Issue Two by The Hilt

Issue 2

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

Articles

The Modern Daughter’s Guide to Fatherhood “Please feel free to pass this on to your parents and future fathers in order to avoid decades of dreaded Daddy Issues and thousands of dollars in therapy.”

Letters from the “Editors”

Regulars

GOODWORDS: So I Was Walking the Wrong Way... “I didn’t want to turn right around and follow the seedy soothsayer, so I kept walking”

A Monkey Could Do It: Lessons Learnt as a Temp “ ‘Why are we doing this? What’s the purpose?’ No one knew.”

Shorts

Diary Entries

Mom with Guns “An armed marksman watches your every move. He is actually very friendly but never looks you in the eye.”

That Escalated Quickly entry#1 entry#2 entry#3 entry#4 entry#5 entry#6

Tickets “I’m Jewish and so is my fake grandmother Sarah Goldblum.”

Piece of Porn entry#1 entry#2 entry#3 entry#4 entry#5 entry#6 entry#7 entry#8

I Killed ‘My Family’ “At eighteen, I was already on my second marriage with Shekhar, who was on his third marriage.” Keep It Together “Fuck it. Let Bangkok take it.”

Poems

Info & Thanks

Time Capsule

Next issue’s theme, where to find us and a big “thank you”.

From the Editors

“Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance.” Malcolm X “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” George Bernard Shaw “Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.” Ernest Hemingway The amount of sayings that exist like these is overwhelming. There are sayings for everything: how to have a fulfilling life, how to feel better about ourselves. There’s even sayings for how to live our everyday life (an apple a day anyone?) These often quippy, always overused statements are meant to make our lives easier but do they really? We all hope we can learn from what happens to others or help others learn from what has happened to us; that’s what these sayings are for after all. But how come so many of us know someone who has gone through something and say “That won’t ever happen to me” and then eventually we fall into the same situation and have almost the same exact reaction? Is it because the only way we truly learn is to go through the experience first handed? Look up quotes for anything and some of the most prolific names in history will pop up. If there’s anyone that you would go to for guidance it would be people like the three I quoted. We love advice, especially if it can be summed up in a couple sentences and can come from someone like one of those three people. We seem to love one liners but life’s not a one liner (there’s a one liner in itself). So trying to explain how to understand it through a saying or trying to learn a lesson through the words of another person makes no sense. But here’s the thing: We love that shit. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t watch sitcoms or soap operas and become so invested that we talk about these characters as if they are our friends. We love to live vicariously; and we love people living vicariously. That’s the whole reason people tell stories. That’s the whole reason people come up with phrases that become other peoples’ life motto. So where does all this leave us? Through the process of writing this I’ve typed out and deleted an insane amount of clichés. The most popular being life itself is a lesson. But it is as true as it is lame. We can’t just live our lives off of what other people say. How is that any way to live? And as much as we like to watch other people live their lives, when it comes to our own situation the advice of others only goes so far. If we lived solely off of the advice we get from other people we’d do nothing because everyone has differing opinions of what someone should and shouldn’t do. So what exactly do we do then? How do we know what advice to take and what not to take? What to believe and what not to believe? What to do and what not to do? Fuck if I know. I’m just here living life like the rest of you. Lindsay Smith Editor

Dear Diary, See you tomorrow. Joshua Duchesne Editor-In-Chief

Because of his lack of imagination, Hauquan writes creative nonfiction. Notably, his piece, “Teaching the F-word” was included in the Best of Creative Nonfiction Vol. 2. For 12 years, he lived in Japan, where he found the isolation he needed to begin writing. He has a wide variety of interests including learning foreign languages, riding retrostyle motorcycles, and growing organic vegetables. He hopes he will be admitted into the MFA program at UBC one day, but after three attempts, he’s not so sure. He teaches writing at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario.

diary entries from Hauquan Chau

entry ONE

Dear Diary, I found pieces of porn today strewn on the staircase between the sixth and seventh floor of the last apartment on my newspaper route. Some were small as postage stamps, others the size of my open palm. The frayed, jagged edges suggested someone was ripping them with bare hands. The sound of an opening door many floors below made me frantic with fear. To be caught by someone with all this pornography in my hands. Whoever it was would think that the pieces of porn belonged to me and it was I who had the sick idea of ripping them apart like a wild animal. I grabbed what I could and ran before someone caught me. I wish I could look at them nowâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;those pieces of exposed breasts and nipples, those pinkish regions surrounded by pubic hairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but unfortunately home was not an option since mother having found the decaying bologna sandwiches I stowed away at the back of the closet. My only option was to stash them behind the large metal garbage bins in the machinery room of the apartment building. The noise of pumping machinery and hissing pipes was reassuring. With the smell of decaying garbage and the darkness, I felt comforted in knowing that I will be able to look secretly at my pieces of porn without detection. I am counting the hours now before I can go back tomorrow.

GOODWORDS s o i w a s w a l k i n g t h e w r o n g w a y ... So, I was walking the wrong way down Queen Street one day and this guy, as he passed me, whispered something in my ear. He whispered “Suicide,” then he kept walking. I know what you’re thinking, “That’s Toronto, man! People be crazy,” but I’m not so sure. I think, in his own way, he was trying to be helpful.

a sweater vest over a pinstripe shirt, a knit tie and new Aldo shoes. She said I looked good, I said I know because I’m funny like that, then she dropped me off at the train station and I was on my way.

“his gaze said, ‘you know,’ with a lit tle nod”

I should explain. At this point I wasn’t living in Toronto, but I was Toronto-adjacent. I was living and going to school in Oakville, where I also TA’d for one of my professors. She had a gallery show somewhere downtown but had to teach, could I possibly go and sit in for a couple hours? I did, obviously. It’s not like I didn’t have other things to do with my time (I actually didn’t) but I seem to take some perverse pleasure in doing favors for people. Anyways, I went. Or at least I tried to.

If you don’t know the city, downtown can be very confusing. Now that I know the city, I scoff at people who ask for directions. The city is a grid, how could you possibly get lost? Pick a direction, you’ll eventually hit a street you know, or a highway, or the lake. At the time, I didn’t know the city. It’s a massive place and I knew only what my crappy MapQuest directions told me. You’re at Union, my handwriting said, go North on Bay until you hit Queen. Okay, I got to Queen, now what? Walk to Ossington, and the gallery will be right there. Which way is Ossington? The instructions didn’t tell me that part. Apparently my past-self assumed certain things about my future-self that were woefully inaccurate; sense of direction chief among them. I didn’t even write down the address, just the name of the gallery. What an idiot. Keep in mind smart phones weren’t a thing at this point so I picked a direction. I had a 50/50 shot and I missed.

“Apart f rom sto pping eve ry f ew inte rsections to gawk at stre e t signs and wipe sweat f rom my furrowed brow, I pre t t y muc h made a be e-line in the wrong direction.”

I walked East down Queen Street until it was Queen Street East and I had no clue where the hell I was. But I’m no quitter. Apart from stopping every few intersections to gawk at street signs and wipe sweat from my furrowed brow, I pretty much made a bee-line in the wrong direction. It was at this point that I ran into my friend on the street, by which I mean the guy I didn’t know but referenced earlier, at the start of this story. Remember that guy? He was coming towards me. At this point I’m getting sweaty from all the walking and I’m a little stressed because I’m pretty sure I’m in the wrong place. I’m also a 20-year-old white kid all

I like to get dressed up sometimes. Nothing weird, just a shirt and tie, and in my mind sitting in a gallery was pretty much the big-time. I wanted to impress my professor with my professionalism, and my awesome duds. So when she showed up at my house (to give me a ride to the train station) I was wearing grey dress pants,

dressed up, speed walking down Queen Street East in a pair of wingtips with extra long toes. I think he knew I didn’t belong. But he didn’t say that. This sinewy middle-aged black man, a little raggedy but with a grim flinty determination in his eye, didn’t stop me and tell me “Turn around, you’re going the wrong way.” He leaned in as he passed and in a sultry whisper he huffed a single word into my quivering ear, “Suicide.” I raised my eyebrow and made eye contact with the man as I passed, more confused than scared, and between us passed a moment of non-communication. His gaze said, “You know,” with a little nod, and mine said “Huh?” Then he just kept walking. I can still see his dirty jean jacket and stooped frame, arms swinging as he made his way up the street. At this point I was clearly going the wrong direction, but I didn’t want to turn right around and follow the seedy soothsayer, so I kept walking and lingered at the next intersection before turning around and heading back up Queen Street to Ossington and, eventually, the gallery. I was late, but there was nobody there to care. I still can’t help wondering, why “Suicide”? Was it some form of spoken-word performance art? Or was he simply answering a question I hadn’t asked yet? I have a sneaky suspicion he wanted to scare me, but that word, it just didn’t make sense. He must have known after he said it, when I looked at him like that, he must have known he’d picked the wrong word, but he stuck with it; gotta respect him for that. Hey, if it wasn’t for him and that throaty rasp who knows how long I would have kept walking? I might have ended up in Scarborough. Sometimes I wonder who that mystery man was, or if he’s still out there, roaming the streets, whispering at strangers. I like to think he is.

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.

entry two

Dear Diary, I was worried at first that someone had found them but luckily the pieces were all there in the pile, just as I had left them. The one larger piece, one that required less imagination and fascinated me most was the one with the red hair. The woman was lying on her back, her long red hair hanging seductively off the edge of the bed, while a man was standing between her, off at a certain angle that allowed for the best prospective. She was beautiful. The man was just another prop like the table.

That Escalated Quickly. Diary entries by lindsay clarke

I’m Lindsay Clarke. I’ve lived just a little bit north of Toronto my entire life (I think my area officially counts as part of the GTA now). I went to York for Film Studies for a year and a half, but ended up wanting to be more of a general writer. I’m getting my Novel Writing certificate at George Brown as of right now, and hoping to get my hands on a literary agent in the next couple years. Overall, I’m into film, writing, video games and horse-back riding.

That Escalated Quickly. entry one

Dear diary: Work finally became worth my time. I met a guy named Rod. He is literally the only cool person in the pizzeria. This afternoon we bonded having literally everything in common. For example: favourite movie? Blazing Saddles. Favourite line from favourite movie? “What do you like to do?” “Oh, I don’t know. Play chess... screw...” “Well, let’s play chess.” Finally, someone to talk to while earning minimum wage.

RUKHSAR JAFFER. An aspiring young poet who lives her slow, calm life in the rather fast paced Greater Toronto Area. At the tender age of 16 after being diagnosed with a chorionic disease she decided it was time to spend more time doing more of what she loves: writing! Also a freelance photographer, Rukhsar likes to capture the specialâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both happy and sadâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;moments of life through words and pictures. Currently still in school, Rukhsar is working towards becoming a child psychologist.

A Time Capsule unsharpened pencils notepads from realtors nickel dime, three copper pennies dental retainers outstretched hair ties broken spectacles, the old apartment key All these things left inside. The drawer is a time capsule. 16

entry th ree Dear Diary, Apologies for not writing more often (has it been three weeks already?), but I am still trying to get over the shock of what happened in the machinery room with my red-head. But I am getting a little ahead of myself now. Over the last three weeks, I had examined every square inch of my piece of porn. The ink began to blur from the oil in my fingers and the smooth texture of its glossy finish became tattered and wrinkled. The fiery red of her hair now diminished to a sort of brown smear of fuzzy pixels. I even groped the garbage container on all sides to see if there were any other pieces of my red-head that may have blown around, but no, all I had of her now was decomposing in my hand. It was at that moment of giving her up that the doors leading into the corridor opened with such suddenness that I thought my crimes were finally detected and the police were now breaking open the doors to reveal my sinister secret. My heart jumped and without even thinking I quickly tucked the piece of porn into my pocket. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out. It was the building superintendent. “I was just looking around,” I said. He gave me a smile and told me not to come back into the machinery room again on account of the dangers in there. By the sound of his voice, I knew he knew, but did he know that I knew? Yes, he knew. Now that he knew that I knew what he knew, I vowed from that moment on to always deliver him the scroungiest newspapers, the ones with tattered corners, ripped pages, or rain-soaked front pages. My sanctuary was gone and now I had the predicament of having my red-head in my front pocket, inadvertently crumpled into a ball. I see my jeans now, hanging off the back of my chair in my room. And there in the right pocket is my ball of porn, waiting to be found by my mother any moment now. If only that ball would turn into a hundred decaying bologna sandwiches each with a dead rat inserted between the slice meat (if it can be identified as such) and lettuce; how much easier it would be to explain that to my mother.

That Escalated Quickly. entry two

Dear diary: Me and Rod hang out almost every night after work. It’s the first time since all that drama last year that I actually had a legit friend to just talk to about good things. We chill so much that people think we’re dating. I guess Rod thinks it’s awkward because he’s single and I’m not, but I just laugh at it. We started calling each other our just-best-friend.

entry f o ur

Dear Diary, I feel like mother knows something but she’s waiting for me to confess. But I am not going to call her bluff. I’ll just pretend that I know nothing of nipples and vaginas even if the only things on my mind were in fact those body parts. God forbid that I should leave the piece of porn around the house for mother to find. I thought of throwing it in a trash can but there were none on the way home from school. I thought of casually tossing it on the side of the street, or on the sidewalk, but there were always kids playing up and down our street and I was sure that I would be spotted and then imagine the ridicule I would get from the whole community. “How’s that pervert son of yours these days?” they would say. The neighbourhood kids would then go blab it to my school and then what sort of pariah would I be? Girls would shun me (even more) thinking I was some sort of sexual deviant and the bullies would beat me (even more) because I was now not only a bookish nerd but a sex-crazed one.

THE MODERN DAUGHTER’S GUIDE TO FATHERHOOD

After having amassed twenty-five years of careful analysis, documenting a wealth of empirical data and some very puzzling hypotheses about my father, I think it’s safe to say I’m an irreproachable expert on this topic. Please feel free to pass this on to your parents and future fathers in order to avoid decades of dreaded Daddy Issues and thousands of dollars in therapy.

By Shanna Roberts Salée

As a father, always be there for your daughter in case she falls—metaphorically or literally. If she, for instance, takes a tumble on the school bus and breaks her leg (age 9), it is absolutely suitable to show up with her on the bus the next morning to help h er aboard with her cast and crutches. You may wonder whether it’s appropriate to subsequently tell the driver that you ‘have something to announce’, and proceed—fully clothed in your professorial I’m-an-academic-working-from-home-today bucket hat and Bermudas—in a long-winded speech about bus safety and point to your daughter repeatedly to illustrate what can happen. It doesn’t matter that it’s her first month at a new school. Not at all. Be supportive no matter what. Who knows, she may be grateful some fifty years down the line. At the very least, the kids will know for all of 5th grade that the New Girl’s dad is very, very supportive.

Don’t be afraid to tell her the truth at whatever cost, thus setting an unimpeachable moral example. No awkward teenager wants to hear little white lies such as ‘that baby fat will disappear as you grow’, or ‘acne doesn’t always scar’, or ‘the size of your teeth does not define you’. No. Tell her straight up that with her bucked teeth and slight chub-factor, she’ll never fulfill her life-long dream of being a famous actress because she’s not totally eye-friendly. But it’s fine: remind her instead with glowing eyes that her sharp mind could take her perhaps as far as a doctorate! At thirteen, it’s really what she wants to hear. And when, years later, the Freshman fifteen is packed on hard and ready to roll, remind her during a lovely family brunch that ‘those tight shorts and that t-shirt make you look like you have a tyre around your waist. Just so you know’. Your blunt yet generous honesty will make her feel esteemed, even if it is only deep on the inside. And look at the bright side: she will know that your praise, whenever it may come, will always be true.

This point is rather important, mostly because it is nuanced and can lead to confusion. Being open-minded means being accepting of her decisions and supporting whatever weird phase she’s going through. For instance, when she decides that wearing your ties and purchasing useless wrist bands is cool, you can shrug your confusion away with a vacant smile and talk behind her back to co-workers and her mother. That’s fine. You will also score extra points if you let her long-term, serious boyfriend sleep over without warning her against ‘getting a reputation’. But being open-minded never, ever means blurting out during dinner—however significant and memorable to you these moments may be—‘I was discussing this with your mother in bed this morning while she was in the throes of her orgasm’ as an answer to her question ‘when are you going to fix the shower’. Speaking of which, it is also never acceptable to call her long, awkwardly secretive teenage showers her ‘tender moments’ in front of guests. Always remember that being open-minded only applies to her life, and that this open-mindedness should never be reciprocal. Daughters cannot be open-minded about their fathers. Ever.

This is very important. Only by being yourself can you set an example of self-confidence, self-worth and inner peace. When she buys you a pair of nice, clean dark-wash jeans at Christmas, it’s totally fine to try them on and frown because you don’t like them. It’s further recommended to storm off grumpily, switch back into your tried tested and true 15$ Costco tapered high-risers which you bought in bulk four years ago as you demand the gift receipt. This will show her to never succumb to peer-pressure and to stay true to her beliefs the way you have. When others use online banking and smart phones, it’s imperative that you stick to your principles: you keep going to the bank with your bank book and speak to Maureen the friendly maternal teller. You keep using those quarters and map out the payphones in the city area. Only by watching you say NO will she understand that she does not have to smoke to be cool and she does not have to put out to be loved.

Essentially, as a father, you have a duty to show her the righteous path and to never let her down. It’s normal to make mistakes—those 4-inch heels you bought her when she was 7 because she told you she wanted them ‘so, so, so badly’ may not have been your finest hour, as her mother will remind you repeatedly over the years. But don’t worry we’re all human. Maybe, when she was just a few weeks shy of her fifth Christmas, it would have been okay to answer ‘yes’ when she asked if Santa was real. But again it’s okay—you were honest. She forgives you. There will be times when she will hate your guts and believe that everything you’ve done is wrong. Take a few bewildered moments to read Cosmopolitan in the bathroom and her truth will come alive.

But most of all, always remember that no matter how much she asks you to stay away at the mall when she’s trying to be cool with her friends, hug her hard. Very hard. She will, much, much, much later thank you for being an unavoidable presence in her life.

View this authors bio on page 44!

entry fiv e

Dear Diary, You of all entities have given me the most support during these trying times despite your reticence. And because of your neverending quietude, I have come up with an idea to get rid of, once and for all, that piece, that ball of porn, that ball of insufferable scornâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I would have to bury it in the woods at the end of the street. But not tonight; tonight I must sleep and plan, sleep and plan.

A MONKEY COULD DO IT: Lessons Learnt as a Temp.

monkey could do it. Maybe that’s why the guy in charge was so disdainfully superior. Mr Haughty never actually told us his name. His introduction, “Eight? There’s meant to be ten of you,” was grunted in a swift stride in and out of the meeting room. I looked around at the other seven strangers. Somehow we were to blame for the absence of the other two. We waited around the huge table for another twenty minutes. I didn’t mind, I was getting paid a whopping $12/hr to swing on a swivel chair. A straggler slipped in, just in time to see the parade of the last arrival. Chin held high and flicking the touch screen of her Samsung Galaxy *insert latest model,* she defied the laws of physics to peruse her phone and hold her head high. I just knew she was going to be our self-appointed leader. Mr Haughty returned and dragged a whiteboard into position. I almost felt I was in a board meeting. It was probably “THE RULES” heading that killed the

illusion. I would have liked to have seen some “Thou shalt”s before each, just to add a touch of humour to the mundane task we were about to embark on: marking ballot papers. Now I know I was just a stupid temp, but I think I got the gist of the rules: cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness. Maybe a monkey couldn’t do this job; unless you sanitised its hands first. Rule One: NO FOOD OR DRINKS. Ideally we shouldn’t have any in the room at all but, “I know you won’t listen to me anyway so put your coffee on the windowsill.” We must’ve had the look of renegade rulebreakers. Rule Two: CLEAN HANDS – SPOTLESS! We were marched off to the lunch room to wash them, reminiscent of my stint as a teacher in England and the Dinner Ladies’ hand inspections before eating. Well, they didn’t check the teachers’ hands. They must have had some strange notion of trust in adults. Rule Three: DO NOT CREASE OR FOLD. Along with the dirt from our filthy hands and coffee dribbled from our incompetent mouths, any crease or tear on the ballots would stop the ballot machine. The ballot machine was a mystical contraption in an undisclosed location that, should it stop, would require restarting and extra money charged to the company. Ultimately, Mr Haughty would be in the shit. After the rules came the nitty gritty, the crux of the matter, the Pythagoras of all Theorems: how to mark the ballot. We needed to mark every other circle or every odd number. We reviewed what odd numbers were. To make the process faster, i.e. having to pay us for less time, we had chisel point markers to completely cover the circle with a squared swipe, rather than colour it in. I would make mention of square pegs and round holes but the metaphor works on too many levels and, as a person performing a monkey’s job, I can’t possibly have such brainpower. Besides, I was too concerned by my previous training at colouring in dots. Back in the days of primary school standardised tests, it was instilled in us that should you colour the circle too much, the machine would not read your answer. Yes, I have a strangely vivid memory but in a previous life in the real world, I taught the same circle-colouring lesson to children, just with a little more dignity. After a twenty minute orientation, the same length of training given before I single-handedly ran a hostel/pub in Ireland, we were ready to go. I was threequarters through my first ballot when a problem arose.

“Stop marking!” Mr Haughty held a ballot to the light then rushed from the room. A question had been burning in my mind and I took his absence as a good time to ask the others who had done the marking before. “Why are we doing this? What’s the purpose?” No one knew. One woman complimented me on my good question, as though I’d thrown a curve ball and stumped a lecturer. She made me ask Mr Haughty on his return who then gave a spiel with a lot of jargon. “So it’s a way of standardising the machines?” I clarified. I think I saw his eyes pop behind his trendy frames. “Yes, exactly.” Mr Haughty recovered and broke the news that the ballots were wrong; the printers (seemingly lower than us on the respect chain) had screwed up. He graciously told us we could sign off for the full hour. The new ballots would hopefully be ready for the next day. Four weeks later we were back in the meeting room, this time swivelling on the chairs for forty-five minutes before Mr Haughty showed up and explained that lack of caffeine is an excuse for being a douche bag. Or words to that effect. He didn’t mention the four week delay. Perhaps he was annoyed to discover he had to pay us for the minimum three hours. We recited The Rules again and marched off to wash our hands again. This time though he explained why we were there; so they didn’t have to pay the engineers shitloads to do what we could do. Mr Haughty left us to it and the self-appointed leader took charge. “Ladies, clean hands means no hand cream. And if you’re wearing makeup, don’t touch your face.” I won’t lie; I considered ways to sabotage her ballot pile. Her selfimportance rivalled Mr Haughty’s with the difference being at least he had a proper job. The leader had moved down the table to a seat opposite me. In between us, the radio was dumped. I didn’t know which was worse: listening to how the Samsung Galaxy something or other was better than everyone else’s phone or the pre-packaged sugarcoated crap that taunted me from the radio. I had a long time to decide. A monkey could do it but I quite enjoyed marking ballots. There’s something about mundane, repetitive tasks that appeals to me. I was in the groove, busting out more than my share of ballot papers, until the radio was changed to an even more aggravating station (I hadn’t thought it was possible). My blood bubbled. I gripped the Sharpie too hard and got hand cramps. I made mistakes and tore up ballot papers. As I neared

the point of stabbing the chisel point into my eyeballs, a nice guy responded to my desperate plea and swapped seats. From there the afternoon flowed nicely, chatting with the other drones, fielding the usual outlandish questions about Australian snakes and spiders. At one point it became obvious that even though the ballots were becoming longer, we were going to finish much earlier than anticipated. Oh the cursed affliction of efficiency as a temp! It wasn’t the first time I’d shot myself in the foot by working too fast. I made a deliberate attempt at a go-slow to no avail. On the second day, it became clear we wouldn’t be working out the whole day. I forcibly slowed my marking by not allowing myself to colour the next circle without thinking of a country starting with A, B, C… Ultimately, I double crossed myself. Despite my best (worst) efforts, we finished the final ballots in just under three hours, the minimum amount to be paid. If only I’d gone my usual pace. We’d have finished much earlier with the same thirty-six dollars in our bank accounts.

ELLEN A. WILLIAMS is a former teacher from Newcastle, Australia. She has wasted her money and youth travelling. Ellen has lived in Manchester UK, got chased out of Ireland, and currently resides in Toronto where she has tried her hand at anything from waitressing to stocking grocery shelves. Ellen is studying creative writing through Macquarie University (Sydney). Her passion is writing for the Young Adult audience but she has also experimented with different genres: essay, memoir, short fiction and junior fiction. Ellen is the author of Peta Panned, part travel blog, part existential crisis. http:// petapanned.blogspot.com

entry SIX

Dear Diary, It’s done. But you probably want the details, don’t you? But then again who am I actually writing to? Are you some sort of muse to inspire me or a key to my subconscious mind? Either way, I sense that this chapter in my life must be written. I saw no one last night. It was dark and the only light was from a street lamp. I casually climbed up to an embankment and found a spot where I could see a patch of bare soil. I toed the soft surface at first, brushing it away to reveal the moister soil underneath. It needn’t be too deep I thought; enough to cover it and make it look like no one was up here disturbing the soil. I ploughed the soil with the inside edge of my shoe and managed to dig a hole deep enough for my piece of porn. I dropped it in not wanting to get any attention from whoever else would be stomping around in the woods at night and quickly covered any traces of my ball of porn. I dashed home and never looked back.

That Escalated Quickly. entry three

Dear diary: Me and the boyfriend keep fighting. It’s like, he just doesn’t listen to me and converse with me the way Rod does. It’s just like, if Rod, my friend, can listen to what I have to say and be understanding, why should Dale just be able to shrug it off and go do dumb shit with his friends like nothing was ever wrong? Clearly it’s not hard to lend a kind ear. If one person can do it, so can the other. And Rod actually calls me to talk. Dale’s always too busy with football practice, or studying because he’s crap at school. I actually can’t remember the last time we went on a real date without a) his friends tagging along, or b) me being bored out of my mind because he takes me to like, sports events. I don’t even watch sports or know anything about them. We can never do ANYTHING I want to do because museums and foreign films make him feel dumb. Whatever. Rod likes them. I’ll just do that shit with him instead.

y mom, lips tinted red, hands me the loaded .22 caliber pistol. I hold it gingerly.

years old. My grandpa’s handgun was in his bedside nightstand—next to his leather Bible. He taught my mom to shoot.

In the range you always point the gun down and toward the target. You are not allowed to move the ammo or gun anywhere outside the 4-by-4 foot cubicle. At all times you must have plastic space goggles on and tentacle-like headphones that seem to deny circulation of blood to your brain. It is 36 degrees. The warmest thing in there besides the gun owners is the semiautomatic weapons.

I was 15 when I found my immigrant grandfather’s gun. He had passed away several years before but my Grandma Merci kept it there as a souvenir for her memories. It was Christmas afternoon; I had wandered into her bedroom due to the scent of burning candles. She was the type to forget the presence of destruction.

An armed marksman watches your every move. He is actually very friendly but never looks you in the eye. In the range, being under the age of 21 means you can shoot a gun as long as a consenting registered adult is with you. I am 18 days away from 21 so we sign the form. My mom, Chris, has been around guns since she moved from Colombia to Queens in 1968 when she was 12

She is a single mom who reassures herself by packing heat.

The wax was folding upon itself, atop the wooden church pew she took from the church. An oil painting of Jesus burned in the background. He was staring at the iron rods that barred the windows shut from the outside. I felt compelled to reach for the plastic flowers that decorated the nightstand. She always sprayed them with perfume to continue the illusion. The pictures of me and my siblings under the glass of the nightstand always stopped me. She would only take photos of my brother and I in overgrown suits and pearls handing each other flowers or a feverish glance. I always found it was annoying but it was her way of preserving a false reflection. As I turned away to once again push that memory far into my unconsciousness, I was stopped by a reflection inside of the nightstand drawer. It was a small shiny black handgun. It had captivated me, but I never had it in me to pick it up. At 15, my perception of invisibility had never been confronted before. But as I stumbled away from the drawer I convinced myself holding a gun would only complicate things more.

lone bullet. I close the barrel and shoot. Smoke rises from the barrel. “Look at that. That’s not supposed to happen,” Chris says as she takes the gun and starts see-sawing it in her palm. She pops out the clip and calls over the marksmen only after she combs back her hair. As I wait, I start playing with a pocketful of bullet shells bulging out of my jeans. I roll the shells around, thinking how one could bring protection virtually unnoticed anywhere they felt insecure: a workplace, maybe a movie theatre, or school. It’s a truth we have to live with now. Being in fear of neighbors and classmates has become the new American tradition. I start loading the clip one bullet at a time, making sure to point them away. I wonder suddenly if I’m made for this sport. The marksman hands the gun over to my mom after complimenting her piece. He hasn’t seen this model in a while—or possibly a woman. He picks up the Swisscheesed scraps of target paper in our booth.

The posture of holding a gun, as explained by the marksman, is more complicated than I expected. Legs spread shoulder width, with your back hunched slightly forward. Both hands grasping tight, right over left, and one eye squinted shut. You only need one eye on the “How about I shoot one?” he says. prize to get by. He takes the loaded clip and penetrates my mom’s piece (the sport of shooting is full of innuendos). Chris is smiling in the cubicle beside me. It’s been six weeks since she has fired her gun. She had forgotten He assumes the stance, aims and fires. He reels the how good it feels. target back to the booth. She keeps her loaded pistol under the bed, in a lock box that always remains ajar. She is a single mom who reassures herself by packing heat.

“Now, when I come back, I want you guys to make it in the middle like I did.” My mom giggles like an embarrassed school girl.

Her room is across from my younger brother’s. He is 19 and dangerously quiet. I wonder sometimes if he would In a couple of minutes, she has shot the remaining ever take her gun. ammo in the clip, continuously missing the center. My mom is folding her gun like a napkin into itself. One clip carries 10 bullets. She shoots nine. She hands me the gun and says go. I take out the clip, looking to refill it. I look through the barrel; notice the presence of a

I decide to play along a little longer. After all, shooting can be a high and I am not about to pass that up.

While holding the gun at eye level, it’s easy to lose yourself in Terminators, gangsters, or 007. It all becomes fiction. Reality melts and you are invincible.

look tough.

Once the bullet leaves the gun, it’s not yours anymore. It’s transformed into something completely different— and deadly. But shooters don’t worry about this; as long as they hit their target. On the way out, my mom stops at the range’s shop which sells ammo, goggles, and target paper in the shape of Osama or mutilated zombies. I walk outside and lean against the window, next to a mural of a white hick aiming a gun to my head, and light up a cigarette. I look at the target paper hanging out of my purse. It’s covered with holes, parading in the black abysmal circle that’s in the center of the paper. I feel light headed. There’s been too much motherdaughter bonding for one day. My mom walks outside dangling a bullet keychain around her index finger. She wants me to use it. I hesitate for a second but take it. Maybe it will make me

CAROLINE BUDINICH is a student journalist currently freelancing around the Hudson Valley. She also works with Chronogram, a Hudson Valley Publication in New York. The poetry and creative nonfiction she writes in her spare time has confiscated all of the empty pages around her. As a young writer she is fortunate to learn from all the experience around her. She loves playing chess and singing karaoke.

That Escalated Quickly. entry four

Dear diary: Me and Dale are DONE. Do I care? Well, yes and no. he has a lot of friends and I don’t, so it’s time to fight off some good ol’ nasty rumors. But hey, he’s an asshole. So I can’t say I totally care. I think he started the fight with the intention to dump me, but as it progressed it was very neutral. I never gave a shit if we were together either way. He was just someone to keep me company and fuck around with. A boyfriend’s a boyfriend. He was distinctly upset, however. He doesn’t want to date a girl with a male best friend, it seems. Rod’s ‘too much like me’. I’m ‘obviously cheating’. Yep. If you have anything in common with your best friend, you’re obviously having sex. We call each other our just-best-friend for a reason. Whatever Rod is to me, clearly he’s all I need. Because he’s all I got.

This story is from my native home Bikaner—a small place in Rajasthan, India. For many years it was hidden in the darkest corner of my heart. Today, I felt writing this would help me to cry and shed some acid tears that silently burn me daily. Having a life full of emotional trauma can make one’s life topsy-turvy to an extent that the mind fails to differentiate between good and bad decisions, so much so that many end up committing mistakes that impact them for the rest of their lives.

her six months later. He then found Champa (Shekhar lovingly called me Champa), his third wife. We were a good fit for each other as our lives were very similar—a bag full of misfortunes. Let me share some of mine.

This story is about my aunt whom I loved a lot, and I still do. As a kid I lovingly called her ‘dark aunty’, which she loved. She was dusky and her auburn hair sitting against her pale skin made me kiss her with these words. Her monochrome face with crinkling eyes and ruffled cheeks made her look much older than her age and confirmed the ordeal that she had been through. She narrated this to me fifteen years ago, a day before she left the materialistic world. She told that the world is bright, not the people in it, and I always asked her why. Her words kept me wondering and they still do as it seems just like yesterday as I playback the entire episode in my head. Today, her story helps me to tackle materialism, greed, anger, lust, and my obsessions whenever they attempt to override me.

Everyone tried to pelt down my morale. I had burnt my heart and tear marks were stamped on my so called ‘ugly face’. I returned back to my parents’ house, but they too jilted me and refused to take me back home. Those were the most trying times of my life. In my teens, I was trapped in the prison of loneliness, not knowing what to do. The worst words that are still etched in my head were yelled by a hoodlum who screamed at the top of his voice, “You ugly bitch, you ‘Banjh’**, you deserve this!” He stared at me and screamed, “This community is blessed to have a great man like Shyam who agreed to marry you!” The motley crowd gasped, but no one intervened. My self-respect was badly hurt and all my materialistic desires were crushed and I became grouchy. To make matters worse, I was ostracized from the society. That evening, Shyam dragged me to the border and for the last time kicked my butt, spit on me, and taunted, “Die here.” Under extreme mental and emotional duress and with a heavy heart, I said to myself, “Exhume your roots from Bikaner.” I lifted my head and saw Shyam for the last time. With a caustic mouth, I raged at him, gulped my breath and spit back at him with full force. This was the last thing that I did in Bikaner—my birth place. Crying, wailing, and whimpering in crippled hops I walked through those dark streets for the last time.

I always remember her words, “The path to fulfilment of desires and everything ephemeral is almost always laden with thorns. Don’t turn foolish and stray away from the path of righteousness and learn to keep presence of mind. Not everything is destined for everyone. Patience and perseverance is a virtue, develop it and use it. This is the lesson that life has taught me, though it took me too long to understand this and use it practically.” At every age, my aunt is an inspiration for me and her life is unbelievable and has changed my perception of life in all respects. Here is her heart touching story and, through my pen, she tells it again. At eighteen, I was already on my second marriage with Shekhar, who was on his third marriage. His first wife died at twenty two, and then he was fooled into getting married to a half-mad woman, only to divorce

I was forcefully married at eight* to Shyam and ran away from that at fourteen when I realized that he was not a man. When I stepped out of my in-laws house the entire community gathered to enjoy my broken relationship and play with my emotions.

Life’s next destination was Jaipur.*** Half-way through my journey, I met Shekhar in a local bus. Somehow, we got that instant have-to-have-it connection and I vented-out almost everything to him. My welled up eyes said the rest. His positive words were instrumental in saving me from committing suicide. He touched my shoulder and lightly pressed his palm

*During those days, it was a custom (and is still prevalent in many parts of India & even in some other cultures) to marry girls at a very young age, even before they attain puberty. ** Banjh: It is a term used in Hindi (official spoken language in India) to describe a woman who cannot conceive or give birth to a child. Such women were/are considered to be a bad omen and hence ostracized from the society. *** Jaipur is a city in Rajasthan, India. It’s popular amongst tourists as ‘The Pink City’.

against my back. I jerked awake. My breath became louder and my heart skipped one beat. I clutched my blanket and looked at him with my eyes low. He said, “I can hear the breath of a swaddled infant in you. You are a nice human and I want to marry you, will you?” Before I could feel the twist in my dark life, he scooped up my hand and said with love, “Let us marry” and without another thought we tied the knot late that evening. It was just once that I had to think to remove the mask of all that was bad the night before—the verbal diarrhoea, the foul language, and everything that was so bad.

mind kept pushing me further. I loved Shekhar a lot and expressed the desire to have another child. Shekhar was very happy with me as well and we tried, but by the second year of our marriage all our attempts failed. I became depressed though Shekhar never forced upon me the reason for this failure. I couldn’t accept this and by this time my intentions started having negative inclinations. I had only one goal: to have my own baby anyhow and prove that I am not a dark bitch or a ‘Banjh.’

What a twist in life it was! Suddenly, I could see the silver lining in my life.

After a lot of cajoling, I convinced Shekhar to meet influential gurus, but despite several attempts at Shekhar was rich and had good status in society. spiritual practices nothing worked for us. I had started He had a two-year-old daughter, Laxmi, from his first getting violent and it was then that I initiated my secret wife. As a good husband, he took great care of me and search for Tantrics**** and one day—I still remember it always kept difficulties to himself. I was brimming with was the 17th of February—I met someone who assured pride and there was happiness back in my life. I started me that I shall have a fair and beautiful baby boy, developing interest in everything that was good. Laxmi irrespective of whether I had a uterus or not! gave me an instant satisfaction of being a mother. But somewhere deep within, somehow through all these

months, I was not able to truly connect with Laxmi and develop a true mother-daughter bonding. I tried a lot to curb my negative beliefs that were brooding inside me, but they had started dominating my mind. Every time when I was happy, my mind used to rewind to the Bikaner episode and that intensified my anger and I became desirous to have my own child. I took care of Laxmi but only to keep Shekhar happy and safeguard our marriage. Every day I dreamt of being pregnant, feeding my own baby, holding the little one in my arms with loads of love and care; all that I never got from my parents. My desire was turning into an obsession. My instincts were sending pre-warning alarms but my hankering

Voila! It was the best day in my life and I believed his words blindly. Now, I was obsessed to have a beautiful baby boy and was willing to go to all extremes. He started some procedures but they failed. This man then assured me that the final solution he had was fool-proof and, no matter what, the results would be positive. At this juncture, my mind was at the zenith of its absurdity and I responded impulsively to my floating emotions and gave the go ahead. The tantric asked me to gather two pieces of tiger flesh, some baby potatoes, candles, a red colored board, and an innocent child. At the agreed destination, I took Laxmi with me, but without Shekhar’s consent or knowledge. Everything was scheduled around an

****Tantric: A term used in Vedic astrology to describe a person who performs black magic, calling spirits and other occult activities.

elected auspicious time and at a place where there was no one alive, except us! He guzzled two litres of milk and then opened a huge book covered with dust, flipped some pages, and recited some mantras after appeasing the nine planets and the twenty-seven constellations. The red board was lit with candles and the tiger flesh was hanging on a T-shaped stanchion. Holding a multi-mouthed brass oil lamp he sneezed about a dozen times and began invocation to someone he called a ‘bastard’ to the accompaniment of cymbals and drums. His hands and legs were working simultaneously and I watched all this with awe, while Laxmi was enjoying the beats. Suddenly he stopped everything and warned us not to interrupt during the entire act. There was pin drop silence in the graveyard and I held my head in my hands, closed my eyes, and then straightened my aching spine. I felt my entire back was hollowed. The tantric started swaying his entangled hair in a hysterical pattern and then candles started moving on the board and some opposite to Laxmi blew off. I could smell a pungent odour emerging from the board and the atmosphere became very dense and heavy. I started shuddering and my mind got numb. Laxmi’s flashing smile suddenly went off. In a hoarse voice he pronounced, “Here I see you my slave, come, and dare that you touch my amenities, I shall trap you in the physical plane forever.” I drew my knees close to my chest and got very scared. Awestruck, I interrupted and pleaded him to stop the process immediately. The next moment his tongue was ripped by a flashing light, he fainted and then for a minute I felt he was dead, but the next second he jumped and stood erect. His glaucoma eyes filled with iron hot blood and stared at me as he developed girly intonations. He blurted, “I cannot stop this now. The tantric is dead; I scoffed him off along with the tiger flesh. Don’t you know that I am a ‘poltergeist’ and I have entered his ugly body? Now that I have partially satisfied my bloody desires, I want to enter this innocent girl’s body and I promise that I will drink four pints of blood. It is after six decades that I have come close to such an angelic being. How can I let this opportunity go?” I blinked at the speed of light and then gave a loaded gaze at Laxmi. The dead body of the tantric stood erect and howled. I was jolted and totally disorientated. I had no clue what to do and requested the ghost to leave immediately. I begged, pleaded,

and vowed never to repeat this mistake again. But it got infuriated and refused to budge and countless red ants started moving out of Laxmi’s body. They spread around the entire vicinity, wherever my eyes could see and many scuttled up my sleeves and started biting me. Laxmi was turning and twisting abnormally on the ground but I couldn’t move from my place as I was barely conscious. My daughter was crying in pain and she was screaming from intolerable torcher the ghost was inflicting upon her. She started frothing from her mouth and finally within a few minutes everything was over. Laxmi was throttled to death. I became horrified and tried to connect my numbing head to the almighty so that help could arrive. I stood toneless and ice hard and hallucinated Laxmi saying, “Mama, someone is carrying me away, I don’t want to leave you and go. Please free me!” This was the end of it. There was reek emanating from that place. I flinched violently and then cried profusely but could see only the dead tantric and the leftover of my battered daughter. Soon it became dark and I realised that I was all alone in the graveyard and being terribly scared I started running helter-skelter and fell into a pit. I was in extreme pain but somehow fitted my broken leg with a splint and took the dark road back home carrying Shekhar’s most cherished wealth. On my way, zillions of questions were recklessly swerving my mind as I knew I had opened the doors for another break in my relationship. I reached home and saw Shekhar with folded arms, propped up in his chair in the veranda. As if he knew I was sobbing, he bent his eyes and stood tonedeaf. His eyes were stapled, hands started jerking and his face collapsed, but he couldn’t cry. I tried to calm him but Shekhar didn’t say a word. He cuddled Laxmi and carefully kissed her. He looked gloomy and forbidding and vamoosed into his room and closed the doors. I could hear him, he wailed silently to his god, but there was nothing that I heard after that. Minutes later, I heard a bang and broke the door. Laxmi was tied to Shekhar and was hanging from the ceiling fan. Thunderbolts crashed my body. My eyes concealed and I don’t know what happened thereafter. I was unconscious for months. There was a lot of police intervention and though everyone tried their best, still no one could estimate the real reason behind Laxmi’s death. The case is still laced

with mystery, but it’s totally out of sorts.

32 yr old SHIVENDRA KAPOOR is a Sagittarian by birth, an Automation engineer by profession, and a writer I have lost, gained, and again lost everything in at heart. He is based in Mumbai, India and works as a my life. It has been a distasteful life. I know I may die Principal Design Engineer in a consultancy firm. soon and I haven’t achieved an ounce of peace. I feel He has ocean deep interest in research, astrology, lost in energy and want to recite a prayer that I wrote palmistry, and loves to write occasionally. He has some through these years: articles published in The Times of India and a non-fiction story published in an international novel by Strategic “I ask for apologies and forgiveness from all Publishing House-New York. He is a certified PRANIC elements of this nature and from all circumstances in healer (Basic, Advanced, Psychotherapy) from Manila, time and space present on the face of this earth and on Phillipines. He loves to live and let live and be happy. the ethereal plane. I bend down on my knees and request forgiveness for being involved in this horrendous act. God, please pardon me for disturbing your creation. You gave me a healthy body and mind, but my separation, negative beliefs and obsession made my life miserable. I killed my family.” This prayer helps me calm my disturbed emotions whenever I see Laxmi and Shekhar in my dreams and feelings of life and death clash inside me. I want to tell you, “Never try to produce rabbits out of hats and never run ahead of time. You cannot recover time that’s wasted nor can you rotate the wheel of time faster than it is supposed to. If you desperately attempt to win over things that are not destined for you, you may achieve them, but the probability of losing something more precious and valuable is equally high. Everything is timed in life. Let life move at its pace, give your best and learn to be patient and contented with what you have. Strive for betterment, but don’t make it an obsession. This is the golden key to live a happy life.” These were probably the last words that I remember hearing from my aunt, but in dignified silence, I hear it almost every day from my heart and soul. She regretfully said, “Laxmi, ‘my daughter’, please forgive me. I killed you and your father. I am now proceeding for my damnation.”

That Escalated Quickly. entry five

Dear Diary, I think I slept with my best friend. Why do I say ‘think’, you ask? Well, I’m no longer sure we were ever just-best-friends. I think Rod would have asked me out the day we met if he hadn’t met my Gigantor boyfriend-at-the-time. And of course Rod’s not the kind of guy to just steal a girl. It would seem as though every time we watched movies in his room, or when I fell asleep on his shoulder, or that time I caught a chill and he made me cocoa – that was all super-romantic stuff to him. I was drop-kicking him right in the heart every time I left to eat Cheetos and talk sports with my way-below-me boyfriend. And now I’ve slept with him, and he sure thinks it means something. And I just don’t know what to think. I love the guy, but dating him means the dumbest guy I know was right about me. And all I ever wanted was a friend who likes what I like.

entry SEVEN

Dear Diary, You knew all along, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you? Your unresponsiveness is telling as always. You knew that getting rid of that piece of porn would not help, even if I were to bury it a hundred feet underground. I needed it back, but even in my desperation, I realized by now, it would be no more than a slush of pornâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;barely recognizable. The last few days, after the burial, I became so desperate for a replacement that whenever I noticed any piece of paper blowing along by the wind I had an uncanny urge to chase after it. I took the staircase more often in hopes of finding more bountiful loot and even took second furtive glances into garbage bins just in case someone decided to unload their old copies of Playboy or Hustler.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF As I’m sure you’ve noticed because you’re all very observant students of deductive reasoning, I’m not a terrific drawer. I can’t cover that front. We would love to have some more visual work to show! If you have work that is even remotely related to the next issue, send it in! Photos, illustrations, graphic design, macaroni pictures, it doesn’t matter. Also, if you are an illustrator or just someone who can draw at least at good as me (see page 21) and you’re interested in working with us, speak up. It would be great to have work made specifically for certain pieces, especially poetry (see last issue). You can contact us at thehiltmagazine@gmail.com. Our website of course is thehiltmagazine.com

EinC out.

That Escalated Quickly. entry six

Dear diary: I told Rod I just need a friend, and in his sweet way he told me he couldn’t handle just being my friend, and he hoped I could understand, because he understood just needing a friend. And that’s how I knew I loved him. So I thought it was a worthy moment to kiss him. And now we’re definitely not just-best-friends.

KEEP IT T O G E T H ER The woman across from me held a big cardboard box. The edges were soggy with street grease, grime from having been used twenty five times too many. It was filled to the brim with some type of sticky, home-made sugar treats I would have bought to encourage local business and then promptly discarded the second she turned away. She saw me watching her and I guess there must have been some subconscious pity on my face—God, the shame of being First World—because she smiled a big toothless grin and shook her box at me. I smiled back promptly, handed her 25 baht and put the plasticwrapped treat in my backpack. Fuck it. I’d throw it out when I got off the train. That was the thing about South East Asia. Or wherever else that didn’t have a gold star on the world map. You always felt silly, like you were just an insignificant cog in this big machine. We were the tourists with money, the ones with means and education and whatever else. Although sometimes I couldn’t help but think it was the people from here who pulled the strings, and we were just puppets. Village idiots with dumbbells around our necks, the currency of our ignorance in colourful billfolds. Maybe I’d just been in Thailand too long. I put my hands together to thank her and leaned my head on the window. Nixon was sleeping, but I couldn’t shut my eyes. The air was too hot, laden with the sweet stench of rotten fruit and poor people who had been sitting on a train for twelve hours in mid-July. 5 a.m. We would be back in Bangkok soon. Some of the sticky fruit had leaked on my finger. To lick

or not to lick? I must have forgotten about it, because next thing I knew Nixon was rubbing my leg. Wake up, babe. We’re here. I pushed my sweaty hair off my face. The toothless lady was already gone. I grabbed my backpack and got off the train, groggy from the heat, the sleep, and the dehydration. I felt like a cranky toddler who gets poked awake during the middle of their nap. The sun had barely risen but the station was already bustling with vendors and children and fat men with long fingernails who harass you to board their taxi but somehow always have a broken meter. Bangkok. I felt a tickle on my arm; an ant. I impatiently swatted it away. Goddamn trains with their goddamn insects. Nixon, who was already well ahead of me, turned on the spot as though surprised that I wasn’t right next to him. I spread my arms like yeah, I’m not there yet, you impatient prick. I can be a terrible person when I’m tired. Another tickle as I walked slowly, heaving my backpack on one shoulder. Two more ants. Goddamn fucking ants on the fucking train. If I saw another ant, I swore to myself, I would kill everyone. I finally reached the main doors where he was waiting. Three more ants on my arm. I reached behind my neck where it tickled and when I looked at my hand there were about ten more crawling about with a feverish, crazed energy. I got a sudden cold sweat, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with

the heat. Nix, babe? Yes. Do I have ants coming out of me? He sighed. No, babe. You don’t have ants coming out of you. Spoken with the measured condescension of a parent who checks the closet for monsters, ‘you see, nothing in here, now go to sleep’. Or, stop being an irrational girl and follow me to the cab so we can check-in at the hostel, shower, and sleep. I don’t mean out of my pores like fucking magic, Nix, I mean like around me? Can you check my back? Another sigh as he pursed his lips, holding back a comment which would probably set me off. He put his bag down with care and measured his movements for fear that anything too sudden would antagonize me, which was definitely true. He pulled his fake Ray-bans down on the bridge of his nose—by God were we ever typical with our fluorescent tank tops and token bracelets—and checked my neck. So? Said with a shaky voice, measured panic: insects! Infestation! Infection! I watched him go white and suddenly felt big, stomping whacks all across my back. Take it off! Take off your bag! Nixon’s high-pitched screams were almost as shocking as him shaking me like a ragdoll, and I can only imagine the state of us in this train station: two Whites among a sea of non-Whites, yelling incomprehensible words and stomping on all our worldly possessions like crazed animals. Children pooled around us, pointing and laughing, while I wiggled wildly in a haze of panic, smacking my own head, pulling my hair, trying to get all the ants off me. Finally Nixon opened my backpack and an anthill stormed out, Indiana Jones-style. They had laid claim to my cheap tank tops and cut-off shorts, gladiator sandals and bikinis. The culprit of this attack, it soon was revealed, was a little plastic bag with some sort of sticky melted candy-type goo leaking out, blackened with a sea of crawling ants. Motherfucker. I looked around madly, trying to find the toothless woman in the distance, because it was her fault, surely, and why had she packaged the candy so senselessly? Why? An old man casually strolled over, big belly exposed with his hiked-up t-shirt resting below his sagging manbreasts, completely unconcerned with my meltdown. Taxi? Tuk-tuk? I take you Khao San. Cheap, cheap.

I stopped for a moment and breathed. We were insignificant cogs, puppets in a strange land, that much was true. Does your meter work? He shook his head vigorously. No, no. No meter. No today. I take you. I sighed. The contents of my backpack were spilled all over the dirty floor and children were giddily jumping on my clothes, killing ants. And what exactly, was I trying to save? What exactly was I trying to control? Ok, fine. Nix, let’s just take it. I nodded at the man and followed him, taking Nixon’s hand in mine. What about your bag and your clothes? I shrugged. Fuck it. Let Bangkok take it.

SHANNA ROBERTS SALEE is 25 years old and at a loss for describing herself. She graduated from the Communication Studies program at Concordia University in 2009 and spent a large portion of the following years travelling abroad. She enjoys off-colour jokes, Douglas Coupland, and all things Bob Dylan. Her eternal struggle between travelling and pursuing a career in the movie industry has not been put to rest. In the meantime, she is seeking representation and publication for her first novel Hell or High Water, the tale of a morally questionable suburban family. She currently lives in Montreal and has no pets. @shannarsalee

TICKETS y friends and I wanted to go to a Denver Nuggets Game and they put me in charge of buying tickets. Saturday morning I drove around collecting money from everyone and headed down to the stadium to buy some nosebleed tickets from the box office. As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw two scalpers waving their arms. I got out and approached them. They told me they would give me ten tickets for box seats with its own private kitchen, bathroom, buffet, and foam fingers on every seat for twenty bucks a ticket. I couldn’t believe my luck and gave them the money feeling proud that my friends would love me for surprising them with box seats.

I drove home and called all of them on the way. “Hey man, it’s Harris. Welcome to the big time because I just got us box seats for twenty bucks a pop.” When I got home, I still couldn’t believe my luck. It was too good to be true. Maybe it was. Was it? Oh shit.

I had to fix this. I had to get that money back. I had to get my friends back. I drove down to the stadium in a frenzy. I had to get a refund from the scalpers. The plan was to tell them I was going to propose to my girlfriend that night and there was no good goddamn way I could do that at a Globetrotters game. The ring was my grandmothers. Her name was Sarah Goldblum. I had been dating my girlfriend for seven years. Her name was Jennifer Schmitz. Jennifer’s favorite type of ice cream was mint chocolate chip. It was all made up. I got back to the stadium parking lot and noticed the scalpers. They were easy to find because they were the only guys waving tickets above their heads. The demand for Harlem Globetrotters tickets only really needed two scalpers to fill it. I rolled up to them at five miles per hour, shamefully rolled down my window and said, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” Six hours later my friends and I sat in the nosebleeds at the Denver Nuggets game. I’m Jewish and so is my fake grandmother Sarah Goldblum. But at that moment we both thanked Jesus that my friends and I didn’t have to go see the Harlem Globetrotters.

I took the tickets out of my pocket and printed in big blue bold letters on all ten of them was “THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS 1:30 pm.” It was 1:15. I panicked. I called all my friends. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is we have box seats. The bad news is we’re going to see the Harlem Globetrotters. The badder news is that the game starts in fifteen minutes.” An hour ago I was a king with ten friends and ten box tickets to the Denver Nuggets game. Now I was a peasant with ten people probably wanting to kill me and ten tickets to the Harlem Fucking Globetrotters.

My name is HARRIS ALTERMAN. I am originally from Colorado but currently I live in Waterloo, Ontario, where I attend the University of Waterloo. I perform stand-up comedy, improv, and I have my own YouTube channel. In 2011 I decided that I was sick of being “that white guy” when I went to a club, so I have been teaching myself to dance ever since. I also play basketball and the ukulele. Friends and drunk girls at bars have often said that I look like McLovin or Ferris Bueller. They then proceed to call me McLovin or Harris Bueller. Sometimes people call me Harrison. When I haven’t seen some of my cousins in a few years they sadly call me Harrison. I have to correct them and say, “It’s just Harris.” It’s weird to correct a family member on what your name is.

entry EIGHT

Dear Diary, It has been a wonderful two weeks, your holy uncommunicative one. My mortal brain will never fathom the secrets of your seemingly disinterestedness in my life, but again you have pulled through and given me hope. Indeed, without your omnipotence, how would I have ever found my beloved pieces of porn reincarnated on latenight cinema on Radio-Canada!

To all of our contibutors and submitters...

We couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have done this without your willingness to share your work with a pair of strangers who one day decided to try and start a magazine. They 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 info about the next issue on the web: thehiltmagazine.com on twitter: @thehiltmagazine or just give us a shout: thehiltmagazine@gmail.com