The brothers

Todd is standing at the oven, pulling shake and bake out. Neil walks through the door, cold, looks up with a hint of curiosity, stomps his boots on the mat to clean the snow off of them. It’s dark outside, you can tell it’s well past normal supper hour.

Todd: What’s up? I made pork.

Neil: Ooo. Thanks.

Todd: Mom decided not to make supper tonight. So her and dad aren’t eating anything. I wish they’d tell me when I have to make my own supper, I would’ve started a long time ago.

Neil: What are you making with it? You’re not just having shake n’ bake are you? Shouldn’t you have, like, a salad or something…

Todd: No. I hate salad.

Neil: Well you’ve gotta have something, and all Mom’s has in the fridge is salad.

Todd: Open your eyes…

Neil: Oh. Sweet.

Todd: Mmmm, What’s going on tonight? Want to rent a movie or something?

Neil: Um, I’m going out tonight.

Todd: What are you doing? Playing hockey?

Neil: No, I’m just going out.

Todd: What are you doing?

Neil: Nothing, it doesn’t matter.

Todd: Well if you’re not doing anything then why can’t you tell me about it?

Neil: Whatever.

Todd: Ridiculous. Why’s everything such a secret.

Neil: It’s just none of your business.

Todd: Well take your plate, supper’s ready.

Wilson's Gas Stop

As I stand behind the counter the scent of Big Mac’s and Chicken Nuggets overwhelm the store and clog my nostrils with grease. The only thing that passes this barrier is the gasoline that lingers on hands as bills and greetings are exchanged. The smell is such a part of me that without it I feel uncomfortable. It’s a personalized brand of drug that I need to function. Having it in my body keeps me alive and losing it would make me seize. Fresh air doesn’t exist here. It’s an unheard of idea that only makes sense to a select few. This dependency ridden place functions like an equation. Taking any part away will give you the wrong answer. Following the equation is fundamental to running the shop smoothly.

The constant ringing of timers and cash registers occur so often that you hear them when you’re not there. It’s a buzzing whistle that follows you around like a mental illness. It attacks even when you’re most prepared. When you’ve finally escaped into silence it sneaks in and stabs you. I need to escape, but the demonic intuition stays with me wherever I go. This insanity causes you to turn into a robot, automatically responding to stop the ringing anyway you can.

It looks like a giant threw up blue and this is what came out. Every shade of aqua, turquoise and denim surround me like a cage. Even now, blue surroundings cause me to react like a child caught in a lie. I need to avoid capture. The only relief of blue is the pink, purple and yellow slushies swimming around and around. It continually laps around the container, trying to improve on every stroke. The cycle pulls you in like a fat person in a Speedo. You know it’s something that you shouldn’t look at but you just can’t stop. It’s an experience that breathes lust into your world, forever drawing you back to its enchantment.

Once the shock of blue fades, the store turns into a smoker’s dream. It’s the ultimate selection of cigarettes from all over the world - a true dynasty. There are exotic ones that smell lustrous and soothing. There are classic ones that are harsh and arouse your nostrils. Others are ridden with menthol and the scent is confined to the walls of its carton. They’re tossed around and tainted by the hands of staff yet are still praised by the religious customers who come just to taste its glory. We as staff are gatekeepers to this religion and are key in the monetary sacrifice. The physical barrier between staff and customers only accentuates this position of authority. It stands between us like limbo, separating two worlds yet is connected by one simple act.

Angus

In my first year of University, I traveled to and from the Mount with a friend, Angus, who I worked with at the local gas station. It started out as a convenience, partially because he doesn’t have a car and partially because I am such a nice person. It really makes no sense for two people to go into the same town at the same time in separate vehicles. So we car pooled.

In the first few weeks of our travels together, I tried bring up casual conversation, the weather, classes and work. It was fine and it worked, but as we got more comfortable with each other the rides got a little more revealing. Conversation that started at 8 in the morning was never too perky.

Until I brought Britney Spears in the car with me.

That morning he came out to the car slowly. It was snowing outside and he still had to audacity to wear his *NSYNC t-shirt with no jacket. He beard was unshaven and he fly was half zippered. He had clearly just gotten out of bed. When he slumped down into the passenger side he managed to mumble, “Morning - God I don’t want to go to school.” I nodded in agreement as I pulled out of the driveway and drove towards to highway.

I had kept the music down low for the first few minutes of the drive. Angus didn’t look like he was really in the mood to do anything except return to bed. His uncanny attitude made me unsure of what to expect, so I figured it would be best to play it safe. The music was barely loud enough to hear, and Angus starts to turn it up to hear what exactly is playing. You can make out the tune of Piece of Me, Ms. Spear’s latest hit. Once he realized what song was playing he turned up the music on full blast and started singing the song, word for word. He knew the entire song as if his mother used to sing it to him as a child, belting out his favourite parts of the songs louder than the rest and nailing each word as if they were his own.

As the song came to an end, he turned the music down and settled in his seat. He was no longer tense with excitement and joy, but his mood had definitely changed. He blushed a little through his beard and had a so-what look on his face. I giggled as I realized that our relationship had then completely changed. Singing Britney on our daily commutes became a routine and is something that we continue any time we hang out together.

Fanny Gabriela

Fanny is a 67-year old that completely lacks a sense of reality or responsibility. She currently lives in the basement apartment of her sister’s house in Lower Sackville free of charge. As a sweet and naïve person, Fanny always sees the best in people. So much so, that she gets blinded by hope and fails to see the nasty that lies beneath. All of Fanny’s friends and family know this is true because she was involved in three nasty marriages that all ended in divorce. Her last marriage left her broke and without a job, which is the reason why she has been living in her sister’s house for the past 8 years.

Throughout Fanny’s troubled marriages, she decided to turn to God to get her through. This part of her life has become so fundamental that she won’t go to the doctor because no one should touch her ‘temple’. Her family worries about her because she hasn’t been able to take care of herself and will go without eating for a few days. A couple months ago she fainted and couldn’t go to the hospital for help. This caused uproar with her sister, who feels like she needs to take care of her.

Nevertheless, people always smile when they see Fanny. Whenever they tell her something good, they hear her say “Praise Jesus” or “That’s the Lord”. Even though not everyone Fanny comes in contact with has the same strong faith as she does, they find her sincerity comforting. And she knows that her beliefs will only be reinforced when she goes to her extremist Baptist church on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays. She relies on her faith to keep her going, and to let her know that there is something better for her after this life.

Born a natural brunette, Fanny was gorgeous growing up. All of her pictures from her teen years look like photos of a model. She had long, thick hair that danced down her back. And curves that women of any age crave. After her second divorce, Fanny decided she needed to take some form of control over her life. Her mechanism was bleaching her hair, cutting her bangs in a vertical line across her forehead and shaving off her eyebrow. The Fanny that existed 20 years ago is a completely different person than she is now. On top of changing her beauty-routine, the stress of life has taken a toll on her body as she struggled with being overweight. Though Fanny’s look is somewhat off-course, she knows that all of God’s children are beautiful.

After leaving her last husband, the amount of space she had to live in was reduced by a tenfold. Being the housewife to a wealthy husband, left her opportunity to shop and buy whatever she pleased. Unfortunately, her passion for shopping did not stop when she left the marriage, and continues to spend most of her small-income on unnecessary items such as teddy bears and pillow cases. Her continual buying on top of the amount of things that she already owned leaves her tiny apartment crammed full of her treasures with only a path to walk along and one spot to sit on her couch.

Fanny knows that her obsessive shopping is ridiculous, but it comforts her. And she is only trying to get through this life so that she can move on to better things. She knows that once she goes, she will be welcomed into heaven with open arms and never have to worry about life’s troubles again.

A final good-bye

My family is very superstitious. We believe in things that don’t have any form of scientific proof and follow our heart over our mind. For the most part, we are on the overtly religious end of the superstitious spectrum. My brother-in-law is a pastor and the whole family regularly attends church. This ‘religious trait’ is prominent in most members of the family, other than my Nan.

Something you need to know about her is that she is not my real, biological grandmother. She was married before and has six children of her own and met my grandfather after my grandma past away. So this story involves her biological family and has spread over onto my side, used as a story to creep us out.

One night she heard a rattling in the kitchen and Nan woke up. She thought that someone might be trying to break in so she got up out of bed and went to investigate. To her relief, there at the table sat her son, Jim. She asked him what he was doing there at such a late hour and he said that he just stopped in for a minute to say good-bye, but he had to hurry because he had to go see Marie. Nan sat down with him and talked for a little while and he kept on repeating that he had to go. Nan thought this was weird, if he had to go then he should just leave, and she had no idea who this Marie was, but she let it go and talked to him for a few minutes before he said he really had to leave. An eerie feeling came over her as she bid him good-night and she knew that something strange was going on… but she brushed it off and went back to bed.

The next morning Nan got a phone call telling her that Jim had died at around midnight the night before- two hours before he had visited.

Nan, being superstitious, automatically assumed that she had seen her son’s ghost, who’d wanted to say his final good-bye before heading off into the unknown. But she couldn’t get who this Marie he’d been talking about and why he was in such a hurry to leave. Nan had never known of a Marie. My grandfather told her that it was just a weird dream, and she reluctantly started to believe him.

A few days later at the funeral, Nan was approached by a woman who said that her name was Marie. She warned Nan and told her that what she was about to tell her might sound really weird but she had to know if she had been dreaming. She told Nan that she had been Jim’s girlfriend and that she thought she had seen him the night of his death, a few hours after he had died. She said that he claimed he’d just come from his mother’s house and was in a hurry to leave. Awestruck, Nan had confirmed that she thought she had seen Jim the night of this death as well. The two women instantly knew that it was no coincidence. And at that moment, Nan knew that she and Marie had both seen the ghost of her son; wanting to say his final good-byes to the people he loved.

Cupid's Arrow

I love Valentine’s Day. Some people say that it’s cheesy and a cash-grab but I absolutely love it. It’s the time of year when you can see couple’s starting to form in high schools. Spring doesn’t seem so far away and people a just happier.

But my love for Valentine’s Day stems from a much younger age then teen romance and the feeling of Spring being right around the corner. I was four. Staring at the fridge with a dazed longing when a thought came over me which I spoke aloud to my parents, “I want a dog.” My sister was at school at the time and I had just come indoors from the frigid January air. Still bundled up in my hot-pint winter jacket and burning from the change in air the thought possessed me. I remember coming out of my daze and looking up at my parents to see what they thought and they softly laughed and told me that they would think about it.

My next part of this memory flashes forward a couple of weeks to Valentine’s Day. I was sitting in the back driver’s side seat of my parents golden car. My legs were so short that only my feet reach over the end of the seat and the seat belt pushes up against my chin which drove me mad. I didn’t know why I was there, only that I was curious that I didn’t know where we were. We drove and drove to what seemed like forever for a four-year-old when finally my Mom got out of the car and left my father and me to wait. We waited and waited. I could tell that something was off with my Dad. I think it was my first bout of intuition telling me that something exciting was going to happen.

And then it did.

I remember seeing Mom carrying this big, green, suit-case shaped thing and thinking that it was weird for her to carry something that looked so heavy and not have Dad help her at all. She came to the car, opened the back door across from me and put the case down on the seat and said “Why don’t you peak inside…” I leaned forward and stretched myself to look inside the front door of the case and there sat my soon-to-be best friend Cupid. It was instant love. One you hear about and hope that it will happen to you. We were immediate friends. Her dark brown hair was the softest thing I’d ever felt. And her big brown eyes looked up at me with excitement and curiosity. Little did I know that we would grow up together and learn about life from each other. We were soul mates who protected each other and listened to each other’s problems. Our relationship flourished over sixteen years until she had finally run her course. The thought of having her put down still upsets me; but every Valentine’s Day I think back on the time I got to spend with my best friend and feel the comfort I once felt with her by my side.

Where dreams are made

It seems like a long time since I've been in a natural environment. Something that was created by God and not tainted by the hands of man. Something pure and flawless in its essence. Going back and thinking of these places inspires me. I'm so overwhelmed with how the modern world works that I honestly forget what it means to just be.

The most natural place for me has been unvisited for many years, except maybe by the lawn mower a couple times. My memories of this place are brilliant. I crave the opportunity to go back there on a sun-filled day, with only myself and waste hours starring at the sky. In that endlessness there was no worry about tomorrow or regrets about the past. I was purely in-tune with life and fearless as to what might lie ahead. You could smell the purity in the place. You could smell the excitement of the water moving out towards the ocean and never to return. It was a place of meditation on the most primitive level. Something that you cannot be taught, but something you must experience to believe.

The field of grass was as endless and as intoxicating as the sky above. The grass was every shade of green and sometimes growing higher than I was tall. It was a complex mosaic of sharp and soft textures. It was woven out into a perfect place to fall. It felt like I was born there, like out of the entire world this was where I was supposed to be. I wanted to bathe in this grass. I wanted to nuzzle up in it and escape everything else. This patch by the water was never mowed. It would grow with me throughout the summer and would come sharply back to life each spring. Its reliability was comforting. Just knowing that even though we would be apart throughout the winter, it would still be perfect when I returned.

There was a rock that was completely surrounded by water and just big enough to stand on. I would balance on that rock a few feet out into the lake and be completely satisfied with the world. Freedom was found out there on that rock. Freedom was in the wind wrapping itself around me and then dashing of on a great adventure. Freedom was there when I would slip into the lake and soak my clothes in water. Freedom was there when I when the sun poured onto my face and let me feel its heart. The freedom I found there gave me strength. And let me know that at the most simple level, that life is good.

Writing this makes me want to go back here. If not sometime soon then in the future with my family. This place has taken a part in defining me. It has inserted itself into the places where I find relaxation and will continue to follow me throughout life no matter where I go.