filing was organization embodied.

But it was a mistake. Perhaps the first of a life full of You-can’t-get-there-from-heres. She should’ve been an intern at Ms. Not a file clerk. But of course that wasn’t an option in Waterloo. Or if it was, she certainly didn’t know about it.

At the very least, she should’ve been a file clerk at a law office, not an insurance office.

But she was so grateful for what she got, she never thought to ask for more. Or different.

That was the way of her life.

The winter her brother went to Daytona Beach with his friends—

It was her father’s “contribution” to his education, giving him the money for a little fun since he was working so hard.

He offered no similar contribution to her education.

Instead, once, during midterms, he helped her with the dishes.

She asked him, much later, why he didn’t give her money for a similar bit of fun, because she too was working hard, but he just shrugged.

So she offered an explanation, her take on the matter, an exposé of his unexamined sexism, perhaps inherited from his own father, and was shocked by the vehemence of his response. “Oh now you’re going to psychoanalyze me?!” he’d all but shouted at her.

Well someone had to.

Because you sure as hell didn’t.

It wouldn’t be her last encounter with the male refusal to develop any kind of self-knowledge.

The winter her brother went to Daytona, she took over his snow shovelling job. Without fail, everyone who saw her expressed surprise. By that time, she was doing one or two gruelling track work-outs a day, weight-lifting three times a week, and coaching gymnastics on Saturday mornings. But she couldn’t lift a shovel full of snow? How insulting.

But what really made her angry was the discovery that he made twice as much shovelling snow as she did typing and filing.

“Well, it’s outdoors. It’s cold.”

“So?”

She wanted to point out that at the office, the windows didn’t open, so there was no fresh air. In the filing room, there weren’t even windows. So you couldn’t even see the outside.

But there was no point. She understood, on some unconscious level, that being outdoors in the cold wasn’t the real reason for the higher pay.

And yet, her parents provided interest-free loans to him for his tuition year after year.

No such provisions were made to her.

To whom much is given, more is given.

There were so many more women than men in the office: Carolyn was on switchboard; Irene and another half dozen were the typing pool; Deb and Jennifer were in Accounts; Ruth was in Claims; her mother and Arlene were secretaries for Mr. Riley, the vice-president; Eileen and Georgette were secretaries for Mr. Peterson, the president. And yet the men ruled the place. Mr. Peterson, Mr. Riley, Mr. Eddy, who was Head of Claims, and all of the agents, who were all men, worked on the second floor. The women, all on the first floor, lived to please them.

Her father also worked at an insurance company. He was an accountant—

No, she realized just now, that can’t have been right. That was probably just more of his ‘loose talk’, his lies. An accountant? With just a grade twelve education? And the stress he’d experience every year when he did the family income tax? She’d see the damp stains spreading under his arms … He was probably just one of the company’s adding machine operators.

But her aunt—the summer she worked with her aunt, a whole new world opened up for her. It was the summer just before she started university. Her aunt was a manager at a small television station, and would she like a job as her personal assistant that summer? Would she?!

Over the course of the summer, she got to see how things were run. She went with her aunt to meetings with the City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, and the Lions Club. She sat in on production meetings and helped schedule the various work streams so everything was coordinated. And saw, in the process, a number of jobs that were far more attractive than typing and filing. She was even allowed in the booth during a taping to watch the director direct the show.

Most important, she saw that anyone could get a tv show. People could come in with just an idea. No experience or anything. She listened to them pitch their idea, often badly, she thought, but then her aunt and various other people on the staff would work with them to develop the show, provide the graphics, and make it happen.

Which meant that later, once she’d graduated, she would pitch a show and—

Her aunt worked at the meat factory. On an assembly line. Stuffing wieners.

6

Next day, Tuesday, it was quiet again. All the people who had been up for the long weekend had gone home. It was also sunny again, so she took the next journal, and another excellent cup of tea, down to the water again. Before opening it, she just sat for a while looking out at the twinkling water, sipping her tea, contentment suffusing through her.

Eventually, she turned to the first page.

She’d agonized over what to take at university. Philosophy, certainly, and since she wanted to be a writer, English. That would also enable her to become a high school English teacher, part-time, so she could write. Teaching was the only job she knew that would pay enough part-time.

But she also wanted to change the world and had this idea not only that teachers were agents of social change, but that philosophy should be a high school course. (She had no idea that it already was in some countries.) She wanted to make that happen, somehow. If only people would think, she thought, the world would be a better place. Her writing too was intended to make a difference.

An A+ male student probably would have been told he was throwing his life away if he decided to become a high school teacher. But in her case, everyone seemed to approve.

She was also interested in Psychology. And of course Music. She’d also considered Social Work, Dance, and Kinesiology. Eventually she decided on a double major in Honours Philosophy and English Lit, with a minor in Psychology. She could continue her music and dance studies privately. Teaching would be her social work. And she’d keep running in any case. That way she could have it all.

She couldn’t wait.

Of course her mother disapproved. Philosophy wasn’t practical.

She loved books so much, she should become a librarian, her mother had said. But the very idea appalled her. Librarians were so prim and proper. That wasn’t her at all! Didn’t her mother see that? No. Like so many parents, she wanted to make her daughter in her own image.

The hubris.

Fortunately her high school guidance counsellor had a different opinion. “The University of Toronto has a good philosophy program,” she said, “and with marks in the 90s, you’re sure to get a scholarship. Actually …,” she looked at her file, “with an average of 93% … and your sports activities … and oh my, you’re president of Charitas, member of the Writer’s Club—” She looked up at her, smiling. “Let me make some inquiries. You’ll have to take the SAT,” she continued, thinking out loud, “but that shouldn’t be a problem … How would you like to go to Harvard? They’ll love you.”

She practically bounced down the hall, repeating to herself what the counsellor had said. “They’ll love you.” Harvard would love her! Harvard!

Everything changed when she went to Harvard. She met people as excited by the intellectual as she was. And as creative. It seemed everyone in her class at Harvard was a musician or an athlete. Or a chess champion or—

They got it. They got her.

She could learn from them. She could learn so much from them.

Everything could’ve changed.

Because what the counsellor actually said was “Philosophy is very difficult. “ To the girl who’d gotten the highest marks in the school. Student body of 1,500.

She wondered, of course, if Mrs. Ellison would’ve said that if she’d been the boy with the highest marks.

Yes, they had separate categories.

She supposed that answered her question.

It also explained why fraternities at Harvard might, like those at Yale, chant “No means yes! Yes means anal!”

So, she realized, with a deep sigh, staring out at the water, nothing would’ve changed if she’d gone to Harvard.

Quite apart from the fact that Harvard makes politicians. Oxford makes philosophers.

And the fact that Harvard didn’t become officially integrated until 1977, two years later.

She went to Wilfrid Laurier University. It was in her home town, which meant she wouldn’t have to work another twenty hours a week to pay for rent and food; she could continue to live at home—her parents had said that she didn’t have to pay room and board as long as she was going to school. She was grateful.

She didn’t realize, of course, that many parents paid for their kid’s room and board, for a dorm room, at a university away. As well as for their tuition and books.

She also chose WLU because her brother went there. And that was comforting.

God knows why. Given his total lack of acknowledgement of your existence.

And she chose WLU because UW, the other university in town, was much larger and therefore more intimidating. She had barely made it through her first day at the high school, she was so spatially-challenged, so easily disoriented. Years later, she realized that this was not only because of her tunnel vision, but also, perhaps even mostly, because she had never seen, had never been shown, a map of the school’s layout. She’d never seen, had never been shown, a map of the city either. In fact, she didn’t even know they existed. She’d seen only a highway map. It was in the glove compartment of the car. And only her father and brother were allowed to consult it.

Surely a metaphor.

Even so. She was thrilled to be going. To university! The ultimate intellectual institution! The place where people with fine minds hung out! People who were interested in ideas! There would be late night discussions about meaningful things—

Or not. No one in her classes seemed on fire for philosophy the way she was. Perhaps they were mostly General students. She didn’t know. (The university was too small to have separate classes for its three-year General and four-year Honours programs.) She did know that once again she was not in the company of her peers.

She also knew that she was the only woman in the Philosophy program, Honours and General. Not only in her own year, but in the years immediately before and after her. For the entire four years, in all of her Philosophy classes, she saw only one other woman, Maureen, a general arts student who took Existentialism as an elective one year.

Certainly none of her Philosophy professors were women.

And, actually, now that she thought back, only one of her English professors was a woman.

Even so, her reading list was fascinating.

Though even there, she eventually realized—so few, so very few, of the authors were women.

But the library was huge! Three whole floors! She could spend days in it, wandering up and down the stacks. On several occasions, she did just that, simply pulling books out at random, amazed at what there was in the world.

There were bulletin boards full of notices about guest speakers, events, all sorts of things. She went to as many as she could.

The university had a well-developed music program, so there were weekly concerts, which she also went to. She’d never gone to a concert before. She’d never heard a live violin before. Or a cello …

She also went to her first dance performance. Her first theatre performance.

It was all so exciting! Her cup runneth over.

Shortly after the year began, the Philosophy Department had an informal gathering to welcome the new students. When she walked through the door of the two-storey brick house on a side street near the university, in which the Philosophy Department had its offices, she was bubbling with anticipation. People stood in small clusters talking, surely about intriguing philosophical problems. She approached one group, and the conversation stopped.

“Hi,” she said to the group. “I’m Kris. First year.”

A few of the men in the group mumbled their names. After a long awkward moment, she moved away from the group. And then heard the conversation resume.

She approached another group, this one containing one of her professors.

“You’re forgetting that the correspondence theory isn’t the only approach,” someone said. “And given our inability to apprehend the nature of reality, my vote goes to the coherence theory.”

They were talking about theories of truth. It was what Professor Mauritz had talked about that day in class.

“But the coherence theory is like a house of cards,” she offered to the group. “Something might fit with all the rest, but what if all the rest is false?”

There was a silence. Surely they understood what she’d said. She looked from one to the other. Their faces were blank. What social gaffe had she committed, she wondered.

Dr. Mauritz spoke then. “Welcome, to our group. Kris, isn’t it?” He leaned in to look at her name tag. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said politely, as he reached around to the table and handed her one of several waiting glasses.

“I mean, if the rest is false—” she tried to resume the conversation.

“So, Kris, tell us a little about yourself,” Dr. Mauritz smiled.

She received As on her papers, of course, but her brother mocked her achievement. Philosophy was useless, a bird course. Anyone could get As in Philosophy.

But she knew that wasn’t true. Philosophy wasn’t easier than Business; it was harder. Much harder. But what could she say in her defence? She didn’t have the stats to support her belief.

Not that that would have mattered.

Years later, she would read that Philosophy students obtained the highest GRE scores. They were most able to handle abstract reasoning, most competent at the higher cognitive levels.

The Honours English program required that she take a foreign language, and since she’d taken French in high school, every year, she thought she’d take Latin instead (the only other option). Unfortunately it was offered at the same time as the first year Honours English course, ENG190. But the Dean, who was her advisor, said that that was no problem; she could take the General English course, ENG220, in her first year, then just continue on in the Honours stream in her second year.

When Dr. O’Reilly, the ENG220 prof, kindly took her aside near the end of the year to tell her that he thought she could handle Honours English, she should be going for an Honours degree, she was surprised. She told him she was. She was in Honours English. Of course she was an Honours student!

It was a small university. She had assumed the Dean would have sent some sort of letter informing her professors that even though she was in ENG220, she was an Honours student. Or that there would be some sort of list of incoming Honours English students, and she would be on it.

Apparently he didn’t. And there wasn’t.

So for four years, she was regarded by all of her professors as a General student who had stepped up into the Honours program. So of course they didn’t expect her to get any A+s. A-s maybe. Perhaps the occasional, startling, A.

And we all know what Rosenthal and Jacobson demonstrated about teachers’ expectations.

Also consequently, by the time she got into the Honours class, in her second year, she was an outsider. All of the students knew each other from having been together the year before.

So no wonder she sat at the back of the class. Unfortunately, it became a habit.

On top of which, she never felt confident enough to sit in the middle. And she certainly didn’t feel like she deserved to sit at the front of the class.

In her fourth year, someone remarked about it, remembering one of the third year classes they’d both been in. “You always looked like you were just visiting, like you didn’t really belong.”

That’s it exactly. She hadn’t really belonged since grade five.

And so why would any of them engage with her? If she was just visiting …

But she made friends with Jen, one of the students in ENG220. She and Jen probably didn’t have a lot in common, but their personalities meshed, and they got along well enough to go dancing at Jokers on an occasional Saturday night, and once a week they’d go up to the Student Union to shoot pool. Where the guys didn’t know whether to hit on them or resent their presence. Mostly they did the latter, it turned out.

Hit on them. What a telling phrase.

They also played squash once a week. She liked playing squash with Jen. There was lots of hitting the ball, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes running for it, sometimes not. It was fun. So years later, when Craig asked her if she wanted to play, she said yes. But he constantly hit the ball into the most awkward, impossible places for her to get to. Whenever she hit the ball, she carefully made sure he could hit it back. When she finally realized that he was doing what he was doing on purpose, her appraisal of him went from incompetent to inconsiderate. And she was angry. She’d thought that if you lose, you should lose because you’re not as good, because your hand-eye coordination isn’t as precise, because you’re not as strong, because you’re not as fast. Not because the other person intentionally made it difficult for you to be good. Competition for her was simple comparison. Not strategic sabotage.

Was this another gender difference?

Duh.

So even when women do compete, they don’t stand a chance. Not against men who’d been doing it, and doing it that way, since birth.

Some time later, when Jen tried to set her up with Carl, one of her boyfriend’s friends, both of whom were in Business, she suddenly realized—well no, she’d realized it before, but she hadn’t fully understood the implications: WLU specialized in Business. Which meant it couldn’t’ve been a worse choice for her.

But UW was her only other option, and it specialized in Engineering.

She should have gone to the University of Toronto. Why didn’t anyone, especially one of her English teachers, insist she at least apply to the University of Toronto? She might have gotten a scholarship, one that might have covered the additional expenses.

But no, if going to UW would have been intimidating, going to UT would have been out of the question. She’d been to Toronto only twice, when her family went to Square One for a day of shopping. They’d acted like it was a trip to the moon, instead of just an hour and a half’s drive.

And she must have thought—yes, she knew she did—that it didn’t really matter. Wouldn’t she get a good education regardless? Didn’t that depend on the course material and the professors? And wouldn’t the course material be pretty standard and couldn’t excellent professors be anywhere?

She didn’t even consider status. She didn’t consider whether going to WLU would put her one up or one down. She didn’t know that which university you went to could do that.

After marking her spot in the journal, she closed it. Then carried it and her empty cup back up to the cottage. She filled an empty water bottle with juice, poured some trail mix into a little plastic bag, and went out onto the lake. And thought about nothing for two hours, lulled by the rhythmic sound of her paddle in the water, the sparkles on the water, the breeze rustling through the stiff weeds …

• • •

She returned in time to watch the light sweep slowly across the cove, then had a bite to eat, then decided to finish the journal before heading out again for the sunset.

Part way through her first year, still searching for, still hoping to find, kin among the slush of Business students, she’d thought that maybe all those exciting all-night discussions happened in the dorms. Which she couldn’t afford.

Or maybe they happened in the cafeteria. But since she couldn’t afford lunch in a cafeteria, she never went there. She didn’t even actually know how to get food, or a drink, in the cafeteria. All through high school, she’d brought her lunch to school. She didn’t know that you went to one end, got a tray, and cutlery, then walked along and either asked for what you wanted, or helped yourself, and then paid at the other end. She’d never actually watched how people did it. They were always too far away to be in her myopic field of vision.

‘Going to the pub for a beer’ was similarly unknown to her. Since she couldn’t afford beer, and in any case didn’t like it, she’d never gone. And she did know it would be weird if she just walked in and sat down at a table by herself.

Besides which, she didn’t have time to go to the cafeteria or the pub after class. As soon as she’d obtained her grade eight piano, at sixteen, she’d started giving piano lessons. She liked it. At least she thought she did. By the time she started university, she had a roster of about fifteen music students, in addition to her three hours of practice a day. She also taught some dance classes at the studio where she was herself taking lessons, and she coached gymnastics Saturday mornings. And the local Parks and Rec ran several youth drop-in centers during the summer, full-time, and again during the year, on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. She’d been hired as a leader for the summer, then, much to her pleasure, been kept on during the school year.

So her daily schedule was something more or less like this:

7:00 get up

7:30 bike to … (or, in winter, run to …)

8:00 piano lesson

8:30 bike/run to the university, shower, and change

9:00 History of the Novel class

10:00 Milton class

11:00 library to work on term papers

1:00 Ethics class

2:00 bike/run to…

2:30 dance lesson

3:15 Jazz I class

4:00 Jazz II class

4:45 bike/run home

5:00 piano lesson – Andrew

5:30 piano lesson – Laura

6:00 practice (piano)

6:30 bike/run to …

7:00 drop-in

9:00 bike/run home

9:30 practice (piano)

11:00 course reading, term papers, etc

3:00 sleep

There were never enough hours in a day. Then.

Now, well, now there were too many. Not right now, not here, she smiled, watching the fluorescent green make its way across the cove, but back—no, it wasn’t home—her room above the hairdresser’s beside the railway tracks wasn’t home, wasn’t—

It was hard, those years at university, with that schedule, every day—but she loved it. All of it.

Perhaps the drop-in job most of all. The program had access to a large room and the gym at the rec center, so she spent the time playing ping pong with the guys, or basketball, or just sitting around, talking, just hanging out.

She’d never ‘hung out’ before.

Her mother didn’t approve, of course. She didn’t like her associating with ‘kids like that’. She especially didn’t approve when, a couple years later, she became a volunteer probation officer.

And yet when her brother became a Big Brother, he was commended.

Of course he was.

But, she realized, just as the cove lost the last of its light, if she’d had a family, or a friend, who did listen, understand, support, encourage what she did, what she was, she never would’ve become a writer. The need to express, to let it out, to get it out, to work through it all—that would have been satisfied with conversation.

Part way through that first year, she had discovered that there was a Philosophy Club—there’s where she could have late night discussions about meaningful things! But she had been disappointed to find, once again, just a few guys in the room. They became silent when she entered. And remained silent until she left.

So she had discussions with herself, inside her head, non-stop, developing a sort of alterego. Alongside the notes she took in class, she scribbled reactions, responses, to Plato, Bentham, Kant, beginnings, middles, and ends of poems and stories, what would Milton’s daughters think of that arrangement, ideas for essays, what did it really mean to have ‘power over’, ideas for books even, was free will a matter of degree, lines of melody to be developed at some later time, ideas for new pieces, a setting of Keats’ Ode to Psyche—all of it was crammed into the margins in writing so small it was barely legible, but one idea led to another and another and the available space kept getting smaller and smaller—

Confined to the margins. Marginalized.

And every night she would transfer the bits and pieces into her journal every night. The very one she had in her hands.

She turned the page and saw another finished, neatly typed poem from that time.

(for my brother)

I

with a grunt of irritation

you condescend to be interrupted

and move your chair back a bit

so i can crawl

under your desk

(the one dad built special for you

now that you’re at university)

so i can dust the baseboards

as is my job

(i’ve already done the rest of your room)

i’m quiet

careful not to disturb

because it’s hard stuff, important stuff

you’re doing

(i’m still only in high school

but you’re at university now

it must be harder

you’re getting only 60s)

i turn around in the cramped space

on my hands and knees

and see your feet

i think about washing them

i think about binding them

II

the guidance counsellor pauses

then discourages

“philosophy’s a very difficult field”

and i thought

(no, not then, later)

i thought, she’s telling the kid

who has the top marks in the school

it’s too difficult?

III

it’s true

i just find it easier

besides, compared to business

philosophy is such a bird course

no, that’s a lie:

i’m smarter

and i work harder—

while you’re out with your friends

friday nights

i’m at work

because my summer job didn’t pay enough

to cover the whole year

and while you’re watching tv

i’m at work

(at ten o’clock

after six hours of lectures

and just as many of typing and filing)

i move the set

so i can crawl

into the corner

to dust the baseboards

you lean and yell in irritation

because i’m in your way

because i’m in your way

7

It was another beautiful, beautiful day. The sun sparkling on the water, the gentle breeze, the quiet—she simply did not tire of it …

Just before her second year began, and quite unexpectedly, Craig contacted her. They’d been in a few classes together, and he’d also been on the Reach for the Top team, so they’d seen each other at a few practices and when they had competitions. She sort of liked the way he looked. His perpetually raised eyebrow indicated a certain inquisitiveness, an intelligence …

Jen saw a picture of Craig today. “His eyes” was all she said. Yes.

Her mother had said, seeing only his acne, “I wouldn’t want to kiss a face like that.”

He told her that he was going out west to attend UBC, in order to avoid having to take grade thirteen, which he thought would be a complete waste of time for him, and did she want to keep in touch? He said she inspired him to be better. To not be a screw up.

That should have been your first clue, she told herself.

Your second. The arrogance of assuming grade thirteen would have been a complete waste of time should have been your first.

She was flattered. And delighted. He was going to get a degree in Psychology, he’d told her, intending eventually a Ph.D. And he was a photographer. An intellect and an artist! Just like her!

She agreed to write. He wasn’t exactly her boyfriend, they’d never actually gone out, but … Within just a few months, their two-page letters became five-page letters.

Although she continued to make a point of going to all the university-sponsored parties—they were the only ones she was invited to—if you can call a notice in the student paper an invitation—she continued to find it difficult to just walk up to a group of people and join in their conversation. The few times she mustered the courage to do so, they nodded politely, then ignored her. She didn’t know what she was doing wrong. She didn’t know how you were supposed to act in such situations.

Well, first of all, you weren’t supposed to be by yourself, remember?

She’d never been invited to a ‘real’ party. The only such party she’d ever gone to was her own birthday party, that her mom had for her when she was eight. They played musical chairs and pin the tail on the donkey. Then they had cake, all of them sitting at a table in the rec room in the basement. Danny Snoeder was there. And Davey Krebel. And Susie Dewinge. Her mother had invited everyone in her grade three class.

Otherwise, the only parties she’d ever gone to were the family Christmas parties, which were always fake with relatives she hadn’t seen since the previous Christmas, didn’t know, and, given what she saw at the annual get-together, had no interest in knowing. She hated going to these parties. But her mother insisted. She would’ve been so hurt her if she’d refused.

Every year, she felt nothing but uncomfortable. She didn’t know how she was supposed to act, what she was supposed to do. The one time she actually enjoyed herself, she was dancing like crazy in the corner to a song that had come on that she really really liked, and her mother had told her to stop because she was showing off. She was deeply embarrassed and felt like she should go around and apologize to everyone.

For what, having fun?

She stared out at the water. How her mother had crippled her!

we move

with

wooden

spasms

marionettes

with

umbilical

strings

She came to believe that the parties she saw in beer commercials weren’t real. People at parties, having fun, talking and laughing, that was a lie. A fantasy. Life wasn’t ever like that.

And then she discovered that it was. There were parties like that. She just never got invited to them. A single girl, a girl alone, just somehow wasn’t invited. Unless someone was specifically interested in her. A couple girls, or a small group, yes, but not just the one.

And then Dennis invited her to a party. Dennis! She’d met him at the small ceremony welcoming all the first year students who had received scholarships. So that meant he was smart. And he was friendly. To her.

That’s all it took to sweep her off her feet.

She didn’t realize he was friendly to everyone.

Whenever she happened to see him in the halls of the main lecture building, she tried to convey her eagerness to stop and chat. But he just smiled at her in recognition and kept on walking.

Then one day, he said “Hi.” She made note of it in her journal.

She wrote down every little thing any guy said to her. Any attention whatsoever.

Jack said “looking good” as I lapped the track today.

Eric Preston asked me to sit beside him today in class.

She looked up across the water, appalled to remember how important they were to her. Men.

Then another time when Dennis saw her in the hall, he again said “Hi” and did stop to chat. He casually mentioned that a bunch of guys were having a party the next night, she should come by. He gave her the address.

Yes! Her first party! Her first party at university! See, it washappening!

She spent the next day in joyful anticipation. She washed her hair that afternoon, then put on her best jeans, a nice shirt, even a bracelet.

When she got to the house, it was dark. There was no party going on.

Puzzled, she walked around the entire house, trying to find a back door or something. But no. Had she gotten the night wrong? Impossible. He’d said “tomorrow night”. Had she gotten the address wrong? No. She’d written it down.

She felt stood up. By an entire party.

Two days later, when she saw him in the hall, there was no indication that something had gone amiss. When she said, as casually as possible, “So I came by the house Saturday night, you’d said there was a party—” he sort of stared at her then said, just as casually, “Oh yeah, we had to change the location.”

He’d forgotten he’d asked her.

So she decided to have her own party. If you want to meet people and have fun at parties, she thought, then just do it. Make it happen. She announced in her philosophy class that she was having a party at her place, and everyone was invited.

Why in the world did she think anyone would come? No one ever even talked to her. But it wasn’t that they didn’t like her, she thought, it was just that they didn’t know her. And how do people get to know each other? You meet at a party, you talk to each other.

Maureen came to her party. And the professor came, but he left after an embarrassing five minutes of sitting with the two of them in her parent’s basement, painfully hopeful music playing, a bowl of chips on the table, and a neat arrangement of empty glasses beside two large bottles of pop.

No one else came.

Her letters to Craig became ten pages.

“I need a harbour for my soul.” Yes, that’s it exactly.

At some point, unbeknownst to her, the word ‘party’ changed meaning. In her late twenties, she’d gone to a bar to pick up a man. Did she do this a lot? Not a lot, no. Just whenever she was really distracted—a few days once a month. She’d tried do-it-yourself, but it didn’t satisfy. Having sex with men she just met didn’t satisfy either (but then, she’d never had an orgasm with Craig either) (who made her feel like that was her fault) (and she accepted that because she had been unable to make herself come—how could she expect him to do it when she couldn’t even do it herself?), but she kept telling herself the next one would be better. (Turns out most men aren’t very good at it.)

Surprise.

Her sex education had consisted of a little turquoise booklet called Mother’s Little Helper published by the Catholic Church. Each chapter wasn’t to be read until you hit a certain age. She actually adhered to that until, at sixteen, she carried on and read the chapter for eighteen-year-olds. It wasn’t educational in the least. It just told her that soon she’d be embarking on a wonderful journey, getting married and becoming a loving wife and mother …

And the only thing her mother ever told her was “It hurt.”

She’d gone to a bar and and a few guys asked if she wanted to go party. Of course she said yes. Here was her chance! Her second chance! Maybe she’d meet some interesting people. Women, men, whatever!

So they all got into the one guy’s car, and half an hour later it was parked in the middle of a scrubby patch of bush. The three of them looked at her expectantly. Oh. This was their party.

Or maybe ‘party’ had always meant ‘sex’—to men.

You’d think she would’ve stopped picking up men at bars after that. (Apparently they talked about it the next day; they couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t freaked out.) (It was simple really. None of them had a weapon, and she knew that she could open the car door and just take off. She was absolutely certain she could outrun them. None of them was in the least an athlete, and she was, at that time, still running five miles a day. So she’d just told them no, repeatedly, while they kept up their bravado, their insults, their mockery, their threats, then finally she said something like ‘Look, this is boring. If you’re going to rape me, go ahead and try, but know it will be rape, I’m not consenting, and I’ll press charges. Otherwise, drive me back to my car.’)

But no, she didn’t stop until something else happened. One night she picked up a guy—they danced a bit, chatted a bit, then went to her place. Later, when she offered to drive him home, she discovered that he lived in a group home. For the developmentally delayed.

She hadn’t realized. Because he was no worse, emotionally speaking, cognitively speaking, than all the other guys she’d ever picked up.

So, men in general— Instances of arrested development, every one of them.

She often saw Dennis at the pub that year—part way through the year, she’d started tagging along with Jen and her boyfriend—and one night she finally got up the nerve to ask him to dance. He smiled and led her to the floor. It was the last song of the night. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Perfect. All those months, waiting. And now. It was happening. She was dancing, to “Stairway to Heaven,” with Dennis! The song ended, he went back to his buddies at his table, and—

It suddenly felt like a pity dance.

Two whole years, she’d waited and hoped.

What a waste.

She finds it hard to believe, now, that she was so infatuated, so obsessed, with meeting someone, finding someone—but she knows that she was. Wasn’t everyone?

She put the journal down, went back up to the cottage to make another cup of tea, then returned to her reading.

All through first year, she’d wanted to join the track team, but there was no women’s track team. At the beginning of second year, it occurred to her that maybe she could join the men’s team. So she went to the coach and asked him—would he be her coach? He told her to come out that afternoon, watched her run, and said yes.

Ten years after Switzer had had to do the same thing.

So in addition to the work-outs with the team four times a week, she started going to the weight room twice a week, just as she had with Heidi back at high school. (The high school weight room was a converted classroom and clearly intended for the boys, but they went anyway.)

Her mother disapproved. Girls weren’t supposed to develop muscles. They weren’t supposed to sweat.

She was always the only woman there. Some of the guys nodded a ‘Hi’, but they never included her in their banter.

Imagine everything you do, everywhere you go, you’re not supposed to.

Or at least not expected to.

She continued to work at her various jobs, despite her mother’s criticism that she should make up her mind about what she wanted to do. But it wasn’t that she didn’t know what she wanted to do. It was that she wanted to do it all. She loved it all.

She charged two dollars per piano lesson and was paid about five dollars per dance class, ten dollars for Saturday morning’s gymnastics coaching, and minimum wage for drop-in. It worked out to around seventy-five dollars a week, for around twenty hours. During the summer, when drop-in went full-time, it worked out to about two thousand.

Her brother made four thousand. Working for a landscaping firm. Cutting grass.

Which meant that people (boys) got paid more to look after lawns than people (girls) got paid to look after kids.

So her brother’s summer jobs always paid enough for the following year’s university tuition and books, whereas hers never did. Which is why she had to work during the school year as well.

It also meant that although she could pay the cover charge to get into the clubs—often after a meet, the team would go somewhere—she couldn’t afford the drinks. So she drank water. And when everyone went out for pizza after, she said she had to get home to work on something or other.

She certainly couldn’t afford to go to Daytona Beach for Spring Break.

And she couldn’t afford to buy a car. But she managed, over the course of two summers and the year in between, to save enough for a motorcycle. A second-hand Honda 350. Red.

Of course, her mother disapproved.

And, apparently, many people were surprised. Kris? A motorcycle?

But it felt so natural, so normal to her. She didn’t feel at all as if she’d changed. Despite her social ineptitude, she’d always felt strong and capable. And despite her … demeanour, a bit radical. The bike fit that.

She liked the speed, the wind blowing past her. It was like running.

She liked the handling, taking the curves like a slalom skier. (That was another thing about weekends at the cottage that she loved: they could go waterskiing. They were allowed only two circuits of the lake, and they had to contribute for the gas, but she loved the motion of the slalom—the skidding across the wake, cutting hard on the edge, the lean, then the changing over, the letting go of one hand, to reach out, to extend, with her whole body, then the bicep curl, straining, pulling her body back in, to shoot across to the other side …)

And yes, she liked the cool. She felt oh so cool in her jeans, denim jacket, and boots (construction boots, purchased for the spring she worked on maintenance before drop-in opened).

She looked up from the journal and stared across the water. She missed her bike. Had missed it since she’d sold it.

She’d asked her brother to teach her how to do basic maintenance and repair. (In addition to a little MGB, that he never let her drive, he’d owned a Norton for years.) She’d wanted to be able to do what the guy in The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance could do. Going on a cross-country trip like he did wasn’t out of the question either.

But her brother never managed to have the time.

She looked up again to see a squirrel scurry through the trees across the cove: it had a neat little route from one to the other, like it was playing Snakes and Ladders.

Of all her jobs, she especially loved drop-in. When she walked in, the guys (they were mostly guys) smiled and called out to her. Nowhere else was she welcomed with a smile. Her music students did that, and some of her dance students. But they were kids.

Technically, so were the drop-ins, but she didn’t see them that way. They were high school kids. They were fourteen to seventeen; she was nineteen. So there was only two years’ difference in some cases.

If she sat down at their table, one of them would easily offer her some of his chips. If she went into the gym to watch a game of basketball, those on the bench made room for her to sit beside them. It almost made her cry, the way they so easily included her.

It was her Cheers. The place where everybody knew her name.

It was a little like that with the track team—

The meets are cool, the guys cheering me as I run, Ed saying “Run this one for Grigsby,” Tim telling me he expects me to break sixty on the 400, Len calling out to me “Just do it!” …

—but she couldn’t roughhouse with her trackmates like she could with the guys at drop-in. When she played basketball or floor hockey at drop-in—more often than not, they asked, or expected, her to play—she went all out.

They even went on a couple camping trips during the summer. She’d never gone camping before with a bunch of people. The hiking, the canoe-racing, the horsing around— It was all a lot of fun.

She’d never really had fun before.

And she was never to have that kind of fun again.

The guys on the team were supportive and encouraging. Yes, they cheered her on as she ran, they were okay with her tagging along after the meets, they even invited her to the dinner they gave the coach when he retired, and they’d had a plaque prepared, without her knowledge, that said “From the boys—and girl.” But it was never quite the same. Something was in the way. The possibility of a romantic/sexual relationship. It’s a pity, she thought, that the only physical touch ‘allowed’ between men and women is sexual.

But the guys, and the girls, at drop-in, they just … liked her. They thought she was cool, cruising into the parking lot on her bike, messing around with them in the gym, and generally hanging out.

It was the peer group she never had.

How pathetic is that, she thought. That she’d had to get her social needs fulfilled by fourteen-to-seventeen year olds at a drop-in.

But then again, it was completely understandable. Women her age seemed exclusively interested in being for, and with, men. Even Jen had had less time for her once she had a boyfriend.

And men her own age always had to assert their superiority, which she then had to challenge, resist.

That time Dan came to drop-in—he was a motorcycle cop that she’d met at the training course she’d taken—all the guys thought he was cool, they thought Kris with a motorcycle cop was perfect. But when he playfully, supposedly, put her over his shoulder and carried her into the gym, she was enraged.

To be treated like a child. A naughty child. He may as well have turned her over on his lap and spanked her.

She didn’t see him again.

Furthermore, she thought, men her age had the power over her granted by society, such as it was; with men younger than her, there was a balance, their patriarchy-imbued power countered by the power of her greater age.

No wonder she would later prefer relationships with younger men.

Besides, she thought bitterly, it’s not like guys her own age ever beat a path to her door.

Even though, and yet, she also had fun with the other leaders at drop-in, who were her own age.

She remembered Fox especially. One night, she was telling him about the latest frustration with her parents, and he offered to call them up and talk to them.

“Yeah?” she’d grinned at him. “And what would you say?”

“I’d say ‘Mr. and Mrs. Muller, first of all, she wants to be able to cross the street by herself.’”

And she burst out laughing.

And the time he needed a ride to drop-in, she picked him up on her bike. He thought that was so cool. As did all the kids who saw them pull in.

I don’t come across as an authority figure, do I, I asked Fox tonight.

No, you come across more like a degenerate. He laughed.

But I’m responsible, right? I’m a responsible degenerate.

Yeah. You’re amazing, just incredible.

What do you mean?

I don’t know, you as a person, I’ve never met anyone like you.

She tried to track him down years later. Remembering his warmth, his smile, the fun she’d had with him, she realized that she should’ve—that they should’ve— She’d thought, hoped, maybe they could have a do-over. But she couldn’t remember his last name, and although she had the university check every Barry known as “Fox” in Kinesiology and Environmental Studies … nothing.

She closed the journal, stood up, and stretched.

• • •

Half an hour later, part way up the little river, she saw a deer come out of the forest. It hesitated on the bank, seeing her. She kept the kayak as still as she could, and then was rewarded to see it leap across, covering the distance with five splashing strides. How it kept its feet on the rocky bottom, she had no idea. It fled up the other bank and disappeared out of sight.

As in first year, she went back to her high school from time to time during her second year, walking down the familiar halls to visit her favourite teachers. Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. Ledford—they all welcomed her and, as during the five years she was a student there, made her feel like she was some kind of wonderful.

She must have known at some level that she would never have that again.

They weren’t surprised at her apparent make-over. The jeans, the boots, the motorcycle. While the other students had always seen her as a shy good-girl brainer, they must have seen the independent and creative mind that would surely, eventually, assert itself …

When she discovered that Linda, whom she remembered as a quirky, radical classmate, and whom, years later, she recognized as a fellow feminist (it was not a word she knew in high school), had become affiliated with a local theatre group, she contacted her. Partly because she realized then that they had had so much in common and should have been closer friends, so maybe they could become friends now, and partly because she was hoping for some advice about how to get some of her material produced—she had just finished her collection of angry-young-woman soliloquies ‘written’ by Shakespeare’s women protesting the role he had given them (Portia—you don’t think someone that intelligent would be a little pissed at being bait and trophy? And Juliet, well, Juliet just wants to have—sex). But she was completely uninterested in reading her script, seeing only the person she’d seemed to be in high school and imagining no doubt some goody-two-shoes play.

When she’d told her, over the course of a brief catch-up conversation, about her experiences as a supply teacher, in particular, about a recent incident in which she’d been reprimanded by the principal for refusing to stand for the anthem, Linda had simply said, “I can’t imagine you being called into a principal’s office for anything but praise.”

But her old high school teachers weren’t surprised at all. They had paid attention to her questions in class. They knew she had a strong personality and a critical mind, and were not, therefore, surprised, to hear about such incidents. Nor to see her striding down the hall, helmet in hand.

Then one day, someone stopped her and told her that all visitors had to check in at the main office.

She stayed out on the water for the sunset, then leisurely paddled back in the starlight.

• • •

After a hot shower and a slice of cold pizza, she picked up the journal again. She’d finish the year, then call it a day.

She managed to continue to do it all—her courses, her jobs, track, piano, dance.

She also continued, during her lectures, to generate ideas, and more ideas, so many ideas, and insights, and poem buds, and melody bits, and every evening she’d continue to transfer the fragments from the margins of her notebooks into her journal.

And late into the night, when she did the assigned reading, she continued to talk to Descartes, and Berkeley, and Rousseau—well, mostly she fumed at Rousseau—and Mill, and Sartre—though mostly what she said to him was YES!

“But whether or not one can live with one’s passion, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt—that is the whole question.” Albert Camus

She turned the page and saw another poem.

crease, flip, crease, flip, crease, flip,

i fold the kleenex into an accordion

then tie it with a tiny piece of string

(it’s important to tie it right in the middle—

i have the strings all ready—)

then i separate the tissue

(don’t pull it)

ply by ply

(it must be done carefully—

the layers are so thin—

they tear easily—)

IT’S BORING

AND TEDIOUS

AND STUPID

i pretend to fluff it up

as if it’s something important, something artistic

then i toss it into the large flat box

WE HAVE BEEN AT THIS FOR THREE NIGHTS

my mother and i

my sister’s getting married

and my brother’s upstairs

allowed to do his homework

instead

i feel again those tears

of frustration and injustice

and reach for another kleenex

It was right in the middle of mid-terms. And her mother expected her to do all sorts of stupid shit. Cheerfully. Which reinforced her view that her mother didn’t know her. At all.

Nor did her mother want to know her. She didn’t want to hear her views on marriage.

When you get married, you’re entering into a legal contract. You might be doing a few other things (promising your love to someone, making a deal with a god), but you’re most certainly entering into a legally binding contract with another person. There are rights due to and responsibilities incumbent upon people who enter into a marriage contract. Some of these have to do with money, some have to do with children, some have to do with sexual services, and some have to do with other things.

What I find so extremely odd is that even though well over 90% of all people get married, almost none of them read the terms of the contract before they sign. (Most people find out about these only when they want to break the contract.) Probably because the contract isn’t presented when their signatures are required.

Although this begs the question ‘Is the contract, therefore, still binding?’, the more interesting question is ‘Why isn’t it presented?’

Her mother kept insisting that she too would get married some day.

Clueless. Wilfullyclueless.

when her mother explained

what a hope chest was

she didn’t know

whether to laugh or cry

She remembered having to go shopping for this and that—the wedding preparations seemed endless—and at one point, she waited in the car with her father while her mother and sister went inside for something or other. Earlier, during some disagreement with her mother, about what, she can’t remember, her father was noticeably silent. So she confronted him about it. What did he think?

It irritated him to be put on the spot, but he finally confessed that he’d agreed with her, that, in fact, he often agreed with her, but couldn’t say so. Her mother, his wife, would be here for the rest of his life, he explained. She, his daughter, would leave.

Which was why he didn’t care what she thought.

He actually said that.

She was not impressed with their marriage. She pictured them leaning toward each other, each propped up against/by the other. So they stand together, yes, but if either one is taken away, the other falls.

She was surprised it lasted a lifetime.

You can live with anything if you don’t think very hard.

But then she always did underestimate people’s capacity for denial, their capacity to wilfully delude themselves. Their lack of courage.

I wonder how many marriages are kept together by pride. How many people simply refuse to admit it was a mistake, to commit for life, to that person (or any person). It is, by definition, such a huge mistake.

Angry at her for bringing it up, for expecting anything different, he also said that he had to support her brother over her because he was the oldest and his son.

Of course, she had to ask.

And yes, he would have been disappointed if he hadn’t had a son. Because then there would be no one to carry on the family name.

What?

She didn’t know where to begin.

Perhaps not with pointing out that she, despite being a lowly female, could carry on the family name.

Because at that moment, at that very moment, she decided not to. She’d use a pseudonym.

She set the journal aside, got off the couch, and made a fire. It took a while, since there was a backdraft—she had to heat up the chimney first by holding a torch of rolled up newspaper as far to the back of the insert as she could. Then slowly, she built the fire first with kindling, then added one or two small chunks, knowing that if she put a large chunk on too soon, the room would fill with smoke. Eventually, satisfied that all was well with the blazing fire, she returned to the couch.

Near the end of the year, she was sort of invited to a prom. Scott, one of Jen’s friends from, and just finishing, high school, needed a date for the prom. She asked her on his behalf. “But he’s just using you,” Jen cautioned her. “He’s gone through all the girls in his class.”

She didn’t care. She was finally going to the high school prom. Not her prom, and not while she was in high school, but still.

Or she didn’t believe what Jen had said. After all, Scott was a musician. He wanted to be a composer, like her. She’d finally meet her soulmate. So what if he started out using her. Once he realized she was a fellow composer, and just as smart, once he realized she was someone with whom he could talk about Beethoven …

She couldn’t afford to buy a dress to wear just once. Not again. She’d already had to do that for her sister’s wedding. So she thought she’d just wear that dress. She actually liked the color. It was a bright, vibrant fuchsia. Her mother took off the puffy short sleeves and made a dark, short jacket to wear with it.

Still, she looked ridiculous.

But she had no idea. She was uncomfortable wearing dresses of any kind. So it didn’t occur to her to get, and wear, something … sexier. In any case, sexy for her would have been black leather pants and a 19th-century men’s shirt with a laced neck and ruffled cuffs. But this was the 70s. Young women wore dresses to the prom.

The first thing she said about music, on the way, in the car, he scoffed. Made her feel like she didn’t know what she was talking about, like she was way off in her opinion.

Ditto for the second thing she said about music.

And then, she hadn’t heard of Yes? But they were the best band ever! How stupid could she be?!

He refused to dance with her. All night. Because she looked like an idiot bridesmaid, he said.

The next day, he told Jen she didn’t know how to kiss.

Even so, she pinned the corsage to her billboard over her desk and waited, hoped, for his phone call. Of course it never came.

Years later, she realized he didn’t want his date to be someone who knew about Beethoven. He wanted to be the expert, the authority. He went on to get his B.Mus., then his Ph.D. Last she heard, he was a professor at some big music school, doing musicological analyses of rock bands. Like Yes.

Shortly after, her brother moved out—as soon as he’d graduated, he’d gotten a job in an insurance company in Edmonton—and they took in a roomer. It was odd to have a stranger living in their house. To see the man come out of her brother’s room and go into the washroom. Once he stopped her in the hall to ask if she could sew, if she could repair his trousers. The question startled her. Her brother had never initiated conversation with her.

At the end of the summer, since drop-in finished two weeks before school started, she drove up to the family cottage. Just her. For two whole weeks.

It was amazing. To be able to eat what and when she wanted, not to be interrupted when she was reading, writing, or thinking, because it was ‘Time To Set The Table’. She canoed or just sat outside at night, in the dark, without a light. Basking in the moon and the stars and the quiet. No one to tell her she should come in. Why, for godsake? No one to say, ‘At least turn on a light.’ No, damn it, I don’t want a light! I want to sit in the dark! What the hell is wrong with that? She went for five mile runs. Then six. Then seven. No one to tsk tsk. She played the same piece on the record player, over and over, merging with it. No one to yell at her ‘Enough!’ And no one to tell her it was ‘Time For Bed’. At eleven. Simply because that’s when the prime time tv shows were over. So she stayed up until two or three. Then slept until ten or eleven. She worked better that way, well into the night.

She knew then that she wanted to live alone. Having to live with someone meant having always to give in to what they wanted, to go around what they wanted. Living with someone meant you could never do what you really wanted.

It also meant being constantly subject to criticism.

“The greatest heights of self-expression—in poetry, music, painting—are achieved by men who are supremely alone.” Colin Wilson

She closed the journal, selected a CD, put it on the stereo, turned out the light, and just listened. Malmquist. Such a delicate beauty …

8

Another sunny day. Another cup of really, really good tea. Another morning down on the dock, with the shimmering water, the gleaming water …

Her strongest memory of third year was that of impatience. She couldn’t wait to work on all the bits and pieces she was accumulating, all the books she was planning to write, all the pieces she was planning to compose. She enjoyed all her courses immensely, did all the work, never skipped class, and she loved the track workouts, the running, and she loved her hours at the piano, her music students, and her dance studies, her dance students, and she really enjoyed drop-in—but she couldn’t wait to have more time. To do her own reading (her list of books to read was now ten pages long), to do her own writing, to work on her own compositions …

She spent so much time on her studies. Struggling with the language in her Chaucer course, for example. She didn’t know everyone else just went to the library and got a translation. She didn’t know there were translations. And her History of the Novel course. She thought the reading list was compulsory, not recommended. She read every single novel on the long list, cover to cover.

And if I’d known then what I know now, she thought. Richardson, Fielding, Meredith—they were all such pompous pretentious twits thinking they were god’s gift to the world, so full of wisdom, going on and on and on about the most trivial of things, so full of shit.

Susan Juby’s Alice, I Thinkis better than Pamela and Tom Jones any day.

One warm, sunny day Dr. Spivey stopped her outside the library.

“Kris, hi, how are you?”

“Good, thanks,” she said. Then added belatedly, “How are you?”

“I’m good too, thanks. Listen, I wanted to talk to you. I see you’ve taken a course overload again next semester. I hope you’re planning on applying to graduate schools.”

“Well, actually, I—”

“But you must! You of all of this year’s students! Your work is excellent, and you’ve got the fire, everyone can see that! No one questions that you’re Ph.D. material!”

Well, she did. Yes, she had the fire, but a Ph.D.? Her?

Besides, she had no desire to spend even one year, let alone three or four, studying some esoteric point of epistemology, metaphysics, or logic.

Nor the use of the semi-colon in T. S. Eliot’s poetry or some such. Which is why graduate studies in English didn’t appeal to her either.

He insisted she make an appointment with the Head of the Philosophy Department to get information and advice about where she might go.

“But I don’t think I can afford it. I’m barely breaking even as it is,” she said, looking at her watch. She was scheduled to teach a dance class at the studio in twenty minutes.

And she didn’t really want to postpone her own projects for that length of time.

“But you’ll probably get a TAship,” he said.

She didn’t understand.

“Most graduate students get a teaching assistantship. It’s a guaranteed job.”

Oh. She hadn’t known that. That would change every—

“And there are probably a dozen scholarships you could apply for.”

A dozen? Her high school counsellor had just told her about the entrance scholarships to the two local universities.

A week later, she was in Dr. Whittle’s office, nervously telling him about her mother’s comment that she’d make a great lawyer, because she was always arguing. On some level, in some way, she was trying to wrap her head around being in his office talking about doctoral programs. “But,” she added, “lawyers are just intellectual cops. And I don’t think I can put in all the years required before you get to be a judge. And even if I could, even if I became a judge, they’re bound by precedents and rules too. So I stillwouldn’t be able to question the precedents and rules—”

“So you want to become a legal philosopher?” Dr. Whittle asked.

A legal philosopher? She’d never heard of such a thing. But yes!

“I would have thought you’d fancy feminist philosophy.”

She hadn’t heard of that either. She could spend three or four years studying the effects of gender on one’s life? Hell, she could spend her lifedoing that! She wondered then if he’d heard about her Milton paper. She didn’t have the tools, the language, to write a feminist critique of Paradise Lost, but she sure as hell knew what she’d say to Milton if she were Eve. So that’s what she wrote. Filled ten pages. Apparently it had caused quite a stir in the English department.

In fact, one of the books she was eager to start writing was a collection of short pieces from the perspective of more women from the Bible, and from Shakespeare, fairy tales, and mythology—as if they, those women, weren’t the creations of men. She thought that might count as feminist philosophy.

She also hadn’t heard of philosophy of mind. And yes, the relationship between the mind and the brain intrigued her, the nature of consciousness …

That’s when she realized just how poor her choice to attend WLU had been. Neither legal philosophy nor feminist philosophy was offered in the undergraduate program at WLU. Nor philosophy of mind. Nor social philosophy. Nor any applied ethics courses. Because yes, of course, she was also interested in questions about the morality of using animals for experimentation, of selling one’s organs, of euthanasia … Apparently, any one of those could become her Ph.D. thesis.

“You need to put together a research proposal—”

“A research proposal?”

“And we need to get you a good set of recommendation letters …”

But instead, what Dr. Spivey actually said when he stopped her outside the library was “I see you’ve taken a course overload again next semester. Have you considered taking less than a full load instead? Spread out your degree over six years instead of four. It would enable you to focus on each course as much as you seem to want to do.”

It was Kevin who received the grad school advice. And James and Robert.

To My Philosophy Professors

Why didn’t you tell me?

When I was all set to achieve Eudamonia

through the exercise of Right Reason,

When I was eager to fulfil my part

of the Social Contract,

When I was willing, as my moral duty,

to abide by the Categorical Imperative

When I was focussed on Becoming,

through Thesis and Antithesis to Synthesis—

Why didn’t you correct me?

Tell me that Aristotle didn’t think I had any reason,

That according to Rousseau,

I couldn’t be party to the contract,

That Kierkegaard believes I have no sense of duty

because I live by feeling alone,

That Hegel says I should spend my life

in self-sacrifice, not self-development,

That Nietzsche thinks I’m good for pregnancy

and that’s about it—

Why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t included?

(Perhaps because you too had excluded me

from serious consideration;

Or did you think I wouldn’t understand?)

(I do. I do understand.)

If you don’t know something exists, why would you go looking for it? So she didn’t go to the Student Services office and ask, ‘Hey, is there a university somewhere where I can get a graduate degree in gender studies? Environmental ethics? Biomedical ethics?’

Is there a grocery store where I can buy coconut mango juice?

All she knew was orange juice and apple juice.

Though, actually, she thought now, leaning back in the chair, soaking up the September sun, it’s possible the fields of feminist philosophy, environmental ethics, and biomedical ethics didn’t exist anywhere in the 70s. The word ‘feminist’ didn’t even become common until the 80s; she remembers ‘women’s lib’ from her youth, not ‘feminist’.

Which just means she could’ve been, should’ve been, one of the pioneers.

In any case, she didn’t want to be a university professor. She wanted time to write! That’s why she’d already made up her mind to get a B.Ed.—so she could be a high school teacher, a part-time teacher, in order to have time to write!

She didn’t know that full-time professors were required to teach only two courses. And would be paid about $40,000 to do so. And would be expected—expected—to write. In the remaining time.

In short, she didn’t know that being a full-time university professor wasbeing a part-time teacher.

And no one corrected her. Because she didn’t talk to anyone about what she wanted, what she’d intended to do, what her life plan was.

She needed a mentor. It also wasn’t a word used in the 70s, but she realized now that that was what she’d lacked.

And yet … maybe people had stepped forward to mentor her, and she just didn’t recognize it. In grade eleven Math, Mr. Newcomb gave her a copy of Flatland. At the time, she assumed he just happened to have the book with him, saw that she had finished her work, and so gave it to her to read, to fill the time. But now, she wondered if he’d brought it especially to give to her, thinking she might find it interesting.

She did. She found it fascinating. But she never asked, after, to talk to him about it. It didn’t occur to her that she could do that. So, again, it was her own— No wait a minute, he was the teacher, she was just a grade eleven student, surely the responsibility was on him to follow up.

She also remembered also being fascinated by the question posed in a Moody Blues song that Mr. Pendergrass mentioned in grade twelve Physics, equivalent to ‘Is paint in a can a color before you open the lid and expose it to the light?’ Truly fascinated. And he saw that. But again, no follow up. She didn’t know what she expected—well, she didn’t expect anything at the time, but now—surely high school teachers have a responsibility, a duty, to notice unusual interest and foster it somehow.

And yet, and yet. Twenty years later, when she went back and got her M.A., her thesis advisor asked if she wanted to go for coffee, she said no thanks. She didn’t like coffee. She didn’t see it as an offer of something else, a discussion of future possibilities, mentorship.

It might have helped if she’d gotten to know her profs. But she never went to see them outside of class; she never showed up at their office. That was for C students who needed help, not A students.

Who needed help.

How was it that had happened in high school though?

High school teachers didn’t have offices. You just popped in if you saw them in their classroom during a spare.

Going to an office was far more intimidating. And she didn’t want to bother her professors, she didn’t want to impose.

She turned the page.

She’d entered one of her poems in the university’s writing competition and placed second.

She didn’t tell anyone. Lest someone see that glistening, iridescent bubble hanging so perfectly in the air in front of her, and then pop it with mockery or dismissal. She’d come to assume one or the other.

Except Craig. Who responded with a poem of his own. And she couldn’t quite—wasn’t that what she’d wanted? A fellow poet? She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she was … upset?

She turned another page.

Jen went to Paris on an exchange program in her third year.

How did one find out about such things? She would’ve loved to have gone with her. She wanted to travel around Europe some day. When she could afford it.

Late that fall, she decided to drive up to the cottage again for the weekend. The trees would be amazing. Neither her parents nor her brother were going that weekend, and her sister never went by herself.

Her bike broke down halfway there, just as she was passing through one of the small towns on the way. So she called home, with the dime she always made sure to have on her for just such an emergency. But her brother was working that evening at the curling club and couldn’t come. Her father was similarly occupied or didn’t know anything about bikes, she can’t remember. Nor can she remember why assistance by her mother or sister wasn’t even considered. By her or them.

This was before credit cards were given to university students and in any case, she had no idea how to go about getting a room in a hotel.

So she went into a bar, which was the only place that was open, and watched people play pool until it closed at one o’clock. Then she rolled her bike to the nearest park bench and simply sat down to wait until morning.

Years later, when she regularly drove an hour to and from work almost every day, she was horrified to realize that she’d been only a forty-five minute drive away. And yet, not one of them—not her brother, her sister, her father, her mother—all of them could drive—not one of them offered to come get her, at midnight, if necessary, and then return in the morning to deal with the bike.

At the time, she didn’t think that what they had done—what they had not done—was unusual.

No wonder she learned that if you needed help, you had to hire it.

But for most of her life, she couldn’t afford to hire help. As a result, she became remarkably self-sufficient. And, so, remarkably limited.

More than that, though, her self-sufficiency became an invisible force field. Inadvertently, she gave the impression that she didn’t need any help. So people never offered their help. And so her isolation, and by necessity, her self-sufficiency, increased. Around and around.

Also, because no one ever offered her any help, she never thought to offer anyone else help. Which only exacerbated her isolation.

Around and around.

Such a simple pleasure, she thought as she paddled. And such an intense pleasure. For her. She glanced at the cottages—the summer homes, she corrected herself—as she passed by. She hated them. They’d made life here impossible for people like her. And the people who owned them didn’t even live here! They didn’t want to live here. Not like she did.

• • •

Once back at the cottage, she had a bite to eat, then continued through her third year.

She met Matthew through Susan, who had also been on the cross-country team, in high school, though she couldn’t remember now how they got in touch again while she was at university. Matthew was an Engineering student at UW who was renting rooms with two other ‘gears’ in a basement suite in Susan’s neighbourhood.

She often stopped by on her way home. They’d invite her to stay for spaghetti. Then she and Matthew would sit on the floor between the two beds in his double room and talk.

They didn’t have much in common, but he was open to her. He was interested in her. That was enough. Given.

That could’ve been, maybe should’ve been, everything. But he didn’t—she had this list—and he—yes, he was clearly intelligent, but— He was an engineer.

She turned the page.

Part way through her third year, she discovered Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The book. And the soundtrack. The first time she heard it, she felt … buoyed by the wind of its exuberance. And realized then and there that she needed to learn how to orchestrate.

She also discovered Pink Floyd. And realized she needed to learn about … synthesizers?

One evening she was in the den watching a special program that she had begged her parents to let her watch—it was on at the same time as their beloved Mannix. Her mother was in the corner chair making out the grocery list, and her father was sprawled on the couch opposite her. When the commentator spoke of “a passion for music,” her father asked scornfully, “How can you have a passion for music?” She stared over at him. At the derision on his face. Then tried to explain, saying something about an all-consuming desire. “I guess I’ve never felt a passion for anything,” he said then, laughing.

Yes, she’d thought. That says it all.

“How can you stand it, not to know [what you want]?” Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

They are flatlanders. Two dimensional.

They will never be able to comprehend anything I do.

It was then that she had asked, hopefully, “When your kids, when I, was born—didn’t you cry—out of joy?” Not exactly passion, but it would at least point him in the direction of overwhelming emotion.

No. He hadn’t.

i hurl my screams!

they just strike the walls

and ricochet in hap

hazard madness

within the space of my room …

they collide, explode,

or clatter empty upon the floor

on and on

within the time of my room …

it’s deafening.

no,

i know the sound of my own screams.

this room is far too quiet.

She also discovered Janis Ian and Dan Hill that year. In a way, they saved her life. To know there were others that sensitive.

And still alive.

One day, she heard a piece of music on the radio, perhaps Alain Morisod, that had birds chirping in the background. She liked it.

So she asked to borrow a record of birdsong that her biology teacher had used in class one day, recorded it on her cassette recorder, rewound, then recorded the solo piano piece she’d composed, her Op. 1, No. 1, but of course in the process, erased the birds. She didn’t know what overdubbing was. She figured she needed two more cassette players. One to record the birdsong, one to record the piano, then she’d play them both back at the same time, recording on third. But she couldn’t afford two more cassette players. Yet. In the meantime, she started making notes for six more pieces in the set, that would feature wolf howls, rain, and ocean surf. She’d started composing in the new age genre. Before it had a name.

Much later, she wrote to Gibson, finding an address on the back of a record of nature sounds, suggesting a partnership: his nature sounds, her music. He said he already had someone. Fair enough.

Except that over the course of the following twenty years he’d add a dozen new composers to his roster. None of them you.

She turned a few more pages.

During the summer, when she was taking an extra course, Philosophy of Education, and had missed class two weeks in a row (first, because of an overnight camping trip with drop-in, and then, because her grade ten piano exam had been scheduled for the same time), Dr. Mauritz had asked her why she was taking the course if she couldn’t get to all the classes.

“I want to be sure I get into teacher’s college,” she explained. Please don’t kick me out, she worried.

“But you’ll just have to take the course again. Philosophy of Education is probably a required course in every B.Ed. program.”

Oh. She didn’t know that. She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she could get an exemption and then take something else. She always wanted to take more courses than would fit in her schedule.

More to the point, the point he didn’t make, there would be no question she’d be accepted at teacher’s college. Given her grades, in the Honours program, and her extracurricular teaching experience? She was too good for teacher’s college! Why didn’t someone tell her that?! Why didn’t someone tell her that teacher’s college was for ‘B’ students, and conservative, unimaginative ‘B’ students, at that?

She was forever a victim of her low self-esteem, working so hard, so much harder than was necessary.

And yet it was never enough.

And she always seemed so sure of what she wanted. That’s why no one tried to dissuade her, to tell her she should go for a Ph.D. or even an M.A. instead of a B.Ed.

She was so self-sufficient, no one thought she needed anything. Advice.

Friendship.

Love.

“To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain … And then to want and not to have—to want and want—how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again.” Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

When loves comes, I will be too weary with waiting.

She closed the journal while she watched the sun light up the cove. Inch by inch, the conifer green became neon. It was amazing.

• • •

Once she had a good fire going, she returned to the journal to finish out the year.

OH HOW I HATE YOU! You, who are the measure of all things. You who would crucify me with your eyes—not for their power (alas, you have none), but for their pain—as I refuse to cross myself and pronounce the compulsory chant at the dinner table.

You, so secure in your religion. Never asking a question unless you knew its answer. Roman Catholic you still insist. You have yet to explain how one can be born RC, born believing in some specific system—oh, but you were. And you sit snug, smug, in stability, the measure of maturity—while I, still the struggling Adolescent, friend of Fyodor, run.

Her mother’s pain was her power. She realized this now.

And “Your intelligence is showing,” she would say. Like “Your slip is showing,” but much, much worse. It wasn’t just a reprimand. It was a warning.

And her father would get such an amused expression on his face whenever she expressed an opinion he didn’t agree with.

It was so fucking patronizing. Especially coming from some schmuck who’d spent his entire life working at an insurance company.

There is so much undoing to be done when people realize their parents are just ordinary people, just a couple of idiots who had sex and got married. Or got married and had sex. Just because that’s what people were supposed to do.

Parents are the most powerful people in the world. And anyone, anyone, can become a parent.

“You take yourself too seriously,” they would say.

Yeah, well, you don’t take yourself seriously enough.

Quite simply, she didn’t like her parents anymore.

In fact, yes, she had come to hate them.

They were always criticizing her for nitpicking, for her attention to detail, to fine distinctions. It was like yelling at a kid for differentiating between fuchsia and magenta. Instead of nurturing the developing painter.

It’s like everything I am is in conflict here. Intellect, artist, athlete—

Everything I am is stifled here. I’m suffocating. Here.

Her very existence imposed, interfered. No wonder she wanted not just to move out, but to live alone. So as not to impose on anyone. So as not to have to apologize to anyone—for playing the piano, for listening to music, for reading, for writing. For thinking.

That would be enough. Not to have to apologize for it. She didn’t even consider the possibility of being appreciated for it. Let alone respected, or even praised.

Why do I go on so, defending my hate?

Indeed.

She’d tried. She’d tried so hard. She suggested once that her father read one of her papers, so they could have a discussion. No, he said, he couldn’t make out her handwriting. She offered to type it. No, don’t bother.

Don’t bother.

Of course she went back inside herself. Even further.

And yet he wanted bragging rights. Even as he mocked her. “My daughter, Einstein,” he introduced her once to his boss.

Why do you do it? Why do you mock me so? Are you jealous? Insecure? Threatened? I never thought I rubbed it under your nose. In fact I often tried to hide it, in between cursing it—what good was my intelligence if it separated me from the people I loved?

Thought you loved.

And I must’ve done a pretty good job too: he actually thought Larry had ‘more university’ than me. Probably thought he had higher grades too.

Everything about living with them hurt. Their failure to understand, let alone support (encouragement was simply too much to ask for), her passions. Their failure to agree with anything she said. No matter how well argued.

Her life had become so oppressive, their constant disapproving presence so overwhelming, she was afraid that if she suppressed, repressed, her self, her interests, her desires, any more, she’d lose herself altogether.

And she was realizing just how much energy it took to do that, to keep everything in, to keep everything hidden—energy she didn’t have, given everything else she was trying to do.

So she decided to move out.

She’d had enough. She was twenty-one. Twenty-one!

Even the trivial things— Everything I do must be done the way you want it to be done. My god, you even get upset when I untuck the sheet and blankets at the foot of my bed. So, dancing in the rain? Out of the question.

In fact, she’d wanted to move out since part way through first year. She’d been becoming her own person since midway through high school. University, of course, intensified their differences, their distances.

It was only her reluctance to hurt her parents that kept her hanging on— If she could make it to the end of her fourth year— Her brother had moved out when, because, he got a job in a different city. Her sister had moved out when, because, she got married. What was her excuse, her reason? She wanted to. She didn’t need to. She just wanted to. To move out when she didn’t have to—she knew that would hurt them—

And why the hell did that matter so much? They clearly had no problem hurting you!

But she had come to hate their superficial and closed minds. The house with its mundane interiors, the ever-audible AM radio station, the tv always tuned to Mannix, Archie Bunker, and the like— All the assaults to her senses, all the assaults to her intellect—

No wonder I closed in on myself, no wonder I became so overly focused on myself.

Overly focused? You weren’t any more focused on yourself than most men with ambition.

And no wonder she wanted to move out.

Surely she’d waited long enough, tried long enough.

But no, apparently not.

“If you leave now, you don’t come back!” her mother said.

She was stunned. To the core.

She had been such a good girl. Obnoxious, really. She’d always done her chores, without being told. She’d always done her homework, without being told. She’d practiced the piano every day. Like she was supposed to.

Except for that one time, having to sit in the corner, she couldn’t ever remember being punished. Reprimanded, yes. Like that time she went with her brother and Danny through the cemetery, she must’ve been around eight, and they climbed the chain link fence, and on the way down, she caught her jeans on one of the pointy tips at the top and tore an eight-inch gash from the crotch to the knee. Her mother was so upset about having to sew up the tear. They were new! She had just bought them! And serves her right for climbing fences with the boys.

Only now does it occur to her that her mother was more concerned that she had torn the new jeans than that she might have torn her thigh.

I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t ‘run around with boys’ or ‘the wrong crowd’. When I went out, which was maybe once or twice a year, I told you where I was going and what time I’d be back. So I didn’t even need a curfew.

I never talked back. I never slammed my bedroom door. I never disobeyed you. I never lied to you.

I was a straight-A student.

And yet—

And so—

So even though it was her choice to leave, she felt kicked out.

[contd]

(free downloads of complete novel at chriswind.net)

Rhea worked for the biggest polluter on the planet. Despite her appreciating this and not oblivious to the world jeopardy to which she contributed, its leader, owner, and patriarch, Peter Harper, was the one who signed her checks. When she cashed each one, she rationalized that the world would be no safer were she to resign in protest. The perspective of her replaceability comforted her.

Day in and day out, two cubicle mates punched in and punched out, twice, work segments separated by a one hour abeyance at the behest of lunchtime hunger. In the corporate cafeteria, she and Penny enjoyed the privacy afforded by a half-wall that was an architectural mistake; it hid their favorite table from all the gossippy patrons.

Penny wore her daily lunchtime look of disapproval, because Rhea again was eating too fast. But then, thin people could do that. Rhea already had completely soiled her napkin and reached for Penny's when she sensed someone staring at her. It was none other than Peter Harper himself, creator and owner of Ensley-Mix, Inc.

From over their short wall Harper struck his usual cliché—a pose—of his commanding vantage over the masses.

He was the discoverer of the miracle chemical, Ensley, that changed the world. The multibillionaire—the Überman himself—peered at the gauche Rhea who now tried to swallow not only an overambitious mouthful in one gulp, but her head, too, and with it, the rest of her humiliated body.

Penny sat frozen, her eyes darting from Harper to Rhea repeatedly. It would have been no more startling had the President of the United States strolled up to them. Peter Harper, the god of commerce, stamp-signer of paychecks of thousands, and with all his power, was god to them, also. Forcing onward every speck of food that had been in her mouth, Rhea dared to speak only when she felt every last calorie was well past the first set of sphincters somewhere.

“You’re Mr. Harper,” she announced needlessly to him, her nervousness evident in her tremulous voice. Penny peaked over the half wall to see the entire cafeteria mesmerized by this man’s presence.

“It’s really not fair that you know who I am, but that I do not know who you are,” Harper said, his mannerism twinkly, betraying the fact that of course he knew who she was. Was this a come-on, Rhea wondered in disbelief?

“You sign my check,” Rhea offered nervously and stupidly, her mind a blank for witty coyness which she so desperately wished for at this very moment. Penny recovered the fumble, and she did it for her team.

“I’m Penny Stenton,” she proclaimed, holding out her hand.

Harper turned his gaze to Penny, as if in distraction, almost as if in irritation. He focused intensely on her and his expression hardened. After an uncomfortable and protracted moment, she blinked first. His expression softened, but not in a friendly way. She couldn’t read it, but decided to withdraw her hand.

“I know who you are,” he answered Penny dryly. “I sign your check as well.” And this put to rest any notion on anyone’s part that he might be interested in anyone else but Rhea, whom he now regarded again with a look that baited her for an introduction. Rhea looked at Penny, then back at Harper.

“Rhea,” she said, “Rhea Rosalea Rainey.”

“How lovely,” he said, appraising the name with a fluttering of his eyelids. This temporary blindness afforded Rhea the opportunity to shoot Penny a perplexed look. Penny wished she could have answered the question in that look, but she was still somewhat unsettled by her own brush-off. He was to be forgiven, of course, because he was one of the world’s great human beings, and Penny stared at him expecting orders. She noted that he was exquisitely dressed. The continental double-breasted dark blue suit was silk. His tie had the smallest knot in it. It was so tiny and tight, Penny observed, that it couldn’t possibly be untied. Yes, she concluded, a man like Peter Harper never wears the same tie twice. His couture hung well on a person who could pilot past those who invoked the hardened expression Penny had just suffered.

Rhea observed nothing. She was so stunned that she wouldn’t be able to recall anything about the man later, even had he been on fire.

“Well, Miss Rainey,” Harper said, mischievously accenting the Miss, “I like to travel from center to center from time to time, and it is my custom to choose from the, ah, how do I put this, from the ‘non-executives’ a person to show me around, to give me the inside scoop...” He trailed off. “...give me the dirt on this place.”

“Where shall we all start?” Penny asked hopefully, trying once again to worm her way in. Peter Harper merely looked at her with total lack of amusement on his face. The mogul in him reared its ugly head as he spoke.

“We...are not going to start anywhere. You...are going to go back to your cubicle; the computers are up there, and so should you be.”

Penny snapped up immediately, an obedient movement; it was a continuum that followed through from a pivot away from her chair into a striding off without looking back.

“Bye, Rhea,” were her only trailing last words, launched into her own forward direction which, if Rhea had not been ignoring them, would have been hard to hear anyway.

“Rhea Rosalea Rainey,” he said to Rhea, the music of her name and the charm of his voice complementing each other. “Trochaic, isn’t it?” he asked, more to himself. “Like what is so common in children’s rhymes.”

“English,” she responded. “Except for the Rosalea. That’s Italian.”

“It sings to all languages,” he said with a flattering admiration. Rhea blushed. “Please,” he now said with a slightly more business-like tone, “meet me for a private lunch in the CEO’s conference room at noon. And please, take off the rest of the morning until then.”

And with that plus a smile he removed himself from the architectural mistake. This left Rhea Rosalea Rainey alone in the solitude that the little round table, protected from the come-ons of “the little people.” Their eyes, en masse, tried in the hardest of ways to see through the half-wall to the focus of Peter Harper’s attention.

Rhea felt that her one-to-one with Harper was a denial of Penny before the cock crowed. Was she wrong not to have begged Penny in when it was clear she was not invited? She had fielded her position brainlessly star-struck, solo by default, being the right person at the right time. But had she handled it clumsily by not hooking Penny for the ride on her coattails? And coattails for what? Career brownie points? Her rational mind told her she had no reason to feel the rat, but the rat nevertheless she felt. And within this indictment she arose to slither back to her cubicle to assess any damage done to the relationship she had with her friend.

Penny, on the other hand, had felt no such betrayal. She sat at her squeaky, wheeled chair at her terminal, entering the volumes, weights, and other parameters that certified the cash flow for the company. She entered the data via format-by-rote while thinking about the recent episode on another level altogether.

What a break! she thought. She admitted that it would have been better had she been the one, or had she been even included, but still this was a break of unprecedented proportions. And it was a perfectly natural sequence of events: she was always the also-ran when compared to Rhea. Socially, the attention without exception always went to Rhea. Penny always figured she got more than would be her fair share were she alone. She always fared better with Rhea there, just from the spillover. And even though she was gay, she liked the attention that anyone would like.

And she certainly could be patient for whatever spill-over might come this time.

Thinking it through, being the best friend of the one selected by Peter Harper was the second best career-enhancer she could expect—that is, if he just happened to befriend Rhea on his bureaucratic mission, and he just happened to think so much of her that he would not limit his liaison to business only, and he just happened to feel that any friend of Rhea was a friend of his, worthy of the most expedient of promotions. Rhea was the logical choice because Rhea liked men. Her Pollyannaish daydream went on until she heard the muffled painstaking footsteps on the blue carpet.

Rhea approached cautiously. Penny sensed her guilt and was determined to take advantage of it just for the fun of it. “Hey, thanks a lot,” she told her friend. Rhea slinked into the cubicle with all of the phantom pain that a missing tail between the legs induced. “Come on in, join the party,” Penny continued. “We’re having chopped liver. I’m the main course.”

“Penelope?” Rhea crooned, cajoling forgiveness.

“No problem, my so-called friend,” Penny snapped, firing away at her keyboard.

“Penelope?” Rhea repeated, forming the widest of smiles she could flash into her friend’s peripheral vision.

Penny lost. She suddenly jumped at her friend and hugged her vigorously.

“This is so great,” she said, squeezing her tighter. “So great, so fabulous.” And they both started jumping in place with each other, shrieking in their excitement like two cheerleaders who had just made it past the cut. Soon the unwelcome head of Dwayne Cody peered around the opening of the cubicle to investigate, as was the responsibility of his job. His tenor voice tried its best to take charge.

“Girls, girls, tone down. This is a business.” He was his usual repressive self, his sparse eyebrows wrinkling together in disapproval. It was his usual expression, and it was just another thing about him that made both Penny and Rhea hate him. He didn’t let up. “Mr. Harper himself is coming in from Atlanta this week to check out this center. I make out the report, and if you want to figure favorably then you’d better shape up.” He had a magazine rolled up in his right hand, and he tapped his thigh with it emphatically as he spoke.

“Well, we just happen to know Peter Harper’s here already,” Penny said in a tone she had always wanted to use with Mr. Cody.

“Yea, sport,” Rhea added, “and I think I’ll just take a lunch with him to report on you, O.K.?” Mr. Cody suddenly laughed out loud in a forced way, an outburst of mocking disbelief. A little spit flew and hit Penny. She rubbed her cheek vigorously. Dwayne composed himself for effect and spoke firmly.

“Not only is there more of a chance of you going bowling with the Pope than there is of taking a lunch," he emphasized with air quotes, "with a man who is the planet’s industrial icon, but you should fear that you’re in big trouble right here and now—in-danger-of-losing-your-job trouble.” He smirked a victor’s smirk.

“Well, you can laugh if you want, Coody,” Rhea said nonchalantly, breezing past him on her way out of the cubicle.

“It’s Cody and where do you think you’re going!” he shouted at her. His voice cracked under the strain. “Get back to your terminal!” Rhea stopped abruptly, visibly irritated with this torment. She turned slowly back around to address her supervisor.

“If I’m going to do lunch with Peter,” she boasted, dropping names, first names at that, “then I had better freshen up.”

“First of all, your self-destructive joke had better stop right now,” he warned her. “Secondly, if making yourself presentable is your goal, you had better take a sabbatical.” He was pert and spoke with invulnerability as he stared her down. “A lengthy sabbatical.” And with that Rhea did something she had never done before in her life. Cody was unprepared and didn’t avoid her fist, and he recoiled in pain and astonishment. He clutched his nose with both hands struggling to muffle the pain. The prairie dogs of the whole floor popped above the dividers, then snapped back unseen.

“You...struck me? What? Is it that time of the month for you?” he seethed. Penny bristled. “You’re fired!” he said to Rhea sternly and hatefully through his fingers. “Unless, of course, lunch turns this around for you. Collect your things.” He snapped around and stormed off.

“Time of the month?” Penny asked angrily for all of the women of the world. “You don’t know,” Penny said to her hero, “how I’d love to do what you just did to him.”

“I heard that!” he shouted from over several cubicle walls.

“What did I do? Shit on me, Penny. God, this lunch thing better not be an hallucination,” Rhea said with a strained expression, visibly subduing herself to over-compensate for her assault.

“It isn’t an hallucination, Miss Right,” Penny encouraged her. “But you better figure out a way to cram that foot of yours into his glass slipper, or you’ll have to remove it from your mouth.”

“This isn’t a date, you know; it’s business. Just what are you expecting, anyway?”

“One shot, Rhea,” Penny warned, raising her fist to present an upright thumb.

“Well, if lunch doesn’t make this Cody thing the most unimportant concern this company has ever had, I think I’ll be walking out of there with that foot firmly swallowed. But I promise you this—I will leave with him knowing I’m normal and worth keeping. I’m not worried that I can’t get a word in edgewise to clear me.”

“Rhea, he wants the dirt. You’re good at that. I don’t know how he was able to perceive that—”

“Hey, it’s me, after all,” Rhea interrupted.

“Well, he did pick you, and the dirt in this company is in good hands.”

“Wish me luck.”

“At ya, Rhea.”

“Thanks,” Rhea said back and smiled at her friend. She looked at her watch. “It’s a little after ten. I’m going to run down to KwikKlips and get them to do me up. I think I’ve got time.”

“It’s daytime, Rhea; fluorescent lights. Easy on the make-up. Harper’s got class, O.K.?”

“I’ll hit you, too, Penny—I swear,” Rhea warned her, still facing her as she drifted backwards. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to use a little make-up yourself, Earth-Mother.”

Rhea looked good from the front; when she snapped around, she also looked good from the back. Penny admired the female form in her. But then she sighed. She was daydraming rags-to-riches success stories for Rhea until Cody re-entered. Her eyes slowly refocused on the real world and on a real problem. Cody stood in front of her, his arms folded.

“Do you have anything to say?” He had a wad of toilet paper shoved up his left nostril that looked ridiculous.

“No, sir,” she answered. Not yet, she thought. She tried not to regard his stuffed nostril.

“You had better watch your step, too, Miss Stenton,” he told her, as if he were doing her a favor. Penny stifled her laughter when a wisp of toilet paper shot out of his nose when he spoke, only to rock back and forth on an invisible seesaw of air as it fell. He quickly replaced it with a new, pristine wad of toilet paper he fished from his pocket.

Watch my step? she thought. I’m going to watch the step of my foot up your ass. She masked her thinking through a conciliatory expression, knowing she would most likely laugh before showing any anger. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep from looking at his plugged nose, which forced him to keep lowering his head to re-establish line of sight with her eyes. Finally an impish metaphor won out and a comment with a life of its own rolled out of her mouth before she knew it.

“What?” she said, pointing at his nose and the bloody smear below his plugged nostril, “Is it that time of the month for you, too?” Her conciliatory expression had collapsed into one of indignation, and she wore it for all her gender.

Rhea’s own expression, moments later, was one of ecstasy which the beautician incorrectly assumed was due to the massaging of her wet scalp. Her hair was short and slightly darker than auburn. Being as short as it was, it was easy to have it done by lunch.

“Don’t cut anything,” Rhea directed the obese woman, Francesca, who had done her hair dozens of times before. She turned herself around in the swivel chair. “Just style it like this.” She handed Francesca the picture she had cut out of a magazine which she was keeping in her purse for times like this. It wasn’t that this was to be a new look for her; she just wanted Francesca to do her hair right yet again, just like the way she had been doing it since the day she had chopped it all off seven months earlier.

“This again?” Francesca asked. “Rhea, try something different. You like different. Let’s have some fun, O.K.?”

“Not today. Just do it this way and get me going. I’m meeting a VIP for lunch.”

“Oh, really? Who?”

“Only Peter Harper, that’s who,” Rhea beamed.

“So who’s Peter Harper, anyway?”

“Oh, just this multi-multi-balillionaire who’s really cute and wants me to have lunch with him and just gossip and then I hope dinner and then dates and then rendezvouses and then his first child and then his third child when I marry him a second time after partying away my fortune from the pre-nup agreement on the first marriage that ended in divorce, that’s who.”

“Then I guess you want make-up, too,” Francesca offered.

“Yes, ma’am. I do. And I’d like that done perfectly, if you would.”

“That will be extra,” Francesca laughed.

“Our accountants will take lunch,” Rhea responded. She was getting quite used to the idea of taking lunch here and there, as desired.

***

In the CEO foyer and reception area, Peter Harper swung open the giant brass door and entered to find Rhea already there. She stood up as if awaiting her directions. She felt so stupid just standing there with him, but she didn’t know what to do next, so just standing was the plan until something better cropped up. How many people got to go through that brass door? she wondered. Thos anteroom served as an air lock that opened for the very few into the pressure flux of the inner sanctum.

“Rhea,” he offered, opening the door through which he had entered. His left arm gently aimed its outstretched palm in the direction of a hallway beyond it. She graciously accepted his invitation past him into this hallway. She walked down its beautifully paneled path, extending a finger along the wood at times, to feel it.

“Sequoiadendron giganteum,” he announced. “Giant Sequoia. A secret gift from Robert Redford.”

“Who?” she asked. He didn’t answer.

From his voice, she knew he was right behind her, and she knew she was looking good from behind in her short black skirt. Soon, however, the rearview scrutiny she sensed eroded her self-esteem, perverting into a self-conscious anxiety. She wondered just how long this hall was. In a moment, unable to tell how far behind her he was, she slowed her stride and turned her head around toward him.

He was only an inch away!

She jumped with a little gasp, and he chuckled at her surprise.

“Keep going, Rhea,” he warmly and charmingly instructed her, so she turned her head back and continued her pace as before, feeling studied as before. Certainly this hall was so long, she thought, that it must jut out the side of the building. He was obviously feeling much more comfortable than she, and she laughed when she caught herself thinking that he was walking around up here like he owned the place. The very sweep of this hall was symbolic of his strength and authority, and he smoothly graced its length as they walked; and if the effortless disregard for Penny was Rhea’s foreplay to power, then this hallway was her tunnel of love.

“Now stop,” he said abruptly.

They were in a part of the hall whose walls had shed their sequoia for granite. Art deco sconces appointed the area. The heavy brass motif was back, and golden metal planters with inset, hand-painted tiles held impeccably radiant plants. She leaned down to smell the fragrance of the large bloom.

“Oh,” she recoiled. The unpleasant bouquet was unexpected.

“Rafflesia Flower,” he pointed out. It’s from Indonesia. The malodorous fragrance is easily offset by the fact that it is the world’s most endangered plant. And we have a pair of them. Secret gifts from the Sierra Club. Enjoy, but don’t tell anyone.”

The porcelain-appointed pots bookended another brass door, very similar to the massive entrance door from before, and although reduced proportionately to a standard size, it still presented the same formidable impression.

Mr. Harper reached across her waist to turn the central brass doorknob, and as he did, this heavy threshold was easily open to them as hinges obeyed with silent and effortless rotation. His movement allowed his forearm to caress her belly as he grasped the knob, causing her to draw in her abdominal muscles involuntarily. Now he retracted his arm and urged her silently into the room.

Some conference room, Rhea thought as she entered. There were real oil paintings on the walls that by their frames alone she just knew they were by famous people. A large, immaculate salt water aquarium displayed a group of seahorses. Rhea walked over to the tank.

“The Knysna seahorse,” Harper boasted. “The most endangered seahorse in the world. From Africa. A gift from the Cousteau Society.”

“A secret gift, I suppose?” Rhea asked.

“Yes,” Harper answered. Rhea turned back around toward him.

“So I shouldn’t tell anybody, right?” she teased. He smiled.

A rectangular conference table—of brass, of course, with three brass pedestals of support—was the center of the room. Inlaid in the brass frame-like design of the table surface was a solid black marble slab that had white and green veins. The table, she figured, was probably large enough for about ten people. It was set for dinner, but with eight less people than it could handle. The two dwarfed place settings were next to each other, one at what was the head, the other to its right.

He gallantly pulled out the chair for her to sit upon, which she did, and he perfectly allowed for the perfect slide of it under her, with her, so as to have her at just the right position one would like for eating over a plate. He then attended to himself with the same fluid elegance. He was the one at the head of the table, a presumption that went without saying.

Strangely enough, her nervousness had given way to a spectator's anticipation. She couldn’t believe she was a common tool in this company and that she was eating with the very man who ruled over it. So she was somewhat interested, in this spectator sort of way, in what would happen next. Slowly, she felt poise descend upon her, and her nervousness waned, which made her feel like she was on his level. He apparently sensed this too, for he, now for the first time, appeared a little nervous.

On a server whose black marble matched their table sat a small wooden box. It was a symmetrical cube of some unknown wood, for it was coated in a thick, highly glossy black paint. She guessed it was probably a secret gift from someone.

“What’s in the black box?” she asked him innocently.

“Leave the box alone!” he blurted nervously.

“I wasn’t going to handle it. I was just curious.” Harper, realizing how abrupt he had been, toned down.

“It’s something very important that I need.”

“Like corporate strategies or secrets?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

“Why is it here, then, if I can’t touch it.”

“It rarely leaves my sight,” he answered. “You ask a lot of questions.” This was a burp in her poise, a faltering in her feeling of being on his level, and she cast her eyes downward. Once again, he caught himself. “It’s so important, it goes everywhere I go.”

“It’s not the formula for Coke, is it?” she asked, raising her eyes to his, resealing the rent in her poise, laughing. He paused, then shared the laugh, but he was faking.

“Better than the formula for Coke,” he answered with a tone of finality that officially and irretrievably closed the subject. He lifted a bottle of red wine that was in an iceless silver bucket. “And so is this.” It was already open at the ready and she noticed a slight shake in his hands as he poured her a glass.

“I own the vineyard,” he said to her in a debonair manner that was antithesis to his hand tremors. He likewise poured himself a glass, the slight shaking continuing.

“Thank you,” Rhea said to him as she reached for her glass to drink.

“No wait,” he spoke, “a toast.” And as he reached for his glass to catch up with her lifting of her own, he clumsily toppled it in her direction, the unforgiving red wine flooding her way.

So perfectly had she and her chair been tucked into the table that there was no escape, as her silk blouse, her favorite silk blouse, the white one which had been on layaway for three months, clashed with the splash that attacked her. Clumsiness upon clumsiness compounded the damage as his napkin smeared the stain’s borders.

Since she was with the god, however, she laughed it off as nothing really, and laughed again when he reached for the matching cooler with the white wine, offering the explanation that white wine removes red wine. And she also suffered this surprise splash with mirthful aplomb, for this, too, was nothing really.

The fiasco continued until he ran out of corrective overtures. Her continued nonplussed charade had withstood the entire onslaught with a passing grade.

“I am so sorry, my dear,” he apologized, his tone once again being that of the industrial giant that he was.

Send me the bill would be nice, Rhea thought through the charmed smile she sported, and she was content to sport it all afternoon long if she had to.

She had to.

Some anonymous server, the kind from the best of restaurants that you’re not supposed to notice, served the appetizer. Peter Harper signaled to her and he picked up his smaller fork.

“Grace?” she asked glibly.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re at the head of the table. Are you going to say Grace?” He chuckled away the suggestion. She had invited the prayer with a tone that made it impossible to know that she was teasing. She was a teaser, but it didn’t matter.

“And give thanks to whom?” he said, smiling, gazing intently at her. “No, I’m not.”

An uncomfortable silence ended when he returned to his fork and began without her. She smiled back and reached for her own fork. She remembered her mouthful from the cafeteria, determined to keep the food out of sight when she spoke.

She needn’t have worried.

Peter Harper was an animated conversationalist while he spoke, spitting pieces of Oysters Rockefeller dressing as he spoke, these very minute specks which she hardly noticed, so she tried to make it seem. His slice of tomato slid off of his fork at salad, plopping into his plate, droplets arcing her way, adding a touch of dressing to her blouse. The lemon, of course, was squeezed right into her eye instead of onto his fish at the entree.

And Rhea, for the life of her, could not figure how he managed to drop the whole fish onto the carpet between their shoes, seeing the incident out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if she was being pranked on some reality show. She pretended not to notice, but this whole scene was becoming surreal. He forced her to notice, staring at his empty plate with a refusal to remedy the situation.

“Here,” she offered, “let me get that for you.” But she was too slow. The unheard, unseen attendant had already scooped it up, rolling it with a napkin, and then unwrapped it back onto his plate. Harper glared at him as he did.

“Get out,” he told the attendant sternly. He seemed to be inspecting the fish, but then lifted his eyes to Rhea.

“Do you mind?” he asked her, then resumed staring uncomfortably at his dinner, now sitting once again on his plate after its retrieval from the floor.

“Do I mind what?” she asked back, having no idea what he was getting at.

“Would you mind switching plates?”

“Excuse me?” Rhea asked in disbelief.

“Would you mind switching plates with me? You haven’t touched yours, so I don’t mind eating yours.”

“But you mind eating yours now that it has fallen on the floor.”

“Exactly,” he said. “You see, I have this thing with dirt and germs and the like. I would suppose it’s a rich man’s neurosis,” he chuckled again. She complied, privately suffering the indignity. This had better get me some alimony in the future, she thought, distancing her skeptical self from her enthusiastic self.

They spent the entire time having her try on dinner. There was no talk of business. No dirt at all was bantered. The only conversation that came close was when he sensed that she was upset at how he had treated Penny, which surprised her as an uncommon and un-Harper-like sensitivity.

“It’s obvious you’re a creature of harmony. Say the word, Miss Rainey,” he offered, “and I’ll get your friend to come, in your place, and dismiss you.” His tender smile soothed despite the message that came with it. But this had put an end to shop talk. The rest of the lunch revolved around catastrophes that occurred at each course, some of which he noticed, some he did not. All of them, she wore.

So she couldn’t figure why the lunch. With her. Therefore, maybe he’s a letch, the god on the prowl at the easy pickings that were his drones. But that was OK, she thought, if it were for truly meeting and wanting to get to know unassuming women as a refreshing change of pace. After all, there was letching and then there was letching. It was a shot for her, certainly, so she could allow herself to be letched upon by a billionaire. And if she were explored and then not selected to favor his romantic life, it was still the shot.

Hmm, she thought, how is this not like prostitution?

What she didn’t want was to be used as a spare tire. She didn’t want to be a pro temps whore while he dallied at this, one of his many centers. She didn’t mind him letching after her affection, for that can always lead to appreciating her affection. Yes, she thought, she’d take her best shot at a romance, but not as a masturbation machine. Then she realized she wouldn’t know the difference until after it was over. When one considers a rapport with billionaires, she decided, there are worse things to do than giving him the benefit of the doubt. She had done this with a politician once and had lost. Politicians were now on her pariah list. She would be willing to put billionaires on the list as well, should today make such a blanket condemnation necessary.

After dessert, they retired, at his suggestion, to a soft blue leather sofa at an end of this very large room. The inconspicuous servant made sure that the wine followed them. Red for spilling, white for the solvent. They passed the buffet which held the little black box. Rhea was tempted to slide her finger along it as she passed, but resisted.

“Now, my dear,” he spoke softly, reaching to hold her hand.

Here it comes, she realized, either a letch after my body, or a suitor after my soul.

“Tell me what I can do to make this company more personable to its employees.”

He really was being the prudent mogul for his enterprise! She was so blown away by the letchlessness that she sighed dreamily. He appeared to find great beauty in her reverie, which she felt was a positive attractant, and she fantasized her lips gravitating toward his in a path of least resistance.

“Tell me what I can do to make this company more personable to its employees,” he repeated in a gentle, close whisper, as she made herself, his employee, more personable immediately. Just who had cozied up to whom on the sofa was a moot point and to her utter astonishment, fantasy led to reality as one thing led to another, and ultimately they provided for themselves dessert that was much more rewarding than, but not as messy as, the exquisite caramel cup custard, some of which sat on the tie-dye silk blouse which had come to lay on the floor before the sofa. So expert was the technique of each of them, that each felt the other had been lured dreamily into the situation.

It was all over very quickly. Rhea hid her surprise. They lay collapsed on the sofa, cologne and perfume spoiling the delicate animal hide—a secret gift, perhaps. Just when she expected it was time for him to speak, perhaps to invite her to Sun Valley or Monte Carlo, he spoke as predicted.

“Could you please lift up, Rhea,” he requested.

“Oh, sure, why? Am I hurting your arm?”

“No,” he answered. “I’d like you to get back to work.”

Rhea laughed at his joke. Certainly a joke.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said teasingly, “I know the boss.”

“Well then did you know the boss fires people without the slightest of hesitation.”

Now she was not so sure. She suddenly felt ashamed; she suddenly felt very naked with him. What was previously intimate now had ushered in exposure and helplessness. She was on top of him and she reflexly arched up above him to look into his face. She involuntarily crossed arms to cover her chest, some spinal reflex that attempted to make her feel safe. She reached down to grasp the condom, to hold it tight against him for his withdrawal, but he grabbed her hand and moved it away. He slipped out of her.

Without any type of signal she could notice, the unseen, unheard waiter came in with a small covered silver dish sitting on an open palm. The waiter unhinged the silver tray’s cover open, allowing Harper to discard the condom. The lid fell closed with a dainty clink and just as quickly and quietly the waiter was again unseen. She was defenseless against this unwelcome audience that came and went so quickly.

“You’re kidding, aren’t you, about the firing?” she asked with the type of nervous smile that, while displaying worry, also invited the undoing of any awkward feelings with the simplest of replies. A simple of-course-I-am-silly or gotcha-didn’t-I would do. But his expression became suddenly cold and business-like. She remembered how he had looked at Penny. With nothing but naked people in the room, all had suddenly become asexual.

“I could have your severance check ready in an hour,” he said, lifting himself up, and her with him, almost as if he were shaking her off like some dirt and germs and the like that had gotten onto his own clothing. Like a piece of fish sullied with carpet fibers.

She dressed quickly and was up and ready to walk in no time, and he did or said nothing to deter her. She gave him one last look to redeem the situation, but he passed by avoiding eye contact. Then again, he was Peter Harper, extremely rich tycoon of the age. He just lay there on his sofa, his forefront knee appropriately drawn up so as to block any vision of his sex organs. He had the black box in his hand. The servant must have slipped it to him. Harper opened the box a crack and was inspecting and shuffling some cards that it held.

And so Rhea Rosalea Rainey departed. She left the man who had managed to soil her as well as soil what she was wearing with every course of the meal. Like the silk of her blouse, she knew she could never rid herself of the soiling of this day; her fabric was too delicate, too precious to withstand such squalor.

She took the elevator back to her floor, her cubicle, and walked toward her friend. She stopped and looked down at her blouse that presented the culinary review for anyone who cared to read it. She considered turning around and leaving instead. For an instant she thought she might go to Human Resources, file a statement, resign, and then take the elevator down to the street so as to leave this place forever.

But she had a better idea. A man like Peter Harper deserved so much more.

I slowly entered the house. It’d been years since I'd made it past the threshold. Just get mum's journals, and get out. Through the porch door I could make out George standing in the kitchen, his head low and his back perpetually hunched over, as he leaned slightly against the countertop.

“Dad?” I whispered.

His head rose and he turned to look at me, but the grimace on his face was unrecognizable. Beaten down by age or guilt, this was not the menace I left behind years ago.

“How are you, George?” I asked. His eyes fluttered at the informal introduction, as he staggered to the brandy in the corner.

“It’s nearly three in the afternoon, Dad.” I left an emphasis on Dad. He ignored me as he poured the last of the warm Aqua Vitae into his clearly overused glass, atop a single useless stone.

“Four years gone by and no hello? Maybe a hug? A fucking lingering look of sentiment?” I exhaled. I took notice of an old photo strewn across the chair in the veranda while I waited for his response. Posed proudly in front of a lush garden stood Mum, Dad, Nigel, and Marcus at the old homestead.

I ran my fingers along the frail cardboard blanketing the Buddy Guy album Nigel had saved all summer for, transfixed on the thick film of grime coating every surface. I must have made a face at the stale air and the stench of sweat densely clogging my nostrils, or maybe the mere silence enraged him. Regardless, the calm had passed and I was no longer in the eye of the storm.

This was George’s way, it was all or nothing with him. His chalky face cracked as he spoke and the flakes of skin mingled in the air with his words. A dreadfully long wait to finish an argument I’d walked away from four years prior.

Crimson red engulfed his clenched jaw, so tight his upper teeth cut into his lower lip, he spewed blood along with the venomous words that came out of his mouth, “It doesn’t make any fucking sense, it never has. You were a warning! We would have stopped, she would have lived! You don’t get to take her place, you ungrateful little dyke!” Sobbing into his glass by this point, he begged, “Oh god, why?!”

I’d had this conversation too many times to entertain a response, he wasn’t looking for one anyway. Rather, I made my way towards the stairs, shuffling through the contrasting memories of Christmas mornings spent waiting on the stairs. The journals, get them, get out. Nearing the base of the staircase, his sobs grew closer, they were almost guttural behind me.

“Arden I swear to god, get back here!” I glossed over the slew of derogatory phrases littering his words, but the shrill rise of intonation kicks in my fight or flight and I bolt up the first few steps. The rest of this encounter is almost a blur. I can still feel his lanky fingers wrapped around my ankle and the skin as it tore open across my forehead. My face had slammed into the edge of the step when he pulled me down. My hand immersed in the blood, I attempted to drag myself to freedom. It took all my strength to pry loose his grip.

Is he fuelled by hatred? My God.

At that thought, he slipped onto his stomach and I took my chance. Clamoring my way to the top of the stairs, I took one fleeting moment to gauge my choices, but our faces were only inches apart as I turned around. There was no time to decide between making a run for the bedroom where I knew they were, or back down the stairs before my hands were trapped in his grip.

“You can’t take them, Arden, you just can’t..” The desperation in his voice caused me to waver. “Please, you have everything, everyone, please leave me the one fragment of her I have left.”

Piercing silence rang through my ears. Did he just say I had everything? Had this piece of shit truly not realized all he had done to commit to his own demise? How dare he? He could have had everything. He had the choice, to have Cole and Holly in his life, to strengthen our family after we lost her. WE lost her. I lost her. He tore us apart. My anger restored, but my arms were still restrained so I spit in his blistering face.

I was seething. “This was all you! This was your ignorance, you sad excuse for a man! My entire life I’ve tried to help you see, I did all mom had left behind and more to save you, to save us! All you had to do was choose us. That was it, George. All you had to do was see outside of yourself. We all lost mom, you lost Camilla and you had no choice in that matter, I know. But you had choices, Dad. You chose this, this loneliness, and I refuse to lose myself in the process of choosing you.” I stated.

He let my hands go and I quickly retrieved the journals from the first bedroom. On my way back down the stairs, George took my wrist in his hand and whimpered, “Arden…”

"Let go of me, George..” Quiet fear filled the space between us. “Let me go.”

i can’t remember when the world was sober.

i guess maybe i was born too late.

too early for rehabilitation.

in an era in between inebriation and withdrawals.

a system where the hangover is constant and vicious.

it bites at my heels.

it jabs at my temples.

it hardens my heart.

because we consume to ease the pain.

work and drink.

work and smoke.

work and work and work and work.

and maybe there’s a better way to cope.

but it seems intangible.

a grasp away from a reality.

that is too good to be true.

i forget the last time the world was sober.

maybe hidden in between paragraphs.

that eclipse decades.

or a time that never came to pass.

a place where doctors don’t only take phone calls that come from high rises

and the streets are not bleeding from pharmacy overdoses

no i don’t remember the last time the world was sober.

we didn’t choose this,

don’t forget.

we simply exist within a world that requires us to put bandaids on our broken bones in any way we can afford to.

so choose your vice.

let it burn your tongue or your liver or your wrist or your everlasting soul.

watch beneath eyelids from pupils rolled back in ecstasy,

how the world shakes beneath you.

maybe it finally feels bearable for a time.

and don’t ask me to make sense of it.

cause fuck if i know the last time the world was sober

There are no amount of words that could voice my sorrow

Nothing could bring you back to me

Nothing can bring us back together

You’re gone and now there’s nothing left for me in this world

Why did you leave me alone?

God, why did you steal away my only love in this world?

God, why can’t you bring her back to me?

God, why was I holding her as she took her last breath?

God, Why?

You stole away my only happiness

You stole away my angel

... My joy...

She held me at my lowest points

She loved me at my darkest points

God, why couldn’t you have taken someone else?

God, why did it have to be her of all of the people in the world ?

You saw as I held her limp corpse

You sat there watching as I sobbed over her body

You saw as I had to watch them take my beautiful blue-eyed angel away in a body bag

You saw as the culprit stabbed her six times

You saw everything and did nothing to save her

God, Why?

You knew how much I loved her

You did nothing to save my love

You can’t really exist since you sat and watched her beautiful blue eyes go dark as the life drained from them

YOU DON’T EXIST

You let him take the only thing that made me believe that you existed

You let him take her away from me

Why did I have to work so late?

Why couldn’t I have just stayed home and maybe she would still be alive

I was saved when she was safe

When my darling died, so did the God she believed in

Beat it geezer you know the score.” Richard let out a defeated sigh. Yes he did know the score. There was no bartering with a broker. No credits, no Xfactor. He’d know before he made his way to the “spot” early this morning he would be walking home empty handed. Getting Xfactor on the black market was getting more difficult. The spot was one of the few places to get Xfactor without leaving the city limits. Even then you would have to arrive as early as 4am and wait anywhere from 1 to 4 hours. Furthermore the broker would only be around between 5 or 10 minutes selling X to the frantic consumers before he’d disappear quick as a cat only to return the following day. There were other forgotten corners of the city where x brokers materialized to sell x to eager streamers but being well past his prime and out of the loop with whatever new locations were “frigged” with the young people these days, Richard would likely have no more luck finding them than the police. Although the thought frightened him more than he could say Richard knew if the spot ever got hott then his streaming days were over.

Richard allowed himself to be pushed back to the edge of the group by the flood of other streamers. All were younger. Mostly men and women ranging between 16-40 years old though, Richard was sure one kid that brushed past him couldn’t be more than 12. Richard watched enviously as the other streamers, those with enough credits, spent freely loading up on enough x to last the next few weeks, or days, or hours… Richard knew there were cold streamers amidst the group. (People who spent more time streaming than in the real world.) Some of these cold streamers would spend days in a comatose state binging on x, until their supply was used up resupply and repeat. This subgroup barely gave themselves enough physical attention to stay alive and often appeared shrunken, pale, sickly, and hollowed. The term cold streamers originated from the fact that these individuals often resembled walking corpses.

Six seven minutes then it was over so quick, so smooth, so long as you had the credits you could get your fix. The small crowd dispersed in mere moments, and the spot would once again become a humdrum location in the large bustling city. Richard picked a direction and started walking. The spot was only 15min away from his apartment complex, one of the reasons for his relocation. He would end up their eventually no matter which direction he choose. It was 7:15am the city was just starting to stir. Just a prelude to the buzz and rush that would consume the city for most of the daylight hour and persist long into the night. In an environment such as this one it was easy to fade away into the background. This in fact was Richards’s reality.

Richard, age 68 going on 69, was no more noticeable than a misspelled word in a dictionary. He could disappear for months and no one would notice. Technically he had been experiencing this for the past several years which confirmed his suspicion. No one cared. Richard had lived in this city almost 24 years and he had not a single friend. His wife Gretchen passed away from illness 12 years ago. His family never visited or even called. Not his eldest son Robb or his younger son Andrew. He was never close to his own siblings even when they were younger. His older brother died 4 years ago and last he spoke to his younger sister was at the funeral. Family, extended family, friends, of these Richard had none. At least no one who cared enough to visit him once in a while, call him on a holiday or send a card, picture, or holotone to show they knew, or cared that he was still breathing. He was a ghost, a shadow, and for all practical purposes he was already dead.

There was just one exception, and that was Elisa.

Elisa was Richards’s oldest granddaughter who was 23 now but they’d been close since she was a child. “I want Grandpa! Grandpaaaaaa!” she would often wail when she thought her parents were being unfair. At least that was what he was told by Andrew. She remembered how she used to squeal with excitement when her parents brought her to stay with him when they went out. He remembered how he swelled with joy on the days they spent together. As she got older her interest in spending time with her Grandpa did not fade. Often she made weekly visits and they would spend the entire day together, just the two of them. Gretchen used to joke “don’t go stealing my husband” or “If I was a couple of years younger then it would be a fair competition for your Grandpa’s attention!” This was all in good spirits of coarse. Gretchen loved Elisa almost as much as Richard did. It was Elisa who got him through when Gretchen passed away. She visited him every day for nearly 6 months before her parents finally put a stop to it. Even so she would call and even write letters though they only lived 20 min apart. “But we’re pen pals!” She would argue fiercely to her parents when they pointed this out. The two remained close even through Elisa’s high school and college days but all too soon the inevitable happened. She got married.

His name was Noah. He remembered the elation when she first talked to him about Noah. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.” She gushed. Richard listened fighting desperately to conceal the feelings of dread. 20 is too young he thought, too young to get married. Despite his silent objections 11 months later, he was giving Elisa away at her wedding. That was the last time he saw her. Her new husband was fortunate enough to land a high paying job on the other side of the world. After the honeymoon they relocated and that was that. Richard despised Noah. He was smart, honest, hardworking, handsome, funny, and well-mannered, but he committed an unforgivable crime. He stole his granddaughter.

With nothing and no one left to comfort him Richard turned to Xfactor, the highly controversial substance seen all over the evening news at the time.

Xfactor did the trick like nothing else ever could. With Xfactor, Richard was no longer lonely, no longer unimportant. He experienced the sensation of being loved, wanted, appreciated, and necessary to every bit the same level as when his wife was alive and his Granddaughter much younger. The wonders of Xfactor allowed the user to experience a person’s memories. People could relive any experience imaginable and the experience was so potent it was like actually being there. Users of Xfactor described the sessions as being able to experience everything the original memory holder felt while also being vaguely aware of your own feelings. This state of double awareness was a gate way to levels of experiences that non streamers could only imagine. Twice the joy, twice the excitement, twice the ecstasy, twice the intrigue, success, twice the fear, heartbreak and pain, (for those who were into those types of experience.)

For Richard it was family memories he craved. Birthdays, weddings, family dinners, family game nights, family reunions, and the like. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like such an essential part of a family, but he could now. Through the memories he streamed he knew exactly how it felt and then some when incorporating the feelings of being a cared for husband and a well-loved grandfather which Xfactor rekindled. The wonders of Xfactor were still largely enigmatic as were longer term side effects for both users and providers but what did it matter? Streamers get experience, providers get credits. Supply and demand.

“Credits where can I get more credits” Richard mumbled to himself, hurrying towards his apartment for no apparent reason. There were no credits there. He knew this. Richard was forced to retire 3 years ago. When his granddaughter started seeing Noah and significantly less of him he became so depressed and detached from his work that he lost his job. With no motivation to pursue another occupation, Richard decided it best to just retire. He’d been working all his life and with nobody to support but himself he easily had enough credits to live comfortable for the rest of his life. That is of coarse, if you did not calculate his X usage.

Xfactor was expensive. It became obvious from the start that Richards monthly retirement credits would not be enough to satisfy his growing X addiction. So he began dipping into his savings. Just a little at first, then more. The more Xfactor he got the faster he used it and the more the cravings grew.

He kept telling himself. “I’ll ration it this time. One a week is enough to get me by”. Then, “well that was much too difficult I was being stingy but every other day is plenty”. Then, “two a day should be more than enough. There’s no reason I should need more than that”. Now it was all he could do to make what started out as a sufficient month supply of Xfactor last more than a few days. When the savings ran out he began pawning his valuables. It had gone much the same way. He would set limits then break them. Set more boundaries then cross them. “No matter how bad things get I’ll never sell this.” He would say. Then he’d sell it. “If I ever seriously consider pawning this then I know I need to cut back” then he’d pawn it. 2 month prior he sold the last of Gretchen’s jewelry. And hours of sobbing and arguing with himself did not prevent him from pawning his wedding ring last month. That’s why Richard knew without a shadow of a doubt heir was nothing left in his apartment to sell. If there had been anything else he would have held on to his ring. He told himself as much before he sold it.

He arrived at his apartment complex ascended the steps to the 2nd floor and proceed down the lengthy hallway to 28D. Richard had been operating on auto pilot since departing from the spot this morning and was only fully aware that he arrived back at his apartment when the door locked behind him. He stood there numbly looking hazily around his barren apartment. “Richard you fool” he said to himself. He walked across the room and sank into his musty old recliner. Throw up yellow was how Gretchen always described it. It was every bit as worthless as she always complained. It was among the unsellable objects left in the apartment. Head in his hands Richard tried to process what happened over the past week that lead him here.

He’d been stupid, so stupid and shortsighted. It was his birthday in 2 days and 3 days after is what would have been he and Gretchen’s 41st anniversary. This was always the hardest time to deal. His two wonderful girls would always make it the most memorable week of the year. Now that was all in the past. As a counter measure to this time that brought so much pain Richard planned on spending the better part of that week drowning in a stream of X. But he blew it. He knew that if he got the Xfactor too soon he would be unable to make it last, but he’d been almost 2 weeks without streaming before he finally made the plan to sell his wedding ring that had been almost too much to bear. When he got back with the precious Xfactor he had already decided he would use one or two just to take the edge off.

He started off with a beautiful memory of a father holding his new born son for the first time, tears streaming down his face. Then he streamed a long and touching memory of a couple celebrating their 53rd anniversary surrounded by their large loving family. Then it was Christmas, then a father daughter hiking trip, then a day at the lake, then a proposal, then Christmas again. Richard was reaching for his 11th X capsule before he managed to stop himself. And now here he was, barely two weeks later looking at facing the burden of crushing depression without a single stream X to help dull the pain.

Richard sat there alone going over the situation over and over in his head. Only vaguely aware of the passage of time, he suddenly got to his feet so quickly he almost startled himself. “I need to get my hands on more X, period.” He decided. “But how?” he asked himself out loud. “Any way possible” a voice in his mind said. And Richard knew then and there he would obey. Sometimes he scared himself when it came to Xfactor. When precious X was concerned he found himself behaving in ways he never would have imagined. It happened often. And before he fully grasped what he was doing his hand was resting on the apartment’s front door. I’ll borrow the credits he thought I’ll talk to that boy he’ll understand. He’s like me, no he’s much worse. I’ll promise him double the credits next month. That will give me plenty of time to think of some way to gather more credits. He stood there a few moments building himself up for what he was about to do.

(That boy) was Richards’s neighbor who lived across from him in apartment 27D. Richard didn’t know much about him, in fact he wasn’t certain he had even gotten his name. He lived there before Richard arrived about a year and a half ago. He was young mid to late 20s and was undoubtedly a cold streamer. He had the gaunt unkempt look about him. And he certainly didn’t have a job. He would spend days at a time in his apartment and would be seen hurrying down the hall back to his apartment after a short while. Richard was almost certain he’d seen him at the spot once or twice though admittedly it was difficult to be sure in all the confusion. But his confirmation came several months ago.

Richard was returning home when he saw the young man struggling to open his apartment door. He was burdened with several bags he refused to put down. When he fumbled his keys he made an attempt to grab for them but instead tipped one of his bags spilling no less than 10 xcapsules on the floor. Richard who had reached him by this point was just stooping down to help him when he shouted NOO! Hugging his bags with one hand his neighbor scrambled across the floor quickly reclaiming his spilled contents.

Richard was too shocked to be annoyed about having bent down for nothing because from where he stood, he could see that at least one of the young man’s bags was filled nearly to overflowing with Xfactor. Richard didn’t know how he could have possibly paid for all that X nor did he know why he chose to transport it in such a precarious way. What he did know is that this was certainly more X than he had ever seen in one place and that was without even assuming there was more in his other bags. When the man returned to his feet he resumed his fight with the door even then refusing to let go of even a single bag. Now that Richard was standing next to him it was clear to see why he was having so much trouble with the door. He was shaking so violently Richard could almost feel the vibrations through the floor. His gaunt face was dripping with what seemed like an unnatural amount of sweat but his mouth was set with determination, his eyes seeing only the door. Richard gently slide his hand on top of the younger mans and carefully guided the key into the lock. Richard stepped back as the young man unlocked his apartment door and walked into the threshold. Once inside he turned back. “Thank you” he murmured keeping his eyes on the bags instead of addressing Richard directly, then he gently shut the door. Richard remembered feeling genuine concern for this young man. If I ever get that far gone there might be no coming back, he warned himself.

Without allowing any more time to debate himself Richard threw the door open walked up to 27D and knocked. When no one answered he began knocking louder. There was still no answer. “He’s not here” said the voice in his head “this was a bad idea Just go home and think of something else.” Instead Richard found himself calling out loud. “Hello! Is anyone there? It’s Richard, the man from 28D. We’ve spoken before remember? Could you open the door please?” Still no answer. Then he was pounding on the door. “Hey I know you’re there, I just need to talk to you for a minute that’s all!” Still there was no response. Richard kicked the door angrily, and regretted it a second later when pain shot up from his leg. Choking back a cry of pain Richard knelt down to attend his foot. “When did I get so irrational?” he asked himself through clenched teeth. This was indeed a terrible idea. He decided. “I need to collect myself and come up with a real plan.” Using the door handle for leverage Richard began pulling himself up… and the door knob turned. When he managed to get to his feet he saw he’d pushed the door open a few inches. It was done completely by mistake. Richard stared dumbly at the blackness of the apartment through the slightly open door. Then, before he could stop himself he pushed in open and went inside.

It was dark. The shadows of many objects cluttering the room were only visible thanks to the light coming from the hallway. “Hello?” Richard called into the dark apartment. “It’s Richard from 28D. I just came to…” his voice trailed off. There was no response. Richard flicked on the lights and gaped in amazement. The room wasn’t teaming with clutter as he originally thought. Instead it was filled with all sorts of fancy new luxuries. A large plasma sheen T.V. was embedded in the wall. Large fancy speakers were posted in the corners of the room. Heavy expensive looking curtains hung from the windows, blocking whatever natural light would have entered the room. A large pillow foam couch was resting neatly against the wall. There was a shelf filled with expensive looking gadgets and toys some of which Richard did not recognize. And sitting right in the middle of the room was a luxury recliner with an X helm resting on one arm. On the floor looked like a number of used X capsules. Resting on the floor next to the recliner was what looked like an old fashion paper grocery bag, the same type his neighbor had been carrying the day Richard helped him. This was the opposite of Richards’s apartment in every way. Richard closed the door behind him. All this time he had the idea that this young man was struggling but a quick look inside told him his neighbor was better off than most people in this apartment complex.

Well he’s not a broker. Richard thought to himself. Brokers don’t stream. That was basic. He wasn’t employed so how could he possibly afford all this stuff and still binge on X seven days a week? A criminal? Or rich parents perhaps. Probably the later. Except for X smuggling, crime in the city was pretty low. Besides this young man didn’t seem the type to Richard, not to mention he was a cold streamer so it wasn’t likely he would be able to set aside enough time for criminal activities. Crime? Richard thought to himself. “Isn’t breaking and entering a crime?” But instead of leaving Richard ventured deeper into the apartment moving towards the Xfactor but pausing to examine the contents of the apartment.

Things felt so surreal quite unlike streaming. It was more like a dream. Richard didn’t feel scared or anxious though he knew he ought to be. He could get in serious trouble if he was caught here and yet he felt strangely calm. He touched one of the shelves. A thin layer of dust clung to his finger when he removed it. He reached the fancy glass coffee table in front of the plasma sheen T.V. it was dusty as well. In fact everything in the apartment seemed to be unused except for the recliner and of course the Xfactor products. Richard carefully knelt down and picked up one of the capsules on the floor. No flash. Naturally it’d been used already otherwise the capsule would respond to his touch with blue light. He returned it to the floor and was about to stand when he caught a glimpse of something curious. He paused… then he saw it again. An orange flash. It came from one of the capsules lying on the floor. He couldn’t have seen it right but then it flashed again orange, plain as day. That wasn’t right.

X capsules had two colors blue and red. Before being used the capsules would lie dormant until touched at which time it would respond by flashing blue light every 4 or 5 seconds signaling it was ready for use. In between flashes there would be a brief description of the memory, such as [daddy daughter dance]. After being used the capsule light would glow red continuously for 1 or 2 hours and afterwards remain off for good. That was it. Blue flash ready to use, red glow shutting down permanently. But this capsule was not only displaying an incorrect color it was flashing without being touched. “Defective” Richard thought dismissively though he’d never heard of Xfactor malfunctioning before. “He probably used it and it is shutting down or it never worked at all”. Never the less Richard found himself reaching for the capsule. The moment his hand touched it, it flashed blue. Richard was so surprised he recoiled as if he’d been jolted by static. The capsule once more resumed flashing its incoherent orange light. More curious than ever then, he reached out once more and picked up the strange capsule. It began flashing blue. Richard brought it close to his face hoping to read a description, but the memory section remained blank between flashes. Richard stared at it for a few seconds then placed it on the table next to the luxury recliner. He moved on to the bag. The sight of its content set his heart hammering as it ought have been. It was filled with Xfactor.

Please be active he pleaded silently stooping once more to reach the contents of the bag. All the capsules brushed by his fingers began to glow blue. His heart was beating faster. “I’ll just take a few he said deliriously. Just a handful”. He won’t miss them. “Even a cold streamer would take weeks to go through all this”. “And I’ll pay him back anyway he added” as he picked up a capsule to read, right after… he stopped short. [Fun at the Strip Club] He picked up another. [Jannies Halloween Party] and another [Totally Wasted] and another. [Sex with Reena Tyreas] No nooo! he moaned in all of these X capsules there has to be at least a few decent ones. [1st high] [Ben at Beerfest] [Spring break with April and Brittney] [The Ultimate Beach Party] [The Girl at the Bar] then he lost count rummaging through the bag till he was literally tossing out the bad ones, which was apparently all of them.

Richard became more and more frustrated and desperate by the capsule barely recognizing what he was reading but knowing he didn’t want it. [Sex] No. [Party] No. [Drugs] No. then Richards fingers were hitting the bottom of the bag.

“No!” he flung the empty bag across the room. It landed unimpressively in a heap. The strength left from Richards legs he sank down to the floor sitting amongst the Xfactor that was now littering the living room floor. “So that’s it then”. he though numbly. But no, it was not. He came here for credits not Xfactor. Anyone of these fancy pieces of technology would earn him some nice credits. He rose wearily to his feet. Then his heart stopped when he heard a loud slam seemingly coming from inside the house. Richard was paralyzed he couldn’t breathe. “I’m done” was all he could think “I’ve gone too far and now I’m done”. “Run you fool”! He screamed at himself. Then Richard was at the door and his senses returned to him. There was no one else here. The slam came from 25D like it did almost every single morning around 9:30. It sounded much closer now because it was coming from next door instead of across the hall. Even with the realization, the prospect of seriously being caught had forced Richard out of his craving delirium. I’ve got to get out of here. He decided. But first...

He hurried across the room to retrieve the empty bag getting down on his hands and knees once more he hurriedly began scooping xcapsules off the floor and returning them to the bag. He got almost all of them when he remembered there were some on the floor already. That’s good enough Richard decided. I was never here. He took one last look to confirm he did the best he could to return things to how they’d been when he entered. That’s when the curious flashing xcapsule returned to his attention. There it was just sitting on the table glowing orange where he left it. “That’s supposed to be on the floor.” Richard reminded himself. He picked it up. Instantly it began flashing blue. Richard brought it to his face staring. Still no description. He hesitated a moment, then pocketed the capsule. It was on the floor with the other discarded capsules, Richard reasoned. He won’t miss it. With that Richard left his neighbor’s apartment and closed the door quietly behind him. He walked across to his own apartment and slipped back inside.

Once the door was securely locked, he slid wearily into his own old and musty yellow recliner.

Sitting here back in his armchair he could barely believe the last few minuets actually happened. Like it matters he thought bitterly. “Nothing’s changed”. “I can’t believe I took such a big gamble and the only thing I have to show for it is a bad xcapsule”. But he didn’t really believe that did he? Why bother taking it if he didn’t secretly hope, that maybe just maybe there was a chance… he pulled the capsule from his pocket. It flashed blue signaling it was ready to use. Richard stared at it wondering. Then he got up and retrieved his xhelm from his bedroom. “There’s no point in putting it off.” he decided. “I’ll know in a minute if it’s worthless or not” he returned to his chair inserted the mystery capsule into the receiver then slipped the helm over his head. Richards’s heart was hammering. There was something on this xcapsule he could feel it now. Even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted just the thought that he was mere moments away from streaming was enough to excite everything in his being. Taking in a deep breath Richard hit play.

Richard clawed the helm off of his head tumbled out of his chair and wretched. On his hands and knees he remained gasping to catch his breath, thick red saliva dripping from his chin. That wasn’t real, it wasn’t real. He repeated manically. It couldn’t be. What would that mean? He struggled to stand his legs, were shacking so badly it was almost all he could manage. How long had he been streaming? He looked at his clock 12:59. It had been roughly three hours, but Richard was so disoriented, someone could have told him it had been 3 minutes or 3 days and he would except it without question.

Deep breaths deep breaths, he chanted trying desperately to regain his self-control. Was that really a memory? If not then what the heck was it? Not a counterfeit surely. A streamer could tell and, nothing about what he’d just experienced seemed staged. With a trembling hand he reached for the helm still on his chair and plucked the xcapsule from the hold. As soon as it was removed from the slot it began to flash blue once more. Gaa! Richard cried dropping the thing like he’d been bit. It fell to the floor barely missing the red wet mess Richard left on the floor. It lay there flashing its ominous orange light. Richard felt like he was about to be sick again. He hunched over, hands on his knees, fighting the nausea. He managed to keep down the rest of his morning cranberry juice and in a few moments, it passed.

Richard stood up. The vile capsule was winking orange up at him. Richard backed away from the capsule. “I need to get out of here”. “But where” Richard was at the door. “Do I want to go? If what I just saw was real…” Waves of fear and dread washed over him. “I know too” much he thought dumbly’. “People with this kind of information don’t live long and what am I? “Just a worthless old man”. He had no friends to confide in, no one he could go to for help. “there’s not a soul in the world who cares about me he thought bitterly.”

But perhaps… that could be a strength. Maybe I’m so far off the charts no one is watching. Maybe I can slip through the cracks like I always have. I won’t speak out, I won’t tell a soul... “But Elisa!” his thoughts flew to his beloved granddaughter. She has to know. But if I tell her she’ll be as dead as I am. Richard staggered to his bed room and sat down on his old and lumpy bed. “What should I do?” He stared wistfully at the holotone on his night stand one of the only useful remaining items in his house. He never could part with it. The holotone was his icon of hope. He would stare at it for hours hoping Elisa would call one day like she used to, then they’d talk and laugh and pretend to dance like they use to. When he looked at the holotone he could almost see Elisa’s translucent figure standing with arms outstretched for a virtual hug saying how much she missed her grandpa since they last spoke.

Richards’s eyes were brimming with tears. I can’t, he said, tears spilling over. Even if I leave a message when she doesn’t answer, if they come for me they’ll check my contacts”. The best way I can keep her safe is to keep the years of silence unbroken. “But the memory, he sobbed into his hands. How long would she really be safe”…? No! Richard stood up angrily. I won’t sit here like some tired old man. If I’m going to die, I’m going to do something that will protect my Elisa even if it costs me my life. My life is nothing. I’ve been living dead for years anyway.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Richard froze his short lived determination replaced by paralyzing fear. Someone was pounding on his front door. Boom! Boom! Boom! The knocking came again. And there was no doubt in Richards mind then. In the past 3 years, he had never received a holotone message, a call or a letter that wasn’t related to bills, and it had been even longer since anyone had knocked on his door. That’s why he knew it was related to the Xfactor. They had come for him, to collect the information he never should have received. Each knock on the door was a gun shot and Richard knew he was dead.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Tik...Tok...Tik...Tok...

“You gonna do it?” I don’t bother raising my head I know who it is, or should I say what? It’s not like it matters anyway, no matter what I call them they always come without fail.

“Man she’s seriously taking a long time, I genuinely don’t know why we bother...” The second voice, all too familiar. Like twins they come in pairs, bringing destruction in their wake. Switching on and off terrorizing me like i’m their 9 to 5 and they’re gunning for employee of the month.

“Neither do i...” The words left my mouth before i realized it and the moment the click of a tongue hit my ears i could tell i had agitated the beast.

“Oh? If you’re cocky enough to snap back at me why don’t you stop holding that razor againt your wrist and slit it already?” They’re presence was always overwhelming and unappreciated so no matter what i say they’ll only belittle me for it. It’s best to just be quiet and ignore them until they pass. Is what I tell myself but, the more they point out my flaws the more i try to defend myself and the more im shot down for it. They always win and i hate it no matter how hard i fight, no matter how much my friends tell me they care, no matter how watched i am; it never seems to be enough.

I know they won’t stop till i’m dead, you know their names whether you want to or not, they’ve been carved into your brain and for some your heart. I am so tired of this endless cycle, this fear powered machine that has been in a place of power for far to long. As i slowly move the razor away from my wrist despite the fading sounds of protest a sense of relief washes over me as i lean back. By the time the razor hits the floor all of the noise that my poisionus mind had created seemingly vanished.

It felt good to throw a wrench in the cogs of a well oiled machine and i plan to do it even more as the future days come. Will things only get harder from here most definatly but how will i deal with it? Only time will tell.

1/13/2020

Chapter 1

After slamming the front door of the brownstone, that she loved to escape another ridiculous argument, she marched down the perfectly lit street. Not knowing where she headed didn’t matter. Getting out of there did. Muttering to herself in her mind she vowed it was over and she was going to do something about leaving. After a block or two, she thought she could really use a drink.

Where the hell am I? Damn, dumbass you outa pay attention.

Ahh, there it was her favorite bar. It was what she imagined a speakeasy would have been. The hotel it was in was one of the most subdued yet well-appointed boutique hotels around.

She pulled the large brass bar across the smoky glass door and stepped inside. The cool air brushed her hair back from her face gently and embraced her in a way she’d like a man to. Standing just inside the door, she paused and looked around, getting her bearings.

Some subtle jazz music filled the dimly lit space. The glasses and bottles on the mirrored wall of the bar sparkled and seemed to call to her to come and sit and partake. There were several seats at the bar and some of the bar tables. She decided the bar was the worst choice because it would make it clear she was alone. She chose a table along the wall of windows that looked out over the outdoor seating and lush atrium.

Her phone had been buzzing in her purse since she’d left, but she refused to get it out.

The cool leather seat felt terrific on her back. She’d gotten slightly warm in her angry walk, and her cotton button-down felt a bit damp in spots. Her loose trendy ripped jeans were perfect for this sort of place. Kicking off her sandals, she pulled her feet up and sat cross-legged in the stool.

As she listened to the music wafting through the space she ordered her favorite cocktail from the busty sweetly young waitress. Yes, a Tanqueray martini, dirty and dry with two olives would be delicious right now. Sitting comfortably and trying not to think about anything, in particular, she finally looked at the trio playing the music. The keyboard player was looking her way, but she didn’t assume it was at her. As she looked back, she saw the corner of his mouth turn up ever so slightly. She held his gaze, attempting to prove herself wrong. He didn’t look away, but instead ever so slightly dipped his head in acknowledgment. She tried to do the look around to see if it is sent to you or the beautiful sexy woman behind you scan without anyone noticing. Re-thinking that she held his gaze. What did she have to lose?

Oh, but then it all changed.

Shit, they are taking a break now? What the fuck was I thinking looking back like that? Being bold and daring…

She decided this was her queue to go to pee. Surely, she could avoid him if she was gone for a minute. She put the cocktail napkin over her drink and scooted off her stool to the ladies’ room. Looking in the mirror, she picked herself apart, to be sure it wasn’t her that he was looking over. Apply some more lip color she went back to her seat. The seat was cool, and it calmed her again as her heart was pounding her temples.

Still refusing to reach for her phone she rolled her head back and closed her eyes. Trying to relax and enjoy the atmosphere, she went into a meditative state. When she opened her eyes, she was startled to see a small intricate plate of cheese and bread. Not realizing she was hungry, she found her mouth-watering. Looking around but not knowing where she or what she was looking for she decided to partake. After her first taste and her eyes rolling back in her head, he appeared across the small table from her. She opened her eyes when she heard him speak.

“So, I guess I made a good choice. You look like you like that,” he said.

Startled again, she said, “Why yes. Yes, you did. How did you know?”

“You looked like a woman who likes what I like, so I was convinced you’d like this snack plate and I was right.”

“You’re spot on. I don’t know how you got it from a glance, but you did,” I replied.

“There is something about you. If that isn’t being too forward. I didn’t have a doubt. I knew I could choose to satisfy you, and it would be the right choice. You need to be satisfied, don’t you?”

She didn’t even know how to reply. YES! That is what she wanted to say. She wished to grab the front of his shirt and pull him up against her. Kissing him was all she could think focus on for some reason. Maybe it was the martini, which was almost gone. Perhaps it was his pure sexiness. His dreadlocks and ebony skin all made her more curious to know more about him.

He said that he had to go back to his keyboard for the next set. He asked if she’d be staying. She said she would. As he went to his position, another martini showed up. Again he dipped his brow to her and she to him.

Listening through the set, she stayed proud she hadn’t looked at her phone. The music played and soothed her, and she watched him stroke the keys. She imagined him stroking her the same way.

The set completed; he came straight to her. He extended his hand and introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Aaron. And you are?”

“Hi Aaron, I’m Bridget. How are? Oh, and thank you so much for the snack and drink. Your group is great. I loved the music.”

“Well, thank you, and you’re welcome. It’s wonderful to meet you, Bridget. Do you have any plans now? I don’t, and I’d love to spend some time with you.”

Thinking twice about going home, she said, “No, I don’t. I’d like the same.”

He paid her tab, and he asked if she’d trust him to take her to his place upstairs. He lived above the bar. She decided since he was well known there, it would be safe.

Chapter 2

Climbing the wooden stairs, she listened to creaks and groans as their weight taxed them. Once inside, he showed her to the sofa and excused himself. She sat and attempted to slow her breathing. His place was bohemian and welcoming. She felt at home enough to take those sandals off again and curl into the corner of the comfy furniture. He came back wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Smiling down at her, he offered to make her some breakfast. Realizing how hungry she was, she welcomed the offer. He popped some champagne and pulled out eggs and bacon and bread and started to cook. They sipped the cold bubbly and talked with ease. Sitting at the counter, they ate the simple but delicious breakfast. They chatted and laughed easily. Then she felt his hand on her thigh. She knew she was more than tipsy, and that this more than an attraction. He took their plates to the sink. Standing next to her stool, he turned it, so she faced him. Reaching down, he tilted her chin up toward him, and he looked at her as if he’d known her forever. When his lips touched hers, there was a fire that nothing could stop.

They were both breathing quickly and touching and caressing one another like they’d never been touched before.

She stood up, and they were in full embrace. She felt weak in her knees and giddy at the same time. Kissing and trying to catch their breath they paused and laughed. Then he lifted her to put her arms around his neck. She naturally wrapped her legs around him and could feel his excitement pressing against her in just the right place.

With his strength and finesse, he laid her down gently on the sofa. Then reaching up, she tugged on his shorts to set free what she imagined she’d felt there in the embrace. When the shorts moved down, it fell out, and she was wowed! Her mouth started to water. Her pussy started to quiver. Then he leaned down and straddled her.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“Oh my god, yes I do,” she replied.

Hovering just above her lips he dipped it in and out. Just getting the tip nice and wet and making her beg with her eyes. Pulling it away, he leaned over and gave her a long wet kiss that made her positively soaked. Standing, he removed her jeans and then top and then her panties. He took them in his hand and spread the damp crotch wide and buried his nose in it, breathing in deeply. He wanted to smell all her sweet musky scent and suddenly entertained the idea of keeping them. All that was left was her bra. He was relieved it wasn’t complicated. Just a soft bra he could pull over her head. When he did, the weight of her heavy round tits fell silently and beautifully there for him to touch.

He reached down and scooped each and lifted them to his mouth. While running his tongue around the nipples, he reached down and felt how wet she was. He was surprised to be touching hair, though. So many girls these days were shaved clean that he didn’t expect to feel the soft down of her pussy hair. It turned him on. He was hard and wanted her right then, but she had other plans.

Sitting up, she brought him to her mouth, and though it was a struggle, she took him. Gagging a couple of times, she settled in and let him hold the back of her head and thrust into her mouth. She licked the length of it when he pulled it out, and he moaned.

“Damn baby,” was all he could manage.

The next move took her by surprise when he grabbed her hips and pulled her down onto her back again and kneeled in front of her. He inhaled her perfect scent. Now dying to taste her and drink it all in, if he could make that happen, he worked her pussy expertly from the inside too while licking her clit firmly and with conviction. She could not be quiet. She whined and moaned and writhed under his mouth. The quicker he worked his fingers, the faster she reacted. She could feel it coming. She hadn’t warned him how much it could be but also knew that once it started, she was incapable of holding it back.

Talk about flood gates! Shit, I wish I’d told him to watch out.

As she got closer, she instinctively raised her hips. She was tightly up against his mouth, and then he pulled back and thrust his fingers in and out quickly, building the urgency for her to let go and let it flow.

She screamed, “Oh fuck Aaron! Holy fucking shit.” Knowing what he wanted, he withdrew his fingers, and she pulled her head forward to ride it out, and it showered him. His face was dripping and hair glistening. At first, she just stared at him in disbelief. Was he going to back away across the floor or want more? His grin told her all.

He laughed and said, “That was incredible. Could we do it again?”

She, in turn, chuckled and sat up, leaned forward, and held his face in her hands. She put her forehead up against his and said, “God, I hope so.”

They kissed and cuddled and talked. Then he was hard again, and she wanted all of him. From the cuddle on their sides, he felt her make sure she was still wet, and the slick was still very much there. He slipped his dick in and parted her lips to give her all of him. He went slow. She was feeling the length and width of it all. It no sooner filled her, and then she was moaning again. The sense of urgency was there, and she knew she’d be flowing hard all over him in seconds. He reached around and held her tit and squeezed it. Lifting her top leg, he pushed it in even harder and with conviction and purpose. Reaching back, she felt his flat hard abs and the fine layer of sweat that had popped up. He was hitting her so hard the couch creaked and scooted some on the floor. She was bracing herself from the front so he could go as hard as he wanted. Without coming out, he moved around to be on top of her and put her legs up against his chest. He kissed her feet and looked down at her. With the next deep penetration, they both called out, “Oh fuck” and then started to laugh. He kept at it and then while she rubbed her clit, they came together. The release was mind-blowing, and doing it together made it monumental.

He dropped off to her side and lay his arm under her head, and they both panted. He got up to get some water, and she heard her damn phone again. She decided she needed to at least look at it as it was very late.

Reaching in, she retrieved the phone. In disbelief, she had her husband’s phone.

How did I pick up his phone? Well, that’s just great.

When she tilted it, she could see all the banner messages across its face. He’d never gotten the upgrade, so this phone only needed a passcode. She could put it in, but the notifications told her all she needed to know. Someone had been messaging him every few minutes. Her name was Leslie, and she could fucking have him. She had Aaron.

10/19

*This has not been edited for publication*

RJ just stood there. His mouth had dropped; his legs were shaking; his

heart was hammering inside of him like a carpenter. He had never been

on the other side of the ropes before. He had never had anyone else

strap on his gloves. The same question kept blocking his focus. It

rattled inside his brain and stole his attention completely. The question

was, “do I belong here.” The bell rang with a stinging sound that

echoed throughout the hall.

He never even heard it though. Everything swirled around him, as he

stumbled and fell against the outside of the ring.

“ Hey RJ, your up.”

Eight weeks before, RJ had once again signed up for the Florida 14-16

Dou martial arts season. He only signed up because his best friend

Thompson Banks needed a partner to qualify. The deal was that

Thompson would start the first four of eight rounds and win the fight

before RJ ever had to take his turn. This was really not that

improbable, because Thompson was by far the greatest fighter that the

league had ever seen. He was the reason they started buffing up on their

protective head gear. The year before this had been easy, Thompson

had made his way through the season almost untouched and won the

championship in the second round. Everything should have been the

same this year, but something was different. Travis Field, that is what

was different. He hadn’t taken many belongings to Florida, but he

brought plenty of trouble. He was the only fighter anybody in town had

ever seen that could go toe to toe with Thompson and last four rounds.

Travis had his little brother as a partner, and he was almost just as

good. Jackson had been fighting all his life. When the final fight, the

league championship came around, Thompson needed to win, and fast!

Unfortunately, that just didn’t happen, The first round had dragged on

and Thompson had taken a beating. The second round was better, but

Thompson still lost points. In the third round, Thompson had hung on

for dear life, and had tied his opponent in that round, but he was still

down an overwhelming amount of points. In the fourth round, the old

champion made an incredible comeback. It was a sellout worthy

performance. The crowd had gone wild as he tore the new kid to

pieces. It wasn’t enough though; right before the knockout blow, the

bell sounded. Thompson was forced out of the ring despite his constant

begging for another round. Now everything rested on RJ’s shoulders,

which were already sagging from fear and weakness. It is true, RJ had

wanted to be a fighter all of his life. He had trained hard. His heart

burned for this moment, but when it finally came, the lights burned

hotter. He stepped out into the ring, and watched the arrogant younger

brother strut around the ring. He was clearly begging for attention.

This was the moment of victory that he had always wanted, but did

victory want him?

Part Two

RJ never even knew what hit him. He never even noticed that the fight

was going on before he found himself kissing the canvas. His head

swam as he fought to get up. He knew every second he was down

meant more points for his opponent. Jackson came in hard and

delivered a combo to his rib cage and then his face. RJ crumpled again.

The smaller boy was still in shock as he climbed to his feet. Jackson got

lazy and took a wild and obvious pull back swing for RJ’s head.

It was a miracle for RJ that the shot was evaded> The two competitors

circled each other. Jackson faked a low kick and stung Rj on the nose,

but the kid didn’t go down this time. Rj took his first swing at Jackson

and missed.

CRACK!

Jackson had followed up and drilled Rj on the face after blocking a

weak swing. The boy had stumbled back into the ropes and fallen. Now

RJ was upset. He raced to the middle of the ring and swung a wild and

random group of punches. Th flurry lasted about five seconds and

ended with RJ flopping on the ground holding his rips tightly and

gasping for air. The first round continued in this fashion and ended

with RJ having only landed one punch, and Jackson scoring 8 jabs, 6

hooks, and one cross.

“Are you ok man?”

“umm, I guess I’m alright”

“It’s okay, you can make up for the loss after some rest.”

“think so?”

“Sure, you can take him. Stay on your toes more, and don’t wind up before you swing. Just let one fly quickly before he knows it’s coming.”

“Thanks”

“No problem RJ; I believe in you. We can still win”

After RJ had his two minute break, he climbed over the ropes again and

entered the ring. He still wished he could just go home. He knew He

wouldn’t win. He also knew that Thompson didn’t really think he

would win either. The referee started off the second round of the

second round, the fighters met in the middle. Jackson toyed with RJ

and waited for a response.

“ what’s the matter? You scared to fight? Just stay on the floor a little

while and you can go home without a scratch.”

RJ remained quiet, but delivered a combo to Jacksons face. Jackson

blushed a ripe red color and swung a low kick for RJ’s knees. Before he

knew what had happened, Rj was diving backwards uncontrollably.

THUNK!

RJ got up again. This time it didn’t take quite as long. Jackson danced

around him and faked a jab, but took a shot at RJ’s knees again. It

worked, and once again RJ was forced to have a little conference with

the floor.

“I would ask you if that hurt, but I’m sure your used to it by now”

jeered the confident opponent. Again, RJ made no reply. Jackson

became bored and threw a whirlwind of punches from every angle until

his heart was bolting out of his chest and he was exhausted. An evil

smile crept across his face as he saw the smaller boy tripping backwards

and falling into the ropes. RJ had protected himself from most of the

swings, but had taken one or two powerful hits. The rest of the second

half was not incredible for the underdog. He took his fair share of this

and left the ring panting like a wild dog.

“How’d I do Thompson?”

“Not bad; you landed three hooks, and four jabs. He landed fives along with two kicks. You still made up for all of the floor time though.”

RJ frowned

“That’s a lot of the point scoring.”

“I know, but you’re getting better. Try to anticipate his hits. Watch him take in a breath and move out of the way before he even swings”

RJ nodded solemnly.

“I’ll try”

RJ was ready now. his fear was gone. He had a passion now, and he was

willing to sacrifice anything to win. He had hung on two rounds and

was confident he could take the win back. For the first time he actually

felt like he wanted to be here. It was no longer a bad dream.

With eyes flashing and heart pounding, RJ stepped out onto the canvas.

Jackson smiled and walked to the center.

“ Just two more hits left buddy. I hit you, and you hit the floor. It won’t take much longer. Don’t worry”

“ I guess we’ll have to see about that” replied RJ, who was comfortable

enough to talk back now. He was not impressed with his opponents

choice of words at all. The ref started off the fight, and both boys

started with a wild volley. Jackson swung hard and fast, but RJ was

dodging and blocking almost everything. RJ leapt to the right to get out

of the flurry and then started breaking on Jacksons weak rib cage.

Another violent attack broke out. This time RJ was doing most of the

offense. Jackson struggled to block and evade the oncoming slaughter.

RJ rained down hits on him like a true veteran. His heart was in the

fight now, not just his arms. The sneaky fighter jumped backward and

stuck RJ in the shin as he advanced on him with a jump-skip. RJ let out

a helpless, pain-filled yelp, as he hit the canvas. The crowd stopped

everything and looked on with fearful silence. Everyone waited for RJ.

His leg had been hit hard right in the funny bone. He could still feel the

vibrations pricking inside his leg. Slowly, RJ crawled to his knees. The

boy let out a painful sigh as the tension died down. The count was at

seven. He had three seconds to get up; RJ lifted one foot, and jerked

himself up all of the sudden with new found strength. The crowd

roared with approval for the underdog who had endured everything so

far. RJ’s eyes blazed with pain as he looked on the awe filled youngster.

Jackson thought he had won. HE never expected that last second push.

RJ smiled now, and gave his opponent a wink. Jackson was started and

gave a confused second look at the boy. He didn’t have long to look

though; RJ landed hook on Jackson strong enough to knock a

mouthpiece out. The bully staggered backwards and then wheeled

forward, as he tried to gain back some momentum. Jackson swung an

uppercut, but RJ dodged and knocked him down. Jackson leapt back

up; his face was flushed with embarrassment. The two boys engaged in

another slobber-knocking volley. Both boys swung with all their might,

and heart. They dodged, they blocked, the doffed each others

arms. They kicked and scratched and jumped and shoved.

They battled on and on, in a heated close quarter shootout. Sweat was

flying off of their backs. Saliva was spilling out of their mouths.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, RJ came out on top.

He stood over Jacksons limp body for a moment, and scanned the

crowd for the first time. Applause erupted from the building, and

everyone jumped to their feet and cheered for the underdog, who had

persevered through the beating. The moment was cut short though.

Jackson was saved by the bell. RJ’s shoulders slumped and his mouth

dropped as he saw Jackson being pulled out of the ring. The bully

would have another shot. The last round was coming up, and the competitors would have a whole five minutes to rest up and get ready.

This would ruin RJ’s advantage of hitting Jackson while he was still

shocked and fragile. RJ took a trip to get a bottle of water from the

vending machine, his mouth was bleeding and he wanted to get away

from the noise so he could clear his mind. He slipped the doller into the

machine and pressed the number. RJ leaned against the wall and closed

his eyes for a second. Everything became quiet. He was all alone,

dwelling in the silence of his mind. There was no noise except the

constant humming of the machine.

“ I finally did it. I entered my first fight, and I could be the one to win

the championship” He smiled to himself as he thought of wearing the

plastic belt around his waist. It may have been a cheesy prize, but

anything with the word “ champion” on it was enough for him.

Then he stiffened, and his smile vanished.

“Stay focused RJ. You still have to survive another round. Get your

head in the game. It’s Showtime.” He stepped away from the wall and

turned towards the machine where his neglected bottle of water was

waiting, but something stopped him cold. Jackson was right in front of

him. The cocky expression had apparently migrated, and the boy looked serious now.

“Hey RJ, how are you feeling”

“Fine”

RJ bent down to grab his water but he felt an arm grab his.

“Look, I know I’ve been a bit of a bully, but I really need to talk to you”

“Well what is it, we don’t have much time so hurry up”

“Look RJ, there’s no reason for us to go out there and kill each other”

“Jackson, what is this about?”

Jackson paused, and answered slowly.

“Not everybody has a life like you RJ”

“What on earth do you mean”

“ I have noticed from school that your parents have a “ proud of you

no matter what” philosophy. Well my dad isn’t exactly like that. If I lose

this match to a little guy like you, It won’t be pretty. I’m begging you,

please hold back. I can’t afford to lose. It would ruined my fathers

views of me. It could ruin everything.”

“Yeah right, you just know you’re beat, so you beg me to ease off when

I’m just hitting my stride”

“Look RJ, please I need you. It’s not what it looks like. I’m serious.”

RJ became very proud, and very angry at the same time. He pushed

Jackson aside and strolled down the hall with his water.

“No promises, Jackson. Except the one I’ll make to the School

newspaper giving them a first dibs on the story you just gave me”

RJ laughed out loud as he strutted into the main building and took his

spot outside the ring. The crowd went barbarically wild at the

appearance of their hero. RJ smiled and played it up as he stepped into

the ring. Jackson appeared on the other side. He slowly trudged into the

ring with knees low and head tilted. Confidently, RJ skip-walked to the

center to hear the refs closing remarks.

“you’ve kept in clean so far. Let’s keep this last round clean as well.

No matter who wins, I want you both to know that you’ve put on a

spectacular performance tonight. Now go to your corners and let’s get

it on.” The two fighters took their positions and waited eagerly.

“You got this RJ, show em what you’re made of.”

RJ and Jackson squared up in the middle. RJ weaved back and forth

testing his opponent. He let loose a lighting jab that buzzed Jackson in

the jawbone. Jackson swung a desperate stroke but RJ ducked, and

plowed into him hard. Jackson stepped back, and regained his balance.

RJ shook his head violently and scolded himself for charging into his

opponent instead of punching him. He had become a greater fool than

Jackson. Carefully, the two battlers stalked back to the center to meet

each other. Jackson dropped a few hits on RJ that made him angry.

His rage fueled his punches, and he drove Jackson back to the other

side of the ring. He thrashed Jackson against the wall. Stroke after

stroke he took apart Jacksons tired defense. The bully watched as

Jackson crumpled onto the ground. The arrogant youngster turned to

the crowd. He was clearly seeking attention. It didn’t happen.

Everyone had suddenly become aware of how much hurt Jackson was

going through, as he lay there completely limp. Even RJ’s family was

shaking their heads. His father was the most disappointed.

“This is getting to his head, I’m throwing in the towel”

“Can you do that when he’s winning? Asked his curious but agreeing wife.

“ I think so” RJ’s father got up and jogged over to the ring.

The crowds boos fell to whispers as Jackson struggled to his feet.

It was far from over. Jackson hung on tightly. The two boys flashed in

the middle Jackson’s legs were shaking as he danced with RJ and tried

to find an opportunity to make a connection. A long shootout

commenced. The boys struggled for the upper hand. RJ landed a hard

right hand on Jacksons cheek and stumbled backwards

uncontrollably. Jackson hit the floor hard, and didn’t move.

Everything was silent. Everything was still. Everything was over, or was

it?

“ GET UP JACK! GET UP AND FACE HIM! GET YOUR FACE OFF THE GROUND! MY SON ISN’T A COWARD”

RJ swiveled his head towards the stands. He could see a large man

screaming at Jackson. His mind was racing in all different directions. He

suddenly realized just how true Jackson’s pleading had been. He could

here the whole crowd cheering for Jackson to get up, and he suddenly

realized that he was no longer the underdog. He was the bully.

It was time to make a choice.

“ I can’t blow this win. Augh, I can’t keep doing this though. I’m killing

him whether I know it or not”

Jackson was climbing to his feet. He had barely beaten the buzzer.

RJ looked over at Jackson. He smiled and gave Jackson a wink, but this time it wasn’t the same.

“You can’t stop him. He’s about to win. This is the final fight of the season.”

“This win is going to his head. It’s not healthy for him”

“WAIT, LOOK”

RJ’s dad looked towards the ring where Thompson had pointed.

Jackson was covering RJ up with hits. A leg sweep dropped RJ to the

ground with a plop. The crowd screamed like a house of madmen.

RJ was still, completely still. The noise quieted slowly as everyone

watched in suspense. The referee was making his count.

“THREE,

FOUR,

FIVE,

SIX,

SEVEN

,EIGHT

,NINE

,TEN! THAT’S IT, WE HAVE A WINNER”

The ref grabbed Jacksons hand and raised it high into the air.

The stands exploded with applause.

It felt like the entire earth was shaking. The entire earth was moving

from the buzz of a hundred fight loving fans, who were ready to blow

the roof off. RJ climbed back to his feet. He turned slowly and

something caught his eye. It was his mother, sitting in the stands. She

was looking towards heaven with damp closed eyes. He wondered if she

knew what had happened. He plodded over to the ropes and climbed

over them leisurely. He hugged his dad tightly.

“I’m so proud of you son. Win or lose, that was a great fight. You hung in there”

“Thanks dad”

RJ’s dad wanted a quick word with the victor, so he slipped away for a

minute. RJ turned slowly to see his friend.

With mouth still gaping, there was Thompson standing just

outside the ring.

“You had him. What happened out there?”

“Oh, I guess he must have done something that caught me off guard”

Replied RJ with just a hint of an ironic smile.

This is where the story ends, but only where the questions begin, so I will ask you one thought before you’re departing. Did RJ make the right choice?

*This story is based on the Reedsy.com Prompt “Write a humorous story about the descendant of someone remembered for an insignificant act.”

My name is Blaze. OK, my real name is Blake Hilson, but my pen name is Blaze, because it sounds awesome. I have written for the local newspaper as an entertainment journalist for the past ten years, but my passion is for poetry. This passion comes from my late father Adam. My father wrote a poem that was published in the poetry anthology “An Ocean So Blue,” which came from the organization Talented Poets. Before my father passed away, he gave me his copy of “An Ocean So Blue,” and it is one of my most prized possessions. He told me that he had intially mailed his poem to Talented Poets for their contest, and although his poem didn’t win the grand prize, it got as far as the semi-finals. They told him that his poem was brilliant, and they wanted to publish it in their anthology of only the best poetry they receive. For $80 they offered to send a copy of the anthology to him as a keepsake, and he happily obliged. I have had the anthology in my possession for the past twenty years. Here is his poem that was published:

A Really Bad Poem

By Adam Hilson

This poem is very dumb.

Reading it won’t be any fun.

It sounds like it was written by a bum.

It will probably be thrown on the floor.

After all, the metaphors are a total bore!

This poem is very bad.

It is not at all rad.

It will never become a fad.

Because it is just PLAIN BAD!!!

This poem is very lame.

It will never help my rise to fame.

I am a horrible poet.

And yes, I do know it!

My poem is as sour as a lime.

None of these lines even rhyme!

As I revisited my father’s work, I smiled at the chills I felt from his pure poetry. Talented Poets were still around, and it was my turn to add to our family legacy. I love being an entertainment journalist, but I have wanted to be a published poet since my dad’s success. Fortunately, it was easier than ever to enter the contest from Talented Poets. My dad had to type out his poem on a word processor and mail it in, but all I had to do was submit my poem on their website. It was time to see if I had what it took to win the contest and get published in a future Talented Poets anthology. I submitted a poem that I worked hard on, and felt a lot of pride for. Here it is if you would like to read it:

Funky Beat

By Blaze

I was walking down the street.

Walking on my feet.

When I fell into a purple hole.

I landed on a floor that was real cold.

I saw some little green guys.

They looked at me with red eyes.

Then they started dancing to a song.

A techno dance song, that they danced along.

I started to dance along with it too.

I became a real dancing fool.

These green guys know how to party.

Boring in the sewers, hardly!

Unfortunately, now I must go.

But there’s something I want you to know.

Next time you’re bored, with nothing to do.

Join these green guys in the sewers, they’re really cool!!!

I was quite nervous, but the time had come. My father inspired me to write, and I have definitely found great success with a well loved entertainment column. But I really wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a poet. I clicked submit, and I reviewed the confirmation screen that my poem was received and would be reviewed for the contest. And now the waiting game began. I decided to call it a night for now....

*****

I didn’t have to wait very long. About a week later I had an email in my Inbox from Talented Poets. This is what it said:

Dear Blaze:

We have reviewed your poem “Funky Beat,” and we were blown away by your amazing artistry. We would like to extend our congratulations on being accepted into our poetry contest as a semi-finalist! Your beautiful poem has the potential to win the Grand Prize of $500,000. We also are in the process of publishing our latest anthology of only the best poetry, and this beautiful keepsake just won’t be complete without your incredible poem gracing its pages. For a small fee of $150 we can include your inspiring work, and send you a copy for your enjoyment. We also have additional products that your poem would be well suited for. Please click the link below to visit our online store.

Thank you for sharing your work with us. We are deeply touched by your talent, and we look forward to collaborating with your genius.

Sincerely,

Talented Poets

Elated, I clicked the link and placed an order for the upcoming anthology, “Fields of Ferns.” I did it. I was going to be a published poet. Just like my father. I looked in the online store to see what else Talented Poets offered. They had many more things that could be done with my poem, options that I don’t believe were available when my father’s poem was published so long ago. My poem could be printed on a keychain. I could get a hoodie or a T-Shirt with my poem on it. I could have my poem read and recorded by a professional voice actor on an MP3 file. I could order a beach ball with my poem on it (might be nice for the summer). I could have my poem engraved on a dog food bowl (why not? Animals love poetry too). A dishware set with my poem engraved on it was also an option (could be nice for dinner parties). Many more options were available, and I couldn’t wait to consider all of them.

*****

“Good morning Blake!” My coworker Tom greeted. Tom wrote an advice column for the newspaper. “That’s an ummmmm, interesting hat!”

“Thanks buddy!” I responded enthusiastically. “Fields of Ferns” wasn’t set to publish for a while, but some of the other items from Talented Poets had arrived. One of the things I had ordered was a baseball cap with my poem printed on it.

“Those socks are something too.” Tom said. I was wearing shorts with my socks pulled up to my knees. I don’t normally go for that look, but I had also ordered socks with my poem printed on them.

“Aren’t they awesome?” I asked excitedly. I was about to fill my personalized coffee cup that had my poem printed on it, when Tom asked me a question that would open up a conversation about my proud achievement.

“So, what’s with all the personalized things you have today? And is that poem printed on your sneakers too?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Remember when I told you about how my father was a published poet?”

“Yeah, I finally remembered after the first 50 times you told me.”

“Well, I entered the contest my dad had entered before, and my poem is a semi-finalist! They are also publishing it in an anthology, and I was able to get it printed on all these personalized things! I have even more personalized things at home!”

“Well, congrats man.” Tom said as enthusiastically as he could muster (I think he needs some coffee. I should have ordered him one of the mugs too). “Your enthusiasm is great, but you might want to be cautious. I am pretty sure this contest and their book are from a vanity publisher.”

“Vanity publisher? What do you mean?”

“Well, they are probably only interested in publishing poems based on the money they receive, not the poems themselves.” Tom replied. “I mean, you are wearing socks with your poem on them. How many publishers do that? I bet any poem entered would be a semi-finalist.”

At this point I felt offended. “Are you saying you don’t think my poem is semi-final worthy? Talented Poets think I have talent!” I then pulled up the email from Talented Poets on my phone to show Tom, while trying not to cover up my poem printed on my custom phone case.

“Your poem is.... fine.” Tom said cautiously. “You are a great writer Blake, and you have done amazing work here at the paper over the past ten years. I’m just saying, you could probably send this organization anything, and they will butter you up to get your money. And it worked, as you are sporting socks with your poem on them.”

“Whatever!” I responded heatedly. “I will send a completely ludicrous poem to them, and I guarantee it will go nowhere in their contest!” I stormed away from Tom, with a plan in mind to prove him wrong....

*****

I was ashamed of what I was about to do, but I had to prove that Talented Poets praised my poem for its merit, not my money. This was also about my father’s legacy as well, since this all began with his published poem through them. I created a new email and used an alias in order to separate my decoy poem from my true work. I read the submission I was about to send once more before sending it to the contest. At the very least, my real poem should win against this one:

Vain Poet

By Blizzard

I could send anything to Talented Poets

And they would say I’m an artist.

They don’t appreciate true poetry.

They only appreciate true money.

But I’m a vain poet, and I might know it.

So here’s my poem.

Is it semi-finalist worthy?

Maybe if I drop money on it it will be.

Would they put this poem on a baseball cap?

Sure, if I send enough money.

So let’s do this.

VAIN! VAIN! VAIN!

MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

TALENTED POETS SUCK!

WORST COMPANY EVER!

EVER!

EVER!

EVER!

It made me sick writing these words about Talented Poets, but there is no way they would endorse a poem like this. Now as long as I don’t hear back from Talented Poets, then Tom could eat his words....

*****

“You were right Tom. Talented Poets really is a vanity publisher.”

“Sorry Blake,” Tom said sympathetically. “But if you don’t mind me asking, now that you know this, why did you buy that hat?”

I blushed as I remembered that I was now the “proud” owner of a baseball cap with my decoy poem “Vain Poet” printed on it. “I had to test it out and see if they would really go as far as publishing this poem and putting it on merch. And they did. I will be receiving a copy of “Fields of Ferns” with the poem “Vain Poet” in it. And this poem is also a semi-finalist. And Talented Poets told me they loved this poem and that I have incredible talent. Did you want to hear the spoken word recording of the poem I purchased?”

“I think I’ll pass. But they aren’t wrong in one aspect.” Tom responded. “You definitely have incredible talent. Just look at how well your entertainment column has been received by our readers.”

“Yeah....” I replied, still feeling blue. “I just hate that my dad’s legacy was being published by a vanity publisher, which anyone could have done by throwing money at them.”

“I know for a fact that your dad left a far bigger legacy than that.” Tom gently rebuked. “Yes, his claim to fame was being published by a vanity publisher. But you enjoy his poem, don’t you? You enjoy the anthology it appeared in, right?”

“Yeah, I really do.” I said with a smile. “The poem summed up my dad’s goofy sense of humor, and that is something I will always treasure.”

“Exactly.” said Tom. “And your father’s legacy goes beyond his poem. He wrote something that inspired you, and thanks to that inspiration you are also a writer, a writer whom people look forward to reading in our paper every day. Your father’s poem had lasting effects that are continuing. You should be proud of him, just like he would be proud of you.”

I was deeply touched by Tom’s words. He was right. It doesn’t matter that my dad’s poem only got published by Talented Poets. He inspired me, and thanks to that I am able to make people happy every day with my writing. My father started a legacy that continues on.

“I really appreciate that Tom. You are so wise, maybe you should write an advice column!”

Tom laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

*****

So I’m not entering any more Talented Poets contests or buying merchandise with my writing printed on them. But I am still writing my entertainment column. I am still working on writing poetry too. I bought a nice journal and wrote my father’s poem in it. I am filling the journal with my own poems too. Maybe some day I will try and get them published, but even if I don’t, I will still pass them on to the next generation for inspiration. So for what it’s worth, thanks for the start Talented Poets. And thank you for everything dad. You will always be my hero.

Originally posted around 9/10/2020 - I believe this was my first Prose post (I’m still a newbie).