Our Game

My grandmother would have preferred my Saturdays spent indoors, book in lap, head in the clouds. In actuality this was often the case, but I was never content being pigeonholed as the brain of the family. I loved hockey -- the game, that is, not the surrounding culture. I loved the game, loved the sound of my blades on the grey ice of my grandmother's pond nestled in the evergreens just beyond the edge of her garden, loved the smell of the snow, the trees and the crisp winter air. We played every Saturday, most Sundays and some weeknights after school, daylight permitting, the same trio each time: my brother, our cousin Francis who lived across the field, and myself. The pond was just the right size for one-on-one plus a neutral goalie; nearly always my brother, who was the youngest. We played hard. Me versus Francis, trying everything to outsmart him and get a decent shot away at my brother, crouched between a pair of boots in his homemade cardboard pads with 'Heaton' scribbled down the sides in permanent marker. We played as though our lives depended on it, as though our loved ones were being held by the hockey gods as the fulcrum in some twisted balance of blood sacrifice and our own sweat.

We played until we could no longer see the puck against the darkness and the choppy ice. Then we would skate over to the boards lying frozen at the edge of the pond, sit, untie our skates and shoot the proverbial shit until the cold was too much to bear then put our boots back on and head across the fallow, snow covered potato mounds to my grandmother's kitchen with its warmth and smell of fried meat. There we would review our day's exploits over hot chocolate while my grandmother smiled at our exaggerated claims.

This was before my brother discovered girls and the internet (but not necessarily in that order), before my cousin convinced himself that the solution to his father could be found at the bottom of a quart of Jameson's and before I discovered radical politics, class-A drugs and the fact that cliche and despair are much harder to outrun than old age, venereal disease and minimum wage. We are all much older now, some wiser than others. I have not strapped on the skates in over ten years and I rarely think much about hockey or what might be happening in the NHL standings.

I loved hockey. But: I did not play hockey at any organized level. I did not pay two hundred dollars for a carbon fibre composite stick. I did not engage in, nor was I the victim of any hazing rituals at the hands of the entitled children of suburbanite lawyers. I did not have to endure the sound of my parents berating teenage referees, my coach or opposing players. I did not idolize Don Cherry, nor think that the only two worthwhile functions for a woman's mouth were giving head and saying 'yes, dear.' For all this, I am thankful.

I am sure my grandmother would be too.

Kirk Williams

The Next Day

The next day the news had died down. What then was 'now' was now 'then' and had somehow become irrelevant in the eyes of the general populous. For a brief time the comet's long and graceful ponytail enraptured, guided, and mystified the hopeful stargazers as they set their dreams on this brilliant beam of dust, and waited.
The pinkish evening boded well for the light show. Those who wanted to witness the new traveller were ready with lawn chairs, blankets, cameras, binoculars and telescopes, as well as plenty of food, drinks, and card games to tally the hours more quickly. A few added ripples to the atmosphere by bringing along stereos and glowworm-like toys that cast an alien green on the grass and encircled darkened wrists and necks. As if trying to communicate with the stars, the audience sported their own borrowed light: a beautiful sight from afar; we are like you, they seemed to wish to say. Various insects hummed, providing a background music below the subtly violent harmonies that issued from the human and electronic babel. The skies, however, were the focus, and the scenery became the source of action in a complex theatrical spectacle.
The pink faded into a whitish blue that, when one followed it closely, disappeared into the midnight blue that precedes midnight. A small light came into view and drew the millions of eyes towards itself: a mass staring at a distant mass through an arras of colour and optical distortion. The comet was a visual monologue-- a soliloquy for those romantic sorts who dreamt of interpreting its message in a more personal manner. Self-conscious or completely unaware, it bore a certain sprezzatura in its travels through the colours of the sky---a single apparition comet that had flown into view of the earth, pulled and driven, but beautiful as though the violence of gravity were rather a comfortable motion meant to be carried out with finesse, dignity, delicacy, composure (despite its resplendent display of disintegration). The illuminated tail reflected in the eyes of the watchers, but the mystery held a deeper sway than even the pull of gravity: the dark centre remained hidden behind the light of the dust.

But the effect fades at the end.

The party departed at the break of day. The comet granted few, if any wishes. Shadows, grey and imperceptible at first, grew sharper along the earth as the sun rose and the gazers hid their heads under pillows--those who had the leisure to do so.
A few, still awake, pointed to the small stratus clouds developing in the north.

And you stood before me and I saw the comet still in your eyes.

Marlo Burks

I have a very good memory. I can remember things that happened to me I should have been too young to remember now. I remember my first step (I made it to the stairs, and I fell down them). I remember the moment I knew I did not want to drink from a bottle any more (I found the sensation of the rubber in my mouth stomach-turning. My Mom says I could not have been older than 2).

I remember my father's huge veiny hand holding a tabby kitten under a hot water tap to de-louse his fur – we were too poor to take animals to the vet, or to buy treatments. I would have been about two and a half. I don't remember the story of how he came to our house, but my father has told me.

We were driving up the Nor'west Road, almost in Sevogle. Dad looked into Buzzy's yard, and knew he had to stop.

Buzzy was about 5'2, wiry, with a big red beard and purple skin from whiskey. People called him Yosemite Sam, and this was just as much for his temper as it was for his look. Buzzy was holding a shot gun at his side. His son, Dale, 9, was holding a wooden box. Dale tossed the box into the air, somewhat miraculously without having it fall back down on his small body. Buzzy aimed and shot at the box. This looked to be the last of several attempts.

Buzzy's old cat had given birth again, and this was his inspired, drunken scheme to get rid of them. My Dad opened the box, to find one bug-eyed kitten amongst mangled and bloodied fur. He came home with us. I named him Buzzy. I remember that part, but I didn't remember why and I can't explain why. My sense of irony was simply not that well honed at age 2.

Buzzy the cat died last Spring. He'd been blind for some time, for years when you picked him up, his body had lacked that fluid, flexed sensation that most cats have, and he had stopped grooming himself or even standing when he had to void his bladder. His legs made cracking noises. He spent all his time against a heater. Brown sludge began to accumulate in the corners of his mouth, like seeping death.

I pleaded with my parents through a Southeast Asian calling card to put him out of his misery. My father was despondent, angry. We'd had that cat for almost as long as we had been a family, and to him we were desperate to kill him off.

Buzzy the cat had cheated death until he was 23. It is only appropriate that he was finally shot. Dad did it

A whir and rumbling in the tunnel, lights climbing round the walls. The airborne filth mists and pushes out, the train approaches. Few choices now, says the old Roger to the young nurse. A child in her lap. The peace of kinship, he thinks to himself, the simple and iconic beauty. Please don't leave me now. There's so much chaos here. The dirt of an age, gathering and gathering, and Old Roger the sentry with his broom, clearing it out again. Underground station 122, Hinton Square Park. One hundred and twenty-second home.
Something in his beard catches his eye and he looks down.
Yes, says the nurse. Nearly Ten o'clock. Another couple of runs. We're running late but really it's better that she sleeps now. I won't chance not getting her down at home. Too much on tomorrow.
The Nurse straightens her cap, smiling. The little girl stirs in her lap. Ah, yes, says Roger, pretending to grasp the logic, and then continues, No place for a young one, of course.
He forces a sandy chuckle and clears his throat.
The nurse runs her fingers through the girl's hair, fixes her collar. Roger gives his push broom an
artful swivel, showering soot. What day is today? Would it make much difference, if I were to know. I know all else that matters, thinks old Roger. He knows the times of the trains and every delay. He knows where the dogs will rupture greasy sacks of refuse. He knows where the water penetrates the ceiling. I needn't idle here. Am I alone here? No, no, I do not think I am alone at all. Transit stations are the locus of human freedom, no attachment but to one's self. The question is moot. This is the sort of power she dreams of, the nursemaid, wrapped up in a child's life. A vibration in his soles, creeping up into the laces of his boots. The last train's advance. Would you like to know why I have stayed here, he says to the nurse.
She looks up, taking a hankerchief from her handbag and bringing it to the sleeping girl's lips. The name on her grey official's badge is Ginger. Certainly, but only another time. She look at him pityingly; he is nauseated; she whispers quickly to the child. Emily, is it? How I would like to speak to young Emily, little girl, sweet and
pretty, Emily, Emily. Old Roger tasted the name, he let the name roil on his his tongue, bristling, whinnying. Such a darling name. Happy Christmas, said the nurse, standing. She brushed soot from her dress.
Yes, and to you. And also you, little one, said roger. Emily, did not look up. They approached the paused train as he turned his back, his grey hands folding calused fingers into familiar grooves. He pushes the broom toward the wall. And waits. He listens. But they are gone when he turns back again.

Saturday, Decemeber 31, 2005.

Exaltation

Needless to say, the entire ordeal was over very shortly before it began.

Walking through the aisles of the Supermarket, the same solitary fortress of consumption as every other day, the lights seemed a little harsher than usual. It was then that I noticed they were shining especially bright on the produce section. I scanned the area quickly, seeing no other bodies nearby and approached them apprehensively. They glared back at me, the witch of a woman wrapped in a shawl as tightly as the apple in their plastic prison. I panicked at their accusatory gazes, damning my freedom, my ability to leave these horrid confines. I could not stand it any longer and I fell to the floor. I woke up some short time later with a man asking me if I was alright. I told him to leave me alone and bought as much produce that I could fit in my cart. Fresh carrots. Juicy plums. Those terrible turnips that never tasted like anything remotely pleasant. And I left there, quickly, heading back to my own house.

My daughter sat at the table in the darkness, staring at the telephone. "Dad called. Grandma finally died." She started to cry and I walked back to the car, grabbing all of the bags of produce at once and bringing them back into the house. The entire process took about 4 and a half minutes, all while my daughter sat wailing. I forced myself to say "It will be alright, your father knew it was coming, it will be okay." I gave her 20 dollars and told her to go buy herself some new accessories at Ardene's. She left.

That night I snuck out of bed while my daughter played terrible CDs in her bedroom, knowing she was probably stoned or passed out drunk by herself. I opened the fridge and knelt down in front of it, the beautiful, warm glow them lovelier than any embrace I have known. I watched the fruits, the vegetables, as they sat on their own. It took two shelves to hold them all. I plotted their escape, my mind turning circles over and over until I finally decided I would have to relocate them. They could only last in here for so long. My daughter would get suspicious. Yes, a new location. I would drive them out to our cabin an hour away by the lake, and put them in the large, empty fridge there for the time being. I would have to do so tomorrow night, when my daughter will be gone to see her father. Any other time, I would have to provide her an explanation.

It was then that I saw them glaring back at me again, desperate in their entrapment. I reached forward, tearing apart all the bags that contained them, placing the apples next to the bundles of carrots and the plums next to the cartons of strawberries. All of them free to breathe the air of their own company.

The next morning I woke up early for my morning jog and my daughter was sitting on the couch, watching TV. We caught each others eye for a short moment and I continued to the door, dressed in my new jogging suit I purchased for myself when I reached 120 pounds. My jog was fairly enjoyable but I felt myself getting tired too soon, but forced myself on. I ran into the nasty woman Natalie Baer in the park and was forced to feign sympathy for the death of my ex mother-in-law. I ran past those people doing the yearly Cancer run, speeding past them and refusing to acknowledge their presence. I ran around the entire town and it all took about two hours and I felt wonderful.

I returned home and entered the kitchen, and viewed the carnage that had taken place. My new in-table set out in the middle, with casseroles, applesauce, various fruit trays, cooked corn, cabbage rolls, pickled beets. All of my loves, carved and cut. Bled dry and burned. All of them. Taped on the table like an eviction notice, a note: Hey mom! A bunch of the girls and I decided to get a head start on food for the reception after the funeral. We're so lucky you had all this stuff bought already! Cooking is so therapeutic. You know what? I think you're right, Mom. Everything IS gonna be okay! --Sally

I ran forward, frantically screaming and I slammed the table down hard, causing the legs to fold as the top fell to the floor. I sat down quickly, staring at the corpses as I began to devour all of it, knee-deep in smashed and mutilated fruits and vegetables. I writhed in it, eating the fruit plates all at once, crunching carrots, chewing apples. Even those terrible turnips. My tears mixing with the mess on my face as I wailed like a child. And as it all stopped and my stomach was full of them and I looked around, once again, at the horror beneath me, I suddenly didn't feel so alone.