Spring 2013, Issue 4
Fall 2012, Issue 3
MASTHEAD Jeff Groat Coordinating Editor editor@pulpmag.ca
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Claire Matthews Managing Editor managingeditor@pulpmag.ca
Dana Miller 3 - 4
Kylie Mantei 27 - 31
Geoffrey Nilson 5
Matthew Visser 32 - 33
Vacant Publishing Editor publishing@pulpmag.ca
Jordan Bray 6 - 9
Angela Rebrec 34 - 35
Floyd VB 10 - 11
Jared Vaillancourt 36 - 41
Weronika Slowinski Associate Publishing Editor publishing@pulpmag.ca
Sasha Mann 12
Shane Long 42
Parabjot K. Singh 13
Rosaura Ojeda 43
Rhea Paez Arts Editor arts@pulpmag.ca
Ryan Shrieves 14 - 17
Carla de la Rosa 44 - 45
Nina Mosallaei 18
Amroe Graham 46 - 47
Andres Salaz Associate Arts Editor arts@pulpmag.ca
Tara Hallquist 19-20
Jolene Harrison 48
Kirsten Sedore 21-23
Interview with Carmen Aguirre 49
Connor Doyle Literary Editor writing@pulpmag.ca
Jasmin Nguyen 24 - 26
Taryn Pearcey Associate Literary Editor writing@pulpmag.ca
Interested in submitting to pulp? Check out our guidelines online or on Facebook, and submit to submissions@pulpmag.ca
Marlow Gunterman Web Editor support@pulpmag.ca Victoria Almond Operations Manager ops@runnermag.ca pulp Standing Committee: Alex Hawley Simon Massey Shandis Harrison Jessica Lar-Son Geoff Nilson Roland Nguyen Stephanie Peters
Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily shared by the editors. Cover: Andres Salaz Visit our website at www.pulpmag.ca pulp is owned and operated by Kwantlen University students, published under Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society. Special thank you to Roland Nguyen for design. Arbutus 3710/3720 12666 72nd Avenue Surrey, BC V3W 2M8 778-565-3801
art
DANA MILLER
You’re Going To Miss Me When I’m Gone Mixed media installation
03 Women wear facades that distort their sense of self and dilute their potential. In this piece, Dana Miller exposes the clashing expectations placed on women in public and private speheres.
art
DANA MILLER
Welcome to the Machine
27”x40” Mixed media installation
04
Dana’s work deals with the internal struggle of female identity. She depicts the struggles of trying to fit cultural norms and how these can make one feel disassembled and manufactured. As each woman plays this game, she must decide to what degree she will play.
poetry
Geoffrey Nilson
Inaugural i a scandinavian with dusty cheeks fingerprint glasses the week-old smell of natural soap socks without elastic hip-hugging corduroy overalls a smile & a crooked gait thin fingers thinner ankles translucent jackpot hair european syllables in trouble with a mother never seen that methodist father past the fence unhinged eyes piecing me up like a wind-felled hemlock ii collapsed half-flooded on clammy inner thigh there’s a deep solid not wooden but well-bottomed with flush timbre & a disconnect somewhere near oscillations of fear of declaration of everything involved unlock the blankets follow my suggestion don’t go just yet it won’t be the first time
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art
jordan bray
“I’m always exploring. It’s one of the few things that satisfies my soul. I have a drive to escape normalcy and experience new life-changing adventures in the raw. I feel a sense of euphoria from getting lost in a place worth getting lost in or just picking a direction and walking until I find whatever I didn’t know I was looking for... I spend a good chunk of time imagining the wonders that exist in the grand “what if”, imagining what we can’t see. Imagining places fictional, those yet to be discovered and the things that inhabit them. My drawing has grown as a natural response to this. It is to make permanent and tactile that virtual world of intrigue, mystery, horror, and humor that occupies most of my waking hours and all of my sleeping ones.”
“The Trans-Locational Resonating Portiture Apparatus” I was looking at an antique ‘No.3-A Autographic Kodak Model C’ we keep in the kitchen. Figuring it didn’t have enough fancy and impossible bells and whistles I drew up the this neo-victorian teleportation device.
“Spiral Doorway” A hypothetical, mechanical architectural feature for sealing off a coach house apartment suite to a machine shop below.
“Biologist’s Field Journal” I had a phase when I was interested in bookbinding. This piece was meant to have “specimen drawers” that slid out of the back cover to hold samples of bugs, seeds, pteridophyta rhizome, etc.
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“I have a fondness for design. Most things I design stay on the page but sometimes they actually get made. Often times it feels as though its rational, process-oriented creation doesn’t fit in to the ‘fine arts’ cannon as much as the discipline would like. In my defense, the things that I design are not strictly functionally rational. I often figure the world lacks sufficient whimsy. I oft’ go wanting. I want to sculpt my environment and invent weird things. Not for the sake of being weird but to inject a kind of elegant eccentricity into daily life.”
“untitled (doorway)” One of many whimsical drawings of entryways. I drew it while backpacking in the Gulf Islands.
art
jordan bray
“Headway” I was having a bad day, so I decided to draw a nice peaceful location. Not a static spot, mind you, but something that would serve as a starting place to adventure. I love ruins and I’m crazy about jungles... The choice was obvious, really.
“Birdman Costume” I had this idea of making an elaborate stilted animatronic bird suit to take to Burning Man 2012. I sorely lacked the time, resources and materials to actually make it. But there’s no sense in letting a perfectly good idea go unconceptualized.
“Armored Lizard” I was feeling super socially awkward at a party.
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spoken word Floyd vB
The Sun or the Moon I do not belong to the sun or the moon. In ninth grade, fourteen-year-old freak frustrations manifested themselves in a need for transformation. I wanted fur to prickle forth from my skin like hypodermic flower stems, needed my voice to lower and break, ripping vocal chords in slicing growls, wanted to double forward in pain, spine crackling, ribs snapping, muscles toiling and troubling into new shapes and strengths, needed to be bound by this lycanthropic curse, in quadrupedal ecstasy, hooooooooooowwwwling at the moon driven by Artemis, in all her virginal, obviously lesbian, werewolf-sanctioned femininity: she was the only God I’d ever pray to. “Artemis, please, teach me your ways, wild moon-dances and gravitational tidal flows in and out of my lupine body, let me hunt for my loves in the fictitious wilds, tell me the secrets of this womanhood I was born with. Artemis, why can’t I bear to be a woman?” But she would never answer, and I came to discover that because of my doubts of the correspondence between female body and something-else mind, she had abandoned me.
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I do not belong to the sun or the moon. When I was sixteen, new frustrations manifested themselves in a need for transformation. Girls over here, boys over there. Hair, please, prickle forth from my chin. Good morning, girls! Voice, please, break, lower and growl. Ladies first. Body, please, square out and grow. You are such a strong young woman. Breasts, please, be bound by this curse, be bound by this curse, be bound by this cursed tensor bandage which will crackle my spine, snap my ribs, shorten my breath and make me feel animal. I searched for Apollo, twin brother of Artemis, driver of the sun, protector of young men, and masculinity, portrayed as the personification of perfection. “Apollo, please, make me into a man.” I was no longer praying, for I knew, in my two-years-older wisdom, that he was nothing but a metaphor, but I still begged him to take my physical me away. Our world of Apollo scares me, though. It scalds the moon-skin all around me with fiery sneers that make my female cohorts into something that is not something.
Sometimes, I used to join in, trying to be one of the Apollbros, solar-flaring behind the backs of lovers and friends. I do not belong to the sun or the moon. Solar Apollo is so corrupt amongst society’s blatant misogyny that I cannot relate to him. Lunar Artemis will not have me, and I will not have her, for she is my body, and I want to transform. I am at odds with this binary. And while I still wish to be called ‘man’, and cringe when ‘she’ or ‘ma’am’ are shot in my face by mistaken, slipping lips, I do not want to be what ‘man’ means to so many. I do not want to adhere to these black and white extremities I do not belong to the sun or the moon, and I do not want to. I just want to belong to myself.
Check out Floyd performing “The Sun or the Moon” at www.pulpmag.ca
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poetry
Sasha Mann
My Grandma Read Science Fiction most of it bad but each paperback on her shelf a world of computer hackers and virtual reality glasses visions of the new millennium from the 1980s and i wanted in my grandma tried to teach me about cyberpunk on the car rides to cambridge or the atlantic sand dunes preparing me for the future as she saw it rats scampering past neon pyramids i didn’t get it i hadn’t watched blade runner she listened to books on tape and forgot she was driving which is why she always crashed the car a beatnik a flower child out of time no more hitchhiking across the country and getting arrested for hanging out in mixed-race cafés
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no more hippie school bus cults just the daily commute from suburbs to city and working full-time testing software testing the waters of pixelated cyberspace and teaching writing at the women’s prison after getting laid off and driving to her husband’s art shows listening to sci-fi on tape and dying of something as mundane as cancer. she should have died in zero G on a rastafarian space station out of a William Gibson novel it would be weird enough i had to sort through her bookshelf i tossed most of it space operas and dragon trilogies a lot of new age bullshit i kept the best of the science fiction the edgy stuff that your grandma doesn’t read nebula prize winners from the ‘80s but if i’d wanted to stay true to my grandma i would have kept all the trash that she flipped through in search of another earth.
poetry
Parabjot K. Singh
How to Learn a Language Enroll perhaps in a course, memorize consonants, and double-daring vowel sounds. Four hours of life to carve into a language’s rules, to let your eyes wander into the beauty of the language’s home.
explore the worldly view of totem poles, Qillas, the Musée de Louvre.
Meet someone, spark a conversation or two.
Make friends with music: sarangi, flute, and konga. It will aid you, with pick up lines and more.
Practice, practice, practice.
Prepare to teach the world.
Research the richness of her history, explore samosas, sushi, spaghetti with flavours of salsa, kathak, and kabuki,
Enjoy it, because language resides, in the iris of one’s eye with a hazel pigmented soft, speckle.
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prose
Ryan Shrieves
fiction BODY OF WATER
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The ocean was a bed of foam. Sharp white-crested teeth rose toward the vessel like the maw of a rabid beast. Few natural phenomena generate the sheer destructive power of a storm at sea. The crew members of the Tiamat were faced with such a force in the Gulf of Alaska, where the unpredictable weather that year had claimed more than a few ships. As the eighty-one-foot-long tug crashed through heavy waves, the steel hull groaned under the pressure. The tug plunged into a thirty-foot rogue wave and each man onboard suffered a momentary loss of faith in his survival. The helm’s glass rattled in duress but did not give in to the crushing pressure of the water. No one breathed. And then they were through. The Tiamat exploded through the monstrous wave, the 1100 horsepower engine valiantly thrusting the tugboat forward, beams of light from the ship’s bridge illuminating a never-ending cascade of water which engulfed the deck. The storm-blast, tyrannous and strong, continued to wage war as waves regularly crested over the bow. The worst was over. “I’ve been forty years at the helm of tugs and that was the goddamn biggest wave I ever saw,” said Nicholas Demincov. He unclenched his grip on the wheel, his fingers white from tension, and allowed himself the luxury of flexing one hand and scratching his grizzled beard. Only a small amount of grey had started to show in Nicholas’s hair, but at that moment he felt more exhausted and much older than his nearly sixty years. “It’s a good thing it hit us heading home. If we’d still been hauling, we would have lost our tow.” Henry Clifton smiled sympathetically. “Th… th… thought the whole boat was going under fer sure.” Henry was tall and well-built from years of physical labor, yet at thirty-seven, he had never shed the awkwardness and paralyzing self-consciousness of adolescence. As if to compensate, he had recently shaved his head and grown his mustache into walrus tusks. His speech impediment and his quiet reserve sometimes led others to suspect Henry was slow-witted. When the captain of the Tiamat had offered him employment, Henry proved to be a fiercely loyal, dedicated deckhand and an adept ship’s cook. “This old tug was built in the forties when shipwrights knew how to build ‘em,” chimed in Raynold Stonefish, the ship’s mechanic. A heavy-set First Nations man, Raynold was the youngest of the Tiamat’s crew. His body was covered in an intricate pattern of tattoos featuring scantily clad women and creatures of a devilish motif engaged in lewd acts. His expertise with boats, however, was beyond dispute. “For seventy years now she’s been cutting through storms, ice, and whatever else nature has thrown at her. No way she was going to go down easily.” Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “Easily? When things settle down outside, you’ll need to survey the ship. I don’t think she got through so easily.” As if on cue, the engine made a stuttering sound and the power flickered. Raynold nodded, following Henry down the narrow stairwell below deck to get some rest. In the dull, grey dawn, clouds scudding overhead and dropping a light shower of rain, Raynold and Henry emerged from below. “Looks like the weather has improved. Bit choppy, but our old girl pulled through,” said Raynold, patting the wall of the vessel affectionately. “Everything’s down,” Nicholas replied wearily. “The VHS radio, GPS, radar all kaput. Going to need to dig out the charts.”
Raynold opened a hatch cover, pulled out a small tool kit, and donned a pair of worn work gloves. “It’s likely the radar and VHS antennas were ripped down by the storm. I’ll have to look into the GPS though. Might be electrical.” Nicholas looked about ready to keel over. “Get some sleep, old man. We can handle things.” Nicholas yawned as he slowed the tug to a crawl. “Henry, take the wheel. And don’t sink my boat. She’s got a few years left in ‘er.” Raynold smiled at his boss. He’d never worked for a captain he liked half as much. Had Nicholas not taken on a much younger and foolish Raynold, his life would have turned out very different. On the aft deck, Raynold surveyed the damage left by the storm. As he had predicted, the antennas on top of the bridge were gone. Jagged slabs of styrofoam, plastic bottles and bags, a single running shoe, and other debris from the ocean were strewn around the deck. The briny smell of saltwater was particularily repugnant and even with his years on the water Raynold found something especially unpleasant about the day’s atmosphere. Kicking garbage over the side, he groaned when he reached the bow. Below the front window of the bridge, the forward wall and rigging of the ship had trapped a pile of ocean trash, including a small halibut that had been washed onboard, and an albatross, its body grotesquely intertwined in the torn fragment of a fisherman’s net. The odour was particularly noxious around the mound of garbage, and despite the continued rolling of the sea, Raynold steadily heaved the refuse back into the water. He nudged the albatross with his boot, grabbed the bird by one wing, and flung it overboard. Clearing away an armful of rubbish, he discovered another corpse tangled amongst the slimy kelp and coils of polypropylene rope. This one, however, caused Raynold to stagger back. It was human. Minutes later the Tiamat was in neutral, turned into the waves, her crew huddled around the gruesome discovery. Nicholas crouched beside the body while Raynold and Henry kept their distance. Raynold tried hard not to breathe through his nose. “God, that thing looks worse than it smells.” Nicholas scowled. “Man. Not thing. We show respect.” “Are we looking at the same thing? Goddamn, look at it, eyes bulging like that, no pupils, and the face is green. Thing looks like a circus freak. Why is it so emaciated? I always heard bodies at sea were supposed to be bloated with gas. Isn’t that the whole reason they float?” “Calm down,” Nicholas started as he stood up. “Seen a few bodies fished from the waters. Some can look pretty strange.” “Like this though? Skin’s all scaly, but not decayed. Doesn’t look like the fish got to ‘im either. Maybe he’s diseased.” Henry backed away further. “Maybe he’s a Vodyanoy,” Nicholas chuckled. “Russian water monster,” he added, seeing confusion on the faces of his crew. “Covered in scales and green algae, drowns people.” “Ah, I heard the Inuit have something like that, the Qalupalik,” said Raynold. “Green skin, and it drags naughty children into the sea. Hell, I think even the Japanese have something similar.” “All legends have some grain of truth,” Nicholas said, “but this is a man, not a monster. He’s wearing a uniform. Name tag’s still on. Eric Harrison. Looks like a platform worker.” “Great, an oil man takes a header and winds up hitching a ride with us.” The captain stooped down to seize the body. “We’re going to move him to the stern. Enough yapping. Grab hold and help me.” Henry stayed back, looking as if he were going to be ill. Raynold shook his head, but moved in to assist. “Man, I can’t believe you’re touching that barehanded.” “Don’t be such a pussy,” the captain replied. “Hey, I’m helping, aren’t I? Shit, he stinks. I’m tempted to throw him back over.” “If it was you, you’d want someone to bring you home.”
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prose
Ryan Shrieves
The mechanic smirked. “If I looked like this?” Nicholas gave a disapproving grunt. The two men lifted the corpse and shuffled to the stern while Henry hovered in place. They gently laid the body down on the deck, securing it with rope. “Enough excitement,” proclaimed Nicholas. “I’m feeling under the weather and I’ve got to get some sleep. Henry, you’re at the helm. Raynold, get to the engine room and do a thorough inspection. I don’t want to stall out here with no radio.” With the Tiamat on course for home, Henry found himself constantly looking over his shoulder. Every wave that shook the ship made him spin around, half-expecting the dead man’s eyes on him. Yet the body was rigid, staring lifelessly at the sky. Heavy fog was rolling in. A pilot’s inattention could be disastrous. Henry’s nerves were strained. When the tug moved with short, uneasy motions, every jolt and splash in the distance made him jump. Henry couldn’t shake his unease. The smell from the body had grown even more repugnant and with each glance the corpse seemed more horrific in appearance. Worst of all were the eyes. Finally, he snapped. After fastening the wheel to maintain course, Henry grabbed a towel, threw the bridge door open, and unsteadily approached the body. As Henry considered how to cover the eyes, the ship suddenly lurched sideways. Losing his balance, he instinctively reached down to lessen the impact of his fall, his right hand striking the corpse’s stomach. The body gargled and a foul black substance erupted from its mouth and nostrils. Some of the ooze splashed onto Henry’s face. He screamed as he pushed himself back, frantically wiping his face and gagging on the spray that had entered his mouth. Raynold burst out of the engine room, his hands and face covered in grease. “What the fuck happened? We hit something?” A quick glance at the pitiable form of Henry wailing and the body still
Every wave that shook the ship made him spin around, half-expecting the dead man’s eyes on him.
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leaking sludge stopped Raynold in his tracks. “Shit, Henry.” Sobbing, he looked up. “It… It… It’s everywhere!” Raynold found the scene both darkly amusing and infuriating. Sprinting to the bridge, he eased off the engine’s throttle-lever. “Damn it, Henry! You can’t leave the ship going with no one keeping watch. If we bent the prop on whatever we hit, we are officially boned.” Henry was still spitting and wiping himself off. Tears welled in his eyes and he sagged like a beaten dog. “I… I… I’m sorry, Ray. I… I…” “What’s done is done. Go wash yourself off. That’s some nasty shit. I’ll check to see if we took any serious damage.” Henry nodded meekly and hurried past Raynold to reach the sink below. A quick inspection satisfied Raynold that the Tiamat was in working order. Superstitiously, he placed a hand on the ship’s wall. “That’s my girl. You’ve been pretty roughed up lately.” A short while later, Henry was reluctantly back at the wheel, unable to rid himself of the vile taste in his mouth. Raynold had maintenance to do and Nicholas was still asleep. Within the hour, Henry was vomiting over the side, itchy, and sweating profusely. He contemplated summoning Nicholas or Raynold, but resolved to persevere. Besides, how could a sailor get sick on the sea? He hadn’t been seasick since his first year on the water, but now every rolling motion of the boat made his stomach churn. Obsessively scratching his arm and biting his lips until blood was drawn, Henry was terrified to find his skin dry and flaking badly. The sun broke through the fog and mist, but rather than bring relief, the bridge felt like the inside of an oven. Assaulted by the stench from the corpse, his head spinning, he could take no more. He opened the bridge door and approached the source of all his misfortune. The heat had dried the dead man into a husk. His lips had curled away to reveal a fiendish grin. The eyes that had haunted Henry were further exposed by the sinking of sockets. He realized he didn’t care what
happened to this body, he just wanted the filthy thing off the ship. Henry feverishly detached the ropes securing the scourge. Swaying unsteadily, he mustered his remaining strength to drag the dead man to the edge of the deck and pushed the corpse back into the sea. The splash made Henry more at ease and he glanced at his arms. A sob stuck in his throat. His skin was discoloured a sickly greenish hue. As his vision blurred he rubbed his eyes, feeling hard protuberances where softness belonged. Henry grabbed the gunwale of the vessel and vomited a bloody mess into the seething water. A violent roar resounded across the Tiamat. Henry pitched forward and over the side of the ship. For a few seconds he tasted something wet and salty, and then there was only blackness. Raynold raced up to the wheelhouse, slamming the throttle into a full stop and shutting the engine down. “Goddamn it, Henry. I told you, you can’t leave the boat running without anyone at the helm. That was not a small fucking hit this time.” Raynold’s fury quickly dissipated as he realized there was no one on deck. “Henry? Henry?!” Tumbling down the stairs to the captain’s quarters, Raynold banged furiously on the cabin door. “Nicholas? Get up! Nicholas!” Raynold stepped back and kicked the door hard, splintering the door frame. The malodorous smell that had permeated the ship immediately heightened. The form on the captain’s bunk did not stir. Raynold ripped off the sheets, stained with bloody vomit. A skeletal figure, greenish skin clinging hungrily, was in Nicholas’s place. Raynold stared, mesmerized by the milky white eyes bulging out of their sockets. He backed towards the door, tripping over the sill and falling. In his terror, he crawled several meters before he realized the floorboards were wet. Scrambling to his feet, he struggled towards the engine room, the tug now listing dangerously starboard. As he opened the hatch, water surged past his feet. Raynold sank to his knees. The only sound was that of the dreadful rumbling of water flooding the hull below. Five days later, the Search and Rescue vessel CCGS Pluto was heading past Queen Charlotte Island, returning to base in Prince Rupert, when a sighting from one of the crew brought them to a halt. The spotter directed the ship’s coxswain to the discovery. “Yeah, it’s a body. Call it in.” The radio operator began the call as the coxswain grabbed a pike-pole and moved the body closer to the ship. “Carl, help me get it aboard. Geez, look at all the garbage floating with him.” “Guess it’s just going to be one of those seasons.” Carl stared at the corpse in disgust. “He smells horrible. Maybe we should tow him.” Shaking his head, the coxswain reached down to grab the corpse. “Too far to go. Now man-up! If it was you, you’d want someone to bring you home.”
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poetry
Nina Mosallaei
Shingle Her hair cascading and soft said to smell like those strong vanilla perfumes from the nineties. We knew the tree in her front yard felt rough, melting in our hands as we watched her from the window above. They said her breath never smelt of coffee when she drank it and we believed them since her sleepy eyes never showed the bitter taste. We’d stay up at night for her, shivering, though we were in the dead of summer, the summer of our lives listening to her records, educated.
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art
TARA HALLQUIST
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art
TARA HALLQUIST
Translucent Memories Installation Found objects and materials
Tara Hallquist’s evolving installation explores the definition of home, how interior spaces may become witnesses of drug abuse, and how one’s identity becomes contingent upon the relationship of past “witnesses”. Through these dilapidated inanimate shells, she questions the memories and emotions that these spaces hold. With found materials, she created a self-portrait that discusses the effects of alcoholism and its reflective impact on past and present identities.
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art
KIRSTEN SEDORE
Self Portrait Diptych 24’ X 36’ Acrylic
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art
Kirsten Sedore
22
Kirsten Sedore works with two ideas: ’painting is dead’ and ’everything has been done’. She focuses on her struggles to find meaning and belief in herself and the world. The dripping, black paint represents tension in her, between an awareness of destruction and a realization that her way of living has added to this destruction. Her intention with the diptych portraits is to capture two states of mind by contrasting being in and out of control. This work captures how society conditions individuals to suppress emotions in order to appear normal.
Portrait Diptych 36’ X 48’ Acrylic
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art
JASMIN Nguyen
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art
JASMIN NGUYEN
In this installation, Jasmin Nguyen created individual pieces that represent her questioning marital traditions. Certain pieces are meant to ellicit discomfort in the viewer, such as the broken shards of mirror in the brush, or the bouquet made of hair. The pocketwatch is meant to represent a woman’s biological clock, and the pressure placed on women to get married before they are ‘too old’.
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prose
Kylie Mantei
non-fiction The Competition *Names have been changed
I first learned about sex from a Charlie Brown encyclopedia. I sat on the floor of my parents’ bedroom, back against the door, horrified that my dad was going to walk in while my mom showed me how to use a tampon and what condoms were for. “What does this even do?” I asked, bewildered, tugging the condom as I would a balloon. “Protects you,” my mom explained. She pulled out a thin, red, hardcover book that had a picture of Charlie Brown and Lucy playing with a football on the cover. My mom talked for what felt like hours, starting with the menstrual cycle and ending with the embarrassing, matter-of-fact sentence, “You’ll see someday.” “Do my friends know about this?” I asked her. “Only Kelly,” she said. That didn’t surprise me – Kelly, one of my closest friends, usually knew things before I did. When my mom finished talking, I walked out of the room flushed red. I was thankful that I’d never have to repeat that conversation ever again. Surely now I knew everything there was to know. I played in the highest level of soccer for my age, which meant out-of-town soccer tournaments and overcrowded hotel rooms. We’d sit on the beds, massaging each other’s calves and competing over who had ‘gone the furthest’ with a boy. Nicole usually won. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she combed her long brown hair and told us about the time she and Nick went to second base in the field behind the swimming pool. We argued over what second base really meant – was it hands under the shirt? Fingers between the legs? Nicole quickly corrected us: “Above the waist only,” and I accepted that, unwilling to think about what the other option even meant. I’d gone from being one of the privileged eight-year-olds who knew about sex, to a naïve twelve-year-old who had never been kissed. When others my age were watching Scary Movie and discovering online porn, I was at the soccer field with my family, or watching Disney movies with my best friend.
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prose
Kylie Mantei
In my second month of high school, I learned about ‘dry sex’. Emily sat in the back of the science lab with me and asked if her mom had called me the night before. “Why would she call me?” I whispered, keeping my eyes on Mr. Rocher, who was teaching us, finally, how to use a Bunsen burner. “I told her I slept over,” Emily said back. “Why?” “Well, I couldn’t tell her that I slept at Matt’s, could I?” Emily had a way of making me feel so included, yet so dumb, all with one well-crafted sentence. She was different from any friend I’d ever had. While I was used to athletes with poorly applied eyeliner, Emily hung out in the smoke pit at lunch and was somehow already infamous for being the only nonvirgin in our grade. She’d latched onto me, both of us at a school different from that of our catchment. We walked from class to class together, she with a purse larger than my backpack, me struggling to manage the four textbooks in my arms, but I never felt like we were true confiding BFFs. “Who is Matt?” I asked, trying to avoid showing any judgement or surprise on my face. Emily pointed to the front of the room where a redheaded ninth-grader in an Iron Maiden tour shirt sat marking quizzes for Mr. Rocher. “Him?” I asked loudly, and heads turned. I lowered my gaze and pretended to write furiously. A moment later, Emily slipped a folded piece of paper onto my binder. It looked like a gift box. I had yet to master the art of origami note-passing, so for a moment I was too impressed by the crafting to unfold the note. We hang out at lunch. Last night was lame. Nothing happened. Dry sex. I had to read the note twice. What did that mean? As opposed to the wet kind? Like, in a shower? I shot Emily a quizzical look, but didn’t have time to write back as Mr. Rocher chose that moment to send us to the lab tables to test out our burners for the first time. “I don’t know what that means,” I whispered quickly, before we sat down on the stools. Emily rolled her eyes and laughed. “Like, just a handie and rubbing and stuff.” I looked at Emily. Clearly her old school was somewhere in South America. What she was saying couldn’t be English. “Oh my God, do you need a diagram?” she asked. I did one last scan of the classroom before silently pulling out a piece of lined paper and a green felt-tipped marker, pushing it across the table to Emily. “Teach me everything,” I whispered. By the end of the lesson I had a diagram of what I believed to be every sex position in existence. I shoved it into my backpack to analyze later.
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When I was eight, my best friend Kelly stayed at our house every day in the summer while her parents were at work. One particular sunny afternoon, my dad sent the two of us and my five-year-old sister Lauren down to the playground. Our cul-de-sac was behind the school, so it was normal for us to walk unaccompanied and sit on the swing set, cloth seats and chain links holding us up as we swayed side to side. It didn’t even seem particularly strange when a man, wearing a royal blue t-shirt and ADIDAS flip-flops, like a pair my dad had, sat on the set across the park from us. Lauren asked us to come with her to the monkey bars, so we climbed to the top, standing with our feet straddling the highest bar, arms outstretched in the air. The man slowly stood up and headed toward the other set of bars. “He’s creepy,” Kelly whispered. At that moment, the mystery man linked his legs on the bars and hung upside down, his shorts pushed to one side. He wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Lauren, don’t look!” I cried, moving my hand to cover my sister’s eyes. I didn’t know a whole lot back then, but I knew what that thing was, coming out the side of his black shorts. Kelly and I looked at each other in fear, but for different reasons.
“Should we tell him to fix his shorts?” I said. “That’s so embarrassing!” Kelly shot me an incredulous look. The man dropped to the ground, gravel crunching under his feet. He sauntered off around the back side of the school, without so much as a glance toward us. As soon as he was out of sight, Kelly turned to me. “Let’s go,” she said. I took hold of my sister’s hand instinctively, pulling her. “I don’t want to!” she cried, letting go and stomping her foot. “Your dad will take you here again later,” Kelly said. An only child, she was very matter-of-fact, and always seemed so much more worldly than me. When our parents took us to dinner at Cactus Club, I’d mirror her as she ordered diet cokes, or virgin margaritas. Years later, Kelly would turn out to be just like Emily – the difference being that in grade eight Emily was the one who still wanted to be friends with me. As I followed Kelly toward my house, the man walked back around the other side of the school. He couldn’t have been more than three feet away from us, a far-off gaze in his eyes. He stumbled towards us, shorts around his knees, hand cupping and scratching his penis as he walked. Even Lauren knew to run like hell once she saw that happening. Later, after my dad had bolted down to a by-then deserted playground with a hammer in his hand, two male police officers sat in my salmon-colored kitchen and asked us to describe what had happened. We sat in blue-and-white checkered rolling chairs and gave them our drawn descriptions. Afterward, they went to the living room with our parents to discuss a course of action. “Can you believe he was jerking off, right in front of us?” Kelly whispered. “Such a jerk,” I agreed. Kelly gave me a funny look, but said nothing more. “Do it!” Emily cried, five years later, sitting next to me at the computer in my family room, tucked in the basement where nobody would bother to check on us. “No way,” I said, staring at the screen. A boy from Kamloops, who’d messaged me on a social networking site at random, stared expectantly up at his webcam. Come on, girls! he typed. “Emily, I’m not going to do this.” I held the bottom of my shirt, in case she tried to do it for me. “Fine, I’ll do it!” She laughed, then quickly pulled her shirt up over her face, exposing her pink bra and shimmying her shoulders. “Ahh!” I covered my eyes in embarrassment. Now her turn, he typed. I shook my head furiously, the webcam lagging, making my face look like a blob of skin and hair. “Would you just take off your shirt before he logs out?” Emily argued. “You know it’s you he wants to see anyway.” I looked up at the ceiling, my parents’ room just above us. “Keep your voice down,” I whispered. I stared at the screen, my fingers wrapping themselves around the purple fabric of my Old Navy tank top. Suddenly, I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my shirt up until my fists grazed my chin. I lowered it just as quickly, panting and ducking down to the ground to hide my face. “You didn’t lift high enough. He only saw your stomach!” Emily read from the screen. “Do it again!” “No,” I said firmly, taking the computer mouse and clicking out of the convo. “That’s enough.” “You’re boring,” she sighed. “I’m gonna have a smoke in your carport, I’ll be back in a second.” I remained on the floor, curling my arms around my knees and pulling them tight to my chest. My heart was pounding.
29
prose
Kylie Mantei
It was June, just after the final exams of grade eight, and I was sitting in the living room with my parents watching some European soccer cup and texting Carly and Ellie, girls from my team who wanted to hang out later at the movies. The house phone rang. “It’s for you,” my mom told me. She was laying on the couch, her head resting on my dad’s chest. His bald head was gleaming under the lamp beside him, a Star Wars book in his hand. I grabbed the portable beside me, not wanting to hover over my parents with the receiver. “Hello?” Before my mom hung up, Emily, loudly on the other end, said, “Let’s get drunk tonight.” Mom looked at me, shocked. I stood, leaving the living room and going to my bed, dropping my head into a sea of red and blue Tommy Hilfiger pillows. “My mom just heard you say that,” I whispered angrily. I’d never been drunk before and Emily knew it. “Where did you want to go?” “Matt’s having a party. His friend Adam will be there. You guys can probably hook up, he’s hot.” “What do you mean, we can hook up?” I asked quietly. “He’s down if you are.” “Let me call you back.” I hung up the phone, dropping it onto my chest and folding my hands over my stomach. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Was this it? I ran through the index of everything I knew. Would Adam want to go to second base? Would he ask me for a ‘handie’? I wondered how that could even come up in normal conversation. Emily’s diagrams didn’t prepare me for that. My mom came into my room before I had a chance to make up my mind. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Why?” “You think I’m going to let you drink? You’re thirteen!” “I won’t,” I promised. “I just want to go hang out.” “No,” she said. “You’re going to the movies with your friends, like you already told them you would. Come on, I’ll take you up there now.” She left, and I stayed still, a creeping, bubbling feeling in the lowest part of my stomach. Now that I knew it wasn’t an option, I imagined what it would feel like to have Adam, who I pictured as a tall, older guy with a body like a European soccer player, running his hands through my hair and kissing my neck, just the way Emily said she and Matt usually began. Soon, I promised myself, calling Emily to cancel. Maybe I was ready.
30
She never invited me to a party again. She called Shawna after I declined, and for the rest of the summer, whenever I asked Emily to hang out, she was already with Shawna, who also smoked and was known for giving blowjobs on the third floor landing of the school. “We should hang out soon,” I said at the start of the new school year. “I go to a lot of parties with Shawna on weekends,” Emily said. “Not really your scene.” “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know… we did Ecstasy last weekend, and like, four couples had sex in the same room. You know.” Emily shrugged, and I never brought it up again. After that we didn’t even pass each other in the hallways much, so it was easy to avoid the awkward smiles and now-distant memories of webcams and origami notes. Emily moved onto other boys, some older, already graduated, or dropped out. I found a new group of friends, too. Eventually, these friends also discovered sex, but they never made me feel like an alien when I wasn’t ready. I knew I’d wait for somebody I loved, like my mom and the Charlie Brown encyclopedia had taught me. But as the years passed, my curiosity grew, and I went to the Internet to connect with
Tyler, a sweaty-handed Ladner boy that I’d met through my teammates the year before. Show me more, he wrote, late at night on MSN Messenger when my parents had gone to sleep. I sat in the cold, dark basement, leaning back in my grey swivel chair and pointing the webcam at a deep angle, teasing him by occasionally running a finger down my chest, staring up mischievously at the camera. Take off your bra. Show me your ass. Let’s just have sex! he’d write constantly, and I felt safe, knowing I hadn’t seen him in years and probably wouldn’t for many years to come. We were too young to drive to see each other, and too apathetic to put in an effort anyway. Someday, I’d promise, wondering when someday would be. Grade twelve passed quickly. Tyler had a new girlfriend, so we rarely talked anymore. So did Nathan, the boy I was sure I loved since the first day of homeroom. I didn’t care. Up until that point, I knew Nathan hadn’t gone ‘all the way’ – it felt like he was the last of my friends who was like me – and I found myself waiting for him instead of picking up on the few opportunities that came my way. After graduating, my parents and sister went camping for a few weeks, and I threw a party the first night they were gone. When the game of King’s Cup began on the patio, I chose a seat next to Brad, a newer friend I hadn’t expected to even show up. With alcoholic courage, I leaned into him and laughed at his jokes, comfortably flirting without worrying about consequences or expectations. Later that night, I walked up the steps to the pool but stopped suddenly. I could hear Nathan and Ryan, a guy from our group of friends notorious for ‘almost-fucking’ half the girls in our grade, talking quietly on the patio, sitting in the dusty, cracked chairs we’d had since I was a baby. “You finally did it, eh?” Ryan said. “Last week,” Nathan whispered proudly. Two words, and suddenly I was alone. A couple nights later, I was in my backyard with Brad after our friends had gone home following another small get-together. “Let’s have fun,” I blurted, my toes near the edge of the pool. I didn’t want to miss out anymore – ready or not, I refused to be the last of my friends to experience sex. “What do you want to do?” he asked, stepping closer to me. My heart was beating in a way it never had before. I shrugged, dipping my foot in the water and swaying it. “Do you want to go for a swim?” He shook his head and put his hands on my waist. “Nah, I can think of something more fun.” He grinned and leaned forward to kiss me hard. I relished the feeling of his hands hot on my skin. I felt small in his arms – vulnerable, desirable. Within minutes, any lingering belief of waiting for love was overpowered by the feeling of his hands in my hair, tugging and circling as I knelt in front of him, unbuttoning his too-tight black jeans. One button was missing from an aggressive tug during Truth or Dare at our first party. That time had been a joke, surrounded by friends egging each other on, anxious to see which drunken fool would go the furthest. Sex was the competition, and we were the players – wasn’t that how it had always been? This time, though, there were only two of us playing – nobody coaxing or pushing. The night ended in mouths on skin, our hands grabbing and rubbing like the diagrams had taught me. That summer ended in sex – full-blown, ‘I can’t be a virgin in university’ sex. I was finally able to compete with my friends in our games of ‘Who-Did-What’. But it was never love. It simply fulfilled my expectations of the mechanics. I’d been prepared for that. What I hadn’t expected were the feelings. The emotional connection I felt to something that was supposed to be just a game.
31
poetry
MattHEW Visser
XVII In fall I i ma gine th e red & or ange leav es as her hair falls naked down past her shoulders and bre in the warmth of the brow ning sun and my lips are there to keep her from fa lling all at once.
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asts
XXII (i) remember seeng her cross the street her beauty lt up my heart and thawed my hands (i) remember then seeng her ht by that car her body floppng lke a fsh n the ar my eyes never left hers.
33
poetry
Angela Rebrec
Spring Skiing When we drove to Whistler, crocuses hitch-hiked by the roadside. Their purple bodies shivered as we sped past. The whole drive you talked about endless snow, about how pines endure, your voice in the background like a snowstorm. Those crocuses grew in the shadow of darkened snow plowed high from winter. They pushed through with such certainty. I wanted you to stop so I could ask them, How long until the thaw? But you left spring behind, wending up the Sea to Sky Highway. You talked about how ice cracks rock, how it slides down & smothers, about the time you waited five hours for the highway to re-open. Sometimes, I think snow flies from your mouth just to freeze me in mid-feeling. I pressed my cheek against the window. The spring run-off hummed blue and translucent, but those crocuses sang like pizzicato notes.
34
poetry
angela Rebrec
in January For those lost at Sandy Hook Slip into an entire delusion as Wordsworth urged. A task neither light nor easy, the truth cleaved to the imagination. The dream is a classroom of first-graders returning to school in January. Such a spontaneous overflow of feeling was never sought after. Still, we can look at the world in a spirit of love and join the Poet in his song. Beside the window, on the ledge of my imagination, sit twenty gingerbread houses newly decorated, waiting to be taken home. Turn off your televisions, my friends, and follow the delusion outside into the cold and terrifying beauty.
35
prose
Jared Vaillancourt
fiction The Blue Night’s Moon
36
Jacob stretched and rubbed his eyes, still able to see the glow from the screen against his lids. Five hours at the firing control station was considered light duty, but for Jacob the boredom was worse than basic training. He checked the chronometer and pursed his lips. Three hours to go. He hadn’t been aboard the Enigma very long. A recruit from Earth’s colony on Tethys, he had been eager to catch a ship heading back to his legendary homeworld of milk and honey - that’s what his mother had always called it. The Enigma was headed in the wrong direction, but when you join the Navy you do as you’re told. Jacob had been told to sit here and man one of the hundreds of computer-aided point-defence cannons studded across Enigma’s hull. The ship was not unlike any of the thousands of other destroyers drifting through humanity’s turf. No plants in her atriums, no murals on her walls, even the uniform Jacob proudly wore was a drab, grey shell that fit too tight in the thighs. No one seemed to mind though, least of all the crew chief. He doubted the stout woman ever smiled. “We’re travelling beyond the range of Tethys,” she told him weeks ago. “That’s about as far as any Navy ship’s ever been. Sorry to say, kid, but your planet’s a fringe world. This far out, we’re well past our borders.” Jacob rotated his turret, enjoying the false-colour view the wrap-around screen provided. A nebula was directly astern, said to be the remnants of whatever cloud of gas and dust had given birth to Sol itself. Any ship lost beyond humanity’s reach need merely search for that beautiful red and white ball and set it to their bow. The crew chief called it a navpoint, Jacob called it romantic. “Staring at home again?” a voice whispered in his ear. Jacob turned and gulped at the crew chief. “Threat’s that-a-way, Gunman.” She pointed toward the bow, and he turned his gun loyally. The crew chief patted his shoulder and marched on. Threats, he scoffed. The human race had spread to dozens of worlds across hundreds of light-years. Tethys itself was almost a year and a half at full riftdrive from Earth. Of all those worlds, no alien presence more intelligent than a dog had ever been discovered. Jacob sighed, wishing he could rub his eyes again. “Contact,” another gunner announced. Her console sprang to life as she spun her turret around.
Jacob did the same, spotting a dark shape out against the glow of the distant Horsehead Nebula. Readouts showed it as little more than a sphere, a tiny black dot against the night sky. “Just an asteroid,” the crew chief scoffed. “Excellent eye. Relax - but stay on guard.” Jacob rolled his eyes. The crew chief had a way of saying two completely opposite things and somehow having them make perfect sense at the same time. Maybe it was an Earther thing. He watched the asteroid for a moment as it drifted towards the ship. He could fire and vaporize it just in case it was destined to collide with the hull. His fingers tensed on the triggers. Jacob blinked. No, it’s just an asteroid. What’d it ever do to us? “Threat’s that-a-way,” he chuckled. Jacob’s turret rotated to point ahead of the bow. The knife-like hull of the Enigma continued forward, riding her momentum in the frictionless sea of stars. Behind the turret, the small asteroid reflected off the faint magnetic field surrounding the hull, repulsed into a new trajectory that would eventually leave it careening into a sun. Outside, a suited figure clung to the hull of the Enigma and bid its faithful rock one final farewell, then hunted for an access hatch. After his shift ended, Jacob had some free time to go down to the armoury and clean the ion disruptors. Often the overly friendly petty officer Svetlana was there to chat and gush about the latest soap operas beamed to the Enigma from Earth. Jacob wasn’t one for the entertainment industry, but he did appreciate the tall Russian woman’s accent and company. Then came lunch, which he took from the mess hall to eat alone in his bunk. He didn’t dislike the other soldiers and officers, but only a few of them were from Tethys and none of them were from the same continent as Jacob. Being alone and away from the noise allowed him to read up on the ship’s omnibus. He enjoyed reading the newsletters updated daily on his personal flexi. Someone down in engineering had posted a two-dollar-word-laden paper about his theories on sub-quantum riftdrives, another wrote an extremely well-researched argument about why the sterilizers affected her sleep, and another speculated alternate theories as to why an external airlock on C deck had spontaneously failed despite the log report about a faulty latching mechanism. Jacob groaned and tapped the flexi, skipping ahead to the latest episode of Svetlana’s beloved All My Colonies, thinking he might get the jump on her tomorrow. After lunch came mandatory weight training. Jacob made his way through Enigma’s twisting corridors, ignoring the green stripe which led him to the gym. Three weeks on a starship - even one as big as the Enigma - was more than enough time to memorize the important routes. As usual, his shift’s ‘nighttime’ status meant the corridor was empty, save for a crewmember fiddling around with something in a storage locker. “Morning,” Jacob joked as he approached. The crewmember yelped and dropped an assortment of techie tools and spare caps on the deck. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Jacob bent down and helped her pick up the clutter. He handed her the device in his hands and smiled. She blinked up at him, her eyes wide. “Th… thank…” “Thank you,” Jacob finished for her. She nodded, her eyes searching his. “I’m Jacob, er, Gunnery Officer Second Class Jacob Kerning.” He offered his hand as they both stood straight. She looked down at it, her hands full of tools. “Oh, sorry again - here, let me,” Jacob offered. He took some of the tools and put them into the locker. “Th… thank you,” the officer replied. She shook Jacob’s hand. “I… I’m Officer Melissa. Melissa…” she searched his eyes. “Melissa Nightingale.” Jacob smiled. “You a techie, Officer Nightingale?” “I…” Melissa blushed and turned away. “I’m a techie.” “That’s hardly something to be embarrassed about.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. Melissa looked at him, her mouth moving as though to speak. She swallowed and pushed past him.
37
prose
Jared Vaillancourt
“I have to go,” she muttered. Jacob watched her for a moment, then shrugged and continued down to the gym. Techies, he thought, they live in their own little worlds, even out here. Probably a lot of people do. “Officer Nightingale? Yeah, I know her,” Svetlana’s friend, Keets, said in a husky drawl. “She’s with the maintenance crew. Real quiet one, that Nightingale.” Keets smiled and patted a big, beefy hand across Jacob’s shoulder. “Y’all ain’t got a crush on the poor thing, do you, Gunner?” Jacob didn’t, but for a week now he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere. He passed her every now and then in the empty corridors leading to and from the gym. She hadn’t looked up, or said a word, since their first encounter. Jacob began to think he wasn’t her type. That was fine. He was only curious why she seemed so familiar to him. He woke up one morning to a general alert rather than the usual klaxon. Annoyed, though not eager to add to the grumbling coming from his bunk-mates, he zipped through the sterilizer and changed quickly. A second after he finished the last clasp on his boot, the crew’s wake-up klaxon sounded anyway. The crew chief made them line up in the main gunnery control room. Jacob watched her pace back and forth, inspecting their uniforms and service tags. She had a strange sheen to her skin he hadn’t seen before. “Medics found a body,” she began, turning towards the crew. “Techie. Won’t say who. Will say it looks like murder.” Jacob could hear the blood pumping through his veins. No one dared breathe. The crew chief continued pacing, slower and more deliberately. “The captain’s all done up in a fit. Can’t have a killer aboard, not this far out.” She looked at them in turn, pausing before each man and woman. When she got to Jacob, he could see the sheen bead and drip. A gunner stepped forward. “Ma’am. Any leads yet, ma’am?” “No one saw the act. Until we figure this out - all of you, buddy system. No one goes anywhere, does anything, says anything or even thinks anything without at least one witness to confirm it.” She stopped at the other end of the room and turned to face them, her face like a statue. “Clear?” “Crystal, ma’am.” The crew chief nodded. “Now man your posts.”
“Medics found a body,” she began, turning towards the crew. “Techie. Won’t say who. Will say it looks like murder.”
38
Jacob walked the nearly-empty corridor. His partner kept pace a few feet back, ‘to better see if any madman jumps you,’ as he had put it. Jacob found himself watching the green line traced across the wall. “Oh, company,” came the cautious voice from further down. Jacob looked ahead and smiled: there at her locker was Melissa, looking thin and insignificant next to the techie who watched them with crossed arms. “Evening, Gunners. Off to your workouts, I see?” Jacob stopped at the locker. “We are.” “Good. Need to keep your strength up. In case of psychos,” the techie replied. She looked down at Melissa and frowned. “Am I right?” Melissa surprised Jacob by looking into his eyes. “Yes.” He blinked. He was sure he’d seen her somewhere. She became clearer the longer their eyes lingered. The techie cleared her throat. “Well, you’d best be off, then, Gunners.” “Techies.” The four exchanged nods and moved on. After a moment, Jacob’s partner patted his shoulder and gave him a lopsided grin.
“The small one, she seemed into you,” he whispered. Jacob shrugged. “Her and I? We’re old friends.” From somewhere, he added in his head. I just can’t quite figure out where. Cleaning the ion disruptors with Svetlana quickly became a sort of safety net for Jacob. The hours he’d spend at his post made him feel insecure somehow, as though the empty space at his back could be filled by a murderer at any moment. What if it was one of the guards, or even the crew chief? “Jacob, help me with this one.” Svetlana had been tugging on the casing of a stubborn disruptor for the last few minutes. Jacob sighed and gently placed his tool onto the tray between them. “Did you get all the bolts out?” he asked. The casing creaked as they strained. Svetlana chuckled. “Clearly not. That’s why I’m trying to pry this apart, of course.” Jacob tried pulling again. They stood up, set their arms, anchored their feet and heaved. The disruptor came apart with a resounding crack and their partners caught them before they could fall to the deck. There was a clatter on the tray. Jacob felt the blood drain from his face. He and Svetlana held the top and bottom halves of the disruptor. On the tray lay the disruptor’s guts, glowing and pulsing with live rounds. “Don’t move!” Svetlana squeaked at her partner. She lifted her half of the casing and angled it towards the active components. “Help me shield this. Very, very, slowly.” Jacob complied, copying her motions. “Alert the deck crew, just in case,” Jacob whispered at his partner. The man gulped and slowly inched back from the tray. Jacob looked up at Svetlana’s partner and jerked his head to the side. She nodded and backed off. Together, they gently placed the casing next to the disruptor, and began sliding the moulded silver metal atop the hissing pieces. Svetlana lowered herself to the bench, her long fingers pushing the casing up and under. Jacob did the same, but the casing halves didn’t click. He reached for the disruptor. “Hang on, it’s stuck on something-” “No!” Svetlana shrieked. She slapped his hand away. He remembered that, and then a bright supernova suddenly existing in the armoury. “They’re damned lucky the thing was only at quarter-charge.” Jacob heard the voices of medics. His mind drew a map of the Enigma, and he found himself deep inside the underbelly of the ship. If he were to walk three hundred metres aft, he’d be in engineering. Engineering. Techies. Melissa Nightingale. Jacob frowned at the strange train of thought, then winced. He was bandaged up. He opened his eyes, but saw nothing. Ion disruptors were infamous for being able to vaporize living tissue, even secondary exposure to a beam could cause burns, blindness, or even sterility. “Why the hell was it charged at all?” That was the crew chief’s voice. “Kerning knows better than that. So does Specialist Ivanova.” “That’s not my area of expertise, ma’am.” Jacob heard the tap-tap-tap of fingers dancing across a data pad. “They’re both going to make it. We just need two type-O negative donors from the crew. I don’t know if you saw the armoury-” “Yes. I’m familiar with what a disruptor overload looks like.” A pause. “What do you mean, ‘donors’?” He heard a sigh. “It’s the strangest thing, ma’am. After we stabilized them I sent Hertz to bring up some supplies from cold storage. Someone’s jerry-rigged the lock.” Jerry-rigged? Jacob racked his brain. Earthers have such weird diction. But if it had something to do with technology, it had to be a ... “A techie? Why would-” “Don’t know, ma’am. All our stores were drained.” Boots clacked against the deck, then a chair heaved as something heavy fell into it. “I’ve already alerted the captain, ma’am. The stores, well…” Jacob
39
prose
Jared Vaillancourt
could almost see the expression on the crew chief ’s face. Out with it, her eyes would scream. “Well?” “All the vats… they had the same sort of puncture wound we saw in Officer Jenkins. And just like Jenkins, there wasn’t a single drop out of place. No splattering on the walls, no dribbles on the floor…” A data pad clattered across a desk. “Nothing.” Jacob swallowed. He was glad the captain didn’t want to disclose the details of the murder. It was scary enough that a techie was dead. Techie. Nightingale. Jacob saw her face floating before his eyes. Was she safe? “What the hell kind of sicko are we dealing with here?” the crew chief scoffed. He pictured the medic’s shrug perfectly. Jacob felt his skin growing back. Nanomachines - wonders of modern technology, he thought. In less than a week, the medics said, he’d be back on his feet and, barring a day or two for tests, back at his station. Already he could see the faint impressions of blurs and shades as the tiny robots fixed his retinas. “How much more does he need?” asked Keets. A medic replied with some number. “Fine, fine - y’all take as much as you need. I know he’d do the same for me.” Of course I would, Jacob scoffed. We’re shipmates. It’d be an honour. “Gunner Kerning is not O negative.” Keets laughed. “It’s the thought that counts.” Jacob felt a heavy hand pat his shin. “Listen here, son, you get healed up. You too, Svetty.” Jacob heard Svetlana moan something from his other side. A chair creaked as it was relieved of weight, then footsteps faded away across the deck. There was a pause as the door hissed open. Keets exhaled. Then the door hissed shut. Jacob found that he enjoyed being blind for now. Different medics made different noises as their boots hit the deck, and each machine had a unique tenor and warmth to it. If he concentrated, he could pick out which monitor beeped with his heart and which with Svetlana’s. Keets had a musky odour to him that reminded him of solvents and sanitizers, while members of Jacob’s and Svetlana’s crews smelled of sweat and nutrient packs. He even noticed the slight vibrations Svetlana made when she hummed. It was a strange new world for Jacob, one he was beginning to think he’d soon miss. Jacob awoke, surprised he had fallen asleep. There were voices at the door, hushed and curt. He strained to hear them. “Visiting hours are over.”
He’d know that voice ... anywhere. It was so familiar. Even the slight sob was as it should be.
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“Please, I… I need…” Jacob felt as though a rock had been lifted from his chest. Melissa was at the door. He’d know that voice…anywhere. It was so familiar. Even the slight sob was as it should be: not enough to break her down completely, but enough to warm the medic’s cold heart. “I can give you five minutes.” Jacob heard a sound like paws pacing along metal. This gave way to tiny boots gingerly clicking across the deck. The door hissed shut, and a smell that was very much like a Tethys perfume hit his nostrils. Jacob turned his head. Nothing was clear except her face. That he could see in stark relief. “Melissa,” he whispered. Svetlana was snoring. Melissa smiled, a tear running down her cheek. Jacob could see her wonderful green eyes, the bright porcelain skin void of a single mole or freckle, the little button nose his father had said was cute. His father had said that…
…about his last girlfriend. “Who are you?” he asked. Fingers touched his cheek. “I’m a techie.” Her face became as blurry as everything else. “My name is Melissa Nightingale.” There was a pause. “You know me.” “I knew you,” Jacob replied. I knew your curly red hair, he thought. I knew your tiny, almost apologetic laugh. I knew that sob thing you did. Jacob found his mind wandering through the memories of Melissa Nightingale, of Tethys. The fingers on his cheek were wrinkled and clammy. “Who are you really, Melissa Nightingale?” he asked. The fingers went away. He could hear breathing, heavy and close, but could not feel the breath. “I need… need…” Her voice was perfect. Exactly as he remembered. “That.” The tiny boots turned and clicked out of the room. For a long time Jacob didn’t move. There was no noise save for the beeping of machines. Svetlana’s snoring had stopped. He turned to the blur beside him. “Svetlana?” he whispered. For a long moment, nothing. Then, “Ya dolzhen byt’ s plokhoi son.” A bad dream. I must be having one, too, he thought. Look for part 2 of The Blue Night’s Moon in our next issue of pulp.
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art
SHANE LONG
Frame
12” X 7” A single wire
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interview art
lisa king OJEDA ROSAURA
Sinking Knowledge Installation
Rosaura Ojeda’s Sinking Knowledge expresses the transition from relying on textbooks to depending on the internet for information. The books embody the lessening of a demand for such mediums of education. Rosaura is interested in the relationship between natural materials and our urge to learn in order to overcome the obstacles of the natural world.
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product design CARLA DE LA ROSA
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Plastic bags are not usually used for the creation of new objects. Because so many plastic bags end up in the ocean or in landfills, Carla de la Rosa believes it’s time to start using these materials in a more sustainable fashion. By weaving, ironing, and braiding, Gladiator Sandals are born out of Carla’s efforts. She would like to thank Real Canadian Superstore for not having white plastic bags.
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fashion
AMROE GRAHAM
Photos courtesy of Lisa Graham, Seadance Photography
The clothing tells a story that echoes the romantic spirit of the global nomad.
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This collection is inspired by Peruvian culture and the symbols they have used for centuries. The diamond shape, which symbolizes water, can be seen in the traditional hand-weaving that accents the jacket, and in the origami inserts in the dress. These garments tell the story of their creation from the sourcing of the fabric to the design and pattern manipulation, and finally to the owner.
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art
JOLENE HARRISON
Heart Veins 11” X 17” Etching print
interview by Pulp
Carmen Aguirre is a Vancouver-based writer and actress. She is the author of more than twenty plays and her first book, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, was the winner of CBC’s Canada Reads competition in 2012. The Kwantlen Creative Writing department is fortunate to host Carmen as the Writer in Residence in Spring 2013 . Q: Something Fierce is your first book, but you’re also an accomplished playwright. How did your scriptwriting experience affect your prose? A: Coming from a playwriting background was extremely helpful in making the transition to prose. I knew how to keep the tension going at all times, how to keep the characters’ super objectives in mind throughout, how to write dialogue, and how to create clear, detailed images through text. I believe that playwriting is one of the most difficult forms to write in (successfully), so all that experience in such a taut form certainly helped when it came to writing short, in-depth chapters that pulled no punches. Q: How do you turn a portion of your life into a coherent story? Did you know what the beginning and the end of the book would be? What about the important plot points? A: You approach it in the same way that you would the telling of any story. You must be ruthless, you must not be afraid to tell your truth, and you must be one hundred percent sure that you are not writing in order to deal with any kind of personal demons or in order to heal something; that is not writing, that is journaling. Long before I put pen to paper, as it were, I knew exactly what the structure of the book was, and I knew exactly what the important plot points were. Q: What drew you to playwriting as a medium? A: I was in theatre school studying to be an actor, but I realized that work for me would be limited because of my race. It was then that I decided to start writing my own stories, in order to create work for myself and other actors of colour. Q: In your memoir you mention writing and
performing plays as a child. How did you turn your childhood hobby into a career? A: I always knew I wanted to be an actor. It’s a calling; you should not do it unless you feel that way about it. It’s not a career, it’s a journey. There are challenges from the very beginning. It’s ninety percent rejection, and the average union actor makes five thousand dollars a year. Q: A lot of your plays are personal in nature. What made you decide to tell your full story as a book, rather than a play? A: I wanted to tell the story of the decade between 1979 and 1989 in a book because a book reaches a much wider audience than a play does. Also, there was way too much material to fit into a play. Q: How does it feel to release a true, personal story like Something Fierce into the world? A: I try not to take myself seriously, only the work seriously. The first is disastrous, the second imperative. So when the book came out I felt the same way I feel when any of my work comes out: relieved, a little scared, excited, and full of anticipation. Q: Are you currently working on another book? Considering the success of Something Fierce, is there a lot of pressure going into a new project? A: I will start working on my second book very soon. Yes, there is a lot of pressure to put out a second book as soon as possible. I’m not bowing to it.
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ad infinitum Bachelor of Visual Arts- Graduate Exhibition
Lynette Bosa Jay Cabalu Tara Hallquist Bri Harrison Yvonne Lee Lisa Lucow Andrew Lund
Dana Miller Jasmin Nguyen Caroline Safianuk Antonio Su ROZ Deanna Welters Katie Walker
CLOSING CELEBRATION: APRIL 19TH, 6PM-10PM
Exhibition Open April 17th-19th
Kwantlen Polytechnic University-Cloverdale Campus
Room 1843-5500 180 St, Surrey, BC
KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY THE CHIP AND SHANNON WILSON SCHOOL OF DESIGN
CELEBRATING THE CONVERGENCE, INTERACTION AND DIALOGUE BETWEEN STUDENTS AND PROFESSIONALS ENGAGED IN DESIGN
APRIL 15 EXCHANGESHOW.CA
TO
1 7, 2 0 1 3
RIVER ROCK CASINO RESORT, RICHMOND, BC
Location: River Rock Fraser Room Monday, April 15, to Wednesday, April 17th Mo 5pm–9pm | Tu 9am–9pm | We 9am–5pm
Location: River Rock Theatre Tuesday, April 16th, at 7:30pm Tickets: Regular $20 | Students $10
Location: River Rock Theatre Wednesday, April 17th, at 2:00pm & 7:00pm Tickets: Matinee $20 | Evening $40
Spanning all three days of The Exchange, The Exhibit features the current work of graduating students from Fashion Design & Technology, Graphic Design for Marketing, Interior Design and Foundations in Design, as well as work in progress from Product Design.
Join an economic analyst, a writer broadcaster, and an architecture critic and curator at the round table. Guest speakers Ryan Berlin, Nora Young and Trevor Boddy participate in a moderated round table discussion about the future of design.
The highly anticipated annual fashion show in which graduating students of Fashion Design & Technology reveal their final collections. Each student designs and sews a clothing line for a niche market, then features three pieces in The Show. Presented by
Free Admission – Open to the Public
Envision Financial Odgers Berndtson KenDor Textiles MEDIA SPONSORS
Reco Decoration Suki’s TÉLIO
Fall 2012, Issue 3