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CONTENTS
All copyrights from submissions featured in The Writers Block including, but not limited to, essays, artwork, photography, poetry, and stories remain with the original
Limbo In Shadows Uncle Warren On the Bus with Jesus For My Sake Daphne The Population Late at Night Division Street Adam and Eve The Paper Today
T
his issue is compact, but well-crafted.
It, in some cases, contains work
“people”
themed issue, but in originally submitted for the previous this issue, the theme was less set by us (the editors) and more by the authors whose work left an impact on us. “People” was a broad theme to begin with, and
this issue represents a confident step forward into exploring the
Many thanks
to all those intricacies discovered in the fourth issue. who have made themselves a part of the burgeoning community that has developed around and behind the literary movement embodied in The Writers Block. For those interested in participating in this movement in similar venues
the Block, we would recommend that you check out our newly-founded sister site, of sorts, The Oral Tradition. In regard
outside of
to this issue,
enjoy!
Editorial Staff no.5
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Limbo Jane Finlayson The year my mother is dying my laundry is always done. Prescriptions filled. An extra bag of cat food tucked away in the hall closet. Visa bill paid off each month ahead of the due date. A small suitcase parked under my bedroom window. Waiting. Empty. Ready. Like us. You can cut the helplessness with a knife. The boys are fed up. Especially Danny. When we meet to start clearing out the house, we go to the diner to plan our attack. Strawberry pie is the dessert feature; one last shimmering moment of summer as a gloomy fall begins to close in. “Why won’t she just die, Margie?” Danny bleats. “What the hell’s keeping her going? She hates it. We hate it. What’s the point? It’s not like she’s our real mother anymore. She’s not the same person at all, is she?” He takes a long chug of his beer. Steve just licks the last speck of bruised strawberry from his fork and stays quiet. It takes us a week working flat-out to finish up in the house. At first, we spend a lot of time in the basement, sorting pictures, reading old letters, sifting through the school work Mom had carefully wrapped in sheets of tissue and saved in a trunk. By the time we unearth a folder of Steve’s Grade 2 art masterpieces, we’re slightly punch-drunk from the dust and the inevitability of our task. “Whoa, man, take a boo at this,” chortles Danny, holding up a toilet-paper roll creation festooned with feathers, sparkles and gangly pipe cleaner legs. Steve looks over from where he’s heaving old half-gallon paint cans from the top utility shelf and stacking them by the basement door. He keeps going as he explains: “Turkey. (thump! seafoam green; master bedroom) Thanksgiving centerpieces. (thump! dusty rose; dining room.) Mrs. Brown. (thump! daffodil yellow; bathroom) Room 8. (thump! glossy white; cove ceilings) Lynda McCauley sat in front of me.” (thump! hunter green stain; fence) “I wonder if she ever grew any decent boobs,” Danny says. “Oh, for chrissake, grow up,” I say. Steve laughs for the first and only time all week and keeps heaving the paint cans. By the second-to-last day, we’re working solo in different rooms, deciding what to keep, what to toss. We establish a kind of no-fly zone in the middle of the living room for the stuff we each want to keep. Nobody’s allowed to touch it until the last day, when we divvy it up. It’s surprisingly quick and easy because only Steve wants any of the good furniture and he’s already booked the mover for the morning. On the last afternoon, after we meet with the lawyer, the banker, the minister, the Goodwill driver, and the church coordinator who picks up the kitchen table for a Somali refugee family, Danny jokes: “So, all we need now is the body.” Steve says screw you and leaves in a huff to go back to Sheila and the kids in Calgary but I know what Danny means. “It’s that freakin’ pacemaker. She’s like the Energizer bunny, just keeps going and going and going.” The two of us are back in a booth at Fran’s, eating burgers. After dinner, he orders a take-out milkshake. At the nursing home (care facility, it’s now called), it takes Mom a couple of moments to see us. She’s tilted back in an electric La-Z-boy, snoozing against a brown corduroy bolster like a bird in a nest. Danny calls her.
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“Mom, hey Mama Mia, Maman, Mutter, Momsey, Mother, Maaaaa! Wakey wakey. Look who’s here. Got your favourite treat.” He sounds like some sort of demented talking plush toy. He waves the milkshake in front of her face, the perennial snub-nosed eight-yearold still trying to please. He doesn’t have to try so hard; Danny was always Mom’s favourite. The baby. Even born on her birthday. Mom’s eyelids flutter open fearfully. Her gaze flits from side to side — vacant, searching. I hold my breath with my arms crossed, holding myself tight in case this is the time she won’t know me. She sees Danny first and a flicker of recognition lights her eyes. “Danny! How are you, dear?” she asks in a frail voice. “Fine, Ma,” Danny booms, as though she’s a block away instead of right in front of his face. “Brought you a milkshake. How’re ya tonight?” “Tired.” Mom’s hands tremble as she reaches for the take-out cup. Danny guides it to her lips. She drinks deeply, a long time. “Yum!” she smacks her lips. She sighs and closes her eyes again. I’m sitting beside Danny. When Mom’s eyelids flutter open the next time, she still doesn’t see me. “Margie’s here, too, Mom,” Danny booms again. “Your favourite daughter, ha ha. Right here. Beside me. Look, Ma. Over here.” He playfully punches my forearm. I lean over to give her a little kiss. There’s some kind of dried food crusted on her sweater but she’s wearing earrings and has a nice pale-pink manicure. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Mom whines. “Right now. Please . . . please. Help me?” Her legs twitch and she struggles to pull herself upright in the La-Z-boy. She is too weak to do it. Danny lopes off to find an aide. I put an arm around Mom’s shoulders and ease her forward. “Hey, I’m here. I’ll help you, Mom. It’s me. Margie. “Mmm-hh,” she grunts, focused solely on pulling her body forward. * * * Only last spring we were having tea together in her back garden. "I'm so worried about Jean," Mom said as she poured my cup. "They went in first thing Tuesday morning but then just closed her right up again. Right up. There was no point, they said, the cancer had spread everywhere. Everywhere! Even into the bone. She's riddled with it, Margie, completely riddled. Poor Jean. She'll be home next week but I just don't know how Herb will manage. I'm going to take her some of the lilac—you know how she's always loved it—and that easy chicken casserole from the church cookbook, the one with the can of mushroom soup in it. That will help Herb and I'm sure it'll be easy enough for Jean to handle, even though she always eats like a bird." Mom stared quietly at the plate of gingersnaps, fingered one slowly, but left it there. I thought about how small she seemed now. She looked hard at the lilacs and all around the yard she had tended lovingly for so many years, as though she could stare down her own fear. "And then there's poor Eleanor. It's so hopeless. Harry's just like a big baby now. He doesn't know anyone anymore and all he does is cry and soil himself, for heaven's sake. Except at night when he roams all over the house calling for Eleanor as though he's lost her. She can't sleep a wink with so much disruption, I'm sure it's killing her. You know she's had two hips and a knee done, so she needs her rest. At this rate, she'll be the one to go first and then what will happen to him, poor thing?" The litany of misery grew longer each week, and was always the first topic of
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conversation during our Sunday night phone calls. On Mondays, when she got her hair done, my mother always went into Greetings at the mall to buy at least three or four cards. The verses varied only in tone, cheery or somber depending on the dreariness of the situation she was addressing. "Brighter days are ahead," "Here's a bouquet of get-well wishes," or simply "Thinking of you." I jumped up and given her a little hug, but could think of nothing to say. Her eyes filled with tears as I refilled her cup. She had looked up at me fiercely. "Dear god, Margie, let me get hit by a bus!" “Me, too, Mom. Maybe we should order up a double-decker!” I joked. * * * By the time Danny bustles back with the aide, it’s too late and Mom’s wet right through her diaper. She preens and smiles sweetly at him anyway, “Why, hello dear, have you come for lunch?” The aide expertly launches Mom from the chair and says, “Hi, hon. Let’s get you cleaned up now. And it’s time for your nap. That’s a good girl.” Mom totters a bit toward the walker as the aide guides her along. Then she turns to give us a droopy smile and somehow does a regal little glide for a couple of steps. “Do come again,” she says in a firm, bright voice. “Ya’ll come back now!” Danny replies in his best Beverly Hillbillies drawl. Once Mom is out of sight, his heartiness evaporates and he sags onto a couch like a balloon losing air. I sit beside him. We watch the residents in the activity lounge sitting in a circle tossing around a Nerf ball like a kindergarten class in wheelchairs. “So. We’re done. Nothing left to do,” says Danny. “Except wait.” “I guess.” “She seems glad to see us.” “Glad to see you at least,” I tease. At least she still knows us, eh?” “Yeah. I think so.” “Do you wanna hang around a while longer? Maybe she’ll seem better after her nap. You never know.” He puts his arm around me and I lean in, resting my head against his chest. I can hear the steady lub-dub of his big old heart keeping time with our vigil.
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Bored Alexandra MacDonald
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In Shadows Aaron Wiegert The car pool boys talked about you on the way to preschool They said you liked horses and drew portraits of three dimensional noses Through the back station wagon window, my imagination Thanked the country music station for playing love songs With us in mind, it wasn't until third grade that we shared a homeroom I tried listening to Misses O sloshing them big bones ‘round in her blue And white striped directors chair, but she was only a backdrop for those Hyper-extended elbows that swung from your shoulders like Arabian dancers Then, a bumbling boy ruined everything, admitting that you had a beautiful neck, You blushed swearing to wear only turtle necks. After Reading Rainbow You talked with a boy who shared my name, I turned anxiously each time You spoke, but was acknowledged only by your shadows. Next fall we were Together again, but I gave such a terrible answer in math class that even the kid With the lisp laughed and there you were surprised to see so much red ink On my multiplication tables, but the marks were stars and not checks In Freshman English, I studied your back instead of Shakespeare and Touched you for the first time, not counting gym class, shooing a stray hair that Clung to your hood. We sat parallel through biology, you chewed split ends And I inched my seat closer til our legs nearly touched. In the hallway, I anticipated your tongue and teeth smile and with my books I carried The memory of that floral black bra you flashed us in computer class. As we waited For the bell, you ranted about Marlboro Lights, leaning against a poster illustrating The dangers of tobacco.
Uncle Warren Louis Gallo Your beard flared the blue-black of coal even after you shaved, an omen surely of the sprawling darkness into which you drifted. Sweet, gentle failure
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with no luck and a sparkling Checker cab that rarely left the curb. When evil men in black coats came round, your wife pleaded, promised to get a job and pay them off; I think they took one look at you soft as nougat in a ratty arm-chair, eyes harpooned to “Name That Tune,” and chalked you off. Why kill a dead man? Thirty-six years ago, when screens sizzled mostly with the static of cathode rays, you could no longer distinguish Ted Mack and a test pattern. We kids didn’t know you were sick until you abandoned the tv altogether. My father called it grisly, told me it was you who made him realize what’s in store for all of us. “A sack of feathers,” my father sighed. You, who never raised your voice, adored your children, my cousins, whose yellowed photograph still haunts Aunt Sylvia’s mantle, your morose, hungry eyes clinging still to anyone who passes. And now I, your final age, tabulate that you have been dead for nearly as long as you lived– though once dead I believe we’ve been that way forever. Even at your worst, when pain pinched your guts with tongs of fire, you crawled from the death bed to paint the entire house, inside and out, panting, collapsing often enough, knowing it was for nothing, insisting you wanted to do something for your wife and kids. I can only marvel at the weight of your brush, its cost, the paint-choked bristles sloshing brightness onto dim old walls and weather boards as if that’s all anything ever needed.
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Half and Half Tammy Ho Lai Ming
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On the Bus with Jesus William Farrant Corner of Sommerset and Elgin waiting for the bus. A girl stands against the brick wall, one foot up against it, headphones in, chewing gum loudly so her teeth clang together. She looks angry. I'm dressed well, a bottle of wine tucked under my arm. The bus comes, the number 5, St. Laurent. I get on and sit towards the back, the first seat to the right, above the step. The bus moves slowly. A man with crutches, wearing a torn flannel jacket, acts nervous. A man yells from the back, "You wanna get off at the next one, Steve, not the one after or you'll have to double back. Get off at the next one." Steve is the man with crutches. He says thanks and hobbles to the door while the bus is still moving. His crutches grind against a railing. He nearly falls. Steve says, "God Bless you, Hank." Hank is a priest and he looks ghetto, one of those inner city preacher types. He wears black, but it's not matching, faded in spots, and quickly put together. He sucks on a wad of tobacco, and his leg is up on the windowsill. He looks reformed. Like he may have killed or could snap at any moment and do crack. As Steve gets off he says, "Thanks, Hank, I needed that tonight." Hank says, "Don't sleep in the shelter." Hank gets off two stops later at Rideau Centre. He walks like Rambo. He's short, stocky, white haired, about fifty, but looks sixty. A woman gets on dressed in several shades of pink: the sport coat is tope, the blouse is mauve, and the skirt is fluorescent pink. She wears several pins and broaches. Her curly white and grey hair is knotted up in two bunches on top. She is caked in foundation and breathes heavily as she sits down. The bus moves again. The lady in pink fumbles with a broach. Her movements are quick, busy, and erratic. As the bus stops for a traffic light she gets up and slides over to another seat, slumps down. She carries a watermelon pink bag, its sides scuffed, the brand it advertises indiscernible. A passenger points out that she dropped a broach. The lady in pink says, "Oh, geez, I only just got that there broach and I'm about to lose it! Thank you and praise the lord! It was only yesterday I got this broach. I was down at Drummond Centre. You know Drummond Centre? Lovely Broach. I should tie a string to it so I don't lose it again." She pretends to tie a string to the broach. Seconds later she gets up and walks towards the back of the bus. She stops, and holds a pole. A girl who looks like she does hard drugs and wearing a hoodie made for a large man says, "Be careful of the stair, you don't want to lose a shoe." I smile at the girl and we share a silent laugh. The lady in pink keeps talking to herself and then takes a step up the stair, and as the bus lurches, she falls and a shoe comes off. She bends down and tries to put on the shoe as the bus turns. I see her pink sock, but it is not really pink, it's kind of dirty, almost beige from wear. I suddenly think of her undergarments. Are they pink too?
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Revolted, I position myself so no one can sit beside me, namely, her. She walks past and sits down on the side at the back. A woman points out that she has dropped her broach. She picks it up and says, "I just got this broach the other day from Drummond Centre. It's a real nice broach! Like the ones rich people wear. I can't lose it. What would Jesus think! Rich people always wear things once and then never again. I'm not rich people. It's a real nice broach, eh? I should tie a string to it so I don't lose it!" She directs her conversation towards a native family who is talking about Uncle Morris' upcoming visit. They don't listen. The girl who looks like she does hard drugs and wears the large hoodie answers her boyfriends cell phone in French. The boyfriend stares straight ahead. His shaved head is covered in blisters and sores and he holds the back of the seat in front of him, like a zombie, mouth open. The lady in pink says, "I just love this broach. It just doesn't want to stay on. I got it at Drummond‌."
For My Sake John Grey A mahogany brown mourning cloak butterfly knows the best of me. It flutters the creamy edges of its wings as I do a sprig of grass between my fingers. In the peace between showy white pokeweed clusters and the pyramidal spires of meadowsweet, peace accedes a sylvan space. I've had enough of death in empty houses or barren rooms where only nurses gather. Let me die in green pasture, summer rolling over me like dew-cooled lava, life so redolent, so ardent, it can't help but surge even as I weaken. A gorgeous flower
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would crest my fallen shadow. In a torrent of growing, I'd hear my own rebirth.
Daphne John Nyman date: Mon, Aug 22 at 2:15 AM subject: (no subject) Daphne, I know it’s been a while since we spoke (3 months, 4 maybe?), but I had some spare time, so I figured I’d send you a quick email. How are you? Things are going well for me. I’ve almost been working at the office long enough to get that guaranteed raise, the one they give you for a year of loyalty to the company. That is, of course, if they’re not too short on cash this year. Things have been quiet in Q.A. since you left. I bet you would have never guessed that you affected the atmosphere so much, but you did! You should never doubt the impact you have on people, Daphne. Sometimes Andrew and I talk about what it was like back in the spring, when the three of us would walk over to that falafel place every day for lunch. Neither of us really goes out anymore, though, and Andrew and I don’t even sit together for lunch a lot of the time (you might have guessed that both of us usually sit alone now). Outside of work, little things happen and pile up. Every day when I come home to my apartment, there’s a woman sitting out on one of the first floor balconies who says hi to me. I think she’s older than we are, maybe by quite a few years, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I asked her once about the sunflowers she grows, and we got into a big conversation about gardening and the weather and all kinds of things like that. She even said we should have tea some time, to carry on with the conversation (she has such a sweet voice), but I haven’t followed up—I don’t think someone like her would like me very much if she got to know me. She still says hi, though. I’ve also started listening to music. Not that I didn’t listen to it before, but now I’m listening to everything, every artist I can find. On the bus to work and back I put in my earphones and listen to all kinds of beautiful things. And I think about people when I listen, people I know, or people I used to know. I found one song that reminds me of you, Daphne, called “Flesh Canoe.” But don’t read too much into that—there’s no reason for it. It’s just because of stupid essences in the air, the kinds of things that make me say stupid stuff like “I found a song that reminds me of you, Daphne.” So I guess you’ve moved on? Gotten some great job where you can be all creative and work your own hours like you always talked about? Maybe you won’t read this far, or won’t reply (and if you do, I bet it won’t be as long as this email!), but I thought you might like to hear from your old work buddy. That’s all. Best wishes and all that, Dan
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Modern Three Witches Tammy Ho Lai Ming
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Division Street Amy David The platform warns me not to cross it. There is a man waiting to be Northbound who wears earmuffs and I pretend I love him. He once smiled at me when I spilled my toes past the yellow line. I send a morning paper airplane across the tracks carrying headlines like "Missing|Chicago" with the teenagers lost again in the fold. It lands only half way like last week's jumper begging for more speed. A seven car train lands with the grace of a spitball, collecting what will stick to the gummy surface and launching again toward Clybourn, leaves the other side blank as a staring contest.
The Population Late at Night John Grey You wouldn't believe the ones who haunt my dreams, people you don t know, that I hardly know, wearing clothes across the decades, from before I was born even, men, women, even a small child begging for bread... since when do I have bread? It's an ambiguous world sure enough and that's only the beginning. My head, when sleeping, is open to anybody apparently, friends from school, enemies from school, cousins more distant than Timbuktu, a guy I ran into once in the supermarket, a chance acquaintance on a bus ride to New York. And the stuff we do together you wouldn't believe: we fly, we sit for tests in our pajamas. And there you are, the main role in my life, but just a bit player at 4.00 a.m. when my subconscious takes over. I have to read the credits twice to make sure you were even in the film. Luckily, my dreams are fragile,
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disintegrate when I awake. And you're so solid in the bed beside me. Bet you're glad you're not my dream girl. By the way, who was she?
Adam and Eve Meg Eden Adam and Eve walk to the register with two shopping carts. “Put these together,” he ventures. “Separate,” the woman says between clenched teeth, clutching her piles of somethings like bras with smiley faces on the nipples, panties with pink lace, a bracelet that doesn’t do anything but sit pretty and sparkle. the man searches for change in pockets, wallet, bags, the bottom of his shoe. The snake painted purple moons under his eyes; she picks at her cuticle and tells him to hurry up. “we’re divorced” he jokes, and she doesn’t smile.
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Amateur Study of Perspective J.S.H. Baxter
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The Paper Today Daniel J. Rowe HABS HIT PAYDIRT IN T.O. hockey news there was news once. flesh of a strawberry. Page fifteen tells AN INDONESIAN QUAKE DESTROYED NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE’S CITY foreign news the head line is too long. seeds. A free journal prize for nothing someone on the street journal lacking in news. fruit. WEALTHY SKATERS DEAD POOR PEOPLE information crisis.
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CONTRIBUTORS Jane Finlayson -
My fiction has appeared in The Fiddlehead, for which I was awarded the fiction contest prize in 1999 and honourable mention in 2007. I’ve also had stories published in Prairie Fire andRoom of One’s Own. I’ve been a finalist for both the CBC Literary Awards and Event Magazine’s creative nonfiction contest. Apart from writing my own pieces, I have worked as a journalist, corporate writer/editor and communications manager.
Alexandra Macdonald -
Is a physimatician, currently in her third year at St Francis Xavier. Hailing from Ottawa, she enjoys walks on the beach and taking pictures of plants.
Aaron Wiegert -
Aaron Wiegert graduated from Iowa State University where studied English and Creative Writing. His work has been published in The Ames Progressive and Message in a Bottle. He now lives in the Twin Cities area and is in the process of compiling his first book of poetry.
Louis Gallo -
My work has appeared in Berkeley Fiction Review, Rattle, Storysouth, Glimmer Train, Missouri Review, New Orleans Review, Texas Review, Raving Dove, Baltimore Review and many others.
Tammy Ho Lai Ming -
Tammy Ho Lai-ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London, UK. She is an assistant poetry editor of Sotto Voce Magazine and a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (http://asiancha.com), the first Hong Kong-based online literary publication. Tammy's photography has previously been published or is forthcoming in Ancient Heart Magazine, BluePrintReview, Foundling Review, Lily, Ouroboros Review, Pequin, Poesy, Postal Poetry, Stirring, Toward the Light: Journal of Reflective Word and Image, Trillium Literary Journal and Word Catalyst Magazine. More at www.sighming.com.
William Farrant -
Is from Victoria.
John Grey -
Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in Slant, Briar Cliff Review and Albatross with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock and REAL.
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John Nyman -
John Nyman grew up in Toronto and is currently an undergraduate student majoring in English and Creative Writing at York University. Aside from writing, he has a strong interest in music (especially electronic music) and the visual arts. He has had short fiction published in the Steel Bananas anthology GULCH: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose, in the online literary journal Word Riot, and in numerous student and youth-oriented publications. He will be published in the Clark-Nova Books anthology Writing Without Direction in Spring 2010. John is also the Senior Fiction Editor of Existere, York University's journal of arts and literature.
Amy David –
Amy David moonlights as a poet and performer in Chicago, IL. Her work has recently appeared in Foundling Review, Apparatus Magazine, and APICS Magazine, the last of which has nothing to do with poetry.
Meg Eden –
Meg Eden has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Claremont Review, Snow Monkey, and Millers Pond. She has won various writing awards, including Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Circle Award CM, Scholastic Writing and Arts’ Gold Key Award, and Blue Mountain Arts’ Poetry Contest. She is currently working with a literary agent with the hopes of publishing novel works.
J.S.H. Baxter –
Currently, JSHBaxter is a software engineering student at the University of Waterloo. He is interested in applying control theory and signal theory to neurocognitive modelling.
Daniel J. Rowe –
I am a Montreal writer working as an English teacher at two schools and as a research assistant for a blind Applied Human Sciences professor at Concordia University.
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