Author: wmelnick

Media Arts and English high school teacher who loves using technology to enhance learning and engage students. Experiments with online learning and teaches in Brightspace.

A Model Mother by Haley Price

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chic_bridal_makeup

            A burgundy sun dances slowly across the horizon to the constant humming of street lights springing to life.  All the while the sun is maneuvering among an entourage of stalwart purple guardians vigorously protecting the last few moments of daylight.  A time of day for most that means the relaxing end to a stressful day, often involving dinner with ones closest family and friends.  However for Diana the dinner orchestra of pot lids embracing their stainless steel companions and the constant drum of knife blades on the cutting board is a source of great anxiety and tension.  Like most fourteen year old girls Diana has to endure a tremendous amount of pressure to live up to the feminine ideal of beauty.  A task in itself that any woman can say is a struggle at best, but for Diana it is a nightmare as she has the added pressure of being the daughter of a former fashion model.  This pressure combined with Diana’s innate teenage desire to spar with her parents has resulted in the past with some rather spirited battles between herself and her mother over how she looks, and the types of clothes she prefers to wear.

The primary source of the tension between Diana and her mother Jessica comes from her mother’s constant droning over how pretty Diana is and how she should wear more flashy clothing to show off her figure.  However it is hard for Diana to accept these comments as genuine, firstly because as a teenager is there any compliment a parent can give their child that isn’t a backhanded comment in order to get them to behave in a more idealized manner, and secondly because the woman trying tell her how beautiful she is just happens to be a blonde five foot and eleven inch natural beauty for whom time seems to have forgotten.  Unbeknown to Diana on this late August evening is that her mother knows exactly the types of pressure she is facing from her friends at school, and it is in fact the woman who Diana believes couldn’t understand her in the least that will turn out to understand her the most.

As the sun finally sets in the backdrop of their Victorian style townhouse located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Diana and her mother sit down for a late Sunday dinner of roast beef with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables.  The weekly family tradition of over cooked beef and generic conversation is broken today.  Not because Diana’s mothers cooking classes were suddenly paying dividends, but because the last weekend of August marked her Father Chris’s annual tech conference in Denver, Colorado; which means that the conversation tonight would Jessica’s chance to have real women’s talk with her daughter.  Tonight, because her father is not there Diana is given the privilege of sitting at the head of the glass and metallic family dining table.  Although to Diana it feel less like a privilege and more of a punishment as it forces her to participate more actively in the uncomfortable dinner conversion for fear of being will out of existed by her mother’s judgemental stare.  As uncomfortable as the daily dinner conversation made Diana feel tonight’s would be infinitely worse as tonight her mother would be confronting her with the fact that she knows Diana has an eating disorder.  It would be after this evening’s routine of food shuffling and unwanted conversation that Diana’s future health would be determined.

Quarter after nine in the evening on a cool and dry August Sunday Diana and her mother Jessica finally sit down enjoy the roast beef dinner that had been in preparation for the last 2 hours.  After taking several moments to delicately choose the smallest piece of meat with least amount of fat and getting a perfectly adequate spoonful of mixed vegetables Diana slowly wandered her way over to her father’s throne.  As she sat down and felt the cool metallic chair through her light summer clothing Diana couldn’t help but hope that her mother wasn’t in a chatty mood as she had a tendency to drone on about meaningless meetings with obnoxious clients, which is was a seemingly redundant description as Diana assumed the clientele of a Ferrari dealership would all be obnoxious corporate elites.  Tonight however Jessica’s focus of conversation would be on some of the disturbing habits of her daughter’s that she had noticed.  Behaviours that she recognised as warning signs to bulimia, an issue with which she herself was well acquainted with having made a name for herself in the modelling industry.  After having been seated for several minutes and failing to find an easy way to bring up the warning signs she had noticed Jessica finally came out and just said, “I have been really worried about you lately Diana. I’ve noticed you haven’t been sharing as much lately with me or your father, and you have been spending a lot more time alone in your room.”  Diana replied quickly in a snarky tone, “Why would that worry you? It’s the end of summer what exactly should I be doing with time?”   Jessica quickly realised that it would be more difficult than simply getting Diana to openly admit to what was bothering her lately and how it was affecting her, so she instead remembered back to when she was working through many of these issues for herself early in her modelling career at the age of sixteen and how she recorded it in her Diary.  A Diary that she kept till this day tucked away subtly into the bottom drawer of her Oak three drawer nightstand underneath a copy of the first fashion magazine she ever appeared in.  Not that anyone else would know that she appeared in this magazine as it was merely a two by two inch picture of a pair of well-groomed feet wearing a pair of out dated Velcro sandals, and sporting some out dated neon green nail polish.

Instead of trying to win a verbal game of chess all the while preserving the fragile self-esteem of her young teenage daughter Jessica instead decided to that it would be better to let the teenage version of herself share her experience with bulimia with her daughter.  Jessica looked up and locked eyes with her hazel eyed daughter and said “I know that you think I can’t possibly understand what it means to be a teenager because it was so long ago that I was one, but I want to share with you my diary from when I was a teenager.  You can skip over the parts of it where I talk about wanting to marry Jason Priestly and focus on the last half of it.  I want you to do this as a favor to me, and if after you read it you want to talk to me about it then we can, or if you don’t want to talk about it we don’t have to do that either.”  With a confused look on her faced, as if her mother had just spoken to her in a foreign language Diana replied, “Okay I guess”.

After finishing putting away the leftovers from dinner into the fridge portion of the fridge freezer combo appliance; Jessica looked over at Diana who was putting the dishes from dinner into the dishwasher and told her where the diary could be found.  With her back still facing her mother, and in a grumpy mumble Diana replied, “Okay in your nightstand under some stuff, got it”.  Diana’s post dinner routine remained unchanged despite the conversation with her mother, as she quickly returned to her room after helping clean up the mess in the older kitchen.  Within what seemed like seconds Diana was back within the protective violet walls of her castle that were heavily decorated in movie posters, and posters of her past and present favourite musicians.  On the far corner of her dimly lit room was located her wooden desk covered and resting on top amid of a bundle of assorted old school projects and used make up was her MacBook Air.  This computer is her connection to the salvations of the outside world as well as the unrelenting criticism of her female classmates that would dare to identify themselves as friends.  The worst of these so called friends is a five foot tall chubby little blond hair and blue eyed girl named Christine who would make George Carlin look like Weird Al Yanchovich.  Christine was the epitome of class bitch and she made sure that she lived up to this reputation even during the summer break by constantly harassing Diana over the internet through Facebook and Twitter.  She would post links to online diets and exercise videos on Youtube in private messages to Diana’s all the while telling Diana that she looked good in the comments section underneath her summer photos.  Diana paused for a minute after entering her room and she looked around for something to do.  There was the t.v. in the corner, but she knew that there was nothing good on t.v. at nine forty five on a Sunday night during the summer.  Diana then looked across the room to the bookshelf beside her bed.  The bookshelf had all three of its shelves filled to the brim with books but most of them were either from her childhood, or they were her grandmother’s used crime novels and romance stories that her grandmother mistakenly thought she would want to read.  Deciding that not a single book of her more than one hundred was worth the effort of prying from the firm grasp of the book shelf she looked back to her desk in the corner and thought about going online just to see what her friends were up to.  Diana sat down on her ergonomically correct black wheelie chair and began to go through her online routine of browsing gossip magazines and checking for notifications on Facebook and Twitter.  There was no earth shattered news on the celebrity front, and it appeared that none of her friends (at least the ones she was actually interested in) had any interesting updates either.  After ten minutes of browsing through spam notifications about Facebook games and great deals on airfare Diana stumbled across a message from Christine and it read “hey ya fat bitch you want to hang out with us next weekend? we can make sure we get some candy for you”.

It was a one in a million comment that people would probably say was just a joke from Christine but to Diana it was a lot more than joke.  It was a comment that hurt her deeply and told her exactly how not only Christine, but how the other girls in Christine’s gang felt about Diana and how she looked.  Diana could feel her eyes swell up and she knew as she repeated the comment over in her head that that bitch was right she was fat, and she deserved to be made fun of she thought as she starred at herself in her full body mirror with her tear filled eyes.  It was in that moment out of the corner of her eye that she caught a glimpse of herself and her mother when she was ten years old at the county fair after her father had just won her favourite green teddy bear from a game of ring toss.  It was in this moment when her eyes locked on the face of her ten year old self that she thought back to what her mother had said at dinner, and about the diary that she assumed her mother thought contained all the secrets of the universe.

Diana took two minutes to calm down as she repeated over and over in her head “who cares what she says I hate her anyways” and wiped her teary eyes with her blue and red One Direction shirt that she had worn the day before.  Finally when she decided there was no way that her mother could possibly tell she had been upset Diana finally walked down the seemingly endless hallway, past the bathroom with its lights on and just beyond the guest room (which at this point had become a storage room for her dad’s growing collection of used broken electronics) to finally arrive at her parents room at the end of the hallway.

Jessica was sitting up waiting for her daughter to arrive as she had heard her daughter’s door click open just a moment ago.  Before Diana could even knock on the door Jessica quickly blurted out “just come in”, but Diana was already halfway in before she finished her sentence.  Diana stood shyly on one leg quickly rubbing her other foot on the back of her leg as if trying to start a fire, and quietly said “I just came to say goodnight… you know since dads not here”.  Jessica smiled in that sideways kind of smile people do when they are more glad then happy, and said “good night sweety” and handed Diana the diary before she could even ask for it.  Diana quickly replied “Oh I was just coming to say goodnight, but I guess I could take this now… anyways I’m gonna head to bed goodnight mom” and she quickly turned around and made her way back to her room.

After arriving back in her room Diana flopped onto her bed and laid there on the covers just looking at the cover of the Diary trying to decide if getting to know her teenage mother was really worth the risk.  After about thirty minutes mulling over that decision and starring at the blue light emanating from her phone charger she decided it couldn’t possibly be worse than just lying there doing nothing.  Diana opened the diary and skimmed through the pages at a pace that most people reserve for the magazines in a doctor’s office.  That is until she came across an entry titled the worst day ever, and it was dated October twenty first nineteen eighty eight.  At this point Diana stopped just aimlessly flipping through the old yellow pages of the fabric bound diary and she actually began to read.  The diary read:

“Today was horrible, me and Tessa were about to go on our typical lunch when Jeff came in and told us that Jeanie had died of complications from an eating disorder.  It doesn’t make any sense Jeanie seemed completely fine she ate like the rest of us and she looked amazing.  She was always the most popular of the girls that worked for the magazine and she had been there the longest.  She taught us all what we knew about modelling and she was just booked to do a national commercial on tv and now shes just dead.  It just doesn’t make sense she must have had some rare disease or illness.”

Diana was surprised by what she was reading.  She wondered how her mother could be so naïve and not understand what an eating disorder was.  Diana knew that everyone nowadays knows what an eating disorder is.  This entry had been enough to peak her interest though and he flipped a couple of more pages past some entries about boys and amazing movies and came across an entry titled sick of it all.  Diana continued to read this entry cautiously, she followed along each line as if reading to fast would make the words disappear.  As she read the entry she saw how her mother began to grow tired of the modelling industry.  She read as her mother talked about just wanting to be able to enjoy eating food again, and about not having to watch her friends get sick or addicted to drugs or alcohol in order to cope with the pressures of the industry.  Most of all her mother was sick of watching her friends die well before there time.

Diana stopped reading before finishing all of the gruesome details for the entry on January third nineteen ninety.  At this point she thought she had better just stop for tonight and take a break or there is no way that she would be able to get any sleep without having nightmares of skinny zombie models.  However it was this exact fear of not being able to sleep that caused Diana to toss and turn under her satin sheets.  No matter what angle she faced, or no matter how hard she closed her eyes sleep would continue to elude her.  Laying there with eyes too tired to keep open but sore from being forced closed for the past two hours Diana wondered why her mother would want her to read that horror story that was her diary.

Lying in bed unable to sleep and tired of trying to force it Diana decided that there was only one way to solve the problem and be able to sleep again and that was to finish reading the diary and not be haunted by thoughts of what could be waiting to be read in further pages.  Diana rolled over in bed flicked on the light on her nightstand and picked up the book that she had tossed on the carpet beside her bed.  She decided to skip ahead to the last entry and see what her mother’s life was like during the last time she wrote in the diary.  The last entry was surprisingly short and simply read:

“Today was amazing it was my third date Jeff and he took me to this amazing bistro, I know its crazy to think this already but I think he might be the one, and he says he says he would totally be the first customer when I open my own business.”

Diana laid there in bed completely stunned at how much of a one eighty her mother had pulled between the last two entries that she had read.  She thought to herself what the hell her mother’s point could have been in making her read the diary.  Completely confused and dumbfounded Diana laid there in bed with a new found solace that her mother’s diary had ended on happier terms then it began, but she still struggled to understand the point of it.  The next morning, after a short and not at all restful night’s sleep Diana came into the kitchen to see her mother sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal and drinking a coffee.  Before even saying good morning, or thinking about getting something to eat Diana glared at her mother and in a loud voice said, “What the hell was the point of your diary! It was so f’ed up, and then it just ends!”  In a completely calm manner Jessica set down her spoon and looked lovingly up and Diana and said “The point is that I noticed how you weren’t really eating lately and you were spending a lot of time looking at yourself in the mirror like it was a different person looking back.  I know how it feels to be a teenage girl and I know how it feels to have people tell you that you aren’t pretty or that you aren’t thin enough, but I wanted you to know that even if you go down the wrong path like I did that you can get help and there will always be people that will love you and support you.  It might not seem like it now, but the mountains it feels like you’re climbing right now will be mole hills in just a few short years and there will be someone at the end who will love you for who you are.”  Diana didn’t know it at the time as she felt like her mother had just been watching too many made for t.v. movies on the Hallmark channel, but in her final year of high school she met a new student named Todd who transferred from Spain and would turn out to be her soul mate.

The Tail of Bernard the Bear by Natasha Stefanovic

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bear head

Once upon a time, in an enchanted forest there lived a small bear tribe. The bears lived in harmony with the other inhabitants of the forest and spent most of their days in the peaceful shade of their estate. There were many different bears of all shapes and sizes. Although some were bigger than others, they all seemed to fit in – except one.

 

For as long as he could remember, Bernard Bear was different from the rest of the bears. While bears aren’t known to have long tails, he was born with a long, bushy tail. For years Bernard was teased by all of the other bears, for he was not like them.

 

“How’s your tail today Bernard?” they sarcastically asked.

 

“Bernard has a big bushy tail!” others would chime in.

 

“You don’t belong with us, bears don’t have tails like THAT!” they teased.

 

The taunting continued for many of his years. Instead of weeping, Bernard allowed the others to tease him although he knew deep down he was the same as every other bear. Though Bernard Bear asked every Elder Bear of the tribe, none of them were able to find a reason as to why he had a long bushy tail. They would smile sadly and tap him on the head with their paw trying to comfort him. However, the Elder Bears had no helpful advice, they would simply tell him to continue playing in the stream with the other cubs.

 

One day, when the bears were out playing by the stream, young Bernard Bear decided that he had enough of the other bear’s taunting and teasing. All of their remarks over the years have accumulated and suddenly Bernard decided it was time for a change. It wasn’t long until Bernard came up with an idea to solve this ongoing issue, an idea along with ambition. With nothing but the fur on his skin to keep him warm and his two eyes to guide him along the way, young Bernard set off on an adventure to search for answers and he would not stop until they were found.

 

When the sun had finally fell below the horizon, young Bernard Bear snuck away and disappeared into the night. The nighttime was not a place for a young bear to be alone. Bernard Bear travelled across the enchanted forest to meet with The Wise Old Owl that was said to know the answer to any question. According to the elders, he resided at the heart of the forest. It was a long way to travel for Bernard Bear but he was determined to receive answers. The bear was yet again lonely, but this time he had courage by his side, something Bernard never felt before.

 

After three long days and nights of blustery winds, winding roads and freezing temperatures, young Bernard Bear finally reached a large clearing. He was exhausted from travel so he decided to take a little rest. Just as Bernard was about to stop he heard a rustling noise coming from the bushes. Though the treetops were deserted and the path was quiet, he couldn’t help but feel like someone was watching him. Slowly but surely fear was lingering within Bernard. What did anyone want with a young bear in these parts of the forest? Inching ever closer to the bush, he gnashed his teeth together and let out the most frightening growl he could make.

 

“Show yourself, or feel the wrath of Bernard Bear!” he roared. Although being scary was odd to Bernard Bear, it was his only choice at this moment.

 

After a few moments of silence, he pounced into the bush. Bernard’s initial fears soon turned into curiosity.

 

“Hey, watch it up there, lay off!” the muffled voice yelled. “Get off me you big dumbo! Oh not the hair, please not the hair ugh!”

 

When Bernard Bear saw the small creature beneath him, he fell back onto four legs. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

 

“So you’re the one that’s been following me? You’re just a little squirrel!”

 

“JUST a squirrel, JUST A SQUIRREL?” the voice wheezed.

 

Emerging from the bushes was the most peculiar squirrel Bernard had ever seen.

 

“I’ll have you know I am the most unique squirrel of the whole forest. Not to mention the most feared. I am sir Skippy the Nobel, protector of the Wise Old Owl who lives at the centre of the forest. Don’t underestimate me you silly bear!”

 

After a deep breath he looked sideways at the bear. “Wait, what is a bear like you doing in these parts of the forest anyway?”

 

Bernard Bear seemed to forget how tired he was as his eyes lit up and he jumped up in excitement. “You know the Wise Old Owl who lives at the center of the forest? I must see him immediately!”

 

“Oh no no no you can’t just demand orders just like that! I’m afraid I cannot let you pass,” Sir Hector chimed, puffing his chest out to show bravery. “The Wise old Owl does not take any visitors, perhaps try someone else?”

 

Bernard dipped his head in defeat. “But you don’t understand. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this good for nothing, pesky tail attached to me” Bernard pointed to the tail and sighed in embarrassment. “All of the other bears make fun of me for it so I came here to meet the Wise Old Owl hoping to get some answers. I’ve travelled for three nights and three days through this harsh weather with nothing to eat but rotten berries searching for this Wise Owl. I just want to know why I’m so different, why this has happened to me.”

 

With that, Bernard Bear turned away from the squirrel, slowly making his way back towards the trail, his long tail dragging on the ground.

 

Sir Skippy watched the bear go, deeply troubled and amazed by the perseverance of this traveller. He had never seen such courage in all his years in the forest, not even from himself.

 

Finally, his amazement turned to sadness. “Wait!” he cried.

 

Bernard Bear swiftly turned around. His eyes gleamed in hope of a different ending to the same old story.

 

“The Wise Old Owl may not take visitors, but I’m sure we can make an exception…for a friend. Some call me Sir Skippy the squirrel, but you Mr. Bernard Bear, you can call me Skip.”

 

For the first time in a while, a giant grin spread across the face of Bernard Bear. Approaching the creature again, he held out his paw as a sign of friendship.

 

“You don’t have any food by any chance, do you? I feel like I haven’t ate in weeks!”

 

“The Wise old Owl may just have something.” Sir Skippy said with an alluring smile. “This way Bernard!”

 

With that, the two set off; the most unlikely companions in the entire forest.

 

After what seemed like hours, Bernard and Skip reached a great wooden door with a large brass knocker at its center, bigger than Sir Skippy.

 

“Welcome to the lair of the Great Wise Owl, the knower of all answers, the king of the deep green forest” Sir Skippy explained proudly. “This way Bernard.”

 

With that, the door slowly opened and revealed a long winding staircase. Wasting no time, Sir Skippy rushed into the hall with Bernard Bear clambering noisily behind. After a few minutes of walking and discussing matters related to Bernard’s issue, the pair finally reached a latch. Beyond the latch was the biggest nest Bernard Bear has ever seen.

 

“Welcome to the nest of the Wise Old Owl, the king of the deep green forest, the –“

 

“I understand Sir Skippy, that will do.”

 

Peering over them sat a great white owl. His feathers were whiter than snow and his eyes as blue as the summer sky. “ Young Bernard Bear, I’ve been expecting you!” and the Wise Owl finally spoke.

 

With that, Skippy gave Bernard a friendly tap on the shoulder and hurried back through the latch and down the staircase.

 

The young bear gave a smile to the Owl. After Bernard recognized they were alone he presented the owl with his lowest bow.

 

“So this is the Old Wise Owl of legend. I thought I’d never see the day. This place is like  a kingdom! Is it true that you’re the knower of all questions and the keeper of all secrets?

 

With a faint chuckle the Wise Owl replied, “It seems my reputation precedes me. Do not waste the energy that you do not have young bear, or should I say Bernard? First, we must fix you up a meal, then when you are all full we can talk.”

 

Moments later, after the most delicious meal Bernard Bear had ever eaten including  pure and sweet honey, fresh salmon and walnuts straight from the forest, Bernard was alone once again with the Wise Old Owl.

 

The owl leaned in close to Bernard Bear and finally spoke about the young bear’s problem. “I understand your situation and I know why you’re upset. You believe that you are different from everyone else but the truth is, you are unique. Everyone was made to be different, wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same? In fact, I sense that one day you will be the ruler of the bear pack and I know that you will do a great job. Do not listen to what your siblings and the other bears say for one day you will rule them. I advise you to not let your anger and sadness get in the way of your duty. You are a bear, a strong and wise bear and you must act like one.”

 

Young Bernard Bear was relieved and began to believe what the Wise Old Owl was saying. He was unique and would never let anyone tell him differently. Maybe it was the journey that made him believe, or maybe he just needed to hear the words, but he promised himself that he would never let the other bears tease him again. After all, he is a strong and wise bear.

 

“Thank you so much, Wise Old Owl,” Bernard managed to say. “I will never let anyone treat me badly ever again. I understand why they call you the keeper of all secrets, the knower of all questions and the ruler of the entire enchanted forest!”

 

“I think that is enough praising for one day, its not me who made you feel different, you’ve become happier because you started to believe.” The owl said with a smile. “Now you should get to bed, you have yet another journey in the morning.”

 

After following Sir Skippy to his lavish bedchambers, thanking the squirrel for his help, and settling in his bed, he quickly fell asleep for the first time in days.

 

The one part of the journey Bernard Bear would never forget was being flown back home by the Wise Old Owl’s assistant woodland creatures including Sir Skippy. No blustery winds, no winding roads, no freezing temperatures, Just a magnificent view of the entire forest, and a trip that took much less than three days.

 

When the group finally touched the property of the bear tribe, the other bears came running to where he landed, both worried and excited.

 

“Bernard Bear, where have you been?!” his brother asked.

 

“Looks like he met the Wise Old Owl! That’s so cool!” another bear added in.

 

“Tell us about your adventure!”

 

Before the Wise Old Owl and his troupe left, Bernard Bear explained the story again and again to the angry elder bears who wanted to know every detail about their journey. They were worried sick about the disappearance of one of the members of their bear tribe. Eventually, the Wise Old Owl gave Bernard Bear a small wink, spread his wings and took flight. Every bear of the bear tribe watched the Old Wise Owl’s company leave, amazed at the sight of the beautiful, magical birds.

 

Young Bernard Bear felt more confident than ever being around the tribe. He was never made fun of for his tail again. In fact, his tail was starting to have importance among the tribe. Bernard used his tail to save countless bears from the rushing waters of the stream – they would hold onto his tail and use it for support when the waters got rough.  He told the story of his adventure to the centre of the forest for years and years, and the small bears would gather around and listen, their ears perked in interest.

 

They heard of small but strong squirrels, owls as big as the sun, and mice that could make the best food in all of the enchanted forest. Needless to say, it was a frequently told story.

Many years later, after Bernard Bear’s voyage to see the Wise Old Owl was nothing but a memory, the young bear, who wasn’t so young anymore, became the sole ruler of the bear tribe. Though he ruled with kindness and respect, he always remembered what the owl told him.

 

The Wise Old Owl’s words would repeat in his mind day by day. Everyone was unique, no matter how they looked, and everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. Those words were the one thing that Bernard Bear could never forget, even if he tried.

 

The Reluctant Adventurer by Emma Harrison

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rain in vancouver

The sun shone hot as a lizard’s heat lamp on Carol Meaford’s neck while she worked away tirelessly in her garden. “I cannot wait to be out of this place, it’s too hot. Always sunny – why did I bother moving out here,” Carol asked herself as she proceeded to rip weeds from the overgrown beds at the front of her simple home.

Carol had been planning a trip from her Arizona home to visit the West Coast; more specifically to visit the rain. Carol thought back to when she had planned her trip. Carol told her travel agent she wanted to go be where the rain was, just not a rainforest – too many dangerous things could happen there to her, thought Carol. Carol was terrified of danger and things that went unplanned. When things did not go according to schedule, Carol was not a happy individual. Carol’s trip was something she had begun planning long before her meeting with her travel agent, Angela. Carol has researched where she would sleep, where she would eat, where she would visit, what she would visit and at what time all these carefully articulated activities would take place.

Angela had asked Carol what had brought her into the travel agency several weeks back, assuming Carol wanted a bright, sunny trip somewhere tropical like Barbados or Puerto Rico. When Angela presented this idea to Carol, she immediately reeled back in her chair crying out, “Warm and sunny! You have got to be kidding me! I would like you to book me a trip out West, particularly to somewhere in Washington State, like Seattle. I watched that movie Sleepless in Seattle, I think I could like that city.”

“Well, if that is what you want, then that is what you will get”.

And here, Carol sat, several months after that conversation took place with Angela, not knowing what to expect. “I best be on my way – finishing my last minute packing,” Carol muttered to herself. Her taxi for the airport would be at her doorstep in only a few hours.

The next few hours flew by her  in a flurry of events. From the time the taxi arrived at her front doorstep to the time Carol stepped off the plane on the West Coast, she had encountered enough uncomfortable, unfamiliar situations to last her a lifetime.

“Carol, Carol Meaford?” called out a low, gruff yet seemingly rugged voice from beyond the baggage claim.

“Um, yes, yes that’s me,” Carol replied timidly, almost completely forgetting that Angela had arranged a tour guide for her.

Just then a handsome man, who appeared to be in his mid-fifties, came into Carol’s line of sight. His hair was lightly dusted with a salt and pepper colouring with a short beard to match.

“Well, my golly, Angela never told me I’d be showing around such a beautiful young woman! My name is Richard, Richard Dowling. And how do you do Miss Meaford?” exclaimed Richard.

Carol blushed for the first time in a long time. Who was this man dressed in all plaid, holding just a coffee cup in his one hand and a sign with her name on it in the other? Was this how all of Washington’s residents reacted to visitors? “I am very well thank you,” replied Carol, somewhat coolly due to her uncertainty with her newfound enthusiastic friend.

“Are you ready for an adventure” Richard questioned Carol.

“Well I had better be, hadn’t I? I don’t seem to have much of a choice, do I now?” Carol said, almost to herself since Richard had her bags in hand already and was halfway out the airport’s glass doors.

 

The next morning Carol woke up the sound of birds singing. To most, that sound is pleasant, something one looks forward to each morning, but to Carol it meant one thing; it was a sunny, bright day. Carol had come to the West Coast to avoid the sunshine and the singing birds and the cheeriness that the birds brought with them. “Why can’t it just rain right now! I thought Angela said this was the rainy season,” groaned Carol, as she pulled the fluffy hotel duvet cover over her messy, curly bed-head.

Just then, Carol heard a knock on her door. “Who is it,” Carol called out, thinking it odd that someone was calling on her so early in the morning.

“Rise and shine miss, it’s Richard! Are you ready for your first day on the West Coast. I’ve made sure you have a fun filled, adventurous itinerary,” Richard called out, nearly shouting right through Carol’s door.

“Who comes and wakes someone up so early,” Carol mumbled, glancing over at the alarm clock realizing it was already almost ten o’clock. “Oh, well I will just need a few minutes, where exactly are we going?” Carol hollered back, hating all these surprises her trip had brought thus far.

“Oh, I think you’ll like it Miss Carol, it’s bound to be a mighty bunch of fun!” Richard hollered back. Carol could almost hear the smile in his voice.

“Okay, be out in a moment!” Carol climbed out of her bed reluctantly picking up the hotel’s complimentary plush, white bathrobe and shrugging it on heading to the shower. “Well, this is bound to be interesting. I hope it does rain soon though,” Carol muttered to herself as she locked the door behind her.

 

 

Within fifteen minutes Carol was showered, dressed, and her hair half-combed sitting in a low knot on the nape of her neck.

“Time to tackle the day!” Richard said as Carol was just finishing exiting her hotel room door.

“Where are we going?” asked Carol, sparing little time in trying to decipher where her upbeat tour guide was taking her.

“Well, I thought I’d show you around, you know. Maybe treat you to some of the local flavour,” Richard stated as the pair began to make their way down the hotel’s hall.

“Local flavour?” Carol thought to herself, this did not sound very promising – there would be too much risk involved in meeting up with locals or even just “hanging out” at their small, hole-in-the-wall hideaways. That was not something Carol had ever taken much interest in. Carol had always preferred to spend her time in well-established, recognized establishments, not eating street meat off of a cart featured on a television program like “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”. The unknown was not something Carol enjoyed, nor something she allowed often to infiltrate into her daily routine.

“Well you’ve been quiet for an awful long time now, everything alright Miss Carol?” asked Richard, who seemed a little upset to  Carol about her lackluster enthusiasm about the day he had planned for her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Carol apologized as she realized she had wandered off in her own mind allowing twenty silent minutes to pass between her and Richard.

“No need to be sorry, Miss Carol, we’re here!” Richard stated as they walked right in front of a bustling market. “Pike’s Market! Let’s dive right in, you ready Miss Carol?”

Before Carol even had time to answer Richard had begun to wade his way through the crowd of people to the overcrowded marketplace. The stench of raw fish hung in the air as Carol glanced over all the people moving about her. “Richard, wait for me,” Carol called out as she straightened herself up a little and immersed herself into the heart of the market.

 

As Carol hurried after Richard into the busy market her eyes couldn’t help but to glance in every direction. The vibrant colours and sounds seemed as if they were leaping towards her like frogs in early spring showers. The smell of fish seemed to be subsiding and blending with the scent of fresh cut flowers, of deep-fried donuts and unfamiliar spices. Carol stood amazed, taking in all the sites that were laid out right before her. Having never been to a market before, obviously much too dangerous and risky of a place for someone like Carol to have ever ventured, she was a bit awestruck by everything that was happening.

“Come on Miss Carol, keep up!” bellowed Richard, who had turned around.

Spotting Richard several paces ahead of her, Carol quickly pushed her way through the crowd to reach him. Panic had began to set in now that the awe-filled moment had passed. “Is this place safe? Won’t we get pick-pocketed? What if I lose you? I don’t know where I am!” Carol spewed all of her comments and questions toward Richard at once in a quick breath.

“Well now, slow down there, Miss Carol! Don’t think for one second that I will let you get lost. A pretty thing like you can’t be alone out here, not with all these brazen fisherman, now can she?” Richard said to Carol as he shot her a wink.

Carol, blushing a second time since she had arrived in Washington, peered around the buzzing market staring at the vendors various carts along the long, covered aisle trying to take her mind off of Richard’s comments.

“Now don’t be shy when a man is just telling the truth, Miss Carol!”

“You can call me Carol. And I am not shy, I am merely observing what is happening around me. I’ve never seen a market like this – with all these people calling back and forth to each other, moving about so chaotically,” Carol shot back quite coolly.

“Well, we better get a move on then,” Richard replied brushing Carol’s cool comments off and making his way down the market’s main corridor.

As they passed Carol noticed the various items being sold at each cart; raw, freshly caught fish, jars of homemade jams and preserves, fresh cut flowers, different blends of spices, small, knit purses, and a table full of old, vintage-style jewelry. “My there are so many things that can be bought here, Richard, mind if we take a look?” Carol asked as she had already stopped, picking up a broach, examining it closely.

“No time for that Miss – I mean Carol, we are running behind as it is!”

“Running behind,” thought Carol, “ I thought this market was the plan. Where on earth is this man taking me!”

“Right ahead” Richard said, interrupting Carol’s thoughts and pointing to a dock that stretched just out the back of the market’s long hallway. “We’re going right there!”

And then Carol saw what Richard was pointing to – a large, fishing boat. “This does not look good, I do not like this. I do not like this at all.” Carol said out loud, although quietly to herself.

“I told you we were going on an adventure today, didn’t I Carol? You’re going to love it!” Richard cried it as he reached his hand out to Carol.

Reluctantly, Carol reached for Richard’s hand and made her way closer to the dock and the boat the loomed nearby.

 

As they walked closer to the boat, the knots in Carol’s stomach that had arrived the instant she stepped off the plane, starting tightening. “I don’t know if I want to go on a boat, what if something happens? I don’t have a life jacket, I don’t know how cold the water is, this is just bad. Bad all around,” Carol thought to herself. Richard seemed eager to reach the boat as quickly as he could. Carol slowed down her walking with each step creating more distance between Richard and herself with each step. Boats had never been something Carol had been fond of, even as a child. They did not bring the same excitement for her as they did other children. To Carol, boats were just floating cars. Equally as dangerous as a car, but this time there were added dangers; drowning, crashing, capsizing, even possible death by hypothermia if they fell in the water. “I came to Seattle for the rain. For the rain and the trees, not the boats and fish markets,” Carol told herself quietly, as if she was reassuring herself that this trip was not her own idea.

Just off in the distance of the harbour, Carol could see the ferries going back and forth across the harbour. “Those boats look much safer than what we’re going on,” Carol thought. “Richard, why can’t we go on a ferry?” Carol asked, looking skeptically to the rinky boat Richard was leading her towards.

“Ferry boat!” cried Richard. “Those are for amateurs, nothing more than a water taxi – my boat is where the real adventure happens!” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“I just wanted a relaxing trip with some rain, not an episode from Gilligan’s Island” groaned Carol, as she hurried after Richard who had dropped Carol’s hand and bounded towards his boat. “Well, I better not get left behind,” Carol said as she reluctantly stepped aboard the swaying boat.

 

 

Over the next several minutes, Carol sat on one of the boat’s benches watching Richard untie several ropes, start up the engine, push the boat off of the dock and begin making his way into the bay.

“What makes you so afraid of boats, Miss uh, sorry Carol?” Richard asked.

“I never said I was afraid,” Carol retorted.

“You didn’t have to say anything! Your face is doing all the talking right now,” chortled Richard, steering the boat skilfully. “Are you not enjoying yourself?” Richard asked Carol in a low voice, seeming now to just realize his traveling companion was very hesitant about the whole day’s events thus far.

“I am having a fine time, Richard.” Carol replied, still keeping her gaze fixed on the water as if her own watchful eyes would protect her from any looming danger.

“Oh, okay good. Well, I just like to show people around Seattle – to show them the real Seattle! That’s how I got to doing this – travel agencies wanted a tour with some “local flair” or something like that, so I said I’m around, nothing to do with my day and here I am. Showing you around the lovely city of Seattle,” Richard explained maintaining a smile the whole time.

“Wonderful.” Carol said, only half-listening as the frightening images of drowning or crashing remained in the foreground of her mind.

“It still seems like you aren’t enjoying yourself. Angela said you were talkative, but all I see is a quiet woman in front of me.”

“I am enjoying myself, I just do not like boats. I’m not afraid of them, I just do not like them.”

“Well, why not Miss Car – Carol, what’s not to love? They can bring you to see a whole new side of life,” Richard stated as he pointed to Seattle’s skyline in the distance beyond Carol’s head.

“I don’t usually talk to strangers about things like this.” Carol replied, slightly uncomfortable now not only from the boat, but also from Richard’s probing questions.

“Oh, I’m sorry Carol, I didn’t mean to pry,” Richard said sheepishly, averting his eyes from her gaze.

“No, no it’s okay,” Carol answered, letting her guard down a little, “You meant no harm. I just do not like boats because I can’t control the outcome. I like to be in control of my surroundings. Also, I do not like this sun,” Carol said, shading her eyes from the blinding sunlight on the boat, as if she had just realized it had been shining all along. “Doesn’t it rain here all the time? I came for the rain.”

“Oh you just came during a dry spell, worst of luck Carol,” Richard explained. “So you like to be in control, makes sense. But doesn’t the idea of adventure intrigue you even a little? I mean – “.

Richard’s sentence was cut short but a loud scraping noise as the boat began to rock violently.

“Richard! What’s happening! What was that?” cried Carol, her eyes wide with fear. And just as the words had left Carol’s mouth, the boat began to sink, water rushing into the boat.

 

 

“Richard, why is the boat sinking! What is happening? What did you do? Did you hit something? What is going ON!” Carol shrieked, clutching the side of the boat for dear life and the boat sank deeper and deeper into the water.

“I , I don’t know. We must have hit something,” Richard spluttered.

“Well do something call someone!” Carol cried as the boat sank further and further into the water. “At least pass me a life jacket – you have those on here right?”

“Yes, here you go,” Richard said as he threw a jacket towards Carol. “Give me a moment, I’ll call the coast guard.”

“I knew I should have never come, I knew it.” Carol exclaimed, clutching her knees close to her chest.

“Look, here they come now!” Richard pointed to a boat coming closer to them.

“Just in time,” thought Carol as the boat was almost completely submerged and there was nothing left to hold on to.

“Hey, hey over here! Get her first,” Richard called to the coast guard.

“My name’s Tom,” called the coast guard who Carol noticed was much younger than both her and Richard, maybe in his mid-twenties, quite handsome in fact, Carol noted. “Grab my hand,” Tom said stretching out his tanned arm towards Carol.

“Thank you, thank you for saving us!” Carol gasped as she climbed into the coast guard’s boat. “Just take me to safety, please. I’ve had enough adventure for one day.”

 

Once on the boat, Carol noticed that Richard had becoming very quiet and solemn, nothing she had seen from him yet. That in itself made Carol uncomfortable since she only knew the smiling, sunny Richard, not a sad, desolate-looking Richard.”Maybe he’s missing his boat?” Carol thought to herself. “That would make me sad, losing something I enjoyed. If I lost some of my gardening tools, I’d be upset.” Carol’s thoughts were interrupted by the young Tom’s mindless chatter in the background.

“And that there, that’s the Space Needle. It’s pretty cool, first time I saw it I was probably nine, no I was ten, nope it was nine. Yah, nine, it was for a school trip. My mom loves it there, that was one of her favourite places to go. She loved it,” Tom stated matter-of-factly.

“Loved? As in past tense?” Carol asked, not very interested in Tom’s answer, but it would take her mind off of the fact that she was sailing back to shore after being in a boating accident.

“Yah, my mom passed away a couple years back,” Tom said as Carol noticed a hint of sadness in his voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Carol replied.

“It’s okay. It’s, it’s the past.” Tom said. “Well, here we are,” Tom replied as he guided the boat skilfully back into the harbour.

 

 

A team of people from the coast guard unit were waiting with blankets and hot drinks for Richard and Carol as they climbed off the boat. Carol had never been more happy to see strangers in her entire life.

“Well thank you, folks!” Richard said, as he reached out for a blanket and wrapped it around himself. His warm personality seemed to already be returning.

“Thank you,” Carol said as she passed a blanket and a drink. “And thank you,” she said turning to Tom. “I really appreciate you rescuing us.”

“No problem at all – just my job. But I gotta go, back to patrolling the harbour! See ya,” Tom called as he hopped back on the boat, preparing to head back to the open water.

“So, Carol,” Tom started, as the rest of the coast guard unit returned to their work, “Ready for the rest of our adventure?”

“What!” cried Carol, “You can’t be serious? That was terrifying, horrifying, nothing I ever would have wanted or planned in a trip. I’m ready to return to the safety of my home. There’s not even rain here!”

“Oh come on, that was just some fun Miss Car- Carol, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself. I’ll find something safer to do – I’ll show you Seattle. I promise you’ll love it.” Richard replied, a wide smile spreading across his face.

Before Carol could even answer, she felt raindrops falling one by one out of the sky and right onto her face. “Maybe this trip isn’t a bust after all” thought Carol.

Josie by Judith Desterke

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Josie held her breath so that when the lightning streaked across the sky she could hear the crackle of the bolt as it bathed the town in an icy light.  She laughed wildly as the thunder roared overhead, rattling the window panes and causing the roof beneath her feet to shudder.

Josie’s full name was Josephine Farley and she was standing on Heath Fitch’s roof, wearing nothing but an oversized sweater that came down just past her butt. Her long brown hair was tussled and growing wet from the rain. This was customary behavior for Josie.  Whenever a storm was brewing Josie would slip through the fence in her backyard and climb up the ladder and onto his roof.  If Heath joined her Josie was glad, but if not she would just sit silently in the storm, feeling wonderfully small.  “Amazing” she muttered as she tilted her face to the scattered drops of rain that were cold and refreshing on her pale skin.

“You know you’re crazy right?” Josie turned and felt her pulse quicken under Heath’s lazy green-eyed gaze.  He was leaning out the window to the roof, a playful smile on his lips. His brown hair was nearly shoulder length and he raked it away from his face with a rough mechanic’s hand.

A breeze caught Josie unaware and she shivered, wrapping her arms around her waist.  He reached an arm out and she took it as she slipped through the window.  As soon as the window closed behind Josie she could hear the Moody Blues crooning about the pain in rejection and a loveless life.  Smiling, Josie crawled into Heath’s bed, breathing in his scent.

“Make yourself at home.” Heath said dryly.

“Why thank you Heath, I will” she said with a wink.

“So your mom out tonight?”

“No, Ray is over.”  Josie pulled a face.

“Ah” Heath sat beside her on the bed, absently studying the black engine oil that stained his hands “the great Ray.” He snorted in disapproval. “What a prick.”

“Indeed.” Josie watched the fan spin, lurching violently on the ceiling, yet for all its efforts, going nowhere.  She could relate.  Since her father had committed suicide last year and her sister had moved out with her boyfriend, she was the automatic caretaker of her mother, Marlena.  If Josie was gone for more than an hour she would come home to find her mother in tears, lying on her bed with a blanket wrapped around her fragile frame.  Ray called these episodes “just one of her ploys for attention.”  Ray was scum.  Josie hated the way he would look at her with predator eyes while he nursed the can of cheap beer that was perpetually in his hairy hand.  If Josie was better person she would chase Ray away from her mother and help her find a good man, but she was not willing to risk her freedom.  She was eighteen, all she wanted to do was live her own life. She could not risk having her mother single again.

Heath rose from the bed, disturbing Josie’s musing. He crossed the room and extracted a joint from his dresser.  He lit it and passed it to her as he sat down.  “You looked awful glum” he explained.  Josie hummed appreciatively; she could use a break from her suffocating thoughts.  They toked in content silence for a few moments.

Heath took of sip of water after a time and cleared his throat.  “Do you ever think about us?”  Josie frowned and looked at him with confused glassy eyes.  He looked at his hands uncomfortably.  “I mean do you ever think about where we go from here?”

Josie’s mind was maddeningly sluggish. “Like in life?” Heath never talked about the future, and they definitely did not talk about “us”.  He had been in and out of foster homes all his life.  He knew just as well as Josie that the future was unpredictable and hopeless to try and bend to your will.  As for the idea of Heath and Josie being an “us”, they had never even brushed on the topic.  They both knew that if you made a relationship with somebody, it was only a matter of time before it fell to ruins.  So instead they never spoke about it.  Everything happened naturally with them, nothing was expected or anticipated.   Josie toked again, hoping to get so fried she would not have to have this conversation with Heath.  It terrified her.

                  “No I mean like-” Heath watched the smoke spiral about the room, avoiding Josie’s face “if I left, would you come with me?” He turned and looked at her with sad eyes.

Josie looked back at him and knew he was serious. Would you come with me? He began to smile and she was unsure why until she realized she was nodding and then she was laughing, suddenly and strangely elated.  She was leaving home.

“Mom, I’m moving out with Heath.”  Josie’s jaw dropped in the mirror.  Oh God, not that.  She squared her shoulders and tried again.  “Mom, I’m going with Heath… to help him move in.” That is obvious bullshit.  Fuck it.  Josie re-tussled her bangs and turned away from the mirror.

Heath had got accepted into a college in British Columbia, exactly where he wanted to go.  With no scholarship and no credit with the bank, Heath had to work for every last penny of his tuition. So here he was, twenty six and getting ready to drive from his home in Redwater, Alberta to the west end of British Columbia and Josie would be damned before she let him leave her here.  In fact she had this new life with Heath all planned out.

She imagined a small apartment flat, quite unassuming on the outside. They would be within walking distance of a park, he would teach her to rollerblade there.  Heath would be away at school a lot but Josie would work as a waitress and discover her artistic side during her free time.  She would visit her mom and Ray on the long weekends.  Independent.  

                  Josie reached the landing just as Ray was leaving the front door.  He looked grim and if he heard Josie say “bye” he did not acknowledge her.  Frowning, Josie carried on to the kitchen where she found Marlena in tears.  Josie’s mother sat rocking herself on the floor, and her hands covered her mouth which was forced into a silent scream.  Even before Marlena said a word Josie saw her apartment flat go up in flames.

Josie sat on the floor beside her mother and placed a gentle hand on her back.  Upon her touch Marlena began to cry. It started out as a moan, low and heavy but climbed to throaty wail; a single brokenhearted note that reverberated in the hushed kitchen.  Josie sidled closer to her mother, murmuring to her, trying to bring her within reason.

“Momma, com‘on let’s just talk this one out.”

The moan grew to a panicked hiccupping.

“Sh, everything’s gonna be alright.”

Finally Marlena managed to add the word “No” to her rhythmic sobbing.

When she finally stopped shaking Josie helped her mother to the couch and Marlena told Josie over tea and a small mountain of tissues that Ray had left her.  She told Josie what had been happening.  She would pause often and look thoughtfully at her hands cradling each other  on her lap.  “He’ll be back.” She would say suddenly before continuing to tell the story. Josie stayed up with her half the night before she managed to convince Marlena to get some sleep.   When she was undressing she collapsed in tears again and so Josie accompanied her until she fell asleep again.

Then Josie went outside – for the sun was now rising- and took the glass jar out of the stump in the corner of the lot.  She withdrew a slender joint and fit it into a black quellazaire.  She climbed onto the rusted trampoline, lit it and lay on her back watching the birds and butterflies and feeling the beat of her heart strong and loud in her chest, feeling the air rush in and out of her gigantic feeling lungs.  She let herself drift into a state of torpor and her mind mingled with the spirit-like wisps of cloud; clouds as fluid and impermanent like her.

Wind beat the sides of the house and rain drummed on the windows.  The trees were hunched over in the yard, looking as miserable as Josie felt.  The warm glow coming from Heath’s window seemed out of place. A fly was drowning in the condensation on the windowsill.

Josie unpacked her bags, quickly and calmly. Her laptop was playing Kasabian. You go your way and I’ll go my way. No words can save us, this lifestyle made us.  Josie felt a lump form in her throat as she realized that she understood the lyrics for the first time.  She should have known she would not be able to leave that easily.  She imagined she would have been more upset if it had been a shock to learn that she would not be able to leave home; but Josie had known this fact since the day her sister had moved out with (her boyfriend) and even before that she had known it was a race to leave the gate.  Survival of the fittest.  Of course she couldn’t leave her mother.  “British Columbia: Ha!”  Josie slammed her sock drawer shut.  Maybe she wasn’t as calm as she had thought.

Grabbing a glossy magazine Josie flopped onto her bed, hot tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks.  She flipped through it, not reading just looking at the pictures; pictures of overly happy celebrities basking in their wealth and prosperity.  Josie scoffed at the glowing image of Lady Gaga in a dazzling wheelchair claiming that “getting older shouldn’t stop a person from being fashionable.”  Just when she was about to put the magazine down a photo jumped out at her. The title read: Investigation Closed on Rita Swan’s Disappearance. The photo captured the girl’s weeping mother wrapped in the arms of a handsome man while the rest of the family gathered around her.

A new idea crept into Josie’s mind.  It worked its way slowly and methodically through her brain, and cocooned itself securely in her desperation. She placed her arms behind her head and smiled while she watched the idea morph into a complex and devious plan.

Josie wished she could have written her mother a note or let her know that she was going to be okay but that would ruin the entire scheme.  This will break her heart. It was true that her mother would be heartbroken, but things could be worse.

Before Josie had met Heath the world seemed devoid of colour.  It seemed a cold and hostile place and life felt like a prison sentence.  While other girls her age were daydreaming about boys Josie was fixated on death. It appeared to be the single means of escape from the next rising of the sun. Her mother’s dependence on Josie was the only thing that kept her from leaving.

If Josie was honest with herself, she had abandonment issues.  She pushed people away and spurned compliments as manipulation. What do they want from me?  She would muse while a girlfriend would gush over her soft brown hair. She smiled and laughed and talked like all the others but felt completely detached from everything that she said or expressed.  She did not hate herself but her life.

A dried leaf crunched under Josie’s bare foot and she could not help but feel like the withered house plant casting its debris around the room was appropriate for the mood.  She pulled a sweater over her shoulders and grabbed her bulging leather backpack and a sleeping bag from her bed.   She had everything that she needed for a day on the open road.

Changing her mind she scribbled a note on a scrap piece of paper.

Gone to seek my fortune.  Sorry.  I need to see the world.
Lots of love, Josie

She slipped on her shoes and out the window.  She hurried down the street, walking backwards for a few steps, she silently said goodbye to her mother.

She said she was taking a cab. It was overcast again as Josie walked down the road towards the highway.  She always admired hitchhikers.  Living off of nothing, having faith in the kindness of strangers.

Josie sighed as she walked down the highway her hand out thumb up and a smile on her lips.  Somewhere between the doorway of Heath’s home and the highway Josie had found true happiness.  It was finally over.  She was getting what she had wanted.  Heath had been great but the problem was lulled to sleep not fixed.  She had left him, she was truly alone now and it felt amazing. 

                  Thunder cracked overhead and Josie’s smile broadened.  The world flickered in the pale blue light of the storm.  The world is beautiful.  Josie stretched both arms to the sky her left thumb still up.  She felt very alive.  Apparently the closer a person is to death the more they feel the life that is left in them.

A horn sounded behind her and Josie dropped her arms, surprised.  She turned and saw a silver bearded man on a black motorcycle smiling at her. “Sweetheart,” he growled in a smokers voice “I want to be caught in this storm about as much as you do.  There’s an underpass a couple miles up, come on kid.”  He held out a helmet and kicked the bike in gear again, holding the clutch in but indicating he was ready to go.

How fitting. Josie thought with a quiet chuckle.  “Thank you!”

She awkwardly clambered on the bike, wishing she had now ruined the moment with her lack of grace and almost screamed when he let the clutch out and bike roared to life.  “Hold on sweetheart!”  Josie trailed her hands in the wind instead, her body electric with the fear of falling.

Josie could not leave without saying goodbye to Heath.  She felt sick as she walked up the steps to his front door.  She felt like one of those soldiers that went around after the war, knocking on the doors of Bambi eyed women, telling them their husbands were blown to bits along with the neighbors old racehorse.  Sorry about your loss.

                  She knocked and stood there waiting, with her heart pounding for what felt like five minutes.  She wondered if he had heard her knocking.  Come to think of it, she had not knocked very loudly.  She smashed the door with her fist. He heard this time.

“Hey you.” He leaned on the door, smiling.

“Hey” she suddenly felt like a schoolgirl, petty and foolish with her backback on her shoulders and her hair unwashed.  “Um, can I come in?”

“Of course.”

They moved upstairs silently.  Heath could tell she was out of sorts and he was probably thinking of what to say, Josie’s throat was closing up like it always did before she had a good cry.  She sat on his bed and he pulled up a chair and sat close to her, waiting for her to say something.

“Heath, I can’t go to B.C with you.”  She blurted as though that was the most important thing that was happening right now.  He waited.  “Ray broke up with Mom and she’s right back to how she used to be and I just can’t go and live another life and leave her here.”

Heath sighed and scratched the stubble on the side of his cheek irately.  “God damn it.” he muttered now scratching his scalp as though the irritation Ray presented was literal.  He brooded for a moment longer before he suddenly returned to Josie.  “Josie, I am really sorry about what happened to your mom. Really. But you can’t let her hold you back from living you own life.  You gotta look out for yourself too.”  Josie was overwhelmed that he would let her off the hook so quickly and began to cry.  Heath continued.  “I am the first person to say that you take really good care of your mom and I respect the shit out of you for that.  But you gotta let her face her issues; you can’t always hold her hand Josie.”

“I know, I know.”  Josie wiped tears from her flushed cheeks.  “That’s why I’m going to my sisters for the week.  I can’t handle this.”  She hated lying.

“But I’m leaving this Wednesday.  You would miss me.”

“I know, so this is kind of goodbye.”  Josie half laughed, half cried and Heath picked her up from the bed and wrapped her up in his arms.

“I don’t say goodbyes Josie, I say see you later.” Heath said and Josie could hear him smiling at their old joke while he said it.  She felt her chest cave in with sadness for him.

“So what puts a pretty girl like you out on the road?” The biker, who was called Joseph, was half leaning, half sitting on his bike, his arms braced behind him.  With his sunglasses off he actually looked very kind, almost like a badass grandfather.

Josie leaned against the concrete pillar under the bridge, watching the wind stir the darkening sky. “I wasn’t living.”  She was startled by the sureness of her voice and readiness of her words. It was as though she didn’t even have to think about what she said anymore, she just spoke direct from her brain.  Is this how everybody else talks?  “I was surviving, and I didn’t want to stay anymore.”

Joseph looked at her with a look in his eyes that said he knew what she meant.  “So you’re not coming back then huh.”  She shook her head.  “Well I’m sorry to hear that kid, I think you could have been something special.”

“Maybe, but it’s not always about being something.” Josie did not even know what that meant, she just knew she was at peace. She did not want to be something special.  She did not have to be anything at all anymore.  Joseph nodded solemnly, deciding not to fight her and lit a cigarette. When he offered her one she accepted.  She always loved the smell but the taste was rotten.  Her head buzzed but her mind was blissfully still and silent. It began to rain.

Once the rain had stopped and Joseph and Josie had eaten several unpleasant strips of beef jerky and Joseph had told some almost too crazy to be true stories, they had set out again.  He let her off by a feed store just off of the highway.  When Josie would not accept any beef jerky Joseph gave her a warm, if not slightly awkward hug and quickly drove away.

Josie used to have a weird sort of relationship with the boy who worked her two summers ago and so it was not difficult for her to slip around the back and onto the old empty cargo carrier beside the train tracks.  She watched the sun rise and when the nine o’clock train stopped she boarded it unnoticed.

Josie sat on the edge of the door and watched the scenery fly past her.  When she found the meadow she jumped.  It hurt a lot more than she thought it would but after some muffled cursing and laughing she felt okay again.  The meadow was filled with wild bluebells.  Dark green plants with deep blue flowers filling the air with a musky perfume.  They only were out for two weeks in the springtime. This was it.

Josie unrolled her sleeping bag and sat on it cross-legged.  She listened to the sounds around her for a while before she sighed and plugged in her ipod. She played Uncle Kracker’s Follow Me.  She opened her backpack and -after some rifling around- withdrew a surgical needle. Josie’s hands were shaking as she withdrew the huge looking syringe and threaded the needle onto the end of it.  I make you free and swim through your veins like a fish in the sea. Pulling the plunger all the way back Josie swallowed.  She did want to leave, and there was no other way.  She whined as she pushed the needle in her arm and pressed that ridiculous amount of air into the vein. Uncle Kracker was calling her to follow him. Everything is alright; I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night if you want to leave.

 

Small Rivers Run Deep by Rhys Cameron

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child thinking

Jody and her friend Izzy played quietly in the corner of the living room as their parents gathered around the television, worried looks on their faces. It was unusual for both the parents to be at home this time of day. It was even strange to see them watching TV after school. This was television time for kids. Time for them to wind down after the busy day at school and watch their favourite shows like Arthur and The Magic School Bus.

“I can’t believe this is happening” Jody’s mom said. She looked incredulously at the TV.

“It’s unreal,” Izzy’s Mom agreed.

Jody inched closer to where the parents stood, trying to figure out what they were watching, what was making them so upset.

Suddenly, Izzy’s mom gasped and her own mom’s eyes grew wide. Jody pushed between them to get a glimpse what they were reacting too. On the screen, she saw an airplane fly into a big building and smoke billow everywhere from another building. People were running and screaming. Things were falling from the building that was smoking. Grown up voices were raging from the television set, clearly in panic. Another scene, showing a burning plane crashed into a field, played now as the adults shook their heads. Her parents flipped through the channels, searching for something, but the same images and voices were on all the channels. There was so sign of Arthur or The Magic School Bus that day. There were many words and phrases that she kept hearing over and over again: ‘terrorists’, ‘end of the world’, ‘evil’ and ‘destruction’. At only five years old though, she didn’t know what they meant. Jody gathered from the looks on the faces of her parents that this was all bad, and she should be really scared.

“This is one September day we won’t ever forget,” whispered her dad.

Tuesday came and went, and the week continued, though all the grown-ups at home and at school seemed sad and subdued. Her parents watched the news more and talked at the dinner table in quiet voices long after dinner was over. Her grandparents came to visit on Wednesday and they held her a little longer and a little tighter than usual. The same words she had heard a lot on Tuesday kept being repeated throughout the week. Jody listened hard and tried to get a sense of what was happening. She asked her friend Izzy if she knew what was happening, but Izzy just shrugged. She asked her teacher, but she said it wasn’t something she felt was right for her to talk to Jody about. Her teacher told her to ask her parents. Jody tried to ask her mom, but the words didn’t come out quite right, and so she ended up asking her another question that she knew would make more sense. With all of the grown-ups seeming like they were confused about the news they saw on television, it made Jody feel better to ask questions where there was an answer that made sense, like ‘why are the leaves on the trees changing colour?’. Her mom could answer that question easily.

Thursday the world became even more confusing to Jody. She got up as usual and headed down to breakfast. Coming down the stairs, she could smell the toast cooking and the coffee brewing, signs of a normal day beginning. As she sat at the breakfast table though, she noted that her parents were in a heated discussion, which was unusual for this time of day. Her father held the newspaper in front of him. On the front page was a fuzzy photo of a man with a turban. He looked a little scary to Jody, but in some ways he also looked like her friend Mohammad’s dad, though really only because he wore a turban and had a beard. Feeling like she needed to distract her father from what sounded like an upsetting conversation with her mother, Jody pointed this out.

“Look, that man on the paper looks like Mohammad’s dad,” she blurted out.

The conversation between her parents immediately stopped. Her mother paled and her father’s brows knit together. They looked at each other with more worry in their eyes.

“Irfan,” her father finally said, “I hadn’t even thought about how this might be affecting his family. With everyone throwing blame at Al Qaeda, and everyone Muslim, I suspect he must be feeling some of this anger.”

“What has he done?” Jody asked, concerned at how Mohammed’s dad might be connected to all of the bad things that people were talking about.

“Absolutely nothing,” Jody’s mom reassured her. “They are a good family and great neighbours. They haven’t done anything. Is everything ok at school for Mohammed this week?” she asked.

Jody thought for a moment and then realized that she hadn’t actually seen Mohammed around for the last few days.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s been away this week.”

Her parents glanced at each other again, looking even more concerned.

“I’ll drop by to see how they are doing this morning,” her dad said as he rose from the table. “I’m sure this can’t be easy for them”

“Why?” Jody asked, “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it, Jody. It’s not something you need to have to think about at your age,” he replied. He kissed her on the top of the head and headed out of the kitchen, leaving her even more confused and lost about what was happening in her world.

Jody’s uneasiness escalated further as she got on the bus Friday morning and saw Mohammed sitting alone in the front seat, far away from the usual crowd of kindergarten kids he typically sat with. The tension on the bus was noticeable. The driver frowned and glanced uneasily at Mohammed. Jody stopped on the top step and tried to decide if she should sit next to him, or keep moving further on the bus to where her friend Izzy sat beckoning to her. She remembered what her mom had told her about Mohammed’s family being good people and good neighbors, and her dad’s concern about Mohammed’s dad. It occurred to her that perhaps Mohammed could fill her in on what was going on, so she plunked down beside him and smiled. Relief washed over Mohammed’s face at the sight of her next to him.
“Hey,” he said and smiled. “How’s it going?”

“OK,” Jody replied, noting that this was typical of their conversations. Nothing different that she would have expected.

“Why are people so angry and worried this week?” she asked, “What’s going on?”

Mohammed’s eyes grew wide “You mean it’s weird in your house too? My parents are all angry and upset and they wouldn’t let me go to school for a few days. They said something about terrorists and people being angry at Muslims for no reason. My mother seems very afraid and I had to fight to convince her to let me go to school today. She is freaking out that someone is going to kill me. I couldn’t stand being home anymore with them. Then I get on the bus and no one will sit with me. I don’t know what’s happening to the world.”

The bus pulled up in front of the school and all of the students started to rise and exit. Even though they were at the front of the bus, Jody and Mohammed sat and waited for the others to leave. As they went by them, many of the older kids gave suspicious looks or glares at Mohammed. Jody raised her eyebrows in question at her friend. Mohammed sat as still as stone and looked terrified. He shook his head slightly at her as if to say, ‘I have no idea what’s going on’.

When all of the other children were off, they gathered their things and moved down the stairs, off the bus. Izzy was waiting for Jody just outside the door. She shot Mohammed a nasty look and grabbed Jody by the arm and pulled her away.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, “you can’t be friends with him anymore. He’s not like us. His people are trying to kill us. Haven’t you heard?”

Jody looked at Izzy in disbelief. What was she talking about? Who was she talking about? How could she say those things about their friend? Jody opened her mouth to ask her all those questions, but at that moment the bell rang and the teacher ushered them into school, leaving Jody’s questions unanswered.

Saturday finally arrived with bright sunshine and warm temperatures. It was a beautiful fall day.

“Let’s go to the cottage,” her dad suggested, “it’s been a long week, and I think we all could use a break from the craziness of the real world.”

Jody thought she couldn’t agree more. Her head was spinning from all of the unanswered questions that had accumulated over the week. A sense of dread was building within her based on the comments and conversations that had been swirling around her.

Jody loved going to the cottage where life seemed less complicated. She quickly ran to her room to pack her special things for the weekend. She packed her suitcase a little more carefully that day, making sure to include all of her favorite toys that she thought she might especially miss if she never saw them again. The stuffed animals she couldn’t fit in, she kissed and hugged tightly before putting them back on her bed. The rest of the day went by uneventfully. They reached the cottage, played at the shore, and had a delicious barbeque dinner. Jody was full and happy, the cares of the week pushed to the back of her consciousness. She helped her dad build the campfire as the sun started to sink on the horizon. They pulled the campfire chairs close and gathered around as the darkness set in. With the sun gone, the air suddenly turned chilly and Jody snuggled into the chair with her Mom. They lay back as far as they could and looked to the sky to watch the stars as they always did. Suddenly Jody realized that the sky looked different that night. Instead of the clear black with the brilliant spots of stars, the sky seemed to be burning far away in the distance. There was a brightness on the horizon that wasn’t what she was used to. The light shone upward and seemed to flash and spark, moving in a rhythm that didn’t make sense to Jody. As she watched the sky, the events of the week came back to her, and she remembered all the words that sounded scary and the worried looks on the grown-ups faces. She remembered the planes and smoke and fires and Izzy’s comments about her neighbour’s people wanting to kill them. On television she had seen smoke and fire and people running and screaming. Was this fire she was seeing now? Was the bad fire and smoke on the TV earlier that week heading their way now?

With panic rising, Jody pulled herself out of her mother’s warm embrace and darted off the chair.

“We have to go in now!” she exclaimed to her parents. “It’s not safe out here. We have to go into the cottage. The fire, the bad people! We have to go in!” she blurted out frantically.

Her parents both sat up and looked at her, trying to figure where this sudden fear had come from. Jody was only five, what bad people were she talking about? Had she watched a scary movie recently that they weren’t aware of?

“Jody, what’s wrong?” her dad said softly and crouched down beside her.

“The end of the world,” she said with terror in her voice, “like on Tuesday. Look at the sky, its coming! The terrorists, the burning planes, and bad people.”

Her parents looked up and her mother smiled slowly as the pieces fell into place and she put it all together.

“Oh Jody!” she said, wrapping her arms around her frightened daughter, “I didn’t realize that you were paying attention, or that you saw what was going on this week. I am so sorry. I should have explained. I should have told you more about what was happening. We’re alright. We are safe here. What happened didn’t happen close to where we live and what you see tonight has nothing to do with that at all. In fact, what you see tonight is almost the opposite. It’s one on nature’s beautiful shows, not something awful happening.” Her mother smiled and pulled her close. “Look up, Jody, and enjoy the show. This is not the world ending, it’s just the Northern Lights.”

Jody breathed deeply and leaned into her mother, hugging her tightly. She looked up at the sky with a new perspective.

“It’s really ok?” she asked tentatively

“Well,” her mother explained. “The world’s a little different since what happened on Tuesday, but we can’t live our lives afraid every day and afraid of other people. There will be changes and decisions that grownups will make that will affect you when you are older, but for now, you shouldn’t change. Let me answer your questions and help you try to understand.”

Jody climbed up onto her mother’s lap and started to listen and as she did, her questions floated up and vanished into the northern lights.