24 Down

Hey you!

You are seated on the blue plastic vinyl of the seabus, its’ predictable grumbling motor is just background music to the commuter noise. Rats in the galley as the squat boat turtles its way across the harbour.

The guy seated across from me is rocking out, headphones by Dr. Dre. Head up, head down, head side to side. The tourists are all pressed up against the windows, snapping:

Canada Place,

a seaplane,

Mom and Dad.

Mom and Dad and Canada Place and the seaplane. Everyone together now,

Vancouver, the glass city preens vainly in their lenses. The girl on her iPhone “yeeeeah I know, but of course we all knew he had it in him. That streak. He cheated on the last two as well.” Her voice drones like a hive. There’s a pair of snowboarders, baggy pants ridiculous on this sunny spring day, elbowing each other. Mostly though just people like me and you. Plodding to work and back with this weird interlude of a cruise in the middle.

But back to you.

I won’t describe you on craigslist later:

Old guy, on the sea bus. Normal suit, grey hair, wrinkles. I’m not interested. Just wondering?

I’m wondering,

Why do you do the New York Times crossword in pen? I’m not questioning your intelligence and I’m sure you’re very smart, but your daily frustration is evident in the trenches your frown carves in your forehead. You scribble out each wrong answer, and painstakingly draw new tiny little boxes for your next attempt. You do this every day, and you’re wrong a lot.

It drives me nuts.

Sometimes I can barely restrain myself from grabbing your crossword and doing it for you. Or simply rending in it two, and casting it to the ground like Moses and the Ten Commandments. I sharpened four pencils and I keep them in my bag, and maybe one day as you mumble the clue to 24 down I will hand you one. Before you scrawl in the wrong answer yet again, get half way through and run out of letters (or boxes).

But for now I watch you around the corners of my library book and despair at the violent scratching of your pen as you realize Juliet wasn’t Shakespeare’s only leading lady.

So try again.