Waving Not Drowning

Kate's the kinda girl that wants to be resolved. She makes plans, writes resolutions, uses all caps all the time and emoticons inappropriately. Anything to create shape and direction in her life. She does this at the beginning of every new year like clockwork. It never pans out. The best laid plans, blah blah blabbity blah. This year she's starting early. She's got a whole week. More than enough time to manifest a life changing program which will culminate in a grand celebration on New Year's Eve. She'll gather up some gal pals, build a beach side bonfire; they'll drown themselves in stories of what once was, lay out dreams of what will be. Consume copious amounts of the home made Baileys she has no business drinking, all the while committing themselves to brand-spanking new vows to Make Things Happen. Time to shake out the old, ring in the new, wipe the slate clean. Tabula rasa. Just like last year. And the year before that. And so on and so forth and

The end of days. The calm before the storm. Hard to forsee what could be coming; In the interim she's storing up, making do, preparing for the worst, hoping for the best Battening down the hatches. A long, hard push of concerted focus, strong and steady, no rest, no respite until the storm hits. Then all bets are off. No matter how prepared she thinks she is, there's no way to brace for the unknown. Not really. There are recommendations, protocol, the best of good intentions laid out before her but really She does not now how this will go down. When disaster strikes only then will she see what she's made of. What we are all made of. Survival of the fittest, who's to say. Right now she's lighting fires. For warmth, for whimsy, for whatever he left behind that she can get her hands on. She will burn it all up, an offer to the gods circling, threatening to tear this house down, rip it from it's foundations, leaving it's skeleton exposed. A rat

He sends her naked shots of himself in various poses.  A cowboy hat.  A duck faced selfie.  Three day stubble on his somewhat defined chest.  She's stopped opening his texts, changed her settings so that they don't flagrantly expose her to public curiosity while in transit.  All of this is unsolicited.  They bought a house, Grey and Ashleigh. His girlfriend of almost two years. The latest development in the ongoing saga of will he or won't he.  Lucy knows that when the cock shots reappear Grey's experiencing an existential crisis; Relationship woes of a sexual nature. Hardwired to wander, a child of the affair, son of a libidinous creature. As sure as the mooon's pull on tides, he gracelessly self destructs.  There was a time Lucy took the bait but she's learned:  Never step in the same river twice.  Their last friendly coffee talk had Grey musing over the battle of his rapaciousness versus his girlfriend's lack of sexua

Stacey isn't sure if she actually knows the woman. I mean, she thinks she does; the way the woman smiles at her and nods, like they are old forgotten friends who once shared intimate tales of lives lost and dreams forgotten. A melancholy, forgiving knowing. It is that specific. A radiating beam of I See You streaming full blast in Stacey's direction. Of course, Stacey's default is a reflexive mile-wide smile. Full body warmth emanates from her every iota. She has to stop herself from running in for a bear hug as she suddenly realizes they may have never met. In fact, this middle aged black gypsy woman with her headscarf tied in an elaborate fashion singing scat versions of christmas carols perched in a director's chair at the bottom of the subway stairs could be a complete stranger. These moments are the hardest for Stacey to comprehend. Her body vibrates, her intuition takes over her intellectual reasoning and she acts impulsively. Stop. Breathe. Step ba

Seven, eight, nine sneezes in a row. It's becoming painfully orgasmic and the woman sitting next to her just got up and shifted seats, throwing Connie the most withering stare. It's the chocolate. Really good dark chocolate makes her sneeze. Repeatedly. Generally not this uncontrollably- three seems to be the magic number- so now she's wondering what the hell was in the bag of leftover chocolate chips she bought from the bulk store because this is insane. Peter used to make fun of her, taunting her with incredible hand poured organic chocolate squares that he'd flaunt in front of her like a carrot on a stick. His idea of foreplay. Get her all worked up then giggle wildly when she was tearing up and  sneezing a fit. Painfully uncomfortable. Connie never understood Peter's sense of humour and that was a major nail in their relationship's coffin. You're too sensitive, he'd say; so dramatic, so intense. His detached, emotionally disengaged observ

One by one they went away. She stopped reading his messages, left emails unopened, dumped files, deleted histories. Pictures, videos, playlists, all gone. Wipe the heart drive clean. It's taken months, almost a year, really. Now she doesn't roll over at 4 am half asleep and grab the phone charging on the shelf above her head. She's letting go by blowing things up. Just short of annihilating- it's not in her nature to leave without a trace. In this day and age she knows that's an impossibility. She will always exist in some form, some code, some file, texts, download, screen grabs, half opened bottle of hairspray in the corner of the back shelf. She's eradicated any visible trace of them together. Contact lists, addresses, important dates, favourite links, wish lists, all of it wiped clean. Slowly she's getting herself back. The coffee shop on 4th two blocks west of her, once their, apartment is returning to the rotation. As is the regular Wednesday night mee

Digging in the dirt, rooting round for a lost, what...he can't remember. This happens now. Freqently. A dropped thought, a shift in focus and then gone. Like a breeze he feels as it blows past him, turning his head, changing direction, altering the landscape. Erasing it now, more than before. It started with minor blips and pauses, words perched on the tip of his tongue, voiceless, gears turning slowly, tumbling into place. Relief. The pause is longer now, the losses greater. Gaps wide enough to fall into and too deep to climb out of. His walls are papered with post its; directives, reminders, statements, questions. Lots of questions. Pictures paint a map to follow but he's shrinking, a diminishing point of focus, a pupil contracting. Blinders on, narrowing the path so that eventually he will disappear completely, what once was will fade to black.

Living in between the lines Kaleigh gets lost. She's always been directionally challenged, lacking any internal compass. Some would say morally as well. Free spirited. Impulsive. A simple walk round the block can end up with her miles from home, an unexpected urban adventure. Somewhere along the line it became her credo, with a little help from Chet Baker: Let's Get Lost. Her inability to stay the course defines her. Lost jobs, failed marriages, wandering eyes. Gets her in trouble time and time again. Fall down six times get up seven, preferably facing the opposite way, in someone else's sphere. Eventually she'll get so turned around, mired in the maze of wanderlustful reactionary decisions that she will find herself down under, so far from home that the road back disappears. Paths erode. Life alters course randomly in unexpected, unanticipated ways. Middle age set in and Kaleigh's stuck in stasis spinning in circles, no longer impelled by a desire to explore. Life,

Beth finds it hard to reconcile that she was ever that self absorbed. She knows she was, absolutely; it just manifested differently then. This young woman standing in front of Beth, shoulder to shoulder with her two girlfriends, none of whom make eye contact with each other, fascinates her. The trio speak too loudly, orating really for anyone within earshot. They simultaneously relay their exchange onto their smartphones, a running commentary of their emotional vital signs. They project confidence, an aloofness completely centred in themselves. The thought of their behaviour being seen as entitled or righteously indignant is beyond the scope of their imaginations. They were raised this way. They live out loud online. Every thought, every feeling and impulse, is documented and declared a monumental event. Life Changing. The banal becomes extraordinary simply by pressing enter. Preaching to their choir, a bombardment of Too Much Information. The young women eat, drink, sleep, cavort, imp

She pulls on her thickest socks, wiggling her toes, hanging over in a forward fold, nose to knees, letting out a long, low sigh. Mornings. She could fall back into bed right now and pretend this day isn't happening but then what? Where to then? Eventually the sun will come up and things will have to get done. A shower. Breakfast. Walk the dog, shovel the steps, do the laundry, return his messages that have been haunting her for the last three days. She has no idea what to say, how to tell him she is leaving. It's been an incredible time, more fulfilling, exhilarating and wholly encompassing than anything she could have possibly imagined and she's got to go. There is nothing left except the inevitable fall from grace so it's time to disengage and disappear. Part of her wants so badly to hop in the car, race over to his attic apartment with the fake panelled walls and red shag rug, propel herself into his arms, legs wrapped tightly around his hips and tackle him onto the

She's got everything on her back that she can carry which is slowing her down considerably. Trina wants to make sure she has the essentials, just in case. Be prepared for anything. That's Trina's cri de coeur. The problem is that anything is an awful lot to prepare for. Inclement weather, transit delays, spontaneous combustion. Trina can't prepare for that last one, though so figures she'll play fast and loose in case of fire. She never used to be like this, so conscientious and concerned. Or paranoid if you listen to her sister. That's all fine and good until things go sideways and someone needs latex free gloves, waxed dental floss, a mechanical pencil or raw organic energy bars, a litre of filtered  water and a CPR rebreather. Trina's got your back. Meanwhile hers is collapsing. That twinge in her shoulder is radiating a sharp stabbing pain down the back of her neck from so much weight unevenly slung across her side. She's tried a smaller purse but ma

It's not her drama. They're nattering on like pissy little school girls, taking strips off their best friend's husbands, talking smack about her legs, his face, her skin, his place. It's appalling. A self perpetuating feeding frenzy of judgement, these forty year old women buzz like a bee hive under siege in the music school's waiting room. Such vitriol and bile, Veronica can't control the scowl creeping across her face. Tuesday night ritual: bitch n bash. Ronnie drops off and picks up her nephew, the world's best boy. A seven year old dynamo of genius and giggles. Normally she spends the hour of Grayson's piano lesson doing homework at the cafe next door but there's a staff christmas party tonight so she's left to her own devices in the too close for comfort foyer. Ronnie wonders why women like this have children to begin with since everything in their lives seems to be an unbearable burden and trial. Rich, white, suburban, solidly middle class

It's driving her crazy, this weird humming, high pitched wail coming from the front door. She discovered it coming home late one night, climbing the stairs to her darkened porch, waving her arms to trigger the world's least responsive motion sensor light. She could hear this whinging, like a pitch pipe stuck between tones, ebbing and flowing. At first she thought it was a distant siren, or someone's smoke alarm going off next door. Then it crescendoed to a keening wail from the depths of some tortured soul. Kat freaked out, shoulder checked frantically, fumbled in her bag for her keys, dropping them on the ground. She managed to muscle her key into the lock and had to body check the door to open it. It was like entering a total vapour lock. Kat found this house online about 4 years earlier, on a spontaneous trip back home over the high holidays. A need to get away from her present craziness and bask in the familiar yet equally crazy energy of the big city. It's an old t

The thing is, he's right. But so is she. She frightens him now. That's new. Whatever love and intimacy that existed between them has been worn down, rubbed out from months of struggle. She's turned inward, collapsed on herself. He stands farther off, eyes to the floor. They'll sit for interminable amounts of time not speaking, avoiding all contact while sharing a bed barely built for two. From great beginnings come heartbroken endings. It started slowly, imperceptibly at first. Disagreements over petty things, arguments exploding out of thin air over inconsequential actions, a misunderstanding, a missed call, a late reply, an extended pause. She became combustible, a volcano erupting, annihilating entire landscapes with molten lava of language. He was a wall, stretched thin in every direction, undulating with her waves of emotion crashing down onto him, over him, drowning him. Now they are on opposing teams, enemies sharing camp desperate for some sort of armistice. It&

Deep breath. Four more minutes. She can release and move forward. It's brutal. The discomfort, the not knowing. Trying to be good, trying to be aware, every single thing she puts into her mouth, on her skin. Absorbability is key. She's losing weight, bleeding. Steroids are her enemy but beyond this it's surgery which terrifies her. Being attached to a bag. Losing a part of her body, even if it is inside of her, unseen, unknown, they way her skin, her face are. Her body's betraying her. Genetics, they say. Maybe not, maybe a bacterial infection or parasite that went wrong. After all, it's a mystery. They keep throwing things at her disease, seeing what sticks. Doctors have unspoken permission to bring you as close to death without killing you while searching for some sort of cure. Respite. There is no "cure." She will live this forever. It may go into remission but she will never be able to donate organs. Even blood. She's faulty. Broken. Through no fau

Four more stops, a quick 2 block jaunt. Two hours to spare. Traveling light. Passport in hand.  Hopefully she'll be on time. Every year she swears she'll go. The best intentions. Plans her vacation around it, organizes her calendar, even commits to other people. No fail, something comes up. The flu. An out of town conference. An overrun on scheduled conference calls. But she knows the truth. If it's really important she can find a way, make the time, prioritize. It's once a year, for crying out loud. The same time, same day, same hour every single year. Her father would be disappointed, she knows this. She made a promise and broke it. It's almost like a phobia now. She sees the poppies pinned to every lapel, the veterans standing sentinel on corners, in subway stations, with their little boxes of fake plastic stickpin totems and she freezes up. She feels like a truant, skipping her duty, the daughter of a celebrated vet, granddaughter of a decorated soldier. It star

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

It's a double date. Esther and Jonathan have been seeing a lot of each other over the last three months. Izzy and Rico have been married for 2 years but had a 12 year engagement. One of those. Esther wondered if they'd jinx it by tying the knot- fall apart and divorce within the year. So far, so good. At least from outward appearances. Esther's nervous- she likes this guy but knows he's a hard sell. Izzy and Rico are her oldest, dearest friends. They've been there through all of her men, for better or worse. Mostly worse. It's rare that Esther does the meet and greet so soon into a courtship but this  one feels different. He's kind. Funny. Conscientious. Short. Ok, there are some cons weighing against the pros, she knows this. But he's the best thing she's met in months, maybe even years. Esther slides onto the chair next to the window, leaving Jonathan with the aisle seat. Awkward seeing that she has to fold her legs in on herself like a praying man

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

His fingertips on her skin, his breath in her lungs Filling her up with memories of what once Was What will never again Be. The smell of clean damp skin Of bathwater Sweat soaked scalp Slept-in hair worn covered under a woollen hat too long. The way his hands twitch when he hears music with his body. The way her hips move, articulating her language. Familiar once Now foreign to each other. An unspoken language Long forgotten in the disharmony of their destruction. Strangers in waiting Wondering if past transgressions can ever give way to the possibility of future forgiveness. Begin again. Do over And over and over and over to the point where they become numb Non sensical in rhythm Rhyme, time. Incommunicado.

Joe's hitting the bottom of the bowl. Twenty minutes and the candy is gone. Floor's littered with wrappers, hands sticky with waxy chocolate. Bit of a train wreck. All for naught. Hustling home, desperate to find something resembling a pumpkin to carve, nearly slicing to the bone as the dull paring knife slides off the gourd and into his finger. Joe wonders why he tries so hard. It's expected of him, maybe, he doesn't know. All the hustle and bustle at work, everyone dressing up and gorging on cookies and cake all day like it's the end of the world instead of the end of the month. Head is raging, there's a migraine coming on. Too much crap. Sugar and coffee and cheap sparkling wine. Carly's wedding shower, with a Halloween theme. Terrible idea. The wedding singer meets the walking dead: who'd want that as an omen for upcoming nuptials. The weather's terrible. Unseasonably warm with hurricane force random gales of wind. He checks the candle in the blo

The neighbours must think she's killing the cat. An intermittent high pitched squeak that opens up to a full throated belch travels through the vents, like a goose in heat or an old man trying to blow his brains out through his nose. This was way easier in seventh grade. It's been 24 years since Reggie picked up a clarinet. She thought for sure she'd be able to run some scales, play a few ditties from memory but she fears she's bursting blood vessels instead. Two thousand dollars in facials, microdermabrasion and intense light therapy for age spots down the drain. The horn was on display in the window of a pawn shop on Queen East and in a flurry of nostalgia she shelled out $150 cash. Perhaps it's a just a crappy horn and would sound like an animal being impaled even if Benny Goodman was blowing it. The real question is what is she doing trying to recapture obsessions of her youth. She hated band practice. Reggie skipped rehearsal as often as she could fake a cold o

As she walked through the kitchen she took a look at the pile of breakfast dishes in the sink, sighed, doubled back to the circular red mat, rolled up the sleeves on her thumbed yoga jacket and threw on the tap. Do them now or deal with them at the crack of ass in the morning. Why she didn't do them this morning confounds her since she found the time to read 300 pages of her book while searching for knee high brown boots online and cruising recipe blogs for cinnamon twist churro-like donuts. Those are priorities. Dishes, pffft. Unexciting. Until 8 pm rolls by and Kerri realizes how much of the day she's pissed away. Anxiety creeps in like a parachute deflating on top of her, swallowing her whole. Gotta do more, gotta be more. That's when she clocks the teapot, barely warm, filled to the brim with the after dinner herbal digestive tea she boiled off an hour earlier. At least she can drink lukewarm tea. Tepid coffee, not so much. Either ice cold or steaming hot with a thick c

She's hunting poems. There's a taste in her mouth, sweet and salty with too much heat, words on her tongue, burning, bubbling, sparking, exploding. She loves his words, devours them whole, tearing  pages with her teeth, ripping out spines with her bare hands. Destruction in the consumption. Hers, all hers. Her body littered with the detritus of fonts and fiction pulped paper cardstock and ribbons. She is drooling ink dripping antonyms from the corners of her mouth. A pool of punctuation covers her feet leaking through her toes as she marks a path of poetry with footprints in italics. Her body shakes semi-colons leak from her fingers as she throws her arms overhead shooting exclamation marks into the fading autumnal sky. Ellipses litter the ground where she stands, marking a path to the bench where the tattered broken shells of his writing abound Spent depleted used. That's what words are for, she says. To be used abused articulated manipulated. Word

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

The appetizers hadn't even arrived yet. They spent twenty minutes poring over the menu, in between long pulls of their gin and tonics, deciding what to order, which plates to share. The waitress made a huge production of returning to their table a third time to see if they had finally come to a decision. Sara was really looking froward to the mango sweet pepper slaw. She didn't anticipate the arrival of Daniel's ex replete with their cranky 3 year old hanging off her hip, the two of them screeching at the top of their lungs. Sara was mortified; Daniel was apoplectic. If he was embarrassed it was hard to tell amidst the name calling and laundry airing in the middle of the restaurant. Sara no longer craved pad thai. This is why she hates being set up. On paper Daniel comes off like a swell guy. Kind, competent, functional. Emotionally available, which for Sara is an accomplishment in and of itself. No more Come Here- Go Away boys. Marcia mentioned he had a son, which Sara ded

He doesn't want to leave the house. As soon as the sun goes down John wants to dive under the covers and sleep for days. It's in his DNA, he tells himself. Winter's coming, must hibernate. He peels himself off the couch, steps over the cat spread eagled on the throw rug, dodges the stack of magazines he meant to read last week, month, year and finds himself assuming the position: bent over at the waist, peering into the bowels of the fridge, searching for some semblance of edibles among the rows of condiments, rotting thai leftovers and jars of raw nuts. How can people live in Alaska, not seeing the sun for 9 months of the year? John's trying to make an effort. He signed up for a two week introductory trial at the hot yoga studio thinking he might meet some women and get his energy flowing. Or inverted, or something. He's managed to make it to two classes with one more day to go before it expires. It's 8 pm. There's still time to catch a movie, an open mic n

Every year it's the same thing. Last minute panic. Late night runs to the big box stores, trolling the second hand joints, even scouring Craigslist for used costumes. Every year Don swears he'll be better organized. He comes up with the best ideas November 1st. Come the following October, he can't figure out where the time went. An interesting, unique costume idea for a 6'5", 28 year-old is harder than one would think. Don's vowed to never repeat the same idea twice. Well, Marla vowed. On Don's behalf. To be honest, Don could care less about the whole shebang. The free candy is awesome but he stopped trick or treating when he sprouted to 6'2 at 12 years old. Mrs. Hamm reamed him out as Frankenstein that year, calling him all kinds of unrepeatable names, accusing him of being an adult in disguise. No matter the protestations she steadfastly refused to believe it was little ginger Donny from three doors down. It didn't help that he couldn't remove

She is in flux more than ever shedding skin dropping leaves in burnt orange rusting red aging golds. Preparing to hibernate so she can bloom again in verdant greens. Full round buds bursting with life hope potential. An ever expanding canopy of growth. Life begets life. The past withers on the ground turning to mulch. Food for thought. Penetrating her roots feeding her core nourishing new ideas like vines winding their way through cracks in the walls creating a canopy of shade respite dripping with ripe berries abundance for all.

She bought the jerry cans at Canadian Tire. No one looked twice. Three bright red plastic cans, a box of wooden matches, rags for the garage and she checked out without so much as raising an eyebrow. She'd taken inventory, kept notes, photographs. Anything left that held value was packed away in the back seat and her trunk. The broken doorframe, stains on the carpet, the burnt out element on the stove, she wouldn't miss those. Nostalgia no longer lives here. He left when the sheriff came, hopped into his car and peeled out of sight. She spent two weeks uncovering evidence of him in the most unsuspecting places. Razors in the back of drawers, socks buried in fitted sheets folded in the linen closet. He took the beer and bottle of scotch. Single malt, twelve years old. Left the tequila. She filed  a report, went down to the station. They took her statement; she could barely write it out her hand was so swollen. Sheriff said the order was for 500 metres but if she broke it of her

Bob and Donna don't quite know what to make of her. She's not Christian which makes them nervous and wary. That's the first thing they ask her as they gather round the oak dining table for breakfast. Ella arrived unannounced with Casey late the night before. Casey was a troubled young man when they first met him at the week-long retreat. Filled with demons, broken and in need of healing. A tragedy, really. Bob and Donna felt it was their divine responsibility, nay right, to lead him back to Jesus Christ, their holy saviour. Donna took him aside two days in and told Casey he was cursed, his whole family were cursed and destined to live out a life of great suffering and punishments unless he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and learned to atone for his many sins, sins he wasn't even aware he had committed but which were cast upon him by the shortcomings and failings of his family; godless, adulterous, thieving heathens. That's how curses work, she explain

The table is set for ten. It's tight but they find a way. A few minutes of musical chairs, some cross table rearranging and voila, everyone is met. They celebrate earlier than others simply because it's easier to get the gang together outside regular hours. A rag tag group of self employed creatives, two single parents, a writer, one city councillor, two real estate agents and a landscaper. It's the tenth anniversary of their first official gathering. Some years they're a few shy of the whole lot but not this year. Chris and Carla swapped weekends with their respective exes and Donny, Jim and Shawna rearranged their family and work plans to make this fly. Ten years is a big deal. They were so young when they first met, at least that's how they see it. A decade of accountability to each other, through hell and high water, marriages, divorce, births, death, career changes and relapse. The amazing thing is that they've stayed together. A splinter group that evolved

He walks by her house every single day, sometimes twice if his neighbour needs him to walk her dog. He could take a different route but Carrie's house is situated exactly halfway between his house and the hipster dog park. Bongo gives him the perfect excuse to casually stroll and linger in front of her bay window while the pup noses around the hedge by the sidewalk where Larry surreptitiously drops some kibble. The snacks give him an extra two minutes, maybe more, where he can position himself in such a way that if Carrie is in the living room or the upstairs bedroom, even down the hall in the kitchen with the drapes open, he can take her in. Revel in her wonder. She's incredible. His heart dances in his chest, speeding up so fast that he's sure he's having an attack. A few deep breaths, mindful counting to 10, and he's back in control. Until she tilts her head and her bangs brush across her forehead, obscuring her face from his view. He panics, jockeying for a clea

She can barely open her eyes. They're slits now, like a snake. Her skin is hot, red and tight, stretched across her face like a hide being cured. The antihistamines are useless. Two packages of Benadryl and she's in a stupor with no relief. It's day three and something is making her swell up like a balloon about to burst. If she drank forties like water and mainlined salt like sugar, maybe this would make sense. People recoil from her on the street. Thankfully she loves oversized sunglasses and large brimmed hats because when the allergist's receptionist saw her even his jaw dropped. "Oh my, you are an emergency, aren't you?" The doctor figures it's environmental, something in the air or walls where she's living. Julie can't believe it. After everything she's suffered through now she has to move. Again. Benny leaves her high and dry with three weeks to find an apartment. There was a note on the fridge. He packed up the bike and was heading

The pain came out of the blue like a pointed stick impaling her through the right side of her face. She wasn't even eating anything hard. No nuts or un pitted olives and dates. No rock candy. Overcooked reheated rice pasta with pesto, kale and mushy chickpeas. A soft, chewy mess of green that melted in her mouth until suddenly it felt as if she chomped down on a pebble. The searing pain right in the centre of her largest molar. Yesterday she finally went in for a cleaning. After a year and a half of  procrastinating Felicia bit the bullet and went to her dentist for the full meal deal only to get a perfect bill of health. Her hygienist praised her good work and attention to detail. She felt like an 8 year old with the prize winning cake at the bake sale. So proud. Now she's paranoid. Did something shift during all of that scraping and poking? The instruments are so invasive- high pressured water sprayers, grinders, scalers. Maybe the dentist poked a hole in something or shifted

They set up a skype date so they could discuss their next move. With the time change and opposite schedules getting an actual conversation happening was more convoluted than string theory. So ridiculously complicated. By the time Alistair is home from work Zara is fast asleep. On days when Z is up at the crack of dawn, it's 3 am Al's time but he's either a few glasses into his wine and poring over a script or exhausted and too stressed to sleep. God forbid he's entertaining company.  It took a while but Z knows nothing good comes from late night-early morning texting or phone calls. If he's up and sees her online he can call her, thank you very much. The last thing she needs is to skype him and see some other woman tangled up in his sheets over his shoulder. Sheets she bought and broke in with him on Easter weekend last spring. What a difference four months makes. His contract got picked up and the work is pouring in. It's biblical in scope. Work begets work beg

Eleven am and transit is humming along. She's timed it so she hits the pocket beween the morning crush and the late lunchtimers heading back to the office after a three martini mixer. The heat is rising and people are overdressed from the cool, crisp morning. By mid afternoon it's downright balmy, definitely not October weather. She peels off her jacket, unwinds her scarf but leaves her cap on, only because her hair is now completely soaked to her forehead. Hat hair is too much to pull off right now, given her circumstances. With her sunglasses she's rocking out the celebrity incognito vibe. The beauty of big cities, where no one looks twice. The aesthetician said two days tops then it'll settle down. She feels like Groucho Marx. The whole point of waiting for cooler weather is that it's easier to camouflage. Sweaters, hats, scarves, heavier makeup. The twenty degree heat only increses the swelling and flushed face. Plus the groupon expired at the end of the week. S

Eva skiffles into the kitchen, doing an improvised side stepping booty shake, singing at the top of her lungs to Hold On blasting from her computer. Old school rhythm and blues quells the melancholy. How can one stay down when rockin out to Sam and Dave? The kettle screams to life, undercutting the horns then rapidly overriding them, a shrill alarm. Eva pirouettes and hooks two fingers under the handle intending to slide it off the flame and onto the stove but her sock foot catches a sticky spot of maple syrup on the kitchen floor, a leftover from her gluten free buckwheat pancake disaster of the morning, and she trips into the counter. Her fingers slide off the kettle knocking it sideways, sending it crashing to the floor. Boiling water gushes out at a furious pace. Eva jumps back and crashes into the fridge, both feet flying out from under, landing on her tailbone in a pool of boiling liquid, scalding her hand and leg halfway up her left shin. Talk about ass over tea kettle. Stunned

Mornings are Ali's best time of day. She's clear and focused, energized and ready. The hour before she falls asleep is dynamite. Ali makes lists, dreams grand schemes, makes promises to herself that when she wakes up she will make monumental progress, seize the day, completely explode with productivity. She is omnipotent two whole hours of the day. One hundred and twenty minutes, give or take. If she lingers in bed too long, haphazardly hitting the snooze alarm for the fourth time, it's over. She's done for the day. There goes the morning window of pure awesome. At this point Ali thinks why bother, she's passed her peak, missed the moment, blown her shot at carpe'ing the diem. She just needs a minute. Or 40. She waffles and wavers, slowly rolling into first gear. By noon she'll kick it into second. Third if it's sunny outside. After caffeine and sugar and copious cat memes and celebrity eye candy on the internet her tidal waves shift. Around three pm she

It's in the rhythm of her footfalls, a steady, cyclical, soft flapping of rubber on asphalt, step by step, breath by breath. The first twenty minutes she struggles to settle down, settle in, relax and find her groove. The ongoing argument with herself plays out in her head: turn back now, this is too hard, you should be doing something else, ten minutes is good enough, how about later, just a little break, come on, comeoncomeoncomeon. Over and over she comes back to the sound of her feet, syncing her breath to her stride, alternating inhalations with exhalations on opposite strides. Stay loose, think tall, drop her shoulders, eyes up, belly on, hands loose, keep breathing. All these cues and mantras underscore the sound of her heart thumping, thumping, thumping until finally, magically, they fall away and she simply runs. This is the best part. The freedom of flight, lightness of being. Getting lost in her own movement, feeling omnipotent, like she could run away all the anxiety an

And then, and then, and then- Heather stops to catch her breath. She starts choking on her own saliva pooling in the back of her throat. She stops and coughs violently, wheezes an intake of breath and tries to calm herself down.Whenever she gets worked up she loses the ability to speak in full sentences. Her hands start to shake and her feet get ice cold. She has a series of exercises she's supposed to do to quiet the noise and slow her brain down. Cognitive reprogramming, it's called. Her mom's obsessed with neuroplasticity, retraining the brain, so she makes Heather practice and practice and practice patterns and reactions so she can control her outbursts. She's a raw nerve; cries on a dime, becomes righteously indignant when the neighbour scolds her dog. It's too much. Heather's worn out, run down, depleted by the sheer effort required to exist. She feels everything full on, her dial goes up to 11 and then into overdrive. The other kids at school are freaked

Four more days til he can get back to her. The deal is never longer than two weeks. Thirteen consecutive nights alone and even that is pushing it. After 4 years of long distance commuting Tom is feeling things start to implode. They're creating problems where there aren't any for the sake of conversation. Conflict creates contentious communion. Magnetic poles attracting and repelling simultaneously. It started so well. Big dreams, incredible connection. Flurries of fleeting layovers, insane exhausting weekends, extended overnighters,  the eventual week-long live-in. From the beginning they know what they're in for. Bicoastal breakdown. Tom vows he'll never do a long distance relationship. Elaine doesn't see it coming. An unexpected hello turns into a twenty minute seduction. His eyes on her arms, her lips on his neck, their fingers intertwine, legs interlock and time stops. Clothing litters the floor, sheets are soaking wet, an entire suite is consumed by their bodi

Today there are 5 books on programming and design. Softcover tomes, each an inch and a half thick, identical in size, differentiated only by colour schemes. Outdated computer manuals stacked in a leaning tower on top of an overflowing recycling bin pushed to the edge of a perfectly manicured lawn. Sarah is intensely curious about the people who live here. Last week there were two dog eared pulp fiction paperbacks, a Carnegie Mellon course calendar from 2004, a bamboo room divider missing a panel, and an old fishbowl complete with faded coloured pebbles and plastic trees. The week before there were two medical text books and random issues old New Yorkers spanning the last 3 years. Either there's a host of foreign students rotating through in a short term rental situation or the most eclectic, artistically inclined, well read, tech saavy family on the block. It's a non descript semi detached two story barn like house, smack dab in a multi culti family neighbourhood just off the m

Maybe he won't call. Maybe the phones are down. Across the city. The country maybe, because he could be anywhere. Asia, Africa, Antarctica. Some continent beginning with an A. Like Americas. Do they all begin with A? Why aren't there more variations on a theme? Who decides this stuff? Hank would know. Hank knows everything. Names of capital cities, solutions to quadratic equations, how to peel a mango with your teeth without getting all the stringy bits caught up in the space between them. Especially the front two. Hank can rewire a broken lamp, drive a double clutch long haul trailer, climb microwave towers and install sattelite dishes for radiowave transmission and speak fluent American Sign Language. He makes stellar profiteroles, too. Hank's a truth teller. The truth according to Hank. Hanks speaks truth to power and damn the torpedoes, screw the consequences, he will be heard. That's what makes Ziggy nervous. More often than not, Ziggy has to clean up after Hank. S

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

Somewhere it's 4 am. Chris reaches for the light and knocks the phone charging on the shelf above him onto his head, nearly taking out his eye. Technology will kill us all, one way or another. He flicks the lamp on and the bulb takes a minute to warm up. Suddenly his room is bathed in a cool blue fluorescent daylight. It's supposed to keep his SAD at bay but in the wee small hours of the morning he's looking to fend off the maelstrom in his head, the anxiety-making lists and concerns, plummeting his brain into a deep well of grief and anger, self doubt and relentless repetition. For months he's been in this cycle of sleep, insomnia, sleep, insomnia. In the early days he'd roll with it. Read, masturbate, make a sandwich. Maybe cereal, mug of tea. He would write, brief notes, trying to remember the anxiety dream that would run on an endless loop, thinking that naming it would end it. Then he thought maybe he was creating a deeper imprint, detailing the horror of it al