Waving Not Drowning

Charlie always says no. Confidently but not with so much force as to raise any flags. Direct, make eye contact, no embellishing, then move on. Sometimes the interviewer will elaborate, a subtle attempt to casually redirect, asking the same question with other language to provoke a different response. Charlie's been at this for a while, she knows the drill, sees it coming miles before the neural synapses have even fired in the doctor or nurse or social worker or psychiatrist sitting in front of her. On a third attempt to question her once, the triage nurse started speaking uncomfortably loud and very slowly, as if Charlie was either deaf, mentally challenged, a foreign student or all three. Maybe it was the hapi coat and chopsticks in her crazy dreadlocked hair, who knows. Her asian phase has long passed. Regardless, the blue eyes, fierce red hair and freckles should've been a dead giveaway. The problem with a technologically advanced medical system in the largest city in the co...

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magazines, decades of dad's old journals, mail order catalogues, piles of tools, stacks of books and three full sets of outdated encyclopedias.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...

Dawn's cat died. Three months ago. She's been keeping him in her studio apartment in the old 1960's single door fridge with a spring loaded fold down pocket freezer compartment that's normally one solid block of ice. When Gus finally passed away at 17 years of age, riddled with tumours, blind from cataracts, incontinant and incessantly vocal, Dawn was inconsolable. She tells people it was a psychotic break, a total mental, emotional breakdown. She stopped showing up for work, begged off commitments to her animal rights weekly potlucks and even missed the chanting pizza monthly get togethers with the Krishnas. That was the worst as she cherished the communal atmosphere and free vegan gluten free pizza and raw desserts. Plus, no one looked at her sideways there. Her two toned grey and red hair, braided as it was 40 years ago when she was a school girl,  her uniform of athletic sandals, an armful of bracelets, short shorts worn year round, with tights in the winter, and a ...