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Photo Credit Edson Scudder and LuAnn Ritsema
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frank’s wager – visitor – the seeds – old religion – every part of me – end of the world – because i can’t whistle – indulgence – final words – good enough to work but not good enough to stay – they’ll need a crane – turd
BELIEF 3
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ditors note,
The eclecticism of this issue suits its simple but complex theme. Beliefs evidently come in many shapes and sizes, gauging from the variety of submissions this time around. Some are conventional and mainstream; others are unstable and shifting. The writing displayed herein is suggestive; it hints, shocks, tugs, disgusts, inspires. I hope you get as much out of reading it as I did putting this issue together. It is truly a pleasure to be a part of this thing that is The Writers Block. Thanks for making it possible!
—Ben 4
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Frank’s Wager Mark Victor Young (Blowing) Check, check. (Tapping noise) It's working. Frank Powers: Good. Okay. Can I get you a coffee or something? I can't guarantee I'll get the, uh, machine working, but I'll give it a shot. Usually I just walk over to Timmies. Interviewer: No, thanks. I'm fine. Frank Powers: So what publication has sent you here today? Interviewer: Quill and Quire. Frank Powers: Oh, excellent. Interviewer: Yes. I'll just, um, say what we're doing. This is an interview with Frank Powers. We're meeting on October 15th, 2007. My name is James Cholkan. Frank Powers: Nice to meet you, James. Interviewer: Nice meeting you. I'm a huge fan. So, many of your fans complain that you haven't produced a novel in over six years. What have you been working on lately? Frank Powers: Mostly reminiscences. I'm sure most of it would be incoherent without my editor to patch it all together. He snips away the stray threads. 5
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Interviewer: So it's autobiographical? Frank Powers: No, not the way I write it. Interviewer: Oh... You have been described as one of the greatest post-modern existentialists. How has this philosophy informed your life experience? Frank Powers: Well, I was never a philosopher. Post-modern, maybe. But I was always more of a story guy. That other stuff... it's nice to think about, to talk about, but it isn't real. I'm going to get a coffee. Do you want one? (Rustling noises) Interviewer: Sure. Frank Powers: If I can get out of this chair, that is. (Rustling noise followed by crash) Don't worry about it. The cleaning lady comes this Friday. Interviewer: Really, the coffee isn't necessary. Frank Powers: All I've got is the awful store brand. Where are the damn filters? Maybe the drawer... no, shit... oh, the closet. Here we are. I'm getting senile. I never know how many scoops to put in. Now, I push this back in and Click, the light goes on and... shit! Clear. Wait, there's the brown. How does that work? I need a new coffee maker. Interviewer: So we were discussing your thoughts on existentialism.
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Frank Powers: So we were. And here I am obsessing about my coffee and ignoring such an important topic. Although coffee is an important topic all by itself. It's personal, it's social. It's a necessary start to the day or mid-morning perk up or the completion of a good meal. It's like... it's like the history of us together was mapped out by the coffee we drank. What magical property does it hold? How many couples have come together over coffee? Even when we met, the first thing we did was go for coffee-maybe there's a story in that--and then to lunch, dinner, and then the rest of our lives. And what a wonderful life we had. Here, it's ready now. (Clinking of mugs, followed by pouring) Interviewer: Thanks. Frank Powers: I don't have any cream, but there's probably some sugar around here. (Slurping noise) Interviewer: No, this is fine. How did you— Frank Powers: Well, it's all right, but it's not great. I haven't made a decent cup of coffee in six years. Has it really been six years? I can't stop thinking about her. The way my study is furnished, the decorating, the flowered wallpaper we put up together in the bathroom, the way the coffee maker won't work... everything makes me want to be with her again. Only sixty-eight, so young. Interviewer: I'm sorry. How did she die? Frank Powers: Heart attack. Died of a broken heart, literally, and broke mine in the process. Unbearable irony. I can't even write stories with "Affairs of the Heart" in them. The heart isn't what 7
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brings people together; it's the organ which fractures. That little piece of muscle and tubes... responsible for so much, and when it breaks down... Interviewer: It must be hard to lose someone you clearly loved so much. (A long pause) Mr. Powers?Do you want to take a break or keep going? Frank Powers: Call me Frank. No, let's keep going. Interviewer: Okay, Frank. I'll try to get through these remaining questions, if that's okay. I don't want to take up too much of your time. Well, then, how do you place yourself in the body of post-modern work of this century? Frank Powers: Oh, Financially well-off. Lucky. I made a living doing what I love and that is a tremendous blessing not to be underestimated. Do you know how many writers are out there scraping by driving cabs or collecting garbage or teaching at universities? Interviewer: I mean in terms of post-war thematic evolution. Frank Powers: I don't know. I never really understood all that terminology and classification. I just write stories. Interviewer: I see where you're going. Sort of a "Fiction of the BlasĂŠ," post-Freudian, declassificationalism? Frank Powers: I guess so.
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Interviewer: Okay. Hemingway once said that his later years were brimming with confidence and optimism. Frank Powers: (Laughs) And then he blew his brains out. Interviewer: Well, yes, but that came later. Do you consider your latest work to be full of this same confidence now that you are reaching the "pinnacle" of your craft? Frank Powers: No, not really. I am prone to self-doubt. I can't even make a decent cup of coffee. All that stuff that you call existentialism... that was a long time ago; I was a different person then. I don't know what I believe in now, but I know what I know: I'm lonely and I miss my wife. I've started thinking about the concept of a spiritual afterlife and whether I'll see her again when I die. Interviewer: You mean the quote unquote afterlife? That would be an about face from your earlier, anti-religious work. Are you saying you've come to believe in God? (Laughs) Frank Powers: There are people who believe in God and people who don't and I think it's okay to be either. And I don't think you can convince yourself to be either one, you just are. What happened to me was probably what happens to a lot of guys who've been married for 42 years and then lose their wives to a broken down heart. Or breast cancer. That's a nasty one. So you roll around in an empty house, not sure what to do or how to occupy yourself or what's important to you now you're on your own and just constantly talking to yourself. Well, I went on talking to myself like that for months until I realized that I
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wasn't talking to myself, I was talking to God. And I guess I'd been angry with him for a long time without knowing it. So, anyway, we made our peace and now we're cool. Interviewer: You and God are cool? Seriously? The author of No Sense of Direction has found religion? Frank Powers: I know it sounds funny. Look, it's like this. The biggest presence in my life right now is an absence. I miss her all the time, every day. So I made a deal with God that I would believe in him if I could see her again in the afterlife, whatever you want to call that and whatever it looks like. Heaven, maybe. Have you heard of Pascal's wager? Interviewer: The unbelievably cynical viewpoint that you might as well keep your options open, just in case belief is a ticket to paradise? Frank Powers: Exactly the one. Well, I took that bet. Interviewer: But believing in heaven means believing in the bible, which, as you yourself have taken great pains to point out, is a deeply flawed document. Frank Powers: I know. I still think that. But I took the bet because I don't care if the afterlife is the same as the heaven in the bible or different, just as long as it's somewhere. Believe me, it still feels weird to think this way. You want some more coffee? Interviewer: No. So let me get this straight. You made a deal with God, the guy who supposedly wrote a book about agrarian dispute resolution in the pre-Bronze Age Middle East; the guy who takes voice 10
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mail from millions of people every day and never gets back to them... the guy who hasn't updated his blog in, like, 2000 years? That God? Frank Powers: I think so. Tall guy, flowing white beard? Interviewer: Do you realize you're substantially recanting the central theme of about half your novels? Frank Powers: Well, only if you think that was the central theme. Interviewer: This is unbelievable. What do you think this will do to your fans? Frank Powers: What I think or don't think now doesn't change any of my earlier novels. They're still exactly the same.
Archival & Special Collections - Resources - University of Guelph Library Transcript of Podcast Interview Published as "Introspect/Retrospect - Last Interview with Frank Powers" Quill & Quire, Vol. 37, No.11 Recorded October 15, 2007 Published posthumously, November 25, 2007
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Visitor Ruth E. Foley
Goddamn it, Elena, it happened again— for Michael this time, running through the mountains in Colorado, thinking about visitations, missing his mother, dead too soon a year ago, thinking about the small yellow blanket she knitted for his baby before there was a baby, before there was a thought, before she knew she was dying. And around a bend, Michael's head still clouded, the elk—fixed, calm—that stopped his running. You, he thought, the clear eye, the thick breast. Something like a slow nod, and then gone, back to 12
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the shadowed brush, a coverlet of last year's leaves crackling at the hooves. And you, Elena. It's been thirty years this winter. You couldn't be an elk for me? You couldn't be a dinner plate slipping to the floor in an empty kitchen? He asks me, and I say no. Not yet. And tell him how even that night in the inn when the sleeping pill wasn't working and I twisted in my borrowed blankets and the floorboards were creaking so loud I thought the coyotes in the notch would wake and howl, when I knew someone stood outside my door, a hand against the wall, listening to see if my breathing had slowed, something protecting me against the lengthening night, even then I never thought it was you. 13
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The plates are washed and put away. The coyotes sleep curled around themselves. The gold saplings at the edge of the woods refuse to rustle, no matter how long I wait for the slightest tremor, no matter how much I wish you would make me believe in anything but wind.
The Seeds Chris Wood “You’ll be Oliver, you’ll be Danielle, and you’ll be Mr. Avery.” Rhynn pointed to three waterdroplet-sized brown seeds in the palm of her hand. She was sitting with her legs crossed, leaning over a clay-colored pot filled with moist, black topsoil. Rhynn picked up one seed and held it in between her index finger and thumb. “Okay, Olly, see you in the morning.” She kissed the seed and then dropped it into the pot.
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“Danielle, would you like to make the tea for breakfast tomorrow?” She held up the second seed. “Good. You just be careful because the handle on the teapot can get hot sometimes and I don’t want you to get burned.” Rhynn kissed the seed and dropped into the pot. “Mr. Avery,” Rhynn began. She held up the third seed. “You’ll have to make the omelets because I don’t know how to make them. I’m not allowed to use knifes either, except the butter knife, so I can make the toast.” She raised one eyebrow. “Hmm, that is a good idea, Mr. Avery. I like cinnamon on my toast too.” She brought the seed close to her mouth and whispered. “Olly isn’t allergic, is he? Okay, good. Well, good night Mr. Avery.” Rhynn kissed the seed and then shook her finger at it. “You don’t stay up too late reading in your chair because you’ll hurt your back and your eyeglasses aren’t fixed yet.” Rhynn nodded and then shook her finger at the seed. “I know you want to finish the story, but if you strain your back, I’ll have to carry the picnic basket all by myself tomorrow and we’re going to have our picnic under the willow tree at the top of that hill.” Rhynn held up the seed and looked out to a series of green rolling green hills. The third hill had a weeping willow tree on top of it. “That’s too far for me to carry the basket, especially since we’re going to take all those jams and preserves.” She wrinkled her brow and then brought the see close to her mouth. “I know Danielle doesn’t like marmalade, but it’s Olly’s favorite, so I’m bringing the strawberry for her.”
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“Rhynn.” A woman exited from a two-story, red brick building behind Rhynn. “There you are.” She began walking toward her. Rhynn dropped the third seed into the pot and then scooped a handful of soil over the three seeds. “Oh, I hope you didn’t get your dress dirty. Tomorrow is Saturday and you’ll want to be looking your best when everyone arrives. I have a good feeling this is your week.” “Yes, Ms. Jones.” Rhynn rubbed her hands together and stood up. She tucked her chin into her neck and looked down. “Do you like the way the dress fits? I think the alterations I made work okay. You’re just getting taller each day,” Ms. Jones smiled. She looked at the dress and turned her head to the side. “Hmm,” Ms. Jones pulled a loose thread from the short sleeve of the dress. “There we go.” Ms. Jones took hold of Rhynn’s hand. “Okay, let’s get you ready for bed. You’re going to help me with breakfast tomorrow, right?” Rhynn nodded. “Ms. Jones?” “Yes.” “Can I put cinnamon on the toast?” “Well, not all of the toast, but you can put it on yours.” “What about marmalade?” 16
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“Of course you can put that on your toast, but I don’t like that on my toast.” Ms. Jones wriggled her nose. “And can I help with the tea?” Ms. Jones rubbed Rhynn’s hand. “No, honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Remember you burned your hand on the teapot handle last week.” As Ms. Jones and Rhynn reached the side door of the building a woman stepped halfway out of it. She was holding a cordless phone, cupping her hand over the receiver. “Barbara, it’s Eugene Avery on the phone.” Ms. Jones nodded and took the phone from her. “Thank you, Angela. Can you take her and get her ready for bed?” Angela took Rhynn by the hand and led her inside. “C’mon sweetie.” Ms. Jones put the phone up to her ear. “Hello Eugene. Good to hear from you.” Ms. Jones began pacing just outside the door. “Oh, I’m very glad you’ll be coming tomorrow. Will Danielle and Oliver be coming too?” Ms. Jones smiled. “Yes, she is very fond of Oliver. She’ll be very happy to see him tomorrow. She was just asking about putting marmalade on the toast for breakfast, probably because she heard him say it’s his favorite.” Ms. Jones shook her head. “No, she wasn’t upset that you all weren’t able to come out last weekend. I explained to her that you strained your back and had to get your eyeglasses fixed. She understood.” 17
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Ms. Jones started tapping her finger on her front teeth. “Have, you,” she paused. “Um, made a decision?” She stopped pacing and nodded. “I see. Yes, well it is a big decision and that’s what I’m here for, to help get you all the information you need to make the decision that’s best for you and your family.” Ms. Jones looked down. “Yes, let’s talk some more after breakfast tomorrow. That way Danielle and Oliver can spend more time with her.” She folded one arm across her waist. “Yes, you park in the public garage across the street and the orphanage will validate.” Ms. Jones smiled and laughed. “Yes, she absolutely wants to watch you make an omelette again.”
Old Religion John Dudek
Maybe there was a dog eared corner in that little leather prayer book she kept
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with the dry-goods. I could never know for sure because it was written in Polish. Or maybe Father Lineski mentioned a particular parable with his final blessing. Leaving mass early was my prerogative. But around the third ward, my Grandmother was known to kneel and scrub the bricks of her sidewalk cleaner than they'd ever been. "The farther you wash down the block" she'd say 19
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"the less grime walks inside." Her kneecaps swelled like plums stuffed in her stockings but her floors beamed like sour cream in fridge-light.
Every Part of Me Abby Lecavalier It was a matter of trust I figure, he had my bra in his hand. Almost spontaneous as something so well planned can be. 20
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And his mouth found every part of me, parts that I didn’t think worked anymore. His odour is still thick in the air, in my mind, though he left hours ago. And I’ve finally got the smile off my face, because I’m worried. And I’m scared. That his smell will be the last thing I remember. And the first thing he forgets. 21
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End of the World Jaime Fountaine Joe, my next-door neighbour, built a fallout shelter in his back yard ten years ago. “Walls are a foot of solid concrete, reinforced steel doors, chemical toilet. She’s got everything.” He smiles and ashes his cigarette. “Would have to give ‘em up. My air purifier would be working hard enough down there as is. See, I rigged it up myself – worked in HVAC for years – but you can only do so much with recirculated air. It’s like if you’re on an airplane and some lady’s got perfume on.” He stubs the filter under the toe of his work boot with thick, calloused fingers. He has been retired for four or five years, but he still dresses the part, as if he could be called back at any moment, the way they do policemen in movies. “Ought to cut back anyway, the way they’re taxing these things.” He adjusts his hat, and swirls his mug. “Parade’s taking its damn time. You want another?” I nod and follow him into the house. A tiny artificial Christmas tree sits on the dining table, lit with built-in bulbs. The walls are hung with old photographs and papered in a faded floral pattern. I’ve only been in a few times since I moved here, and each time I’ve marvelled at how tidy things are, how ancient. The curtains are hand-crocheted lace, yellowed with age and Marlboro smoke, delicate and disintegrating. He grew up in this house; they might be older than he is. He leads me into the kitchen, where he’s got a pot full of mulled wine. He made it himself. “My grandfather used to do it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy. I get my grapes at the Market. I got a guy, sets ‘em aside for me. You need a lot, maybe twenty pounds. It’s not worth it to get them at the grocery store. You may as well just buy it by the bottle.” Joe keeps his wine in jugs along the top shelf in the kitchen pantry, just above the canned vegetables and homemade gravy. Each is labelled on a slip of paper in narrow, tidy script with the date it was canned and the ingredients. “If I can do it myself, I may as well.” He sees me examining them above the crook of his arm. “You make that all yourself?” 22
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SEVEN “Every summer, whatever I don’t eat from the garden, I can. I eat like a king all winter. I’ll send you home with a little something.” I try to refuse out of politeness, but he stops me. “My mother’s recipe. You’ll love ‘em.” He fills my mug first, then his own, and shuts the stove off simmer. “Rosemary used to do most of it, but once she started getting sick a lot, I took over. Turns out, I had a real aptitude. She never liked doing that stuff much, anyway. Thought it was old fashioned.” He never talks about his wife. I was here for months before ever realizing he’d ever even been married. Joe sits down at the kitchen table, and motions for me to join him. It’s when he sits that I notice how old he really is, wincing and cracking his way into the chair. “It’ll be a while, still. It’s cold out.” “Thanks for the wine.” “This time of year? It’s good to have company. Rosemary—my wife—she died around this time.” “I’m sorry.” “Ten years ago. She’d been sick. Cancer. We expected it. Still. She died the twenty-sixth. They said it was peaceful, and I believed them, at least, she was on enough morphine that it must’ve been. I had her cremated. I didn’t want to remember her the way she died. “I was pretty caught up in that y2k stuff. If I couldn’t – it was a way of saving something, I guess. That’s when I built it – out back. A couple of guys from work helped me out. We had a little bit of a business going back in ’99. We probably set up ten or fifteen of ‘em in our spare time. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was all off the books. Mine was the first one we did – a practice run. Another guy, we made one at his house, but it was bigger. He had kids. “She never saw it. She was in the hospital full time. I’d go stay with her most nights. They were pretty good about it. I’d come home from work, do a little work out back, wash up, and go to the hospital.” He stands up, puts his cup down empty, and half-smiles. “Do you want to see it?” He nods at the back door. Outside there are still a few piles of snow hiding in the garden, ice pooled on the picnic table. I follow him. Joe slides the table aside and opens the hatch. He goes down first, motioning for me to follow on the ladder. Its warmer underground, but not much. He hits a switch, illuminating the room with flickering generator light, showing a tense, tidy arrangement. The walls are lined with shelves. Some hold necessities: toilet paper, soap, blankets. Others, like kitchen cabinet, are lined with canned goods, most homemade. There are gallons and gallons of water in massive jugs against the far wall. There is a 23
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SEVEN bed, tidily made, and a small, circular table with two chairs. With the exception of modern brands and equipment, the room could have been pulled from a 1950’s photograph. “After Rosemary – well, I came down here. I didn’t plan on it. I didn’t bring anything with me. I didn’t come out until the New Year. Must’ve been a week, but I lost track of time. No one was really looking for me. Had off from work, not much family left. Could’ve stayed for months.” After a silence, Joe motioned for me to come along. He shut the hatch, and put the picnic table in its space, hiding any evidence we’d left behind. The parade was coming. I could hear the music, the crowd, the trucks, the garbage. Across the fence, through the neighbour’s yard, I saw flashes of light hitting the sequins, coloring the bricks and air. “You go on ahead without me,” Joe said. “I can see it from here.”
Because I Can’t Whistle Steve De France It was my mother's dream for me to play the violin. The maestro came to the house for $ 5.00 an hour lessons. A slight balding Englishman who had been wounded by the Germans in the Allied assault on Normandy. 24
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His left hand trembles still tendons twisted from the flame thrower. He sits in pained attitude crippled fingers pointing out full & half notes for me to murder. I learn the strings & some bowing but nothing comes of it. I saw away maliciously making notes screech in pain even mother agrees I have no talent. I try piano. it goes the way of the violin. I can't whistle or carry a tune in song. I am audience material. I listen to mother play 25
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Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, & Rachmaninoff on piano or guitar--when she has time she paints & draws, writes poetry & songs, or reads tea leaves an acts like a gypsy. I start shining shoes & fighting, excellent at both---a disappointment to her. When my nose is broken, she cries. Before she died of dementia I remember her asking me "Who are you?" "I am your son." She couldn't hear me anymore. So, I began to fashion poems. 26
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Indulgence Michelle Ward-Kantor in a restaurant a woman, three children. milkshakes, French fries, cheeseburgers, wings sauce spills from buns, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. mouths chew, throats swallow, children belch, mother scolds fries on floor, sauces smeared, bun and beef askew more the children say but you didn’t finish more mother sighs. chocolate sundaes ice-cream melts, sauce drips down, faces messy, stomachs sickly in a restaurant a man fat steak sauce drips down, beer foams up, shirt bulges out. heartburn starts but dessert is caramel cheesecake real whipped cream, not edible oil 27
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wife has left him, no matter now spoon slurping - sauce drips down, cream melts in mouth - waistband digs in by the T.V., Saturday night. Chinese food box - dried noodles, stuck to the inside pizza box- two pieces - shriveled ham, pineapple cold French fries. salt and vinegar chips Hagen-Daaz chocolate chip ice-cream. later, in the bathroom, fingers down throat, retching, vomiting in a field, a small, brown, boy, tattered shorts, skinny waist. in a hole, kneels - digs, dog-like, clumps fly reaches down, pulls it out – strikes it on a rocky ledge pulls, strikes pulls, strikes – 6 in all carries limp bodies in the scorching sun in the village he smiles to mother in the evening light, roasting rats at the table the two-year old eats first, feet too short to touch the dirt floor five people, six rats, the last divided Carefully 28
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Final Words Jessica Kluthe This land has been good to me, be good to it. An entire life reduced to a single line. I imagine that St. Michael’s Cemetery, from above, would look like a checkerboard. Dark pines, planted in two staggered rows, enclose the area in a perfect square; the trees make it difficult to see in or to peer out. Their boughs are tired and weighed down with piles of snow that have never reached the ground. This afternoon the gates are open. Almost inviting. Layers of black paint, bubbled and chipped, unwrap hollow pipes of cold iron. The only clear sound is the sloshing of tires over slush and sand. Frozen candles and withered poinsettias poke out of smooth snow mounds, remnants of Christmas. A discarded wreath woven with red and silver ribbons lies face down, flattened. Lines of black polished stones cut through the soft snow. There are tiny one-foot-in-front-of-the-other trails leading to sites of fresh remembrance. Long stemmed red roses and teddy bears with icy paws, ritual closure. Gifts to ghosts. I follow a trail which leads to a double gravestone spreading over the plot like butterfly wings. The stone is etched in smooth-edged round letters, as if made of soap and carved with a butter knife. I trace the parting words with my finger: One Last Trip Together, Joseph and Mary Smyth. I imagine a gold wedding band, and a sparkling diamond ring, inside boxes, buried beneath my feet. In the next row of this silent city rests a mound of fresh soil. A new resident. A cross has been constructed with the block letters ROTTARE burned deep into its wood. Beside this plot, the snow has been cleared by a backhoe and the brown grass of autumn has been plucked out of the earth like hair from a scalp. Cut deep into the soil are two rectangular wounds, bandaged with sheets of plywood. Two metal spikes pierce the ground at the head of each plot to mark the spaces where gravestones will be placed. 29
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SEVEN Next is the gravesite of a little girl. Carved into soft rose marble are the dates 1988-1990. These numbers only scratch the surface of the stone, and look as if they could be wiped away; only the front of her stone is polished. Next is a heart-shaped headstone. I brush away the crystals of snow covering the spiralled letters, and find The Loving Grandmother Mabel, who cradled the soft rose baby girl. A wind curls past, sweet like an unexpected secret, and spreads the petals of cloth flowers down a row of plots. A sound, like marbles on pavement, draws my attention. A creamy statue of Mother Mary watches over the graves at the end of this aisle, rosary beads roll across Her alabaster chest. Her hands, smooth like skipping stones, are posed in prayer. I am distracted by a headstone behind Mary, which casts a shadow down the entire length of the row. Smooth sheets of snow, like starched white linens, surround this marble gravestone. Lines of poetry and coloured portraits in Plexiglas frames, tell of lovers of family, theatre, and travel. Large glazed vases, spilling over with fresh pine branches and cherry-red poinsettias, surround this story. Beside this gravestone is that unadorned flat marker. Papa. Farmed on the Chrapko homestead. There is an elderly man walking down a well-carved footpath, moving carefully through the fading light. He leaves a kiss on top of a rough stone, and then retreats back to his minivan and disappears through the gates. I am alone in the cemetery. Backyards border the east side. A blue and orange swing set peeks over one fence, and a mound of snow on the top of the plastic slide is evidence of a season’s worth of indoor play. Another yard contains a swimming pool packed with snow, and a pile of frosted firewood. A shovel rests against the chain link fence of the yard in the far northeast corner. The curtains are drawn on all the houses’ windows. No one wants to imagine that beneath the snow and the six feet of frozen earth are wooden boxes and rotting corpses. No one wants to remember how Uncle Kevin could not be buried wearing his favourite leather shoes because they would not fit his swollen feet. No one wants to remember how baby Maggie’s mouth was left open to create a natural expression when she lay still in her baby coffin. Mrs. Richardson does not want to remember how they said she could not view her son’s remains because he was burnt alive. They handed her a silver vase. Mr. Henry does not want to remember how they smeared too red a shade of lipstick on his wife. 30
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SEVEN They close the curtains. I stand in the hem of this silent city and watch the traffic move along the avenue. The light turns red and a car skids to a stop. People walk across the road ahead and I can only make out their silhouettes as they pass out of sight. But I can see him, the old farmer. Bent over the land and waiting for the hour when he can bring the cows in for the night.
Good Enough To Work But Not Good Enough To Stay Leslie Ken Chu Where are your wife and kids? (Sigh) Another bachelor labourer You don’t intend to stay We’ll take what we can get from you Before we send you back With nothing
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They’ll Need a Crane John Harrower
God is in the Crane. By fortune and faith I am too. The Crane casts its unbelievable shadow over our port town; if it were to fall it would smite us utterly. I am the chosen one permitted to ascend to the Crane’s pinnacle and direct its metal arm as if it were my own. From the summit the ground is slashed in two: halves of seawater and granite. It is very lonely up here where the birds are too lazy to climb and the wind is a poor companion. Sometimes I think of sticking a straw out from a window and drinking a passing cloud. It’s hard to know what is and is not impossible when you are in the Crane. Attending mass on the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, I experienced a crisis of faith. Or perhaps I should say a dilemma of faith. As my family and I sat on our wooden benches (as cold and hard as Antarctica) in our usual pew I found my mind entering a trance. One of our priests’ typical sermons reverberated around the basilica and my eardrums. He had never been much of a public speaker. My eyes were fixed on the red light symbolising the presence of God hanging over the altar. I have always been a good Catholic, practicing to become better, but on that winters day I couldn’t stop thinking about the how routine my faith had become. After mass I headed to work, entombing myself in the metal box that takes me to the sky with a feeling that something was changing inside of me. I hauled goods from the overweight supply ships and filled the city with provisions until thousands of litres of gas had electricity run through them in a feeble attempt to masquerade as the sun. Rolling back the mesh gate at the foot of the lift and emerging into 32
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the streetsounds I paused. I took in the metal skeleton of the Crane and saw, nestled in riveted struts, three red lights shining out at me, at the populace. That night I dreamt of the Crane, driven by my will, dismantling the church building and reassembling it as a School of Engineering for Aspiring Crane Drivers. The Crane provides. My wife works in a small kiosk in the centre of town, selling die cast models and postcards in the Cranes’ image. There isn’t much remarkable about our seasick town so we can use the Crane as a legitimate landmark and place of interest. In all fairness it is an impressive structure, even to those familiar with it. Tallest in the continent. I work for the city council, the ones who decided that the Crane should be built in the first place, so at the dinner table it’s the Crane that lays down the meat on my children’s plates. We say Grace, and even our youngest knows what we’re most thankful for. Eating breakfast by the kitchen radiator one morning I catch myself staring at the crucifix on the wall. I chew, and wonder why there is no cross hanging on the cabin in the Crane. There is no desire in me to rectify this situation. The Crane is a solid, comforting place. It’s not a place for abstract or troubling thoughts. It is, however, run on human penance. Far, far below my cockpit, jutting out to sea like a defiant bottom lip stands a notorious prison. The inmates are there for petty and sad reasons on the whole, the town would revolt if the real dangers to society were put here. In this prison the convicts get their exercise by running like hamsters in giant wheels. The wheels turn and charge the batteries which fuel the Cranes’ Herculean efforts. Through the Crane their dull actions become superhuman, and they pay back society with their sweat and shaking muscles. They are elevated and chastised all at once. I often think of them while working, exerting phenomenal forces to life something so heavy that physics tells you it shouldn’t be done. The damned beneath me as I use their toil for good. 33
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As a boy taking my First Communion I thought my love for Jesus was unbreakable. That one man could give his all, sacrifice everything, for me personally was wondrous, shining, golden. I didn’t really think about the details. I tried to thrash it out in the confessional booth, to figure out what it all meant. When the priest faltered and jumbled his words my golden treasure suffered a serious dent. The devil is in the details. I had a deep need to believe in something, I had to know there were greater forces at work than the tawdry human struggles at home. But as I grew older I became dissatisfied with my religions’ way of explaining things. I still attended mass and observed the religious commandments because the alternative was unthinkable: walking down dark streets with my eyes closed. I never really lost my faith. It just transferred in a way I never thought was possible. The Crane wasn’t confusing in the same way the Bible was. It was above me, watching, but I was able to climb it and touch it and know it. The Crane is my new religion. I won’t be a crusading prophet but for my family and myself we know what is important. What others would see as blasphemy makes only sense to me. And we have found peace here, by the sea. We have been lifted.
Turd Ilan Herman Maybe it was the spinach salad mixing with her four daily apples, or maybe the Grande whole milk cappuccino in tandem with large portions of raisins and strawberries, but Julia’s morning bowel 34
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movement, most always generous and smooth, was more generous and smoother than usual. It lasted only four or five seconds but she felt considerably lighter after completion. As she always did, she glanced to evaluate the result. Health magazines insisted that much could be concluded about one’s health from one’s excrement. The main objective, the health experts said, was that the specimen be long and thick and easily find its way out of the body. They also advocated that a healthy crap didn’t smell bad, really shouldn’t smell at all, and that if it did, that was a sign of the body trying to rid itself of toxins. Julia gasped in disbelief: the bowel movement consisted of one turd, about a foot long, maybe longer, and more than an inch in diameter. No aroma wafted in the bathroom. The turd, like a dormant snake, curled at the bottom of the bowl, but part of it floated on the surface. That, according to the experts, was a good sign. A floating turd meant that her body was properly hydrated, that she was drinking enough fluids. The experts also commented that the ideal bowel movement should be lightbrown, as that hinted at the body’s proper balance of minerals. Julia proudly noticed that the turd was indeed light-brown, and then chuckled with satisfaction. All indicators confirmed she had given birth to the perfect turd, or if perfection, elusive as it is, was unattainable, the results still pointed to an extraordinary achievement. Julia strongly believed that one’s gateway to a balanced emotional and spiritual life lay in a good night’s sleep followed by an effortless and abundant morning expulsion of bodily garbage. Deny a person either of the two, she claimed, and see the joy trickle away from their eyes. A tired or constipated human being is prone to moodiness, lethargy, anxiety, maybe even clinical depression. She confessed to herself that one reason the turd was so long and thick probably had to do with her own physical attributes. Julia was five foot eight, and weighed 168 pounds. Far from fat by American standards, she was nonetheless considered big-boned, 35
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with healthy thighs and a large bottom. She ate well, of course, and exercised thrice a week, but the extra thirty pounds refused to shed. Her good friend, Amanda, said that Julia gave too much credence to her physical imperfections, that she needed to learn to accept herself and take care to be beautiful on the inside. Julia believed Amanda was sincere in trying to help, but she also knew it was easy for Amanda— petite and slender, to be somewhat superficial about Julia’s weight struggle. Amanda would never give birth to a huge turd no matter what she ate, or how much, and if she did, doing so could result in the tearing of certain muscles and profuse capillary bleeding. Feeling proud in sophomoric ways, Julia wiped, and then bade farewell to the turd and flushed the toilet. The water whirled and drained, but the turd didn’t follow. It writhed for a second and then settled at the bottom of the bowl. She waited for the toilet reservoir to fill up, and then flushed again, but the turd had a mind of its own and ignored the sucking sewer. The toilet reservoir chugged to fill up again and Julia wondered how to deal with the turd when the phone rang. She’d been waiting for a call from her bank about a loan approval, so rushed to the phone. “How’s my queen today?” said the caller. “Hi Bobby, I’m fine. I was hoping you were the bank calling back about the loan.” Bobby, flamboyant and very gay, was her most trusted confidante. They’d known each other ten years and, many times, had found solace and camaraderie in sharing their pitfalls of life and romance. “Jerry left me, again,” Bobby said. “He thinks he’s so macho but he’s not.” Tears of a queen betrayed hid in his shrill voice. “I’m sorry,” Julia said. “He’ll come back. He always does.” “Well I’m so done with him,” Bobby whined. “I’m not taking him back.” 36
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Julia imagined him sitting on his maroon living room couch, thin and pale arms crossed in helpless anger. “That’s what you always say,” she said with love, “but you don’t really mean it.” “This time I do,” Bobby huffed. “He’s such a turd.” Julia giggled. “What was that?” he asked. “Nothing.” “That was a coy giggle. I know one when I hear one.” Momentary silence ensued while Julia considered her response. They’d had plenty of late night conversations laced with locker room humor and descriptive references to bodily fluids. Most the references came from Bobby, who had a very busy sexlife, but she’d been a willing listener and had contributed a few morsels of her own. “I’m waiting,” Bobby said in his lilting nag. “You know I’ll badger you until you divulge, so you better spare both of us the drama.” So Julia told him about her glorious and odorless turd, how long and round it was, how light in weight and color, and how it refused to flush. Bobby snickered like a six year old. “Sounds bigger than any dick I’ve taken up the ass. I’d have to go live with an African tribe to get that kind of action.” Julia laughed, delighted in her ornery ways. “I probably broke the Guinness world record. Do you think they have one for the longest turd?” “Probably not,” Bobby said, “but they should. Can you excavate it? You could put it in the freezer so it hardens.” “But it’ll thaw when I take it out and probably crumble.” 37
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“I guess you’re right,” Bobby said. “So what are you gonna do with it?” “I don’t know, flush it I suppose.” “I guess,” he said…and silence lingered. Then he said, “If you chop it up it’ll flush for sure.” “That’s gross,” Julia said. “Besides, what would I chop it with?” Holding the receiver up to her ear, Julia was now in the bathroom. The turd had taken on water and had grown plumper and lay curled up like a satisfied python digesting a mouse. “I’m gonna try flushing one more time.” “You go girl,” Bobby cheered on. She pushed down on the handle. The whirlpool rushed around the slippery bowl and gained speed. The turd unraveled and, like the upper mentioned python, gracefully slid into the dark tunnel and disappeared into its nest. “It’s gone,” Julia whispered, like she stood graveside and eulogized a friend. “Don’t be sad,” Bobby said. “I promise there’ll be many more.”
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Our Lady’s Greasy Spoon Miodrag Kojadinovic
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Umbrella Michelle Wilms 40
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0.19 Michelle Wilms 41
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Harbor Louis Malcom Staeble
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Clap Your Hands Say Metric Rachelle Williams
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In Flight, taking the sidewalk upwards Lauren Danhof
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J. ‘Ocean’ Dennie 47
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J. ‘Ocean’ Dennie 48
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Things Fall Apart Stephen Ajadi 49
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Boy Stephen Ajadi
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Lightsdim Eleanor Leonne Bennett
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Small 3 Eleanor Leonne Bennett
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Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a teenage amateur photographer and award winning mixed media artist from Stockport, England. She has been exhibited in places from Environ in Ireland to the Oxo gallery in London and was the only person in the whole of the UK to be placed with National Geographic in their See The Bigger Picture biodiversity photography competition. http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8490000/newsid_8494200/84 94236.stm Website:http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleanorleonne/ Jessica Kluthe - I am an MFA candidate in the University of Victoria’s writing program and am currently writing a creative nonfiction memoir about the Italian diaspora for my thesis. I write all the time: on napkins, notepads and journals, on tiny bits of paper that I find all over my apartment and chapter by chapter as I work away on my book. Steve De France is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications in Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India and Australia. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in both 2002 and 2003. A few recent publications include The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, and The Sun. In England he won a Reader's Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem "Hawks." In the United States he won the Josh Samuels' Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem: "The Man Who Loved Mermaids." His play THE KILLER had it’s world premier at the GARAGE THEATRE in Long Beach, California (Sept-October 2006). In 1999, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing. Jaime Fountaine was born two weeks late in New Orleans, and invented herself some time later. She is a writer and performer in Philadelphia, where she hosts a quarterly 53
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and a monthly reading series. She can also be found on the web at jaimefountaine.com. Michelle Willms graduated from McMaster University with a double major in social work and sociology. Her short story, Twenty, Four, and Seven was published in Issue 9 of Sorrowland Press' Dance to Death in March of 2008: http://www.sorrowlandpress.com/ index_files/D2D_Willms_Issue_IX.html. Michelle's first novel, The Language of Thunder is currently being workshopped on www.thenextbigwriter.com and is ranked number six out of five hundred novels on the site. Last year, The Language of Thunder made the Reader's Choice Top Ten list: http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/marketing/ top10.html. She will be seeking publication for her novel this year. Abigale Louise Lecavalier - My poetry has appeared in many online as well as print magazines, Fullosia Press, Black Cat Press, The Sheltered Poet(twice), The Same, FreeXpression, The Journal & Original Plus, Abandoned Towers, Negative Suck, Language and Culture, Visions and Voices, and, Record Magazine. Michelle Ward-Kantor is a teacher and mom. She holds a certificate in creative writing (McMaster University), an Education Degree (University of Alberta) and a journalism diploma (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology). She has also worked as a technical writer/editor and secretary. Her poetry and a short story have appeared in Main Street - a McMaster University journal (2005) and The Prairie Journal (2009). She lives in southern Ontario with her beautiful family. John Harrower 24, WM, NS, GSOH, OMG, WLTM interesting individuals that he can shamelessly use as characters in his flash fiction or put in ridiculous and often fantastical 54
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situations for embarrassing effect. Find him in Stirling, Scotland scrawling non sequiturs in underpasses. Ruth Foley - I live in Massachusetts, where I teach English for Wheaton College. I have recent work appearing or forthcoming in Measure, River Styx, and The Ghazal Page. I also serve as Associate Poetry Editor for Cider Press Review Stephen Ajadi is a senior year architecture student from Nigeria. He is a writer,poet, and installation artist. His art have featured in a handful of exhibitions,including forthcoming solo exhibits at the African heritage library and the Nigeria Liquified gas international art forum.He won an African prize in a teenage poetry competition at the age of thirteen and hasn't stopped writing since. His works have appeared in the Penguin review (New York) and the Mazwi journal (Zimbabwe). He has just been given a grant to be a research fellow at the African heritage research library. He has also published in a number of Nigerian media. j ocean dennie was a fixture on the Toronto spoken word scene from 1998 until 2004 before setting off on an extended pilgrimage through India. Since then, he has enjoyed living by the sea and continues to wander. For the past decade, his work has been published in a number of anthologies and journals. Broken Pencil Magazine once described his work as “legitimate revolutionary slowburn� while praising his "ability to notice the mundane and create a scene of drama and intrigue". Chris Wood is an editor working in New York City who lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. He also writes for various other publications that include the online magazine Film Monthly. 55
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Rachelle Williams is a writer and photographer from Calgary, Alberta. She holds a Masters degree in English Literature & Cultural Studies and has a genuine passion for art, people, and ideas. Her work is inspired by the places she's lived, from South Africa to Nova Scotia, and the rush of capturing those choice moments and details that often make all the difference. Lauren M. Danhof - I am currently a MA student at Texas Tech University, where I am studying Early British Literature. I am twenty-five years old and an aspiring young adult author. My first passion is fiction, reading it, writing it, being completely immersed in it. However, I adore photography and have been working on improving my technique with the camera. John Dudek is a recent graduate of the university of hartford. I'm fascinated and furious at how poetry seems so pretentious and trivial when it really wants to feel be animal and visceral. My goal in writing has been to use common language to remind people big, powerful, even holy ideas are best communicated in the little gestures of the world. Should a meteor come to destroy the planet and all the newspapers and televisions keep telling us of an imminent end, no one will believe it in their guts until the rock's shadow makes the grass wilt. I've been published in the CT review and Last Man anthology. Mark Victor Young - I have published poetry and short fiction in such publications as Tabula Rasa, Chickadee Magazine andCanadian Author & Bookman. I have written book reviews for SCENE Magazine here in London and feature articles for the website www.soyouwanna.com. I was the winner of the 1992 Lillian Kroll Prize for Creative Writing at the University of Western Ontario, where I also completed a degree in English Literature. 56
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Adel Gorgy lives and work on Long Island, NY, and has traveled extensively across the country as well as throughout Europe and the Middle East. Adel’s travels are a rich source for his work, and his studies in comparative art, spirituality, astronomy and human history color his work. “Photography,” he says, “has been part of all my life. It is my way to sharpen observation, bring vision to a focus, provoke thought and evoke emotion. It is my way of heightening awareness and overcoming the apathy resulting from the comfort of the usual and ordinary. Amidst the order and chaos in our world, my eyes see always beauty, and my work is a window to my world.”
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