write. read. repeat.

A good writer is honest, informative, and entertaining. A good story is haunting.

[nemodally]

The Plague of Montreal

My skin was falling off. First in flakes and then in long stretchy strands. I wrapped my arms up tight in gauze to stop it but I could feel it sliding underneath. Well, I was fucked. Lol. You have to have a sense of humour about these things. 

I still remember that one woman on the street corner. It was after the medical teams withdrew but before the incinerations. Her joints had softened and she couldn't walk. Her feet were bent at funny angles and her left hand had already fallen off. She held it up like a block of wood. "Give me a hand and I'll give you mine," she cackled as I biked past. That woman was my hero.

I lasted a long time considering my neighbours. Poor Yan, the first I knew to fall to the plague. It was right in front of myself and his family. His face caved in -collapsed  like a souffle in the oven with the kids stomping. We all screamed like it was the first death on Earth. That was before we even knew that it wasn't just St. Henri -all of Montreal was dying. Everyone was screaming. I sort of wish I could scream again. I spent all my tears in that first year. Now I'm more likely to chuckle. Like that poor fucker who just melted in front of me.

He was like me. He survived the early days, the riots, the civil war. Then he lived through the gassing and  incinerations. The bombing. He was a nice guy, skinny and quiet. When I first met him he was very positive about God and his plagues and purposes and how we would make it through this trial. That was a long time ago. I ran into him recently in the tunnels. Right before his skin slipped off into our campfire he had this look on his face like, "the fuck is this, God?" Priceless.

He wouldn't see the latest era. There was a rumour that a new medical team had arrived. They were looking for survivors because their immune systems might be able to help humanity. I knew better than that. That was the ol' rattle the keys to the cage and when the beast comes to the door shoot it in the face.  I saw those tricks in the early days too. They have no trouble killing us and I've got no trouble killing them. It's really easy. All you have to do is rip their hazard suit.

I should have left the city in those first months but I loved Annie. Come to think of it. Her death was the last one I screamed about or maybe the first one I laughed at. Do I regret staying in this hellhole for my love? Definitely. Lol. Jokes, Annie. I still have her skull in my backpack. Everything dripped off it like hot wax and formed a pile on the road. Sorry, Babe. I left your skin because it was gross. Lol.

The world hates Montreal. They're gonna nuke this city. I'm sure of it. They'd rip it out of the Earth and send it to the sun if they could. In those first few weeks we sent so many images of the melting sickness that no one can sleep any more. I was the photographer who got that one picture of that little girl trying to hold her skin on. You know the one? She's hugging herself as her face slides off over her arms? Well, you owe your nightmares to me. Don't worry. I got mine. Saw shit ten times worse than that. Lol.

I know I'm going to die. I can feel myself getting all slippery. But I'm holding it together. I'm not afraid. I'll stay solid by sheer will alone until I've done what I need to do. I'm gonna bury you somewhere safe, Annie. Don't you sweat it, Babe.

[nemodally]

The Alone

They were all trapped here because they trusted strangers and that wasn't even the harshest lesson. There was no light in the room and the quiet breathing of the other prisoners hummed low like static. You could feel the bars in the darkness.

It was cruel that our guy met someone on the edge of the woods, had a brief connection, shared some apples and nuts and it turned out to be carefully orchestrated trap to kidnap him. To collect him. A sinister blot that stained the beauty of Northern Quebec, spilling a stain of dark ink across the brilliant blue sky with red and golden leaves. Ink the colour of the sack over your head, forced to the floor of the van, as the sliding door slid shut. 

A harsher lesson was that you could handle more pain. You could be abused, struck, cut, opened and closed and still live. You could think that you would die and survive to feel more hurt. And that was not even the harshest lesson.

Currently, in the cell there were only three victims left. A large guy called Carn, a smallish woman called Tesha and our guy. Our guy is the one we watched on the side of highway 24 get stuffed into the van. We don't know what happens to the other inmates when they are taken away. They come back with various scars and silences. We do know what happens to our guy. Sometimes he is strapped to a table for warm, stinging liquid to be poured into his eyes. Sometimes he is stabbed with long, thin decorative swords that leave little drops of blood on the stage. Sometimes he is drugged and wakes with long peculiar scars and wonders how much of his insides remain. Or worse. Arko had spoke of the feeling that something has been placed inside of him.

"Touch here," he would say, "do you feel that? They've put a box inside of me." Arko was one of the few prisoners who tried to coordinate knowledge. To work together. He was dead now.

Every night the captors came to the cell to choose one sometimes two and bring them away. Sometimes the prisoners came back that night with missing hair or strange coughs. Sometimes they did not come back. Arko used to lead discussions whenever one of them came back. There was talk of escape. How many guards were there? Where was the exit? There were theories about this cult. The violence on their bodies was deliberate but restrained. It was meant to cause pain but their captors were disappointed when they died. They needed blood for their rituals. Was it a religion? A cabal of wealthy sadists? The speculation had stopped with Arko's heart. Now there was only silence.

The harshest truth was that you could be made docile. You could be held over the fire until the defiance was smoked out of you. What rage remained you turned to your fellow inmates in petty struggles for the best sitting spots in the cell. You developed a tragic respect and even love for your captors and the smell of approaching food, how benevolent they could be!

Now they died more often and it was only Lalane and our guy left.  When they came for her he fought them valiantly. But he was a malnourished, beaten body and thrown to the end of the prison. Lalane looked back with fear in her eyes and he could offer her nothing.

It might seem that he was being heroic but he knew that he was a coward. All of his thrashing, fighting, kicking, and biting was to encourage the guards to take him first. He didn't want to spend the night in the cage alone. It was only him now and the promise of pain and death.

He thought of Arko who was truly brave and of his own lust for Tesha who never stopped trembling. He thought of Bessel who changed with the weather and Carn who was always Carn. They were ghosts now. Lalane, too, would never return.

Our guy was the last one and there was no one left to say his name. When they destroyed him eight histories would be lost. His bones would be incinerated and no one would investigate the ashes. There would be no one to mourn him. No public record. His tombstone would be shelved in the haircare section of a drugstore that was not required to label "this product tested on animals." A forgotten rabbit in a cage in a lab.

[nemodally]

Hairbrusher

*I transcribed this story for a friend who was too ill to write.

I saw something on the Metro on the way here. A young girl. Maybe 14 years old. Beautiful but with a mental illness. She was brushing her hair. Constantly. Seriously. Every goddam second she was brushing. I don't even know how her hair was on her head. I was trying not to look at her because she was obviously not well but I couldn't stop. She was separating her hair. She wanted it perfectly placed. What kind of life would she have. It was sad.

She was fifteen, tops sixteen. She was skinny and wore Converse shoes. She had big brown eyes. Cute bumble bee nose. She held the teeth of her hairbrush in front of her lips and put a single one into her mouth.  Probably thinking of all the bad things that happened to her when she was a kid fuck I don't know.

At one point. This is sad. This is really sad. No one gets up when the Metro is moving. But she did. She got up to check her hair in the reflection and then continued to brush it. She couldn't help it.

It doesn't matter how old you are but it does. I mean, she was so young and so fully in that other world. I wondered if I had grabbed her brush what she would have done? Would she use her hands? What is her life like? 

She brushed all the way from where I got on at St. Henri to Berri UQAM. I wanted to say something. I wondered if she would brush every hair out of head. You know when you want to say to someone, "hey, it's ok, everything is going to be just fine." I didn't say anything. But I wanted to.

[nemodally]

Worked Up

I’ll tell you this much. I wasn’t half as jumpy as I am now. That’s for sure. Now I don’t trust anyone and when I look at a face I get sudden flashes of their head smashing in. Imagine that? I can’t even look at a sexy bitch without imagining the sound of her cheekbone cracking. I did women but mostly men but mostly I didn’t care as long as I got paid. It was a job. I got an envelope and I did my job. It was brutal but that’s why the money was good. I took photos and they would circle around. Some people in this city need to send a message, y’know? And a dead body with a bullet in its head isn’t scary. But a skull smashed to pulp? That says something. Funny thing is, sometimes we would shoot them in the head before I did my thing. Don’t trust the media, right? You think you’re looking at a freshly smashed traitor but sometimes they bring the body to me stinking of hell a week old and I’d do my thing.

The strangest things happen under blunt force like dropping a thousand gumballs it’s unpredictable. Say, for instance, you took these cuffs off, honey, and I got the chance to smash your fucking face. Your eye might come out or stay in. Blood will be there but sometimes it will jump out, sometimes pump out, and sometimes wait until the end and flow out with tiny waves. I’ve seen it. Blood waves. I don’t care how tough some of these assholes in the game say they are they all get the bad dreams. I’ve spoken to the people I’ve killed so many times in my sleep. That’s the biggest thing about killing that you don’t think about. It stays with you when you’re trying to eat.

[nemodally]

The 24

Detective Baix* turned into the alley and banged on the dirty steel door. Nothing. He dragged over a large CRT television with a smashed screen and stood on it. He tried to look into the small window but it was fogged with filth. He rummaged in the trash and found a broken caulking gun. He stepped up on the television and swung at the window. It fell to pieces like thin ice. Baix used his hat to clear away the sharp edges. He didn't think he would fit but he didn't see another option. He tried to jump and pull himself in but he couldn't find anything to grip. He looked like a small, feeble dog unable to hop onto the couch. 

Baix now had a VCR and a broken chair piled on the large television base. He climbed his precarious step ladder and took a leap of faith, trying to get his shoulders into the window. He failed. The VCR slipped, the chair twisted and Baix's feet went out from under him. His right side crashed onto the television, crushing his gun into his bones, and he slid off in the fetal position. He lay crumpled on the broken glass and suspect liquids of the alley. Baix let out a quiet grumble to himself, wondering if his ribs were cracked or bruised. He thought he heard the sound of chuckling from the sewer steam. 

The steel door opened. Baix brushed himself off and discovered that it hurt to raise his right arm. He entered. There was a long dark hallway that was under construction. It was filled with buckets of plaster, a curtain of wires hanging from the open ceiling panels, and about four ladders. Then he spotted what he was looking for and turned into a doorway. It was marked with a golden etching of the eight-fingered hand.

The bar was dimly lit dark oak. It was small and filled with silent people sipping their drinks. Baix entered and watched as the twenty-four patrons lowered their glasses and turned their heads in unison. All of the eyes in the room were locked on him. He glanced at the nearest table where he saw the unlikely combination of an old lady with her hair in rollers, a man in a suit with a red tie, and a young woman with a bandage wrapped around her head, covering one eye.

"Any trouble finding the place?" the three spoke in chorus.

Baix smiled. He had not laughed in eight years but he could still be amused. "Someone broke your window."

"Thugs," said a figure from the dark at the end of the bar. "The law should do something," added a deep voice to his left, taking particular joy in the word 'law' as if it were  AutoChop or TurboDuster, a product name for a fleeting trend. The twenty-four raised their glasses and sipped in one clean, synchronized motion. Baix thought he recognized man sitting a small round table. He was gray-haired with tired eyes. The Detective made a mental note to check recent missing persons reports.

"The boy will die," said two voices in the back. Detective Baix stepped further into the room. The twenty-four sets of eyes encircled him. He walked to a young woman sitting at the bar. She looked like she hadn't slept for three days. Her tangled hair was stuffed into a knit toque.

"How old is this one?"

"She ran away," everyone at the bar responded.

"Not what I asked."

"Twenty," said a smattering of voices throughout the bar.

"Bullshit." Baix inspected her hands. Her palms were scuffed with tiny indentations as if she had been crawling on gravel. He patted her empty pockets. "Let me guess. No ID?"

"I can keep her safe," the young woman said, accompanied by a few voices in the darkness. Baix walked away. It was probably true. 

"You know me," he said, "I don't want things to slide."

"You're one to talk," the room responded together in the same scoffing tone.

"When did I change the deal?" Baix raised his voice. The bar was silent. The gray-haired man began to move his jaw, summoning something from within. A woman in an evening gown sitting beside him raised her open palm. The man began to make the thick gurgling sounds of a masticating momma bird. He spat a key into her open hand.

"The boy will die," the young woman said.

"I've heard that," Baix replied as the woman in the gown handed the key to him. His bruised ribs creaked as he accepted it. The key was damp with saliva and he dropped it into his coat pocket. 

A young man in a hoodie stood and put his hand on Baix's shoulder. "I like you," the room said together, "but you are no longer welcome here."

Baix nodded. He was going to lose more friends before this was over.

*My genius-of-life friend recently used "Detective Baix"  (French, pronounced By-eeks) in a short story. I fell in love with the name and asked if I could use it. "Not a chance", he laughed, "writing is 95% the name."

[nemodally]

One person looks at a picture and instructs how to draw it, limiting their description to shapes and lines, avoiding the subject matter.  The other person does their best to follow the instructions, revealing the collaboration at the end.

[nemodally]

Life on Earth

When you turn up the heat next to something you can see a reaction.

Plastic melts. Proteins break down. Water boils.

That is life on Earth. A frothy, bubbly reaction to the sun.

[nemodally]

The Way Back

The sun was hot and her skin was a wool blanket she couldn't take off. There was nothing except the heat and walking. The sun was high. She could try to bury herself in the sand again but it would only soak up the little moisture she had left. Her lips cracked her eyes were caked with flakes of her own drying skin. The sun was high and she needed to be clever or she would not see it set. 

She had woken up with a clear understanding of her death. It would feel like fatigue. She would not want to move. Her eyes would close as if they did not belong to her anymore. It would approach like sleep but heavier. She would feel her heart choking, a surge of  fear would stop her from drifting off, but she would see only darkness and no more. 

She had loved Dimitri. She wanted to see him and his family again. The farm. But even if she made it back they would still be ashes. Love wasn't strong enough to bring her out of this desert. Hate would have to do.

[nemodally]

A New Monster

Based on a true story.

The boy was terrified of werewolves. If you work him up, his parents warned us, he won't sleep. We were on a train at night. There's was nothing to do but discuss the speed of werewolves and if they could keep pace with a train and wait for us. We worked him up. 

I had a brilliant solution. I would ask him to create a monster from his own imagination. "Make it scary," I insisted. The boy would soon make the connection that the werewolf was a simple, creative game.

"It's a small creature."

"What does it look like?"

"Like old but fast but something is wrong with its face."

"What?"

"I don't know. You don't see it. He's only there at night."

"What does he do?"

"He takes your teeth."

"What?"

"At night he takes your teeth and switches them with his rotted, weird teeth."

"..."

"And you look in the mirror but you don't notice that you've got bad ones. And they start to spread in your mouth."

"Wait. You don't notice?"

"Other people can see it. Like he does it to your parents."

"Your parents?"

"All the parents in the neighbourhood but only the kids can see it. And once he gives you enough teeth then all of your teeth change and you become like him."

"Whoa. That is scary. Nice one."

"Thanks."

"That's going to be a famous monster. What's it called?"

"Like it's name?"

"Yeah. You know there's names like Dracula or Frankenstein if there's one famous one. Or if it's a group of creatures it could be a werewolf, a mummy, a... wendigo..."

"I know! It's called... a raptor!"

[nemodally]

Ogre

[nemodally]

Last Blink

[nemodally]

Eight Children

Twenty-seven years later, the stone child, whom Ana named Andre, had not changed in any way. It was still pitch black, smooth, and cool to the touch. Andre was listed in the hospital's records as a stillborn, the neighbours had made their own stories explaining what they thought they saw many years ago, and her other children had moved out of the house.

A Swedish firm secured a contract to build a Brazilian airport. They contacted Ferdinand because his company specialized in shipping large, delicate goods. In turn, Ferdinand refused to travel to Stockholm unless Ana would accompany him. She agreed if she could bring her child. They flew across the Atlantic without incident. It was when they bordered the domestic flight from Stockholm to Malmo. Ana noticed a woman on the plane holding her baby. It was a stone, smooth, unblemished and warm to the touch. It was green.

[nemodally]

Paper Space Computer and Baby Bones

I tell my crew. The cool guy goes on board and I think he's going to die. I check in on him to find that he believed me. The skeletons are in garbage bags and he explains how he had to shoot the thing that came for him. As we leave I notice a black baby walking around. It turns into the Wild Things creature and my cool friend shoots at it before we leave. Shapeshifter.

I have to go back in to get something. I lie on my back inside the ship and interact with a piece of hanging paper. I have to hold down the picture of the square, triangle and press a button while keeping my left hand under my armpit. The paper has a lot of images on it. I take so long to find the triangle but the monster does not appear.

Finally, I put my hands on the right symbols but the computer voice reminds me that one hand should be under my armpit. I'm trying to figure out how to touch all of the symbols with one hand. I wake up.

Dream. March 2012.

[nemodally]

The People of Smoke and Dust

The tiniest puffs of black dust appeared when he spoke. He held his hat in his hands and she shuddered to think of the filth suspended in that tangled mass of hair. His face was covered with soot and old trails of sweat. It looked like a contour map of the mines. He was from the dust belt. Where  a dark heavy curtain of volcanic ash hung in the sky. How long did these people live? They were resilient but human after all. The tea was their secret. Improved the oxygenation of their blood. She had a vague memory of learning that in early school. Probably another story that most children carried into adulthood as facts, like the gliders in the North or the jungle tribes that wore jewelry made of living bugs. He looked down as he spoke. She wondered if he was insulted by the ratty, old rug that they had brought in for him to stand on. He was at least ten years older than she. Surely he would have expected this kind of reception. It was a practical measure, his thick-skinned feet left a stain with each step. He was their delegate and would have more experience with decorum than the average worker. "All the thanks for seeing me," he said in the slow drawl of the miners. She watched a small plume of dust waft into the curtains. She tapped her scepter against the floor twice, hoping he would get to the point. He reached into his bag and removed a scroll. He unraveled it carefully, revealing the skin of a small child. So that was no rumour, she thought, maintaining a judge's composure. The miners skinned their dead and dried the husks. 

"I ask for justice," he said. Her mind filled with the possibilities. This might have been murder, an accident, a suicide. In any case, she was the youngest of the Law and would most likely be called upon to lead the investigation. She would have to find a worthy second, trustworthy porters, and a guide familiar with crossing the forests. It never entered her mind that she would never see home again.

[nemodally]

Sisters

"How droll," she said, untying the bow at the top of the sack. "You have such a unique way of seeing the world." She turned the bag upside down and thirty or forty scorpions hit the floor. My sister has always had a flair for the dramatic. No doubt the scorpions had cost a hefty amount and she would have had to gone to several pet shops.

"If it means anything, I'm sorry." I offered, trying to look casual as I struggled to free myself from the cord. I never knew my sister could tie such a quality knot. She had probably taken a class. I wonder how much planning was involved in this visit. I hoped that this was a spur of the moment thing. I didn't want my sister to have had hidden her anger from me for so long. I mean, she didn't. I knew she was angry but I didn't know that she was psycho vengeful. It would have been nice to see that coming. I would have taken more precautions. The very fact that she found me, the scorpions, and this tricky sailor's knot all indicated a strong, steady burning rage. I was sort of proud of my sister for sticking with something.

[nemodally]

Who I Am is Faceless

She didn't want to be having this conversation again so she disengaged. It was obvious he cared about her. She could see it in his eyes. He reached across the table and caressed her hand. It made her uncomfortable. Why couldn't they eat their sushi and talk about the emovie? It was good, scary. She had dialed the emotions to maximum. He sat beside her at half the intensity. Why go to the theatre if you didn't want to peak it? They were so different. That part where the scarecrows cornered the girl made her want to scream. She had squirmed, sweated, and cried in her chair. She could feel his discomfort in the chair beside her. It was the same talk. He cared about her. He worried about her. They should be talking about these things before she had them done. This was her third face in three weeks. She had found a place that she liked. They treated her well and the price was right. This time she made her boldest choices: a pointed jaw and a longer nose, high cheek bones and large eyes. It was almost a caricature, a  look on the edge of reality. She could hide in a hat and scarf and strangers would still raise their eyebrows in curiosity. She loved it. He missed her face, he said. The face she had when they met. The original. She was losing herself, he warned, by changing so much. She couldn't tell him that her "first" face was also a mod. That she had worn it for months because it seemed to please him. But it wasn't her. It was a look picked out of a catalogue on a whim. She couldn't tell him that she had already made her next appointment.

[nemodally]

Like Lemmings to the Sea

It's awful. Yeah. It's awful. Such a waste of talent. All that life. All those families mourning. I know. All the movies and albums that will never be made. I hope it stops. I heard it's increasing. It is increasing! It's like can we get through a week without any more? This is unprecedented in human history. It sounds like something that happened in the medieval ages or ancient Greece. Yeah... Y'know, superstitious times. Ok. I heard it's something like eight hundred people. No. Yeah, eight hundred. But only, like, ten celebrities. Yeah. Well eight famous ones and then maybe another ten not so famous ones. How does something like this happen? It's weird because it started with some B-list ones. And then, a week later, that's when Mya Stone killed herself and that's when it really started. Yeah? Yeah. Stone hung herself on a Monday and then Anthony Clement from The Shore hung himself Wednesday. And then Bo Maddux and Raph Mellon were found on Friday. Yeah. And then the guy from Detectives, not the main guy, the, like, guy in the lab, shot himself or something Saturday. Yeah. And then a whole bunch of not as famous people the next week but then Larissa Sinclair. I was like, what!?! Yeah, she was really successful. I'm still not over how she'll never make music again. Time Before Last is the album of my life. It's like part of me. I only know her one song about the rain. I bet I sound pretty stupid. No, no, I know what you mean. Music means a lot to people. Her music was special. The celebrity suicides are one thing but how many regular people are killing themselves. That, I find crazy. People are such lemmings. What do you mean? You know how lemmings throw themselves in the water and drowned when they sense overpopulation? Maybe. That's what lemmings are known for. Yeah but that was shown to be a lie. What do you mean? Those guys. They worked for Disney or whatever and they shot that documentary about lemmings. What are you talking about? Lemmings don't throw themselves into the water. They used a machine and killed some lemmings to make their documentary interesting. I don't think we're talking about the same things. Yeah, lemmings. They look  like mice. I don't know. Some of them drown during migration. Ok. They can get trampled or drowned when there's so many of them. Oh. It's like any herd animal.