7:22, my watch read. I walked a little faster. The bus was leaving in eight minutes, and I still had to get my ticket.
Just a few more steps to the bus depot. I'd been walking for half an hour, and drops of sweat were pooling in the neck of my $270 cropped leather Guess jacket. It was too warm for it that night, but there was no time to pause and take it off. I had two midterms coming up the next day, and the 7:30 was the last bus to Winnipeg.
7:26, and finally I was at the ticket counter. "A one-way student ticket to Winnipeg, please." If I was lucky, I would make the bus. I crossed my fingers in my left pocket while I passed the ticket dude my debit card with my right.
For a second, I debated with myself over whether sprinting for the bus would be worth the sweat stains in my lacy tank top. Two midterms tomorrow, and I'd be heading straight back to rez where I could change before anyone saw me. I made a run for it.
The last people in line were just getting on the bus. I made it! I arrived panting as the driver was about to close the doors. He gave me a knowing smile, but let me on.
The bus was nearly full. It looked like I wouldn't be able to get a whole seat to myself. I glanced up and down the rows for the person who looked least likely to bother me during the ride. Old lady, ugly guy, sleeping woman. I sat next to the sleeping woman.
December 3, 2009
October 25, 2009
"doc, - "
hey doc,
i really need your help.
i can’t stand my life anymore.
you think i should try meds?
prozac? really? if you say so,
i guess i'll give it a try
even though you brush off my questions
and don’t look me in the eye.
i'll see you in six weeks.
well, doc, i'm back.
how are you? how’re the kids?
yes, i know you’re busy;
yes, i'll get on with it.
my symptoms are a bit better;
the side effects are fine.
i’m constantly tired, but
no thoughts of suicide.
but, doc...
now there's more prozac than blood
running through my veins.
yes, they help, but these drugs
have taken over my brain.
who i am isn't me;
it's a stranger with my voice.
i'm doing better, sure,
but it’s because i have no choice.
you and me both know, doc,
this wasn't what i meant.
isn't there something besides this?
can't you help me just be myself?
i really need your help.
i can’t stand my life anymore.
you think i should try meds?
prozac? really? if you say so,
i guess i'll give it a try
even though you brush off my questions
and don’t look me in the eye.
i'll see you in six weeks.
well, doc, i'm back.
how are you? how’re the kids?
yes, i know you’re busy;
yes, i'll get on with it.
my symptoms are a bit better;
the side effects are fine.
i’m constantly tired, but
no thoughts of suicide.
but, doc...
now there's more prozac than blood
running through my veins.
yes, they help, but these drugs
have taken over my brain.
who i am isn't me;
it's a stranger with my voice.
i'm doing better, sure,
but it’s because i have no choice.
you and me both know, doc,
this wasn't what i meant.
isn't there something besides this?
can't you help me just be myself?
October 21, 2009
a moment
the tenth floor of the library is quiet;
i am the only person in sight.
the elevator i have been waiting for arrives,
empty.
i step in, the doors close,
and i watch the floor number
go down to nine.
the doors open
and a man comes in.
he presses the button,
coughs,
looks at his watch.
on the seventh floor,
the doors open
and there is a long pause.
we wait; we breathe.
i stand perfectly still, silent,
clutching my stack of books,
and the man beside me is silent, still,
holding his paper cup of coffee.
no one is there.
we are frozen,
exposed,
a tableau vivant of two strangers
in an elevator.
the doors close again and the elevator goes on,
but there, for a moment,
we were a ten-second drama
viewed by none.
the moment passes.
we reach the main floor.
i rush out
and he rushes out
and other people rush in...
and we are no longer
a work of art.
i am the only person in sight.
the elevator i have been waiting for arrives,
empty.
i step in, the doors close,
and i watch the floor number
go down to nine.
the doors open
and a man comes in.
he presses the button,
coughs,
looks at his watch.
on the seventh floor,
the doors open
and there is a long pause.
we wait; we breathe.
i stand perfectly still, silent,
clutching my stack of books,
and the man beside me is silent, still,
holding his paper cup of coffee.
no one is there.
we are frozen,
exposed,
a tableau vivant of two strangers
in an elevator.
the doors close again and the elevator goes on,
but there, for a moment,
we were a ten-second drama
viewed by none.
the moment passes.
we reach the main floor.
i rush out
and he rushes out
and other people rush in...
and we are no longer
a work of art.
September 9, 2009
There and Back
Toronto to Montreal. Montreal to Toronto. He refuses to make the trip himself – your city is boring, he says - but he’ll let you come visit as often as you want. Right now, all you can manage is a weekend every month or two. Six hours there on Friday, after a long day at work. Six hours back on Sunday, with hardly any time to rest before you have to be up again. All the girls at your office think it’s just so romantic.
On the bus, you never see the same person twice. Each week it’s a new assortment of unfamiliar, unfriendly faces. Sometimes you try to chat with the person sitting next to you. English or French, they never seen to want to talk; you wonder if they can sense your desperation. You bring a book that you don’t read. At the halfway stop in Kingston, you buy a crappy sandwich and eat it on the bus. You’ve noticed there’s a Tim Hortons in the same plaza, but for some reason you’re a little scared to do something different.
Every week, you arrive at Berri-UQAM station. Of course, he doesn’t come to meet you. You take a taxi to his place. Looking out of the window, the city’s beauty makes you feel inadequate. The women on the street are fashionable; you wonder if you’re wearing the wrong thing. When you get there, he doesn’t hug or kiss you, but he fucks you. Twice. He comes; you don’t. He’s always gone before you wake up in the morning.
While he’s out working at his tiny, trendy art gallery that the Mirror once called a “gem,” you sit around. You sip coffee. You smoke cigarettes – something you never do at home. The phone rings; people are looking for him. You wonder which of the callers he is fucking when you’re away. And which ones while you’re there.
When he gets home hours later, he is either ecstatic that he made a big sale or despondent because he couldn’t get an artist that he wanted. Either way, he takes you out to a nightclub or a CD release party. He gets you drunk off dark rum and liquid cocaine, and you remember why you fell in love with him in the first place.
Sunday mornings, if he isn’t busy, you both sleep in. You read the paper together and he mocks your lack of knowledge of Québécois affairs, calling you an ignorant anglophone. You eat. He touches your breasts, but not your face; he fucks you again. You vow to yourself that you won’t come back, even though you know that you will.
This can’t go on forever, you are aware. The longer you drag this out, the more it will hurt when it ends. And yet something keeps pulling you back to Bay and Dundas, back onto the grimy intercity bus, back into his bed.
On the bus, you never see the same person twice. Each week it’s a new assortment of unfamiliar, unfriendly faces. Sometimes you try to chat with the person sitting next to you. English or French, they never seen to want to talk; you wonder if they can sense your desperation. You bring a book that you don’t read. At the halfway stop in Kingston, you buy a crappy sandwich and eat it on the bus. You’ve noticed there’s a Tim Hortons in the same plaza, but for some reason you’re a little scared to do something different.
Every week, you arrive at Berri-UQAM station. Of course, he doesn’t come to meet you. You take a taxi to his place. Looking out of the window, the city’s beauty makes you feel inadequate. The women on the street are fashionable; you wonder if you’re wearing the wrong thing. When you get there, he doesn’t hug or kiss you, but he fucks you. Twice. He comes; you don’t. He’s always gone before you wake up in the morning.
While he’s out working at his tiny, trendy art gallery that the Mirror once called a “gem,” you sit around. You sip coffee. You smoke cigarettes – something you never do at home. The phone rings; people are looking for him. You wonder which of the callers he is fucking when you’re away. And which ones while you’re there.
When he gets home hours later, he is either ecstatic that he made a big sale or despondent because he couldn’t get an artist that he wanted. Either way, he takes you out to a nightclub or a CD release party. He gets you drunk off dark rum and liquid cocaine, and you remember why you fell in love with him in the first place.
Sunday mornings, if he isn’t busy, you both sleep in. You read the paper together and he mocks your lack of knowledge of Québécois affairs, calling you an ignorant anglophone. You eat. He touches your breasts, but not your face; he fucks you again. You vow to yourself that you won’t come back, even though you know that you will.
This can’t go on forever, you are aware. The longer you drag this out, the more it will hurt when it ends. And yet something keeps pulling you back to Bay and Dundas, back onto the grimy intercity bus, back into his bed.
September 3, 2009
Fairy Godsister
When I was in the seventh grade, a dance was held at my school. There were one or two every year, but this was the first one I was old enough to attend. My best friend Amanda and I had been waiting years for this moment.
We were so excited! We went to the mall together and picked out fancy clothes: long, flowing skirts; sheer shirts over lacy camisoles; high-heeled, sequined sandals. We pored over stacks of teen magazines for advice on how to put up our hair and get boys to ask us to dance.
The big night finally came. Amanda’s mom gave us a ride, dropping us off at the front door of the school. Our hearts pounding, we walked into the gym-turned-dance floor. We looked around. And then we stopped flat and looked at each other.
We were wearing the wrong things.
The boys were in baseball caps and their most expensive sneakers, their baggiest jeans, and their brand-name T-shirts. The girls were in tight pants and tops that were probably intended to be bras. Their hair was loose and their eyes were rimmed with dark make-up. I knew we had made a huge mistake.
I grabbed Amanda’s hand and pulled her into the bathroom before anyone could see us. Before she could say anything, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I wiped them away in embarrassment. This was a time in my life when I cried often and with much less provocation, but until then I had been able to hide it from other people.
The door opened, and I thought I would die. Bad enough my best friend should see me like this, but now someone else would, too. The girl who came in was someone I didn’t know. I’d seen her around, but never spoken to her. She was an eighth-grader.
“What’s wrong? – I see,” she said, answering her own question as she looked us up and down. “It’s all right.”
She took some tissue and wiped away my tears. Then she poured the contents of my little sequined handbag out onto the sink counter. She used my nail scissors to cut off the bottom half of my long dress, turning it into a miniskirt. She pulled every bobby pin out of my hair so that it spilled around my shoulders and used the pins to hold the skirt together, making it ripple fashionably. She pulled off my sheer cardigan and crammed it into the handbag, and rolled up the hem of my camisole to expose a hint of midriff. And she took my eyeliner and painted my eyes to look smouldering and mysterious instead of innocent and distressed. Then, she did the same for Amanda.
We looked in the mirror. Without sounding vain, we looked better than any other girls who were there that night. We looked classy, sophisticated – the way I always wanted to look.
The girl replaced our things in our purses. “You see,” she said, “you already have all you need to be who you want to be. You just have to use it.”
We were so excited! We went to the mall together and picked out fancy clothes: long, flowing skirts; sheer shirts over lacy camisoles; high-heeled, sequined sandals. We pored over stacks of teen magazines for advice on how to put up our hair and get boys to ask us to dance.
The big night finally came. Amanda’s mom gave us a ride, dropping us off at the front door of the school. Our hearts pounding, we walked into the gym-turned-dance floor. We looked around. And then we stopped flat and looked at each other.
We were wearing the wrong things.
The boys were in baseball caps and their most expensive sneakers, their baggiest jeans, and their brand-name T-shirts. The girls were in tight pants and tops that were probably intended to be bras. Their hair was loose and their eyes were rimmed with dark make-up. I knew we had made a huge mistake.
I grabbed Amanda’s hand and pulled her into the bathroom before anyone could see us. Before she could say anything, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I wiped them away in embarrassment. This was a time in my life when I cried often and with much less provocation, but until then I had been able to hide it from other people.
The door opened, and I thought I would die. Bad enough my best friend should see me like this, but now someone else would, too. The girl who came in was someone I didn’t know. I’d seen her around, but never spoken to her. She was an eighth-grader.
“What’s wrong? – I see,” she said, answering her own question as she looked us up and down. “It’s all right.”
She took some tissue and wiped away my tears. Then she poured the contents of my little sequined handbag out onto the sink counter. She used my nail scissors to cut off the bottom half of my long dress, turning it into a miniskirt. She pulled every bobby pin out of my hair so that it spilled around my shoulders and used the pins to hold the skirt together, making it ripple fashionably. She pulled off my sheer cardigan and crammed it into the handbag, and rolled up the hem of my camisole to expose a hint of midriff. And she took my eyeliner and painted my eyes to look smouldering and mysterious instead of innocent and distressed. Then, she did the same for Amanda.
We looked in the mirror. Without sounding vain, we looked better than any other girls who were there that night. We looked classy, sophisticated – the way I always wanted to look.
The girl replaced our things in our purses. “You see,” she said, “you already have all you need to be who you want to be. You just have to use it.”
August 30, 2009
The Law
After years of pressure from sexually frustrated lobbyists, they finally made it illegal for two lovers to be apart. It was fine, of course, for one to go to the corner store or around the block alone. It wouldn't have been too practical otherwise. After a suitable amount of time on love leave, they could even go back to their separate jobs. But a weekend out of town required a signed affidavit from the other partner, and a longer period apart was simply not allowed. The main cause of discontent in the nation had been removed. Everyone, it seemed, was happy.
Of course, there were problems with the law. What could be done about couples who had promising careers in different parts of the country? And how many people would be left in the armed forces, were only singles permitted to join? There were also more instances than you would think of one person being in love with more than one other.
The biggest problem, though, was also the simplest. When asked to interpret the law, the country's highest courts could not decide what should be done when one person was in love, and the other was not.
Of course, there were problems with the law. What could be done about couples who had promising careers in different parts of the country? And how many people would be left in the armed forces, were only singles permitted to join? There were also more instances than you would think of one person being in love with more than one other.
The biggest problem, though, was also the simplest. When asked to interpret the law, the country's highest courts could not decide what should be done when one person was in love, and the other was not.
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