Waving Not Drowning

Man, I don't know, he answers every question with a question, makes me crazy. Cryptic little bugger. What do I do? I mean, he's her kid, not mine. I'm not a parent, not even close. No clue where to begin. Half the time he makes wanna turn tail and run the other half  I'm stunned speechless. I swear, one minute he's a genius, makes me feel like I'm lost in space, totally wise beyond his years. Filled with these zen koans, for crying out loud. Spilling out of him like a beat poet on mushrooms, so easy. And funny. Holy wow. Cracks me up. Then the next minute he's screaming blue murder or crying or whining or gets weirdly quiet and it just, you know, it unnerves me, man. I don't know what to do. I mean, he's a kid, right? I'm the boss. Or at least I should be but he gets me tied up in knots and wrapped around his little finger. I am done for. It melts my heart and fries my brain and when he doesn't come round for more than 4 days I'm sick wit...

Thirteen bottles and six cans at five cents each gives Val ninety five cents. One more and she's got a buck, enough for an apple and three caramels from the penny candy jar. Why it's still called penny candy baffles Val. She even argued the point with Mrs. Han one day saying it was false advertising. Paying ten cents for a piece of candy labeled a penny is highway robbery. Not to mention a cruel tease. But Val shut up when Mrs. Han threatened to ban her from her store. Since its the only depanneur that still sells candy by the piece and carries bananas and green apples, Val backed off. She should check the back garbage can on the football field at recess, see if some of the high school kids or maintenance guys threw away their bottles. They're always drinking those expensive rainbow coloured sport drinks, chugging them back like water. Their stupidity, paying four dollars for something you can get for free from the tap. Grab an apple and a few caramels and voila, energy and...

It's been 3 months and she's slowly getting better. Rae comes in every day, checks in with the ICU nurses and spends about an hour, maybe 2 if she's got the strength of will. She rolls the reclining sleep chair over and sits next to her mom's bed, surrounded by a ventilator, all kinds of monitors and machines, flashing, beeping, keeping score. Today's a good day. Her levels are high, whatever that means. This seems to be progress. The nurses are exceptional. Patient, kind, and above all, frank. No bull, no patronizing, just the facts with a wry sense of humour and a seemingly endless supply of answers. Whether they're the ones Rae wants to hear or not is a moot point; at least they're communicative. The doctors on the other hand are elusive, cryptic. Disinterested and halfway out the door. It makes Rae crazy. She doesn't speak their language so she stumbles and sputters. On a bad day Rae weeps openly, embarrassed by her complete inability to articulate w...

Another trip round the sun. Three hundred sixty five days, couple of blue moons, handful of seasons, myriad of cells sloughed off, regenerated and she's still here. One year older, arguably wiser, certainly more experienced with this thing called Life and all that entails. Every moment of every day carries within it the pure potential to swing wildly in or out of her favour so she's been practicing choice, adaptation, engagement, disentanglement, acceptance, forgiveness, righteous indignation, compassion, kindness and outright fear and anger wrapped in a bottomless pit of Now What? One more year, one more ring around the trunk. Roots grow deeper, sails bellow out a bit deeper and black and white becomes a tenuous shade of grey more often than not. The what ifs, the shoulda woulda coulda's mean something different now. That surprises her. Expect the unexpected. Better yet, lose all expectation. Investments are larger, losses are greater and the highs failed to manifest in an...

It's his father's face staring back at him from the fogged up mirror over the bathroom sink. Same high forehead, receding hairline, same soft chin, long ears. Hence the permanent three day growth. The bald spot on the back of the top of his skull is out of sight but every now and then he catches it peripherally in a window or in a candid shot or video. He's aging. Halfway through or thereabouts. This is who he's become, a mirror image of his younger father with an inkling of his mother around the edges. But it's his pop's demeanour- cool, calm, laid back- that he's spent a life time cultivating. A me-so-happy, why worry aloofness. Detachment to handle the anxiety. The insomnia. The busy, unquiet mind that keeps him humming and buzzing at all hours. The years of self abuse, of negative self talk, willful destructive habits and behaviours. Relationships are no fun so he just dabbles, always sits in reactive, playing willingly but disengaging at any sign of exp...

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...

From the end of the subway line she takes the bus 23 stops. The transit app tells her so. Figuring in traffic and time of day she should arrive at the hospital no later than 9 pm which may infringe upon visiting hours however Lori Ann hopes that they'll make an exception seeing as she's not visiting, technically. It's recon, undercover stealth research. She has her notebook, digital voice recorder and built in camera on her phone. The trick will be to fly under the radar and be as inconspicuous as possible, hence the sneakers and baseball cap. Just another random kid kicking around the emergency room waiting for triage or maybe on a friend or family member. Judging from the map she studied online she should be able to shuffle from one area to another rather innocuously in case security or an orderly starts getting too nosy.When Lori Ann takes on a project she goes all Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew on it. Too many latchkey kid afternoons in elementary school, hours poring over detec...

I wanna rock with you, alllll niiiiiiight....dance you into the day- sunliiiiight. Wanna rock with you, allllll niiiight, dance the night awaaaaaaaaaay. Hank's eyes are closed, his head dwarfed by massive earmuff style headphones, cocooned inside the mellifluous sweet strains of early Michael Jackson. He does an awkward sort of jive, shrugging his shoulders towards his ears, up and down in time to the music. His face is split ear to ear with a lopsided, full toothed grin, brow furrowed as he reaches for the high notes. Occasionally he punches the air with an extended index finger as if he were dotting the i's in night and sunlight. Hank listens to this record over and over. He has it on his ipod too, but there's nothing like the warmth generated by vinyl. He's an analogue man. The record sleeve is ragged and dog   eared, torn near the center no matter how careful he is with it. The album cover is smudged with fingerprints- Hank gave up trying to keep his lp's in pri...

"I'm drowning here, Dad, I'm going under and I can't get back to shore. I can't, I can't make it, Dad, I can't do this without you, you gotta help me, you gotta throw me a line here." Zach is pleading, eyes watery, lip quivering, hands shaking. Jake is helpless when his eldest son gets like this: frantic, desperate, anxiety ridden and manic. It's four am and Jake is struggling to stay awake, let alone stand up. "Come on, Zach, calm down. Why don't you crash in your old room and we'll talk about it in the  morning. Your mom and brothers are asleep- Arnold wakes up for practice in two hours Zach, you gotta lemme get some rest or I'll be useless to everyone."  Zach paces, like a caged animal, shaking his hands like he's trying to rid himself of imaginary water. Two months he lasted this time. A good facility, showed signs of progress even; the phone calls were more managed, the family visits controlled, civilized. Jake liked ...

Christ it's late. Damn- ow, fuck, damn, piss, shit.....who left the accordian by the door? Drew had had it with his housemates. Thirty four and living with a rotating menagerie of itinerant artists and gypsies: couchsurfing, subletting, disappearing in the middle of the night with three months back rent owing while abandoning their ailing geriatric cat type of housemates. Sigh. Why did he have to be the repsonsible one? Did you pick up toilet paper, Drew? Did you cash my cheque Drew? Can you not, cause yeah, sorry, it'll bounce. Yeah, ya see, it's about this girl and I lent her my rent money and well, ok, look, I'll get it to you but Thursday, ok? Thanks Drew, you're awesome, Drew. You rock! Six years in and he's the only original left in the house. He can list off the relationships that were born and died, sometimes an awfully painful death under that roof- Natalie, Melissa, Julie, Shane, the girl with the boy's name which his mom thought was just ridiculou...