Issue One by The Hilt

I SSUE N U MB ER ONE

hilt noun \â&#x20AC;&#x2122;hilt\ Definition of hilt : a handle especially of a sword or dagger â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to THE HILT 1 : to the very limit : completely <the farm was mortgaged to the hilt> 2 : with nothing lacking <played the role to the hilt>

CONTENTS

Letters from the “Editors”

POETRY

REGULARS 20 12 7 22 27 28 17

VALLEY CRUISER DIGEST: FOUND POETRY Strange fACTS Three young males Mistakes Animal Action Count ‘em Impaired Perception Grad Party Action

Time

Wake in Fright

GOODWORDS: So I Went Downtown the Other Day “I operate under the assumption that things make sense, which they frequently don’t, so I fall down a lot.”

SHORTS 23

DOWN- drink oatstraw when needed “The doctor prescribes Attagirl, promising its daily ingestion to be the charm that will end the mystery.” My Brother’s Keeper “The silver ring shone with a youthful rebelliousnes that I felt should have been mine, not hers. I felt like she had abandoned her motherhood.”

art & artists Info & Thanks Next issue’s theme, where to find us and other things!

Caution as Cowadice “Maybe they ran too far for me to hear. Maybe someone helped them. Maybe someone caught them.”

FROm THE EDITORS I’m an adult living with my parents because I can’t support myself. I could’ve tried harder to become a designer. I could’ve stuck with the dozens of hobbies I had as a kid and become a ballerina, or a pianist, or a professional, I don’t know, boxer. I had rage issues as a child. But that’s beside the point. I could’ve stayed in school and got my PhD in literature like I planned in first year. But I didn’t. I didn’t stick with any of that stuff so why dwell on the fact that I didn’t pursue any of it? Once I graduated university I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I went to school simply because I was brainwashed into thinking that’s what I was supposed to do after high school. I loved university, don’t get me wrong, but when you take an arts degree...well that shit does NOT prepare you for the real world. So I’m graduated. Great! Now what? Everyone was throwing ideas at me but never stopped to ask me what it was I really wanted to do—not that I would have had an answer—but it was nice to be asked. So I went out and found any job I could while I took the summer to figure it all out. I eventually moved back home and lived the life of unemployment trying to get jobs I thought I wanted. Application after application I heard back from no one. Getting no responses eventually led me to thinking I was completely useless. I went through hardcore depression and thinking I was a failure of a human being. Who was I if I didn’t use my degree? Who was I if I didn’t have a career well over a year out of university? I felt like a complete piece of shit. That much time to sit and think, however, gave me a lot of time to reflect on who I was, am, and want to be. I’ve realized that I don’t give a shit what I do as long as I’m happy doing it; and I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks about what I’m doing as long as it makes me happy. A career’s not going to make me happy so why do I need one? It’s total bullshit. We should be working simply as a means to an end. It shouldn’t become the thing that defines us as human beings. Whenever I find myself making excuses or feeling the need to justify where I’m at in my life I have to remind myself to stop looking back and seeing myself as a failure compared to who I thought I’d be. I need to get over that shit and deal with the now! As long as I’m doing all I can to eventually be where I want to be no one can give me shit for that. Fuck ‘em! There’s no timeline for life. It’s just life. We all make choices and we all choose how to live with them. I thought I was alone in what I was going through until I started talking to people about it and realized most young adults...and even not so young adults...are all just trying to find their way in the world. The Hilt sets out to make people realize we all have problems and make people realize they’re not alone in their struggles. Perspective makes everything make more sense and the best way to do that is share our stories. Whether it be life observations, introspectives, or just something creative. As long as it makes you think about life and maybe even change how you think about life then we’ve done our job.

Lindsay Smith Editor

Life... am I right? Joshua Duchesne Editor-In-Chief

These poems have been created with verbatim phrases from a selection of passages from the King’s County Cruiser Reports in the summer of 2010 found in The Kings County Advertiser and The Kings County Register, NS. Spacing and capitalization are mine. With thanks to Wendy Elliott for reporting the words.

Andrea Schwen

ke Wyile

Andrea Schwenke particularly enjoys books that combine visual and verbal texts, so she is delighted to have illustrations accompany her poems. She teaches children’s literature in the Annapolis Valley, NS. However, her MA in creative writing, buried relic of decades past, has been trying to assert itself. Her first story, “Common Signs of Spring” is in The Nashwaak Review (Vol. 28/29 – Summer/Fall 2012).

Mistakes About 11 pm an Individual entered a store carrying A Baseball Bat Staff were Alarmed The person was merely en route Home from a game of Ball Reported concern about an Older Man dressed in Pyjamas

Police were able to determine the man was East Indian wearing Traditional Clothing

report of loitering in a Coldbrook parking lot at 12:50 am turned out to be a rendez-vous RCMP investigated reports of GunShots but the Noise was from FiReWorKs A resident reported a child trying to drown a cat in a pool Police were told by the parent of the five-year-old it was attempting to give the animal a bath Warning issued

a possible animal abuse complaint turned out to be a Very Old Dog The Delivery Man for the Grapevine was mistaken for a prowler while on evening rounds

GOODWORDS so i went downtown the other day So I went downtown the other day.

transit and for some ludicrous reason subway service doesn’t start until 9am on Sunday morning. I didn’t It was a Saturday night and a friend of mine was having bother to look this up in advance because, as you can a birthday party. Actually it was a friend of a friend, tell from my prior use of adjectives, I consider even the but it doesn’t make a difference to the story so let’s say idea of late subway service on Sunday morning to be she’s my friend. She’s this tiny white girl with a passion ludicrous, foolish, unreasonable, and I’m a reasonable for salsa dancing and I don’t know if it was her idea or person. I operate under the assumption that things her girlfriends’ but we all ended up going to Mana Bar make sense, which they frequently don’t, so I fall down where it was salsa night. Perfect. Lots of fun. Some of us a lot. Only this one irks me because why the hell should could dance, some of us couldn’t. It’s very funny going I have to sleep in on a Sunday morning? Are the TTC out like that with people you don’t know because those employees all at home having their eggs and bacon first impressions are absolutely shattered as soon as while I’m standing around in the falling snow with an you hit the dance floor. But that’s not what this is about. expression of confusion and disgust as I stare at the Point is, I was out, it’s a Saturday night, and we’re at little sign telling me I can’t go home that way as my a salsa club so there’s no way we’re leaving before 2, cold hand tugs listlessly at the door to my warm transitwhich is a problem because I don’t live downtown and I filled future? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the TTC don’t drive. You can guess what’s coming next. workers. I hope they enjoy their late starts. I know I would. But I was cold and I was tired and that wasn’t Transit; it is simultaneously the best and worst part of the sort of Sunday morning surprise I’ve always wanted. being a pedestrian in Toronto. It also stops running at But I’m not one to hold a grudge. I bundled up my insufficient evening wear – I was expecting a spicy latin fiesta, not an arctic trek through the Swiss Alps – I bundled up, and ran through my options. Find a breakfast place and hole up, or take the Blue Line bus to Kipling. As Alec Baldwin says, A-Good-Plan-Today-isBetter-Than-a-Great-Plan-Tomorrow, so I hopped the bus meant for drunk people and early airline riders and headed out to Kipling station. I got there around 8, 8:30, where a bus was supposed to be waiting to take 1:30 in the morning which means anyone taking the me North. Only there was no bus. The Blue Line didn’t subway home has to leave the party early – lame—or even drop me off at the station. The driver pulled over you can plan ahead and get a ride, or you can crash at Timmy’s to get a coffee. So frustrating!

“I hopped the bus meant for drunk people and early airline riders and headed out to Kipling station.” somewhere. Here’s my problem: that night, my ride was crashing at his work – where he was going to get up and work at 7am – so I could either leave the party and be lame, which I spend enough of my time doing, or I could crash with him at his work and get up at 7 and catch the subway home. Great plan. I’m all set. Only one problem: Saturday night party means Sunday morning

So after I got a coffee, two breakfast sandwiches, and a small box of Timbits I decided to just walk into the no entry area of the bus depot. Only when I got there I chickened out. I convinced myself that I didn’t live that far north, and I could easily walk to Rexdale. It couldn’t be that far.

It’s frigging far. If I hadn’t been picked up by the Kipling bus that miraculously stopped at a red light on the other side of the road, I would probably still be there, trudging through light fluffy deceptive snow, slipping on black ice and spilling my coffee all over the place. But I’m not bitter. I was just so glad to be inside that warm smelly bus, sitting beside an old man who might never have brushed his teeth and whose beard seemed to be stained the colour of urine, which begged the question of – you know what? It didn’t matter. I revelled in the uncomfortable closeness of a complete stranger because I was on a TTC bus heading home. Is there any better feeling in the world? TTC, don’t ever change. Maybe add early Sunday service. Just saying.

ADAM SNOWBALL is an artist, formerly trained, who is currently not working in his field but will be working in a forest for the next three months in New Zealand, bird-watching. He’s spent the last few years working in different unrelated jobs, but always in the GTA. Country born-and-bred, he’s discovered he may be more of a city-boy than he had ever aimed to be, or maybe he’s just impressionable. He enjoys the outdoors and working with his hands, but he’s developed a growing appreciation for fashion, which he likes to dabble in by designing costumes for superheroes and various performers in stories that he hopes one day to illustrate in the form of best-selling graphic novels. He also is something of a Magoo, so he tends to end up with hilarious misunderstandings. See editors for more information, or anecdotal evidence.

Jane Kerrison is a twenty-fouryear-old who writes fiction for children and young adults, as well as short fiction and poetry. Jane has a beautiful Maltese/ Shih-tzu named Sonnet who is her loyal sidekick and the subject of a picture book she is selfpublishing with one of her best friends. Jane lives with fibromyalgia and endometriosis and hopes to use her writing to help people understand and cope with chronic illness. She is an avid reader who is almost permanently attached to a book. She also loves photography, science fiction, movies and tv, yoga, music, cooking and screenwriting.

Three Young Males A noise complaint brought police to Pleasant Street three underage inebriated youth now have parents liable for damage to a vehicle after they were caught throwing rocks Three young males were reported at 1:18 am while trying to uproot a tree At 2 am playing tennis at a recreation facility wearing gorilla masks in a truck tossing nails off a roof on Main Street A passing pedestrian was scraped went for a tetanus shot Trio disappeared when police arrived

ou, the person who believes that there is plenty of time left to grow up and do the right thing, you are the person Death smiles coyly at.

I knew on some level that I had grown up quick, in that way that makes people wonder how you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t end up as a bona-fide fuck-up. At 20 years old, I had experienced traumas that the majority of my cohort never had, and never would. Those who knew me well knew this about me; those who did not know me probably figured I was overly opinionated and entitled, maybe even considered me a bit of a bitch. But I knew that my independence and strength of character came from seeing and hearing the types of things which delinquent characters in films and books are exposed to. Employers, my family members, and my close friends commended me for my survivor mentality. In many ways, I felt untouchable. I felt lucky. I did not owe anything to anyone.

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER 14

I had, for as long as I was receiving those (ill-deserved?) compliments, attributed them to my desire to be the exact opposite of my mother, to my need to counteract her poisonous DNA that coursed through me. The darkest dungeons of my memory seemed to be her construction. I was certain that my resolute and selfdetermined personality was formed in spite of her, that she had no involvement in creating any of my positive attributes, other than long eyelashes and full lips. I was 20, and I had not spoken to her in over three years; the last time we had seen one another had been in the county courthouse when my maternal aunt and her husband were declared legal guardians over the â&#x20AC;&#x153;minor in question.â&#x20AC;? My mom was wearing scrubs; she had been on a break from the hospital where she worked. I noticed a ring in the center of her lip, and it enraged me. The silver ring shone with a youthful rebelliousness that I felt should have been mine, not hers. I felt like she had abandoned her motherhood. It was not until years later, when I pictured those moments repeatedly, that I considered how she felt that day, standing in the court with her arms folded over her chest, her shoulders squared the same way mine do when I am trying to appear tall and important. How did

she feel, watching as her oldest daughter, her first-born, left the courtroom without speaking a word to her, after barely looking her in the eye? I wonder if she felt anything similar to how she felt when my grandmother left her in Trinidad, taking my two young aunts with her. I wonder, now, if my grandma and I caused her a similar heartbreak. I wonder, whenever the rain reminds me of that day, if my mother ever forgave either of us. There are mental snapshots of my mother that look something like love. I remember ice cream for breakfast on Friday and trips to the bookstore on her paydays. Still, the tint of violence in these portraits releases lead into the bottom of my belly, anchoring my anger. The smell of vodka, the yelling, the sting of whatever object was closest to her across my skin, they fill in the background of my memory and feel like fear, as uncomfortable as sleet down the back of my jacket in January. That day in court, I said nothing to her.

final act of abandonment would be her self-inflicted death. The premonition always foretold an untimely death that would be gruesome, like something out of the crime shows I’ve always loved. My thirteen year old self was right in all the wrong ways: it was untimely, but so perfect in the way only irony can create. I had traveled to Trinidad just two months before my mom’s death. Trinidad- a place that was symbolic, in my imagination, of all I did not understand about my mother. I stayed with my great aunt and uncle, the people who had raised my mother when my grandma moved to California. Uncle Cyril, a man I was forbidden to ask about during my childhood. Mom never said what it was that he had done wrong to her but her hatred of the man was palpable. I found him endlessly interesting. He was a renowned reverend, a writer, and a reader. He and my aunt spoke of my mother constantly during my two week stay in their home. Their words illuminated bits and pieces of my mom I had never known. They told me what a clever troublemaker my mother had been, how she both infuriated and impressed her school’s principal. They recounted for me how my mother could remember whole sermons after hearing them once. I was fascinated, captivated and achingly curious for every detail of her childhood they could remember. I caught them, more than a few times, eyeing me with a wistful, away look, like they were seeing someone from the past. A smirk played on their lips; they saw mom in my walk, heard her in my laugh, were reminded of her fire in the way I expressed myself. Never before

Some three years later, the image of her in those sea green scrubs is razor-sharp, looping in my head like a DVD title screen sequence. I am in the back of my aunt’s SUV, staring at the back of heads. They belong to my grandma and my mother’s sisters: all the women who raised me in ways my mother did not. Or could not. My best friend sits next to me holding my hand. The weight and pressure of her grip is the only reminder that I am still in my body. We are on our way to deliver the news to my younger sister that I received only an hour before: your mom was found dead. My sister and I had “HER PANCREAS WAS the same first thought; we were both pretty certain that INFLAMED, HER LIVER FULL our mother, the most volatile person we had known, OF FLUID LIKE A DROWNED had taken her own life. We were right, in some ways. MOB-STRIKE VICTIM.” We both seemed to want some sort of melodrama, as if somehow it would make it more comprehensible. Her had anyone likened me to my mother in a positive way; death was just too simple to choke down. We wanted usually people remarked on my striking resemblance to my mother, always in a way that made me ashamed. more to chew on. I needed there to be more to the story. I had been I returned home with my head drowning in these new building my mother’s death in my mind since I was tales of my mother. I wanted to call her. But I didn’t. thirteen, as morbid as that is. I always knew my mother’s I hadn’t forgiven her. Each time I tried, the eight-year

old in me tugged on my shirt and pointed towards the memory of the time mom said she’d kill us, chop us in tiny pieces and hide us in the rocks, the way our druggie, stranger of a biological father had taught her. The eightyear-old looked at me with eyes that silently said, “she didn’t love us; she left us.” It was only years later that the eight-year-old understood and was pacified.

had still been her. She had still been Karen Alicia Jadoo. Her nails were still painted.

At the end of her funeral, one of my mother’s friends approached me with a searching look in her eyes, which made it difficult for me to look directly at them. I cannot remember her name, but I will never forget what she said to me: she told me that my mother always knew My mother’s death was gruesome, but only to those that her kids were better off without her. She was right. who knew the tiniest of details, like which of her organs My mother hadn’t abandoned us. She had freed us from had failed and were distended, or what the fluid inside being victims of the poison she herself could not escape. of her stomach had looked like. Her bodily systems had It wasn’t until I was suffocating under a thick regret, “HER NAILS WERE STILL both my own and that of my family’s that I realized I had PAINTED” had a reason to ask for my mother’s forgiveness. given up on her. Or maybe she had given up on them. The liver was too full of triglycerides, a common effect My Brother’s Keeper: I have these words in Latin tattooed of too much booze. Hepatic Steatosis, if you’re into the on the inside of my right forearm. Now, the spot tingles terminology. Her pancreas was inflamed, her liver full faintly when I concentrate on it. My three younger of fluid like a drowned mob-strike victim. She had died siblings and I all originate from different fathers; our alone in her apartment. How long she had been there, mother, even if absent for most of our lives, was our face down in her own blood, nobody knew for sure. unifying anchor. Now that she is somewhere in the The autopsy determined that rates of decomposition intangible ether, my shoulders sit squarely underneath suggested she’d been there somewhere between three a responsibility to make sure that my two sisters and and seven days. I read the autopsy aloud to my sixteen- brother learn to forgive our mother. Being an adult now year-old sister, doing my best to skip the parts I felt means that I am the curator of my mother’s memory. I were too descriptive, even though I secretly clung try to smile at them the way our mother smiled. to each word and phrase; I made mental notes of the terminology I hadn’t learned in physiology, words like KIRSTEN JADOO is a California native who “edema.” I found myself picturing the maggots in her swapped coasts in order to take a bite of the Big mouth, the patches of skin that had begun to slip, and it Apple. She is a writer interested in everything from helped me to detach myself from her, like she was a case food and travel to environment and politics. The study in a biology textbook. Even the coroner advised eldest of four children, she holds family very near my grandma not to view her body; it was said she was to her heart, and would be an incomplete mess unrecognizable. without her closest friends. She is magazineobsessed, a lover of short stories, and an avid We all joked in a bitter way of the one part of the report movie watcher. that we identified with, the description of the way mom’s nails and toenails had been painted: turquoise, with black tiger stripes on the thumbs and big toes. Even though she had died a drunkard’s undignified death, alone, without really knowing her children, she

Grad Party Action Three graduation parties required police presence Two women got into a fight Three chaperones got fed up They reported mayhem and a desire to leave their bucket of car keys The Free for-all had quieted down when officers arrived about 40 people still partying Despite the fact 500 students attended 10 parent chaperones noted one fight and a male who lost his shoes in a swamp

SUBMISSION GUIDLINES AT thehiltmagazine.com 19

Strange fACTS Strange fACTS Complaint of a man driving a lawn tractor downtown At 1:28 am the sound of a boxing bag being punched repeatedly resulted in a call to police Two reports of mailboxes filledwithfoaminsulation came in An unknown, elderly male graBBed a young womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s butt ocks in a store And complimented her on her phys ique Thieves used a magnet to steal cash out of a light-house shaped wishing well at the wharf in halls harbour

Someone went through the drivethrough at a fast food outlet repeatedly ordering items not on the menu A 91-year-old man asked a woman in a store if she wanted to see his pea g nuts r O W

CAUTION AS COWARDICE

thought I heard the word “help”. It was around 2:30 or 3 AM and I had only woken up enough to rip my share of the covers back from my girlfriend. There it was again. Someone screaming “HELP!” somewhere in my neighborhood. I live in one of the most densely populated areas in the city and as such, seedy situations aren’t uncommon. My car was broken into just the other day, for example. In the two years I’ve lived here though I have never been so disturbed by this person’s sincere and terrified screams for help. What’s more disturbing to me is that I didn’t do anything. I only lied there thinking about getting up, finding things to wear, and searching for this person in the cold and the dark. I thought about what could possibly be happening to them that they couldn’t think of anything else to do in the downtown area of the biggest city in the country than to yell. I thought for a moment that maybe there was an accident and they had no phone, but as I listened, I noticed the voice getting fainter. They must have been running. Running away from something threatening. I continued to listen to this person presumably run for their life until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe they ran too far for me to hear. Maybe someone helped them.

Maybe someone caught them. I fell back asleep thinking how even if I could catch up and find this person, I don’t know what I’m running into. I could be putting myself in danger too.

aimed for the man then suddenly turned away, disappearing around a corner. It must have noticed me, a witness, almost too late. A young couple came out to help as well. Out of the hundreds of people in the complex, we were the only folks to come out. I remember being shocked by that. Now, I’m one of those people who stay safely in their homes.

I didn’t tell my girlfriend the next morning. I was afraid of what she might say. “How could I not have helped!” “How could you be expected to put yourself in danger?” I don’t know what reaction would have been worse. Maybe, “How Now I feel conflicted. Is it worth could you have fallen back asleep.” putting myself in potentially mortal danger to help someone in need? What’s funny is that this is the second Morality may say one thing and logic time I’ve been put in this situation. may say another. The only thing I’m About 5 years ago I stayed with my sure of is that despite his lack of mom for a weekend just outside the planning, I’m proud of my past self downtown core, on the lake. She for running out to help. Was it stupid lived in a condo complex in a nice that I had run out like that five years neighborhood which about 3 blocks ago unprepared? Yes, I think it was, west became not so nice. but I don’t’ feel stupid about it and I still don’t. Now, five years later, I feel It was summer, around midnight, sorry and ashamed for not running and I heard someone yelling “help”. out to help again, no matter how Without a thought I threw my shoes unwise it might have been. on and ran to help. No keys, no cell phone, nothing but shoes and a mission. I found a twenty something JUDI DENCH is not this author’s man across the street from the real name though it’s one they complex. He told me there was a car enjoy. Judi has been keeping an somewhere trying to run him over. on and off relationship with thier I didn’t feel too skeptical as it was journal for years and though they obvious he was seriously afraid and enjoy stories and reading, they he didn’t look crazy or high. often find writing tedious. Maybe A car came squealing out of they aren’t doing it right? Don’t nowhere, mounted the curb and answer that.

Animal Action A woman in Wolfville had a little white dog run into her home at 10:54 pm It did not have a tag Two young dogs roughed up Two children on the beach at Blomidon A black and white horse named Chico was reported on Maple Ridge Road near Wolfville A blonde gelding was loose on east Main St in Berwick A deer hit a car on Highway 101 near Auburn Dogs were left in cars in Greenwood and Berwick prompting concern for their safety Resident woke up to find a window open And a grey fluffy intruder in the home

MAY There have been signs for some years. Strange feelings that overcome you more frequently. Brain tingling. Unnerving. And then one night you come completely undone but don’t quite recognize this because you mistake champagne for the culprit; so it happens again, this time leading you to wonder, very seriously, if this is the end and to worry at the inconvenience and grief this will cause. As it turns out, it’s just a panic attack. Turns out tons of people have these. Obviously this is why ’don’t have a panic attack’ is such a common throwaway phrase. Right up there with ‘don’t kill yourself.’ Undoubtedly phrases to offset deep fears because the physiology of panic is profound. You know you shouldn’t be driving a vehicle on a dark highway in this state.

JUNE The balance of your body has tipped. All semblance of control has flown the coop, leaving you one ruffled chicken. Incredulous, you seek medical advice. Of course the tests proclaim you the picture of health. The doctor prescribes Attagirl, promising its daily ingestion to be the charm that will end the mystery. But you want the truth which is harder to find. The pharmacist is shocked by the prescription you fill as a security measure. You make appointments with all the paths, seeking an alternate route. Between B vitamins, omega oils, and copious cups of ginger tea, you try to plant some stakes for stability. You take up serious snacking with a view to protein. You try to stop thinking, to surrender to silence, to enjoy being. This is a steep shale path.

When the osteopath tells you you’ve found your bottom, she confirms that something drastic is up. That said, she sends you off with instructions to sleep for four days. Deep as you are in physical uncertainty, you wonder if this is really as low as it could go. Certainly is deep enough, thanks, and there’s plenty of paradox thrown into the well as you repeatedly feel like you might just float away, your dizzy head a balloon, your body growing faint, your heart suddenly sprinting, you hoping there is no actual finish line. Like you’ve been plugged into a giant generator and some maniac flipped the excess switch and your arms start to go numb and your legs shake and a great unease coils through you. These are not the dumps, not the blues; you are not out. What kind of breakdown leads you to your bottom? What piles up or chips away over the years to accumulate such supra-gravitational force? Your soul fragile; sucked, pulled. The dark of night drags on, your mind and heart race, your body wired for flight from itself, the past, something you should try to name. Residual grief? Loss, close calls, anger, hurt, exhaustion, guilt, denial… Who can sleep for four days? Amazingly, on the fourth day you sleep the most and the soundest. From there you start up the long ladder to a new moon.

local discoveries, walking in new places, convinced menopause is around the next bend. But the naturopath names adrenal exhaustion. Suddenly this diagnosis seems to apply to much of the population—you notice ads for supplements and tonics everywhere. No more java jolts; these days you just smell the coffee. You now doubt the concept of normality, yet bit by bit you rise towards its semblance, leaving the bottom down there, another valuable experience you wouldn’t want to repeat, a physical particulate of remarkable mass and magnitude. As the months reel by, your reality shifts a bit here, a bit there, a bit everywhere. YEARS LATER The truth of this experience is past, but the memory of the ice trickle in your brain and the shrill steam-engine whistle crushing your chest keeps your eyes keen for sinkholes ahead.

ANDREA SCHWENKE particularly enjoys books that combine visual and verbal texts, so she is delighted to have illustrations accompany her poems. She teaches children's literature in the Annapolis Valley, NS. However, her MA in creative writing, buried relic of decades past, has been JULY trying to assert itself. Her first story, "Common In your haste, you think you’ve made considerable Signs of Spring" is in The Nashwaak Review (Vol. progress and might be well enough to travel. But your 28/29 – Summer/Fall 2012); it deals with the sibling body isn’t finished schooling your mind, so then the suicide mentioned in DOWN. serious weeping sets in and you develop some sort of bronchial manifestation of sorrow that exercises your diaphragm, disrupts your still fragile sleep and opens your throat like a grater. You never know when you’ll be overcome. Despite having sailed the seas of grief with a sibling suicide, there’s nothing familiar about this territory except for all the practice you are getting. You draw with your left hand, favouring the abstract and flowers. You write: but I like myself…. You practice not thinking and wonder if a bohdi tree would Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author help. Yoga with eyes closed encourages the tide. What of the forthcoming chapbooks is it you need to figure out? The Complete Absence of Twilight You concoct motherwort tincture (bitter) and drink (Mad Hat Press), Echo’s Bones oatstraw infusions (a mild green taste); you bathe in and Danger Falling Debris (Red Epsom salts and oats, willing all these things to help. Bird Chapbooks), and An Armed Man Lurks in Ambush (unbound AUGUST CONTENT). He likes Swedish and All travel is a trial. Will you be confined to this Icelandic noir, the New York Mets, valley for life? You’ve sent your children off on what and Korean revenge movies, not is no longer a family holiday. You work at making necessarily in that order.

Wake in Fright Having city,

fallen I

asleep

somehow

woke

one

another. The lame hobbled about the street in a busy kind of way. An accordion I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t realized I had been hearing for a while suddenly

stopped

playing.

Instead, flames waved from the windows to get my attention. My face must have betrayed what I was thinking: I would be happy with a front window that looked out on telephone poles receding into

the

though,

distance. must

For

resign

now,

myself

to exaggeration and paranoia. Imagine a cloud sniffing like a dog at a dusty clump of weeds.

Howie Good 25

Count em Two men were fighting on Commercial Street 20 people gathered to watch All gone when police arrived Over six cords of freshly cut wood were stolen along with a New Chain Saw A total of 52 boxes of berries Were taken from a straw berry stand in Cambridge over a Week Long Period

Six horses were l o o s e in Upper Dyke Attempted theft of two flats of blueberries on Reid Rd north Kentville Culprits ran into the woods There were 13 false 911 calls six of them made by children playing with the phone There was one case of road rage in the Kingston area There was one breach of the peace

Eight reports of Suspicious Sales People Selling Security Systems door to door

Impaired Perception A possible impaired drier1 turned out to be overtired Three other similar complaints came in Dangerous driving was reported on Highway 101 when a driver was driving slowly due to a mec ha n i cal pr obl e m When police stopped a suspected Impaired Driver it was found he had an inner ear problem and had not been drinking

dri[v]er

Kat Adams[cat atoms]

KAT ADAMS is an Artist/Designer/Wearer-ofMany-Hats hailing from the Niagara region, she is an HBA graduate who specialized in Art and Art History at the University of Toronto and Sheridan College. Adams is best known for her design work - having worked with clients such as Music Niagara, TAG Gallery, Robert Rye and family, and many more. Adams has also been known to make an occasional painting, drawing, installation, and sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rather fond of printmaking. She is a self-proclaimed lover of typography and assorted kitsch. She spends her free time watching British television, reading funny travel books, crafting, thrifting, collecting and creating.

Andrea Zadro

ANDREA ZADRO a graphic designer and illustrator based in Toronto, ON. She graduated from the University of Toronto and from Sheridan College for arts & design. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a film lover, pianist, record collector, and strict David Bowie aficionado. She likes to spend her spare time blogging design inspirations or watching new films.

Adam Snowball see page 9 for bio

Dave Smith

To all of our contibutors and submitters...

We couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have done this without your willingness to share your work with a stranger who one day decided to try and start a magazine. He and the magazine are still trying to find their legs but nothing would be possible without you!

If you have any comments, ideas or other things you’d like to share with us, let us know at thehiltmagazine@gmail.com View our submission guidlines at thehiltmagazine.com -our ‘doors’ are always open!

Stay tuned for our next issue:

What is that last thing you learned about people? For example, I’ve learned it’s okay to talk to strangers if you’re asking about their height. 35