western canada gothic

alberta // british columbia // pacific northwest

[nesperado]

Vancouver Gothic

*  You are walking down Granville street and an old man grabs your arm. “The Big One” he whispers.  Someone nearby has overheard.  They nod. The Big One. Everyone on the street begins to nod. Everyone knows. The city is borrowed.  You imagine you hear a rumbling from somewhere deep.  You nod as well.

*  After a month straight of rain you open the newspaper to the weather section. But there isn’t one. Instead there is a photo of the ocean with the words “…and so on…” Printed over it.  You turn on the radio to the weather channel. The forecaster is weeping gently over the air.

*  Bus 99 arrives at the stop.  You step up and reach into your right pants pocket for your transfer.  You pull out four transfers all from previous days. You check left pocket. Six transfers with dates the same as your family’s birthdays. The bus driver is impatient.  People behind you begin to grumble.  You give a nervous cough and feel something in your mouth.  It is a transfer.  It expired thirty seconds ago. You begin to sweat. A nearby transit officer eyes you suspiciously.

*  You go back inside to get your umbrella. It is raining. The clouds break and the sun beats down. You go back inside to get your umbrella. It begins to hail. There is a snowstorm. Still it rains. You go back inside to get your umbrella.

*  On Robson street a woman bumps into you. “I’m sorry.” you feel a lump in your throat and swallow. Something is wrong. “I’m sorry.” The woman is crying and waving her hand dismissively. “I’m sorry.” Neither of you can walk away. You are both smiling through tears, brushing off each other’s apologies with your own. Days pass.  You are so hungry. You can’t remember why you are here, only that you are sorry.  

[unfavorableinstigation]

Canadian Prairie Gothic

Every few kilometres, you pass a new sign for a different town you’ve never heard of. You never see any actual towns. Once, you think there might have been a gas station, but you didn’t try to turn your head to check. There isn’t any direction but straight ahead.

The farmers don’t bother scrapping their old vehicles, electing instead to leave them to weather in the back of the fields. As you go further into the back 40, the vehicles get older and older, and more and more intact. 

If you’re not from the prairie, you don’t know the wind… The wind never stops here. Sometimes it gusts and sometimes it murmurs, but it is always, always present, ceaselessly rustling, swirling, hissing. The more uneasy its caresses make you, the more you fear the day it is finally silent.

The old men look uneasily at the sky. The rain’s come too early this year. Last year, it came too late. There is never a right time for the rain to come - not this rain, anyway. 

Your Social Studies books talk about Confederation in 1867, about American independence in 1776. Your teacher assures you the textbooks are out of date, that nobody lived here until 1905. Humans didn’t exist then. There are no records until 1996. The residential schools have all been boarded up.

You go to visit family in the city and feel trapped, closed in. You miss the openness, the emptiness, the wide-open spaces. You miss the sky terribly. You wonder, lying unable to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, if this might be because the sky misses you.

You have never heard of anyone buying a Farmer’s Almanac, although it sits on a stand in every grocery store you’ve ever been to. You all know the dates anyway. No matter how much you avoid each other’s eyes, you will never be able to forget the dates.

The grasses move gracefully, like the waves of some great golden ocean. You’ve heard there are terrible things that live in the depths of the open ocean - occasionally you hear about fishermen pulling up vast bloated corpses. You never hear of anyone finding the corpses of what lurks in the fields.

[jeremydeadman]

Chilliwack Gothic II

It is a sweltering evening in July. Party in the Park runs on Fridays. You try the shops along the side streets, but the four frightened eyes of the shopkeeper push you back outside. The store is closed. 

Everybody in town knows who you are - it’s a small town, after all. You know nobody in town. 

You need to pick up groceries from Superstore. It is green, like every building on that stretch of Luckakuck. You come out emptyhanded after days of searching. What did you go in there for? The Superstore is blue. 

They say the mosquitos breed in the Hope slough. They say they breed them big as horses. You don’t know who they are. You’ve never met anyone from Hope. 

All the people you graduated with tell you how excited they are to leave. You hesitantly agree. Every time you see them, everyone tells you they are definitely, positively planning on moving out soon. Maybe next year. Their parents’ faces blanch with remembering. Maybe two years from now.

The secondary schools hate each other. No one knows why. When you ask, somebody mumbles about basketball. Or rugby. Maybe track. Human hair appears in Sardis’ hallways; they blame Chilliwack. Graham is only mentioned in whispers.

Ask your grandfather about the flood of ‘48. He will tell you about the sewing machines.

Everywhere, there are blonde women in knee-length denim skirts. The Mennonites are the ones who smell of bread. The Dutch smell of blood and flowers. Do not confuse one for the other.

The restaurant above the Video Station has been closed since before you were born. It reopens every six months, every time a different variety of buffet. Chinese, Greek, Indian, Caucasian. You haven’t seen your neighbours in a while.

You hear howling every night. In the gutter at the end of your driveway you find the cold body of a coyote, its six legs broken. You promise yourself there is nothing behind you.

[jeremydeadman]

Chilliwack Gothic

It is raining. The river is rising. They tell you the banks will hold. Every year, the banks will hold. They tell you Yarrow flooded. They tell you Greendale flooded. The water is coming east. It is raining.

A theatre closes. You wait expectantly for something, anything new to replace it. Please, god, let there be something new to replace it. A theatre opens.

It is late summer, and the corn is higher than your head. You never see whose hands pick the corn. It shows up, uninvited, in little yellow and green barns on curbs and roadsides. Young girls sell you a plastic bag of twelve cobs for twenty dollars and a smile. Too many smiles. Who picks the corn?

You pass the church on the corner. The parking lot is empty apart from one van near the door. The sign changes its own verse each day. You walk another block. You pass the church on the corner. 

A sedan full of tourists stops you on Yale Road. A smiling family, young innocent children in the backseat. They ask you where the city limits are - do you know where Chilliwack ends? You mumble, confused. You can’t remember. The father gives you a look of pity; the concerned mother shakes his arm. They drive away. They won’t find it.

The homeless man stands on one of Five Corners. He looks at you – he looks in you. Behind his eyes you see a younger man - a younger child - yourself. You give him four loonies. He thanks you in a language you didn’t know you understood.

You don’t know who puts the teapots on Teapot Hill. You don’t ask.

The fields are full of blackberries. The edges of roads, the edges of parks, the edges of schools are lined with blackberries. No one goes too close. In the blackberries there are only eyes.

The cows used to be friendly. They don’t trust anyone now.

The glare of Cultus Lake blinds you. You can’t see the faces of the boaters, the faces of the paddleboarders. Black mounds on the surface could be waves. A teenaged girl on the beach pulls her young brother away from the docks. You can’t see.

Tim Hortons is always hiring. A friend says she’s just picking up a few shifts, it’s not a big commitment, it’s just a part time job. You don’t mourn the ones who go; there are too many. Tim Hortons takes as it pleases.

You hear children laughing. The nearest park is three blocks away. You can always hear children laughing.

[this-is-a-representation]

Alberta Gothic

There is a new Tim Hortons up the street. There is a new Tim Hortons down the street. You drink your second double double. Everything is as it should be.

You park your car next to a white truck. There is a larger white truck behind you. When you return, there is a white truck in the space where you thought you left your car. Did you ever have a car? All the trucks seem taller.

It is the first and final week of fall, and it is snowing. As the sun sets, small figures in many layers of winter clothing knock on your door. You are not certain which ones are in costume. You give them all full sized chocolate bars, just in case.

You begin a new job. You are not certain exactly what you do, but they pay you well. When you receive your first paycheck, the paper cuts your hand. Oil drips from your skin. It is better to look away.

There is construction everywhere, and you must detour from your detour. You see many workers, all in the same orange vests and hard hats. They all carry the same signs. They have no faces. The detour has returned you to where you started. No one has moved. You are not sure how many days have passed.

You drive past a field of canola. You drive past a field of wheat. You drive past a field of cows. The ritual is complete. You are safe for another day.

It is so hot the pavement melts your shoes. You go inside for a glass of water. When you return outside, it is snowing. The water in your glass freezes instantly. You wonder if it will rain later.

[vandroid-helsing]

Seattle gothic

You are showing a person from the Midwest around. “I don’t see how you can live where there are earthquakes and volcanoes,” they say. “I don’t see how you can live where there are tornadoes,” you say. The discord does not resolve.

The city is waiting for The Big One. You have seen an animation produced by the government which illustrates in vivid detail the result of a high-magnitude earthquake on the waterfront: the viaduct will collapse, gas mains will burst, and the waterfront itself will be reclaimed by the sea. Now a disquiet haunts your visits there, especially on sunny days, which are already wrong.

It doesn’t rain here as much as people think. You tell outsiders this constantly. What you do not tell them is that the grey sky envelopes the city like an iron lung. You tell yourself you like the overcast weather. It is pearlescent, you say. Like living in an oyster, you say. Yes, it is exactly like living in an oyster. But you do not tell this to outsiders.

The city was planned by argumentative men and careens drunkenly along the coastline in a series of zigzags and one-way streets. It is a labyrinth with no monster at the center, no guiding thread, no reward for safe navigation. It is almost impossible to give directions to newcomers. They must learn. They must acclimate. They must cast their mind out along the myriad pathways and pray it returns to them before sundown. Our ancestors have laid out a curse of concrete and asphalt, and we daily suffer from it.

The city’s name is not real. It is a misunderstanding that time has not corrected. It was named after a man whose face is carved or sculpted here and there throughout the city, but the man himself was not permitted to live here. There is a fountain dedicated to him near Seattle Center. It is dry.

Is it a coincidence that the city, like Babylon the Great, sits on seven hills? On good days, yes. On bad days, no.

There is always construction in the name of improvement. We have been improving for years now. We will continue to improve. Cranes are a sign of virtue. Traffic cones are an outward sign of devotion. Fluorescent green clothes are the vestments of our hierophants. Adore.

Who owns the land? Not us. Not you. Just names. Not our names. Not your names. Not their names. Artificial names own the land. They are not people. They are the illusion of people. They are the booming economy.

The economy, like a whale, booms as a form of communication, as a beacon attracting others of its kind. You can hear it on quiet nights if you listen closely. It sounds like construction and trains if you don’t know what you’re hearing. It calls across the country. Come. Here. Bring your artificial names with you.

We sit closed in by water and mountains. One or the other is constantly in view. That way, the sea. That way, the lakes. That way, the volcano. This is a small sliver of human civilization, and some days it does not seem real, stable, or permanent. In summer, the city almost evanesces in the light. In winter, it vanishes behind a veil of rain and fog. Often you are surprised when it appears solid and real. You are not used to this. Reality is a slippery thing, especially with all those one-way streets.

[theexplodingwatermelontheorum]

Calgary Gothic

-Your mother always taught you never to touch the snow banks. As you walk home in the evening you hear noises coming from them, as if something is shifting inside. You walk faster. -You are heading home after a night out with friends. A man grabs your arm in the parking lot and offers you a handful of pills. He is smiling and his teeth rot away in his skull. He smells of death, and you pull away, averting your eyes. -There is a car parked on your street that you don’t recognize. You cross the street to avoid it and the headlights flicker on. You race to your neighbour’s door, knocking furiously, and the car drives away. You don’t see anyone inside. -You’re walking through Kensington with your friends. You see a man in the alleyway as you pass, and he looks at you with piercing eyes. You look away, and a moment later you hear sirens. The man is gone. -You go to take out your garbage, but when you reach it the bin is already full. You smell blood, and feel you are being watched. You go back inside. The garbage isn’t that bad this week anyways. -You see a group of tourists walking up the steps of the Glenbow, and you look away. No one goes to the Glenbow. You know this. Everyone knows this. It’s why you never see people leave. They don’t go. -You see two men cornering a third with knives. They turn and look at you, and their smiles seem venomous. “We’re art students” they say, “this is part of a piece we’re doing.” You nod and keep walking, ignoring the dripping sound that follows your departure.

[gentlemanodd]

Edmonton Gothic

They say that there’s a new arena. You ask about the old arena. But no one will meet your eyes when you speak of it.

They’ve put up suicide hotlines near the high level bridge. Some say it’s to prolong life. Others say it’s to appease the dead. The hungry, angry dead. You ask why it’s lit up at night. A man stares at you in horror.

You decide to take 50th street one day on your way to work. The road winds and twists. Suddenly you’re in a neighborhood you don’t recognize. You keep driving. You’ve passed another seminary. At least you think it’s another. It might be the same one. The road winds.

Down near the Garneau, you need to run an errand. There is no parking. You drive further. There is no parking. How long have these retched cars been here you begin to wonder. You turn around. The street is empty. But there is no parking.

On the LRT there is a sign that says “HAVE YOUR TICKET READY” It is a warning. You ask your friend what happens if you don’t have your ticket ready. He stares into the horizon. “Too young.” He mumbles. He weeps.

The glass pyramids shine in the sun. The glass pyramids shine in the rain. The glass pyramids shine in the night. The glass pyramids glow.

You start to wonder about the satellite towns. Places like Sherwood Park or Spruce Grove. Why are they all named after forests? Why aren’t there any trees?

You see advertisements for shops set up in the heart of Old Strathcona. You wonder why they killed a god to set up a shop.

It’s snowing now. It’s snowing everywhere. Sheets of white to cover the wickedness beneath. You grab your shovel. It’s sunny now. There’s not a single snowflake in sight. The sun beats down just a little too hot. You close your eyes. You can still feel the snow on your skin. You open your eyes. It’s raining now. The water washes away the gravel and the mud. But you can still smell the snow. It’s there. Just behind the walls of reality. It’s snowing again. There are trucks everywhere. They line the streets. They take up too much room. You wonder why so many people need trucks. They’re too big. Bigger than they should be. You don’t see anyone driving the trucks. But the trucks remain. They’re covered in mud and camouflage bought from Cabela’s. What is Cabela? You’re told it’s a hunting store. What are they hunting. They just grin.

Whyte Ave is vibrant this time of year. “The festival is soon!” Someone says You begin to ask which one. But you notice the glassy look in their eyes. You try not to look at their feet which have begun floating just a few inches off the concrete. “The festival is soon!” The words echo in your head. Six syllables repeat. “The festival is soon!” You wonder why her voice keeps changing. “The festival is soon!” You catch yourself mouthing the words. “The festival is soon!

[isatun0ll]

Edmonton Gothic

(Inspired by copperbadge and flatlanddan, I gave in and wrote this.)

The town sprawls farther and farther out, eating away at the edges of the prairie. Or is the prairie eating away at the town? You aren’t sure. You try not to go out there. You’re never quite sure where the hungry edges of the tallgrass start.

The streets make sense, you explain. It’s a grid system. Neat rows of numbers marching north and south, east and west. You don’t mention the streets that have names, but no numbers. You don’t mention the streets that have neither.

You walk home from the rink late at night, skates slung over your shoulder and knocking together at your hip. The streetlights cast their yellow-pink glow over the sidewalk; you hurry from one dimly lit outpost to the next and try not to see what’s in between the lights.

They say there are fish in the North Saskatchewan, huge sturgeons that live in the rusted-out carcasses of sunken trains where the sunlight doesn’t reach. No one has ever caught one, the grizzled fisherman on the bank tells you, relief in his eyes, and fear. His float bobs on the surface of the water.

There’s an unshaven man lying against the brick wall of the old library downtown. He’s always there, though every day he wears a different face. You pretend not to see a half-empty bottle, a lighter, blood. You want no part of his arcane rituals.

When the LRT leaves Grandin Station, you look at the person sitting across from you, or down at your feet. You hold your breath from Grandin to University, then take in great gulps of air as the train pulls into the station. Everyone knows you don’t look at the river while you cross.

You’ve heard that Telus Field is built on an ancient First Nations burial ground. Maybe that’s why baseball teams never stay there for long. The city says there’s nothing there, and you assume the trucks that leave are carrying only earth.

Parents worry over whether to send their children to public school or Catholic school. Which one has better resources, they ask? Which one has smaller class sizes? No one gives voice to the real questions. This land has old gods of its own. Which one will anger them less?

The city is surrounded. RV dealerships, farmhouses, grain silos, the airport, and beyond it, grass that reaches past your knees and ripples in the wind. You wonder what’s out there. You wonder if the city is a fortress or a prison. You wonder if it’s dangerous to question it. You wonder if anyone who leaves ever comes back.

The sky is white. The ground is white. The snow piles up as far as the eye can see. The sun will be back in the spring, you tell each other. It sounds like an invocation. You say it every day, just in case. You don’t know what would happen if you ever missed a day.

Gravel crusts over the snow at the side of the road. More snow falls. More gravel. More snow. More gravel. It’s May, and the snow is still there, under the gravel. If it ever melted, you might see what was trapped underneath. You add more gravel.

You lie in the grass, listening to the summer hum of lawnmowers and mosquitoes and the shouts of children in the wading pool at the park. At this distance, it’s hard to tell the difference between shouting and screaming. Six children went missing in Parkallen last year, but the green shack opened up again this year, like it always does. Like it always will, as long as there are children.

The oil rigs bob their heads slowly up and down, casting long, looming shadows in the golden afternoon sun. You glance away, then back. You wonder if they’re in the same place they were a moment ago. The prairie stretches endlessly, and there’s no way to be sure.

[wasmlchelangelo-deactivated2016]

Are There Trees Growing in Your Lungs? (Vancouver Gothic)

There is no Vancouver. There is the Lower Mainland and Metro Vancouver and East Vancouver and West Vancouver and North Vancouver but no Vancouver. No one lives in Vancouver. It does not exist.

There are cities here. Countless cities. Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge. No one knows where they are. There are districts here. Countless districts and towns and fellowships. No one knows if they exist.

There are trees everywhere. There are pine needles between your fingernails. There are leaves in your throat. You open your mouth and a branch curls out. You can smell pinewood. There are trees everywhere. 

The mountains surround you on all sides. They are beautiful. You can feel them pressing down on your chest. They are beautiful. You are starting to suffocate. They are beautiful.

The trees here do not talk. The moss that hangs from their limbs and covers their bodies strangled their feeble voices decades ago. 

The rain burns your skin. You look at the scars forming on your hands and arms. You no longer leave home without an umbrella. 

You see people running along the Seawall. You blink and they disappear. You think the waves pulled them in but it’s low tide. You blink again. It’s high tide. 

The tourists are taking pictures of the totem poles in Stanley Park. They tower over them, their painted eyes cracking and peeling away. You can sense them protecting you. You do not want to know from what.

The storm happened years ago. You barely remember. People pose in front of the fallen trees, gnarled and twisted and lightning-struck. Your hands begin to shake. You suddenly remember. You start to run.

You pass by the steam clock in Gastown. People gather around it, their heads thrown back and their mouths open. They are screaming. You look up at the clock. It is also screaming. 

Tankers dot the sea line. You do not know where they come from. You do not know where they are going. They never move, but more come each day. They fill the sea line. You do not remember what the ocean looks like.

There was an oil spill the other day. It washed onto the beaches of English Bay, coating the seabirds in black sludge. They are crying. They told you not to go near the beach. “It’s too dangerous,” they said. You start to wonder if it was actually oil. They are crying.

The two main universities are on a mountain and out near sea. You start to wonder if anyone will notice if they disappeared. You start to wonder if the students will notice themselves.

You do not know anyone from high school who goes to your university. They tell you it’s too far away. You don’t believe them. You get on the bus to school. It drives past campus. The bus won’t stop. The forest stretches out before you. The forest won’t end.

Your high school classmates left for Alberta to work in the oilfields. They bragged that they will make more money than you ever will. This was before the crash. Now they want to come back. They can never come back. Once you leave you can never come back.

You drive past houses on the way to downtown that are worth tens of millions of dollars. They are over sixty years old and built out of broken cement. The more worthless they are the more expensive they become. You drive away.

Your out-of-town friend asks why everyone is so fit. You tell them “Rent or food. Pick one.” They start to laugh but stop, their faces contorted. You do not recognize them. They see the expression on your face. They do not recognize you.

They are building new apartments everyday now. Glass balconies with glass walls and glass ceilings and glass floors. The signs say all the units have been sold, but you’ve never seen anyone inside of them. 

The SkyTrain is driverless. You do not dare ask why. 

Please vote “yes” for more transit. Vote “no” for hell on earth. Please vote “no” to more transit. Vote “yes” for hell on earth.

You do not remember the last time it snowed. There are car crashes all over the news. You watch the grainy images of the carnage on your flat screen television. You do not know why they are crashing. It is raining. 

You are driving down the street when the radio screams awake. You did not turn it on. A muffled voice cries “Breaking news. Breaking news.” A man has been found in his car, slumped dead over the steering wheel. Whether he died from a heart attack or not depends on which city he was found in. You feel a slick and wet substance run down your stomach. You look down. Blood pools out of a gunshot wound in your chest. You suddenly remember which city you’re in. 

“This is small-time crime,” one of the mayors say. Gunshots ring across the tile-roofed homes. This is the twelfth time in a month. “This is small-time crime,” they repeat. 

You see empty SkyTrain cars sitting in the middle of the tracks in broad daylight. They do not move. You see them in the middle of the night. They do not move. You see them the next morning. They move up the track. 

Daycare is more expensive than college. You find yourself judging anyone with more than two children. You wonder which one will go where. You wonder which one will go nowhere. 

The Target at the mall is being torn down. The Future Shop is boarded up. There are “For Lease” signs on every other shop. You do not know what a “We’re Hiring” sign looks like. They tell you a million jobs will open within the next decade. You do not know where. 

You are in your mother’s car. She stops at a four-way intersection. A man is standing on the street corner. He looks like a long-lost friend. He has a beard, but so does everyone else. He is holding a bent cardboard sign. Jobless, Hungry, and God bless you are scrawled all over it. God bless you. God bless you God bless you God bless you. You look away. He is a long-lost friend. 

The only thing separating you from the streets is luck the only thing separating you from the streets is luck the only thing separating you from the streets is

You used to think being a millionaire will make you rich. Now it will make you poor. You do not know any millionaires.

They tell you the “big one” will hit in five years. Ten years. Fifty years. A hundred years. A thousand years. You do not know if the rumble beneath your feet was a train or not. You wait for the train whistle. It never comes.

You look out your bedroom window and see your neighbour washing his car in the driveway. You have never seen this man before. The next day, you see a different man washing a different car. The next day, a different man. The next day, a different man. This does not bother you. You shut your blinds. 

A mother bear and her cubs walked down your neighbourhood one day. Everyone would have run inside their homes if they weren’t already inside. The children refuse to play in the streets now. You do not know if they ever did. You do not know if there are even children here. 

You start to suspect that mortgages do not get paid solely in money. 

Your father has twenty-five years of experience. He has a science degree. His boss is younger than him. His coworkers could pass for his children. You see him coming home at midnight, his face sunken and his eyes red. He is a Baby Boomer. You do not stand a chance.

One day optimism will become too expensive to afford. 

They tell you this is the best place on earth. They do not live here. They do not know.

[thepaperplaneofexistence]

coastal gothic

there’s a throbbing pain you get in your skull whenever a storm rolls in. there’s always dark clouds closing in on the horizon. your head’s been aching for years now.

you’ve never owned a boat in your life. maybe worked off of one, long time ago, but it was never yours. that’s alright. no one needs that kind of responsibility. there no true license humankind can offer to roam these wild waters.

waterfront houses throw the best parties, boastful flashy expensive affairs. cause there’s a certain kind of money you need to afford those properties. certain kind of stupidity too. the lord said not to build a house on shifting sand, you whisper into your glass, and start fixing to leave just after moonrise.

mountains meet water here, so everything is up or down or over hill. some are subtle, rolling, some so steep they have you pitching forward on your knees or breathless with effort to keep moving, gaping at tumultuous ocean or an uncaring sky. there’s concrete cracked with roots beneath your feet, and electrical lines buzz above, weaving between the trees. the people adapt to the land because nature is not generous here. it has always defied development. it shows no signs of giving in soon.

the earth last quaked a decade ago, as if to shake off the human infestation, and the sea drew itself back. we all await the day the tide rolls back in with baited breath. 

“let’s go to the beach!” your visiting relatives say, and you indulge them. that last undeveloped strip of land where it meets sea is windblown, desolate, fog carving across the bone white sky. flip flops catch on jagged rock as you hesitantly approach the dark waves, ready to offer praise or penance. you watch the seagulls pick at remains at the waters edge. remains of what? you don’t wanna know.

shoes wash up with the tide every few days or so. they thought a landfill was eroding somewhere at first, maybe kids are getting more careless of the cost of nikes, then some emerged with a foot still in them, detached at the ankle. those bones are weak, you know, and the current will break them right off the body. even if you divide the number of shoes by two, that’s still a lot of bodies. 

 we comb the coastline for waste, mindful of the human pollutants choking the ocean. chemical. physical. existential. industrial debris floats just off shore. some of it thrown careless into the depths, some of it swept off beaches, both from these shores and from thousands of miles away–manmade creations twisted by the waves and the winds. maybe the radiation from that damaged nuclear facility across the water. who knows.

 they don’t believe in gods here, but there’s something in these waters, lurking deep in the woods, just visible through the mist that creeps down from the mountains. something’s out there, and it’s not human, but it sure as hell ain’t divine, either.

[illustratedjai]

Vancouver Gothic

You arrive at the platform, just as the Millenium line train pulls away. The next two trains will be Expo lines. Two trains come and go. The next two trains will be Expo lines. The next two trains will always be Expo lines. You leave the platform to grab a coffee. You arrive at the platform just as the Millenium line train pulls away. 

It is raining. It is September and it is raining. It is January and it is raining. It is March and it is raining. It is raining. You remember sun. You remember it’s warmth on your face. It is May and it is raining. “I like the rain.” You whisper to yourself. “It keeps things green.” Someday you might believe it. It is June and it is raining. 

Your friends are doing the Grouse Grind. “Come with us,” they say, “it’ll be fun.” You smile and make your excuses. You will not see them again. The mountain takes what it wants. 

There is a rivalry between SFU and UBC. No one will say why. They laugh and say it is all in jest, but their eyes are haunted. They must choose a side, even if they never attended either school. It is all in jest. 

“We should go to the Art Gallery. Why haven’t we been yet?” You gather together, and go to the Art Gallery. You remember walking in. You remember walking out. You know that you paid. You do not remember what, only that it was valuable, and now it is lost to you forever. You do not know what you gained in the Art Gallery. You do not know what you lost. 

You have been to Granville Island. It is not truly an island. You can drive on, and you can drive off. You have done so before. Today, every corner you turn brings you back to the Market. You glance over your shoulder, checking that it is behind you, as you turn the corner. You face forward again, and stare forlornly at the Market. 

They say people live in Vancouver. They say the cost of living is 18$/hr. They say this is only true if you live in the downtown core. They say people live in Vancouver. You are from Burnaby. Your friends are from Langley. Your parents live in Coquitlam. They say people live in Vancouver. 

You get on the N9 bus. It is late, and you are tired. You’re getting off at Coquitlam station. If you close your eyes now, you will have plenty of time before you get there. Sleep. It will be fine. 

It is August and the land is dry and parched. The ground cracks beneath your feet. The grass withers in the parks. The tide has retreated. The beaches are filled with people. “Isn’t this nice.” They say. “This is what summer should be like.” They say. “It’s so nice out.” They say. Their lips crack as they speak, and their skin seem to shrivel. You wonder if you will ever feel cool again. 

copperbadge keeps reblogging these and i kept thinking i should do a vancouver one….

[eldritchcupcake]

Northern BC Gothic

The woods are deeper here than anywhere else. There is a darkness that falls from overreaching boughs that feels tangible; almost sentient in a way. Staring into the emerald abyss, you feel the primal fear of early man rivet you to the spot, for the forest is older and wiser than you will ever be, and it does not much care for your kind. 

It is summer, and your father has loaded the family pickup the essentials: a bundle of tent poles, several coolers, the dog, firewood, axes, and no less than three firearms. “Where are we going?” You ask in passing, as he places another rifle onto the pile. “We’re gonna get good and lost this time,” he replies, “Real bushwhackin’, you know?” You stare helplessly back at your home and wonder if your father will ever allow you to return.

You know everyone in town. Everyone. You can name them by the shape of their silhouette or the sounds of their gait. You know who they are, how they are, where they are, why they are. Even visitors are in your sphere of knowledge, always traceable to one family or another.  You know who is ill, dead, or dying, and you know who has been born and to whom. You are but one cell of an organism that stretches for miles, and through thousands of eyes, you see all. 

There are places on the coast that feel entirely untouched in their wildness. The wet sand before you has seen no hoof, nor paw. nor boot before your own, but the mist that pulls close around you is full of ghostly figures. You watch as the waves begin to erase the trail that your footprints have left, and wonder if you will be joining them soon. 

There is a man standing at your door. When you answer, he greets you cordially as “neighbor” and lumps several dead salmon into your arms. By the time you get them tucked into the freezer, there is another man in place of your “neighbor”, who presents you with even more reeking trophies. There is another man after that, and then another, and then another. Your freezer is bursting with foul-smelling gifts from strangers. 

“Oh, it’s always raining here,” laughs a resident to a tourist, but there is a glimmer of fear in her eyes. It has been years since anyone has seen the sun. Its existence is rapidly fading into myth, and no one remembers what is feels like to be dry. When will it end?

At dusk, the people are in a panic. Children and beloved pets are hurried inside and the doors are bolted shut, for with darkness come the wolves. During the day people whisper about where the packs frequented last evening, taking nervous guesses at which neighborhood would be their haunt that night. But you never feared them, in fact the wolf songs are the only thing that can sing you to sleep on cold nights when the world is otherwise eerily silent. 

[mountainpeak-deactivated2018031]

Southern Alberta Gothic ??

As your drive down the highway you are surrounded by fields. You can’t remember the last time you passed a town and you’re beginning to feel watched. The fields that surround you never end, the ever present mountains seeming to tower above you even though they are in the distance. Something moves in the wheat fields. You drive on, knuckles white are your steering wheel, hoping to out drive whatever is in the fields.

The wind is howling. The wind is always bowling. You can’t quite recall a day when it wasn’t. It slams doors and tugs at curtains, snatching at loose objects and taking them away. It doesn’t bother you too much during the day, but you fear it at night. At night it whispers instead of howls, you name carried over the mountains. It quietly creaks open the doors and tugs at your blankets. You hope you re heavy enough not to snatched away.

The weatherman reports a whiteout. You know what that means and look at your wind at the blowing snow. You can’t see your barns or your cards. You can however see the figures that are lurking in the fog. As custom, you pretend not too and close you curtains.

Your local newspaper speaks of another cougar warning. Keep your dogs and cats inside, it says. It does not mention the children. You’ve never actually seen a cougar, and neither have your friends or family or neighbors. You wonder if they’re real. Regardless, you hope it leaves before it takes another one

When you walk in the barn the light flickers. The chicken are eerily quiet. You feed them silently, not looking into their unblinking yellow eyes. They watch you, ignoring the feed at their feet. The lights continue to flicker. Suddenly, you don’t think the feed is the food they want.

Deer run across the highway. You stop your car and wait. The herd seems never ending, deer after deer bolting in front of your car. You wonder what they’re running from. You hope you can drive away before you find out.

[adreadfulidea-deactivated202402]

Alberta Gothic

- The desolation stretches forever, enormous swathes of scarred and blighted land where trees and streams and life used to be. They wanted what was under it, you see. So they took it away, burned and dug until it was gone. They call it ‘development’. Or progress. - The earth cracks open and black spills out.  - Men come from far away to work in the mines and on the rigs. Young men, family men, old men with gnarled knuckles and backs. It eats them up, this work, these hours and the cold and the pollution. Something goes wrong inside at the doctor’s office or outside at the tar sands. They don’t always make it back home. - There are lakes of toxic waste instead of water, rank and huge and terrifying. Birds land in them with nowhere else to go, seeking shelter from the storm. They die. They die by the hundreds. - You saw a picture when you were a child of bison skulls lining the railroad tracks. Piles of them you could have climbed like a mountain. It was in school. How far we’ve come, your teacher said. You think of the birds. You think of the skulls. - The men in suits in the clean offices still make their money, though. Always. - The winter is colder than you could believe. The kind of cold that seeps from the ground up into your boots, that freezes the pipes of your cheap house and won’t let cars start in the morning. The wind howls wild and will bite off the ears and noses of the unwary. It’s a north wind. An angry wind. Winter never seems to end. - You’ve seen the way the pines grow thin and twisted up north, the way the dust storms of Drumheller rise up from the cracked red soil and block out the sky. You’ve counted the abandoned grain elevators as you passed them on the highway. You walked on prairies so flat that you could watch a man run away for three days. Sometimes you did. - Once, your grandfather tells you, this land belonged to your people. People who cared for it, who treated it like the sacred thing it was. Once it was beautiful.   - But not anymore.

[rifa]

Vancouver BC Gothic

hoards pile into the 99 bus as it swells, people push against you but there is no where else to go, you are trapped. You see the other rider’s eyes shift as a transit police approaches, you don’t remember if you have a ticket in your pocket but see the pistols at their side as they approach.

locally raised meat used to be an ideal option for the plate, you used to boast about your pork being raised just outside the city, you imagined no one was harmed in the process, that no one was exploited and preyed on to create this food. You were wrong, and now your stomach turns.

Tourists surround a clock as if summoned, cameras and phones up to capture the steam that bellows from it. They stand for hours, watching the ticking, waiting for more steam, waiting for something. Their tourist maps have legends and text boxes over the places the city wants to hide but the homeless men and women come to the clock to find them, ignored as the tourists photograph the clock again.

you’ve been walking the sea wall for hours, no end in sight, and yet you trudge along. Bikes and joggers and dog walkers pass and their conversation veers from the empty olympic village buildings rotting money to the appointment times for their hot yoga. Someone takes a photo of the sun set on the water which is slowly turning an oily black.

A man sits on a wooden crate outside a store, his hands are marked and calloused as he gently carves a small Haida totem. You always see him, sometimes here and sometimes in other places, he is always carving and leaving little piles of thread thin wood. A white man passes him and complains loudly to his wife about the ‘drunk indians’ on the streets as he enters the store the man is sitting in front of, a store full of native art.

A woman is missing, another woman is missing, more women are missing, the bodies are never found, no one looks for them, another woman is missing and the police tuck the files away.

A group of men walk past in hockey jerseys, more come, they pour into stadiums as you watch numbly. You never cared about the local team before the riot. You didn’t care until the street was filled with smoke and your hair was full of glass. You hope the canucks win.

[improbablecarny]

Vancouver Gothic

It is morning, and you hear the seagulls. It is nighttime, and you hear the seagulls. You hear the seagulls. You always hear the seagulls. You pray the seagulls do not hear you.

A Skytrain pulls into the station. It is completely empty. The ticker board does not say which line it is. Come to think of it, you are not sure what station you are at, either. You step onto the train.

The paddleboarders swarm English Bay. You cannot see their faces. It is sunny and bright, but there are no faces to be seen, no matter how close you look. Something in your brain tells you not to look any closer.

You walk around the sea wall on a warm evening, and stop to stare at the towering Inuksuk. It stares back.

A gaggle of tourists surround the Steam Clock. Every fifteen minutes, it calls them. They worship it with their cameras. With every click of a shutter, it ticks ahead a minute. Whose minute that was has yet to be determined.

There is a starfish on Georgia Street. Nobody knows why. Another one drops to the ground behind you as you ponder this.

It is raining, and the grass is green. The trees are green. The sidewalk is growing green. The skies are grey and everything else is much, much too green. You forget what it is to see anything that isn’t grey and green. You don’t miss it.

Ship horns threaten to shatter your ears. You’re nowhere near the harbour. You’d better get out of the way.

You take the 99. It bleeds.

There’s another coffee shop opening on the corner. You’ve forgotten how to tell the difference between them. As you walk in and slap down a $5, you also realize that you can no longer tell the difference between the taste of coffee and the taste of rain.