Waving Not Drowning

It takes too long to steam the milk, so she pours it into the coffee straight from the fridge. Makes for a tepid cup, but she finishes it in a few long pulls. Good enough. The fridge is brand new, as is the stove. So is the bathroom sink and toilet. The last tenant died here so they did a complete overhaul on the apartment, including new floors and paint job. Sometimes it's easier to tear it all down and start over. She wasn't expecting this. Sometimes life throws you a curveball; you're thinking fastball and up you go. Counts 3 and 2, runner on 2nd, one out, bottom of the 6th. Ten more outs to go. You've got this. Head down. Keep on swinging. He would have been 19 this May. Christopher Harrison Jude. So many birth names. Never a battle she wanted to wage so everyone got their pick. He crowned and then stopped when she was giving birth as if to say, wait- I don't know- I just- I don't belong here. His first attempt was grade 9. Teams we...

Three glasses in a week. One on the floor, smashed to bits on the cracked grey tiles. Chunks of grout rolling like pebbles, lodging between her toes. The second in the sink, a slip of her hand and down it goes, shards sinking in a sea of sudsy water. The third glass, her favourite tumbler, the one with the faded Police Technology logo, all the way from from her alma mater three provinces over, 20 years ago. Caught the edge of the counter and just like that... It mysteriously appeared one day in the cupboard above the fridge, hidden behind a set of twelve black and pink flower china coffee mugs. Garish eighties decor unearthed. A heavy beer stein, good for half a pint of cheap draft- Laurentide or Labbatt 50, maybe Maudite if they were feeling flush. Probably picked up at a Goodwill or Value Village by one of the myriad exchange students who frequented the house before she set down roots 4 years ago. Digging up bones. She sits at the kitchen table, crumbs from this morning'...

Thirty two years old and he's burying his dad. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Charlie's three months today and he will never know his grandfather, the one man Evan looked to for guidance. On everything. From how to tie his shoes, what clothes to wear, how to change the oil, rotate tires, shoot a puck, assemble a bouquet, memorize a sonnet, and to note the difference between single malt and a blend. Some say there's a balance; with every birth, a death, but Evan feels ripped off. He finally feels like he's growing up, becoming his own man and suddenly he's orphaned. A father himself. He never envisioned life with a woman, a house, a dog and a kid. Well, ok, there's no house or dog (yet) but he's got a good rental, a reliable beater, and the most incredible woman in Jenna. Talk about punching above his weight. How he landed her he'll never figure out. She met Dad and he fell in love with her before Evan did. They spent ten minutes discussing the l...

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 ...

The way he brushed her hair from her forehead, the lingering kiss of a finger drifting slowly down her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone and resting every so fleetingly on the rise of her left breast. Her heart raced to catch up, frantic to burst through her ribs, to be held in the palm of his hand, lifted to his lips and devoured whole. Three weeks, 4 days, 13 hours and 36, 37, 38 minutes since he dropped her off the edge of the earth with two small words. Three syllables, devastating in their simplicity, piercing like a hollow core bullet ripping through tissue and bone, exploding every cell of matter in it's wake. Cannibalizing her sense of self, the knowledge of who she was in relation to him. Of another. To be left, discarded. Unwanted, unwarranted in one's desire, wanting. Bereft. Forlorn. Early morning foggy sunrise drenched in misty rain and dewy greens surrounding the abandoned pergola overlooking the mountains cresting beyond the stretch of train tracks rising ...