Waving Not Drowning

No one likes a puker, Doris. I've told you that a thousand times. You either learn to keep it down or stop it from starting in the first place. I am tired of cleaning up after you. Enough already. You're not a kitten anymore. And it's not like you spend your days grass grazing on the back forty like Bob's cats down the way. Slow down. SLOW DOWN, I say. But no.  Food goes in the bowl and BOOM, like a black hole or tornado. The Tasmanian Devil, a whirling dervish snarfing it up like there will never be another score. I should have empathy. I should. I DO, I really do. It's just you're so good for a week or four and then blammo, like a cartoon character, projectile vomit streams across the floor. A torrent of fetid, viscous mush, resting in a pool of yellow bile.  I'm on the fourth rug now, you hear me? FOURTH. I'm not made of money, you know. Most of that goes to your fancy ass  vet-only dry food and low fat "mature cat" tinned food. You delica

It's too long. This endless time which she finds herself focused on. Day in and day out. The monotony, the sameness. Is it Tuesday? Or Monday. No, Tuesday. Again. Still. What she hasn't done is laundry. The discovery of an endless supply of underwear- most she never wears because who wears boy cut lace half-thongs in magenta that were purchased on sale in a three pack bundle? But go long enough without laundry and there they are, crumpled in a ball at the bottom of the drawer behind yet another boy cut brief with Everlast on the elastic, so old she can't remember their origin story. In the grand scheme of things, this is but a blip in the ocean of her life. Five decades, and this is a couple of months, maybe a year or more when all is said and done. But the not knowing. The constant hum of high alert while suspended in ignorance of how we move forward is absolutely exhausting. Tinnitus of the mind. She can write. Bake. Clean. Walk. Read. Watch. Laugh. Scream. Cry. B

Go. Get on that plane, that train, that bus. Walk if you have to. Swim, we've got great lakes and oceans and rivers. So many bodies of water and tracts of land to get across. Find a way, they said, just get here, soon. And so Tally packed a bag with just the essentials: a blueberry corn muffin with a shmear of cream cheese, her well worn pocket stone she rubs in her left hand, a packet of mints from the drive in theatre, and two pineapple juice boxes. A clean pair of socks, some dental floss, mom's old cigarette lighter she stole off her bureau, and twenty three dollars and eighty five cents in change. That was the heaviest part of her backpack. She wondered if she was forgetting something but her mind raced with all the things at once. Will her shoes be comfortable on the long journey? Did she feed the cockatiel before she left the house? How can she get across the ocean if the boats aren't docking in the harbour anymore? What if she runs out of money? Will Joseph be

If he can make it off the couch to the kitchen, then he'll be up and at 'em. Movement is motion and motion is energy and like a battery, he'll recharge. Feel better. Or different. Good enough. Long nights of hourly wake ups, followed by the struggle to quiet his mind. Loop, loop, looping through endless thoughts of what if and who will and I should and maybe they'll but just go to sleep. Sleep. No tech in his room, just sleep and sex. Although physical touch has been lacking. Wanting. Week seven, but who's counting.  And that's just sheltering in place. Before that, well...seasons. The sky is bright. City living with no light pollution is like life at the cottage on Lac St Joseph. There are meteors tonight, a shower or falling or maybe it's his brain playing tricks on his eyes. Looking for things  he can't possibly see. Four missed calls. Thirteen notifications. No one he's pining for so it's a wash. Is it too late to get up... too early

Hi, sorry I missed your call. I was busy sitting idly staring into the vortex of my social media feeds while trying to balance the voices in my head that alternate between Josh Charles in Dead Poet's Society: "Gotta do more, Gotta be more!" *noodly noodly sax break* and the crippling sound of my own self worth and identity as a functional, productive member of society leveled at the knees by a world wide pandemic, stuck inside a small box in the sky, debating over frozen quick bread or cookies or 5 layer lasagna for breakfast. A sound I've yet to articulate outside of a primal yawp. More of a constant hum and giddy-up stutter step in my chest, traveling at light speed whenever I dare venture out of doors. Where's your mask, where's your mask, WHERE IS YOUR MASK. Something like that, if truth be told. So yes, I was home, just didn't feel like taking your call. A call made out of the blue from a stranger acquaintance I've not heard from for decades

A carton of milk, loaf of bread, stick of butter. That's it, right? She thought for sure it was carton but Jamie thinks it's quart. Huh, maybe there's a regional difference. Not that it matters. It's been floating through her head every time she remembers another item to add to the grocery list. The constantly changing, ever growing, all encompassing list that at some point will be fulfilled. Maybe today, if she feels courageous enough to go outside. Get all kitted up. It's like snow days when she was 5: layer after layer, scarf, hat, goggles, gloves. Just in case. Then inevitably she'd have to pee. Mom would get so angry. She'd hold it in sometimes only to suffer through the consequences in the minus stupid Quebec winter. Freezing and damp and crusty. To look at her hands you'd swear it was mid January in Saskatoon. Chapped and cracked from relentless washing and wiping. No point in moisturizing as no sooner does she repair the damage then she touches h