Waving Not Drowning

Get here when you can. Maybe not now, maybe not next week, maybe two years from the last time we met. But get here, any way you can. Find some way, some means. By hook or crook. Walk, run, fly, crawl, transcendentally meditate, will yourself. Find your way back here. Or forward, to where here might be somewhere down the line. That's what I'm asking. Show up. Make a stand. Appear, full of life, ready. For anything, for nothing, for what ever comes our way. I'm asking a lot, I understand this. I can hear it in your silence but- please. Please. Hear my words. However they find you. In a letter. Or a card, a note. An email. Smoke signals. Carrier pigeon. Message in a bottle. Pony express. Banner plane. On a wall, scrawled out in a foreign tongue halfway around the world in the middle of a gin soaked dark night of the soul. Find them. See them. Read them. Seek them out. Come. That's all I ask. You don't have to stay. This isn't a forever and ever amen. No happily

The paper gown is more like one of those disposable table cloths you buy at the dollar store for a kid's birthday party. Why bother, really. Gina is lying on her back, bum edged to the lip of the table, feet in stirrups, knees folded in together, waiting for the doctor to return. Another young fresh-out-of-med-school graduate. At least she didn't give her the stink eye when she asked for an internal. Gina's old enough to be her mom. When did she get old? How does that happen. She's getting hit on by younger and younger men every day, disconcertingly so. She's stopped responding because it's just not worth the effort to try to communicate with them on any level. She doesn't find it flattering anymore. When did that change, huh. So much shifting and it's only in retrospect that Gina puts things together. A relief actually. No longer concerned with what anyone else thinks- how she dresses, what she looks like, how she moves. It's not like she was obsess

There's no way for him to describe it other than random shots of energy, like lightning pulses traveling up from the inside of his groin out through the top of his head. Bum tickles, she calls them. He thinks it's more like the feeling you get when you're at the top of the roller coaster and about to drop into that death defying plunge. Terrifyingly thrilling. Heartstopping, pure adrenaline rush with  slight aching pain. He wishes he could control them. They come at unsuspecting moments, in jolts, sometimes waves, at the most inappropriate times. Standing in line for a coffee and he spasms like he's being electrified. Almost a seizure but faster, more spastic. Powerful yet fleeting, ephemeral. He vocalises, too. Can not help it. A climbing scale, sort of a vocal warm up elicited under duress. He's discovered  notes he didn't know he had, crazy high tenor opera sounds. Maybe he should look into that. A second career. She laughs. Until it happens five times  in a

"This is ridiculous. Clearly these people don't know what they're talking about when they say this stuff is "intuitive". I can't make head's or tales out of this thing. The whole screen is jumping and sliding. It's giving me an aneurysm. Vivie!" Viv closes her eyes, drops her chin to her chest and takes a long, slow, cooling breath in through her nose, just like the yogi with the ratty dreadlocks tells her to. Why do people still wear patchouli, especially in a hot yoga room? She snickers under her breath and nods to herself. "Vivie! I can't make the screen do what I want it to do. You have to help me!" Her dad's plaintive whine pierces her momentary reverie like buckshot through a stained glass window, exploding the tempered red, purple and blues of her deep breathing ritual into pebbles of beach glass strewn all over the kitchen floor. "Ok dad, I'll take a look, just gimme a sec here to finish the dishes." Why sh

The rain came out of nowhere. They're driving home, not late but late enough. Sheets start to fall from the sky, landing like concrete waves obliterating any visibility. Slow down, she says. Easy, easy. He taps the breaks, throws on the four way flashers. The air gets close, their skin tightens and breathing gets shallow. Up ahead lights glare, fade and recede then flash back into view at an alarming frequency. Reds, yellow, orange. Mainly red. Pull over, can you pull over? I'll try. He signals. They maneouver slowly to the shoulder. What feels like a shoulder, but the rain. They can't tell.  It's deafening now. Should we stay put, what do you think, I can't tell. Isn't it dangerous to leave the car? The two of them sit in stasis, staring ahead, nothing but the sound of the rain beating on them incessantly. Unforgiving. I'm glad you're here, he says. I'm glad you're with me. That we're together. I don't tell you that, do I? She stares str

I was the one at that party getting my butt slapped with a huge paddle by gay boys dressed in sailor uniforms. That was me, I was that chick. Yeah, so that's how we met. Stacie 's holding a roasted cob of corn dripping with butter in her hand and gesticulating with it wildly. Jake and Cary are drinking PBR tall boys out of paper bags, nodding and smiling, busting out in cackles of laughter peppered with, Boy! Nu'uh, totally brah- I seen you! Mmmmm! while flicking their fingers in a spastic dance over their heads, doubling over in high drama laughter. Peacocks in full display, fanning their tails, the group of them. Throngs of people mill about, ebbing and flowing, sometimes coming to a standstill then suddenly swimming upstream again, around the funnel cakes and ice cream, a different band every 20 metres. Samba, rock and roll, Ecuadorian pan flute, old school traditional jazz, psychedelic funk and bad Tony Bennet covers. Six blocks of carnival crazy peppered with the UN of

Harleys everywhere, it's like some sort of motorcycle convention or something. It's not, really. It's just that Cameron and Livia can't have a conversation while walking without being drowned out by the bone rattling rumble of Harley after Harley. Out of nowhere. It's not the warmest night of the summer by any means but it's like they all sat by their phones and simultaneously sent out the bat signal and then blam! Thunderous, abominable, deafening pipes bleating up and down the street. And why do they have to be so LOUD? Cameron knows "loud pipes save lives". He's seen the bumper sticker, he gets it. But there's loud and then there's jet engine, intestine shaking, ear drum annihilating   loud. How the heck do they keep their scrotums from shaking off into shrivelled little bags of dried beans? Livia snorts with laughter over this one. She figures they all have incredibly small packages at this point, either through the enforced ownership r

Chickpea chocolate chip cookies, black bean brownies. Beans in sweets. Gus is terrifically confused. His mom thinks he can't tell the difference but Gus has the most discerning palate any 6 year old could hope for. Plus he saw her throw the can of beans into the food processor. This week it's beans. He can tell because he's been farting like a demon. Mom gets angry with him then the corner of her mouth curls up and he can tell she's just pretend angry. Every time Gus feels like he has to let one go he makes a bigger deal about it, trying to get his mom to laugh. Most of the time he's a winner. Lately though it's growing tired. After 8 straight days of lentil burgers and loaves and burritos and chilis no wonder. Last month it was tofu. That lasted a week. Deep fried it was fine but any other way it was a spongey, tasteless mash. Well ok, the scrambled egg like thing was good but that's cause she dumped salsa all over it. He doesn't get it, this constant b

Should she or shouldn't she. This is the debate raging in Gemma's head. Unreasonably loud and quite combative for an inside voice. Like two angry lawyers duking it out in between her ears. She tries to focus, tune into her rational self, the side of her that can big picture it, think of the long term effects. The sleepless nights, logey mornings, the bloating and gassiness, maybe even cramping and nausea. What fun. It's just a piece of cake. A quadruple decker strawberry shortcake with a cheesecake bottom drizzled in a caramel crunch with pirouline crackers on the side. Ridiculous, she knows this. She wouldn't have to eat it all; she could have a bite. Or two or five or who the hell is she kidding. Gemma would inhale it in one sitting. Unbuckle her belt, untuck her t shirt, lean back in her chair and let it all hang out. At what point did she become Homer Simpson, she wonders. Yet she can't say no. At least not without playing this scene out over and over in her hea

Now that's what I'm talking about. A big ol ray of sunshine, beaming down from that smile a yours, a mile wide. Takes up almost half your face, it does. One heck of a great smile. Wow. You sure are pretty to look at. God I like your shape. I mean, I don't mean anything by it. Don't read into it or anything, it's just my way. It's how I am. You either like it or you don't. That's alright by me, you know? Cause really, you sure are something to look at. Holy smokes. What's a man to do when a miss like you- I mean a woman- walks into view? The shape of you. Damn. I just can't help myself. Now, I suppose this may be forward of me but I sure would like to get to know you, if you know what I mean. I think that you and I, that we would be very well met. That's quite a connection going on. Powerful stuff. I've always had a thing for tall girls. Mm hmm. Long lean drink of water. That's what you are. Now come on now, don't be like that. I d

Jeff!!!! Veronica calls out from across the street. She's going 20 kilometres an hour, easy. He's going 30, opposite direction. It could be Jeff. Sure looks like him. Full kit, shaggy hair, out of the saddle, clipped in and clocking her from two blocks away. Veronica considers herself a commuter cyclist. She rides a fancy ass road bike but she doesn't ride-ride. You know, like in a peleton or with a club; or for 5 hours on a Sunday morning or all of Tuesday afternoon while skipping out of the office to "work from home". Jeff's a Rider, a true Roadie. Quit triathalons to focus on the bike. Hence why she doesn't sees him anymore. It must have been Jeff. Who else would hone in on her from so far away? He recognizes her, knows her style. He should, she's the reason he rides. He built this bike, bought the frame for her 36th birthday and then helped her design it's entire configuration from Campy's vs Shimanos, fixie or flip flop. The spent hours ar

At what point was this a good idea? Andre is beyond yellow school buses. When they said they would provide a bus up to the cottages he assumed as most adults over 40 would that it would be a bus. Like a Greyhound. Not some broken down Ken Kesey tricked out I just wanna live out of hostels while backpacking through Europe getting as high and laid as possible type of deal. No air conditioning on the hottest week in history and shock absorbers older than god. Less forgiving as well. It's like riding a jackhammer. His sciatica is going to put him out for the whole weekend. So much for tubing and jet skis. He'll be the old man on the ground with his legs bent over a chair, doped up on Tylenol 3's and pot. For this he paid $300. An adult cottage getaway, the fifth wheel, the lone wolf among two couples and who knows who else is showing up. He'll be relegated to the grill or the kitchen, cooking for the group because that's what's expected of a chef. A busman's hol

Summer camp. This year is Eli's year, no question. Fifteen, sizeable growth spurt over the school year, enough peach fuzz to justify actually scraping it off of his face with an outrageously overpriced razor he begged his mom to buy for him. He splashed out for cologne with his own money from babysitting. Eli is beloved by the kids on the block. A straight teenage boy with serious gaming chops and a way with lego who is a natural with kids. They flock to him like sheep to a shepherd and obey, obey, obey. Eli's mom can't figure out if he is gifted or just likes telling younger kids what to do. Bossy bully or empath. However you cut it, it gives him purpose and financial means. Ashley will be a CTI this summer. They had stayed in touch online all winter but this will be the first time he has seen her since Labour Day. The last day of last summer. A canoe ride across White Pine lake, huddled under the redwood, waiting out the storm, fumbling with each other's bodies, riski

No one's moving at pace. It's so hot, unbelievably hot. India-hot. The metallic click clack of the aluminum crutches is slower than ever. Kevin's hands are sliding off the foam covered grips which are disintegrating in his hands. He should've splashed out and rented a pair from the Fracture Clinic instead of borrowing Greg's. At the best of times, Greg's indelicate. These crutches have been marauded by a 270 pound hockey player with recurring ACL issues. Live and learn. If he can just make it into the grocery store he can hover near the frozen food aisle, the one with the open freezers lined up like cavernous coffins, damning them all to hell with their environmental scourging of the planet. Screw that, Kevin is hot. His ankle is swollen up three times it's regular size. Cankles, Kelly calls them. She's having a field day with this. Mr. I'm-So-Sporty takes a header while trying to play frisbee golf half in the can, three sheets to the wind, completel

Oh my god. She's never going to get this hour back. Maybe she can deke out when they get back to her car, beg off, feign a headache or a brain tumour. An anuerysm, maybe? Probably a bit much. Aw man, why does this always happen to her? She says yes to a blind date of sorts with some guy she meets randomly cause she thinks, hey, how bad can it be? This bad. Terrifically bad. And the worst part is that she shuts down. She's too polite, too Canadian. She wasn't raised to be rude. Evidently, he was. And oblivious. He takes calls from clients in jail awaiting bail on speaker in front of her. Tries to pawn the phone off on her as some sort of clever joke. It's inhumane and deeply discomfitting to her. An awkward walker, he takes his aged dog out with her off leash, letting him wander, sniff, pee, lick everything in sight. He displays a certain arrogance that shuts her down completely, so she comes off as awkward, shy, scattered. She's trying to bite her tongue and keep th

It's no bigger than a fruitfly but something has lodged itself square in the centre of Mike's eye and he's immediately blinded, ripped apart by searing pain, fluid gushing out of his left tear duct. And there goes the ride. A fantastic start to a much needed and longed for spin and blammo, a knat takes him down. He is undone by a speck of an insect. Knocked him on his ass. Mike unclips, frantically blinking his eye, trying to find the position where he's least in pain. Eye open, lid shut, both feel like there are shards of glass scraping across his eyeball like rusted out windshield wipers on his old Civic. He unscrews the lid of his water bottle and pikes forward from the waist, tilting his head to the sky like that wizened old crippled deaf man who rides the evening bus . Glug, glug, glug. Mike pours the ice cold water across his eyes, trying to keep them open so whatever has burrowed it's way inside can be flushed out. This is crazy. Mike can't believe the pa

In a perfect world, there would be no testing. You would just be granted a pass on everything you do, with a high five and a Well Done, buddy! to send you on your way. Carl thinks this is the best solution. It would get him out of studying every afternoon for 4 hours while sweating bullets in a panic desperate to make sense of whatever the crazy hieroglyphics are. Like he's gonna use calculus after high school. Pffft. All he wants to do is swim and homework is seriously infringing on his time in the pool. Coach is riding him to get his head in the game. Doing drills, counting off the multi coloured arms on the time clock at the end of the deck. Red, yellow, blue, green. Go on the 15, go on the 30, rest on the red, go on the blue, what's 15 of the 30 divided by the high root of the base over the square of the slash gobbledy gook. Argh. He's supposed to be getting down to a :26 split on his 50 in the 200 free and he's losing time. Workouts in the gym are flagging and slee

Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Can you imagine that like every minute of evey day? Right? It would drive me crazy, I couldn't take it. It's 24/7, all the time with them. All. The. Time. It never ends, I'll be 65 and they'll still be needy, still be calling me, asking for money, needing help with something or other. I can't do it, I just have no desire. And your body, oh my god, do  not get me started about what having kids does to your poor body. Your insides fall out. They do. Everything in there gets all stretched and saggy and just wrecked. I've seen women who've had kids- two! It's not like I'm talking about 4 or 6 or a litter like that kate and Jon woman or the octomom- and they're just a mess. Not pretty. I'm too vain, way too vain to put myself through that, I'm sorry. I know, I'm 34, ok, I get it. Technically I still have time but that's the thing, right? I do not want to be some ancient old mom collapsed on the side of the play

It falls to the floor before she can grab it, tumbling through her fingers and bouncing across the tile before cracking and leaking onto the rug in front of the toilet. Too much glass in here: glass shelves, glass bottles, glass mirrors. Her heart stops as the scent rises up into her nose, wrapping itself around her lungs and lining the inside of her belly. Her lips swell and palms sweat, she starts to tear up and get weak in the knees. Alex. All over her, inside of her, on top of her, away from her. He insisted she have her own scent. He wanted to buy her perfume so they spent days trolling drugstores and department stores, spraying, sniffing, coughing, choking, laughing, hmm'ing and haa'ing trying to encapsulate their connection in some sort of alcohol infused watery potion. Late nights leaning into her neck, he'd lift her wrist to his face and breathe her in, all the way down to his toes. They'd compare little paper swatches, over breakfasts of coffee and half-pans o

Bumper to bumper, Shawn's inching along, moving at a snail's pace. It'd be quicker to walk at this rate. Some crazy motorcyclist flies by weaving in and out of traffic, along the emergency shoulder, across 4 lanes of traffic. He's the guy that's gonna hold us all up later as the emergency services peel him off the back of some trailer or scrape him off the asphalt, all blenderized up with his fibreglass crotch rocket and ballistic nylon body armour. Why did he take the car? Shawn's beyond frustrated, he's moved into aggressive affirmations: Please someone hit me in the face the next time I decide to drive through the city at rush hour on a whim to pick up tickets. Please please please, with a blunt  object, right to my temple. Hard. The cars inch forward, red lights fading then slamming back on, re illuminating the creeping dusk like angry fireflies. His favourite time of day, quickly being lost to gridlock. The magic hour. At least the humidity broke. Windo

It's called the playroom. Mike has no idea why, it's not like there's any playing going on down here nowadays. Mike's mom is burying herself in stuff. Since dad died she's flat out refused to deal with the reams of paper and magazines, decades of dad's old journals, mail order catalogues, piles of tools, stacks of books and three full sets of outdated encyclopedias. At some point, she went on a christmas decoration buying binge, so there are random rubbermaid bins spilling over with garland, plastic reindeer, wooden creches,  half cracked blown glass ornaments and fibreoptic glow in the dark mini wreaths. It's beyond Mike's scope. He knows she needs help, a professional organizer or something, he's seen some shows on tv. They bring in someone to help you get everything sorted and cleared out. Then inevitably, the poor person ends up buried alive in the same junk months later. It's all so depressing. Mike's first drumkit, which she and dad bou

Frozen cherries burn and thaw out in her mouth, dissolving into a fibrous, silky pulp, temporarily numbing the tip of her tongue. Blackberries aren't as enjoyable. Riddled with tight, hard seeds that weave their way in between her teeth, hiding in wait only to be painstakingly extricated hours later. Pomegranate seeds pop like mini explosions of tangy sweetness, tart and addictive. But the wild blueberries make the difference. Mellow, comforting, perfectly defined on her palate, blueberries are the bridge between the ambrosial cherries and astringent blackberries. A sea of indigo drips from her tongue, her fingers and thumbs ink-stained. Nails are tinged blue from digging through mounds of frozen fruit. Mouthful after mouthful sending spasms of pleasurable pain throughout her body. The intial shock of brain freeze blooms into complete satiety of her taste buds. So many sensations overlapping, so satisfying. She has no sense of delayed gratification, the bowl is almost completely em

Richard is frantically plugging everything in, praying for super charging abilities. He's scouring the house for candles and supplies, wishing he had gone grocery shopping instead of a long meander in the beltline this morning. He'd heard about the upcoming storm but like everyone, grossly underestimated exactly how torrential things would become. The highways are flooded, all the softball games tonight were cancelled because the diamonds are pools, which doesn't bode well for next week's tournament. What a disaster- walking behind three teenagers on the way to get some tissue- it was on sale for 69 cents this week- he overheard them say, why does the sky look apocalyptic? Then he saw it: the blackened heavy ceiling, ominous, threatening, terrifying. He half expected to see demons leaping from cloud to cloud, arms outstretched, like childhood nightmare versions of caspar's satanic twin. Now the radio says another storm cell is expected within the hour. So much to do

Harry can feel himself breaking. It's the difference between comfortable and barely getting by. To anyone else it's a nominal amount but to Harry, it's an entire month's living expenses. To watch his security slip through his fingers like grains of salt paralyzes him with despair. He's in stasis. Unable to move forward and unwilling to go back. Going back will kill him. Literally. Six months on parole, 12 months sober. Going back is not an option. Maria would leave for good, taking Troy and Draven with her. The old habits would creep back in and thread their way through him, opening up old veins, worn out pathways, reigniting a long dormant fire that would eat him alive. Immolate him and everything he's fought so hard for. Eight hundred dollars. Gone. For him to make that kind of cash in three days would require an immense amount of backbreaking work or dumb luck. Harry doesn't believe in luck. Or lotteries, or prayer, or affirmations. He believes in getting

The salted, butter drenched, artery clogging, heart attack inducing popcorn cost almost twice the amount of Greg's ticket but this is a special occasion, a once in a lifetime chance to see his favourite film digitally remastered on a top of the line screen in a plush rocking chair seat complete with a talkback, no less. This is akin to any other monumental life changing event like marriage or death. At least in Greg's world. Movies are the most important thing in Greg's life, next to sleep. Or bananas. Movies shape Greg's entire being. Not the most socially well adjusted of children, Greg escaped into the land of imagination though movies. Only child, broken home, mom remarried an asshole, dad dated and disappeared, blah blah blah. Greg found solace in matinees and vhs tapes. Seventies icons, '80's teen angst, old school classics. Fellini, Peckinpah, Coppola, you name it, Greg's seen it and can recite by rote. He started writing for his high school paper, c

We just don't understand each other, I guess. What do you want from me? Erik was detached, barely repressing his thinly veiled irritation with Lindsay. It's been going on for months. The same argument, back and forth, circling down the drain, an endless spiral of  miscommunication. So decayed it's coming apart in pieces. Wow. Just wow. Lindsay has no other words. A year of hoping against hope he'd come around Lindsay is realizing that it's over. Erik is in it for Erik and Erik alone. And the booze. Lindsay's fallen apart physically, her body shut down months ago and she's muscling through day to day trying to stave off her own implosion. The wilful self destruction of their lives. So this is the way it ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. The end of the what ifs, the could be's, the happily ever after, like peeling back layers of newly formed skin on the scab that just won't heal. They're too far gone to find the horizon and get back to an ev

Twelve bucks for a salad, can you believe it? Torn pieces of day old iceberg- iceberg isn't even lettuce, it's water based cellulose with no nutritional value. Limp, soggy and tasteless, topped with diced squashed tomatoes that have been refrigerated for weeks, pulpy, pink, tasteless. Sam's options were dire. Hospital food courts. Pre made sushi, subway sandwiches, burgers, fast food chinese. No wonder people get sick. Three hours to kill, nowhere to go since someone just stole his phone and the work he was planning to finish is now a moot point. Christ, what a day. Things are fabulous, things are ridiculous. It's like weather in Ireland, wait five minutes and it changes. Sam has no issue with hospitals, having grown up in them. Both parents were surgeons in teaching hospitals so many hours of his childhood were spent in lounges, waiting areas, exam rooms with books and toys and medical equipment at his disposal. Being on the other side of things is quite a shift. He ne

From a distance her legs look like two savoury plump sausages in technicolour flip flops with thinner links for arms. Long blonde hair cascading from under a baseball cap with a ridiculously oversized brim, neon orange-armed Wayfarer knock offs and an off the shoulder, deliberately distressed tank top with a faded picture of The Velvet Underground and Nico's Andy Warhol album cover, likely bought brand new last week in the market at one of the dozens of vintage shops lining the streets. Sharon catches her breath- it is like walking directly into the  mirror version of her 15 year-old self circa 1987. She wonders if maybe those are her actual cut off high waisted 501's, one of the four pairs she finally Goodwilled last season after coming to terms with the fact that the '80's never worked on her hourglass shaped rubenesque body. She is a 40's girl, bred in her bones, and so is this pretty young thing walking straight at her, oblivious to everything except her smartph

Brendan has got to remember his sunscreen. His face is an entirely different colour than his chest. Unnervingly so. The back of his neck is a screaming red mess of angry freckles that emanate heat like  a burning coil, almost too hot to touch. This is going to hurt in the morning. Five pints too many, he has vague memories of a woman named Natalie or Alexa, maybe Analee. Someone with too many vowels in their name. Karaoke in a private room, throngs of Japanese ESL students and Sweet Home Alabama on repeat at 11 on the dial after a beachside pub crawl celebrating July. Or summer or something or nothing in particualr. Brendan can not for the life of him remember anything in specifics. Except he is suddenly aware that he has indeed lost his phone. It's sometime pre dawn but not quite 5 am and Brendan can't move his neck for the pain in his skin. He flails around like a blind mole, flapping his arms in a 360 degree circle desperately feeling for anything familiar that will send som

All her heroes were boys. Men. By default, not choice. She grew up watching boys play sports, tried to hone in and keep up with the bullies. Eventually she found her place. She threw a ball better than most of them. Isla was coordinated, creative, and awkwardly tall for her age. By 11 years old she was 5'9" with a size 10 shoe. She hated basketball, though. Volleyball made more sense but her heart lay in baseball. Hardball not softball. At first they refused: no girls allowed. It's too dangerous. You can't get around on the ball fast enough. You're too slow, not strong enough. You're going to get hurt. They would let her practice in pick up games, bury her in right field on a day when the occasional ball might come her way. But when Devin tore his hamstring and they needed her on second, Isla rose to the occasion, beyond even her own expectations. Everything suddenly made sense. Kismet, maybe. Her spatial understanding of where to field, how to work the bag, jo