Re-wilding, an excerpt from my current work in progress

 Holly wiped her brow. Her stomach was rolling seawater, her mouth a desert. The truck rumbled over the rough road. Her back ached from the strain of too many hours spent sitting. She had never driven so far, for so many hours. She placed a palm on her stomach, a wizard performing a spell, her imaginary baby-bump a crystal ball. The sickness remained, but the weight of her own hand grounded her, kept her from floating out the window, over the endless bush and forest, back to the relative comfort and convenience of the city. Maybe her sister Cedar was right. Half-right, anyway. Traveling in her condition was madness.

⇼⇼

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Cedar had said, the night Holly had announced their departure. Kenneth had been in the kitchen, basting a chicken. Cedar and Holly were sitting on the sagging couch in the living room. The whole apartment smelled of roasting chicken and herbs; a smell that Holly usually loved but was making her slightly queasy. Outside the apartment windows, the senso-lights had flickered on one by one, warming the darkening city. Projected advertisements danced on distant walls.

“Heaven knows it isn’t perfect here, but we have what you need, a hospital, doctors—” Her sister’s cheeks bloomed pink, her mouth contorted into a frown. “You won’t have that there.”

“Ken is a doctor,” Holly had argued feebly, detesting how fragile her voice sounded.

“What about the bandits, Northerners? There are no peacekeepers up there.” Outside an alarm wailed, an angry shout echoed against the buildings.

“Ken’s been to camps before. It’s safe, safer than here really. Cedar, it’s beautiful. You can dip a net in a lake and the fish jump right into it. It’s clean. At night, you can see stars. It’s better, better than here. Can’t you see? That’s why we’re going.” Her hand floated to her belly.

Cedar wasn’t listening. 

“If anything goes wrong out there—” She shook her head. “And I’m here. To help. There, you’ll be in the middle of nowhere, with no family. It’s insane. It’s still a dangerous place. You don’t know anyone; you have no experience living in the wild.”

Holly shook her head. “I’ll learn.” Her voice deflated as she continued. “Can’t you try to be happy for us?”

“I’m too worried to be happy for you. What if you—after—what if you’re—like last time?” Cedar shook her head again. Her skin was pale, like Holly’s, splashed with cinnamon freckles. On her cheek there was a Bloomers mark, a star burst of raised skin. Her curly red hair had been scooped up in a bun. Her blue eyes had looked moist. “And you’ll stick out there, more so than here even.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“What about me, then? Huh? You’re my only family too.”

Holly bent her neck, studying her hands. “I’m sorry.” What else could she say? It was true. Family was important, she was lucky to have a sister, lucky to have Cedar.

“You’ve always been a follower, sis. A romantic. I know you love Ken and he’s convinced you—”

“He didn’t convince me,” Holly countered. She felt her throat constrict. She hated this. “Look, I don’t want to fight.” Now that she was upset it was impossible for her to articulate. How could she explain anyway? How could she explain how much she wanted a child, how much she feared that another flu or fever would sweep through the city and kill them? Or that the chemicals and pollution would affect the pin-sized fetus that she was carrying? That another conflict with the Americans or Albertans might grip the city, the way it had when she was a child? How could she explain that she loathed the city, that she wanted more, and that she simply couldn’t endure another disappointment? No, she could not have this baby in the city.

“You’re running.” Cedar shifted away from Holly. She eyed the glass of water Kenneth had placed on the coffee table, then lifted her head, staring out the window, into the shadowy street.

“Are you thirsty?”

Cedar shrugged. Holly carried the glass to the kitchen, poured the water out, refilled it from the tap. Kenneth raised his gaze from the cutting board and mouthed “Okay?”

Holly shook her head, no. She returned to the  living room, held the glass out to her sister. Cedar took the glass and sipped. Her eyes were fluorescent against their red rims.

“We’ve done our research, we’re not going in blind. I know it’ll be hard, ” Holly mumbled. “ But it’s an opportunity. An adventure.”

Cedar let out a grunt and folded her arms across her chest. “You sound like a Bloomer. You sound like Mom.” It was the ultimate insult. Holly placed an arm across her belly and sighed. Cedar always got the last word.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to argue. Holly was going. She was gone. And Cedar would just have to forgive her.

The Dusts (excerpt)

Setting can make all the difference in setting the tone of a story. I'm a visual person and often write stories inspired by landscape. This piece of speculative fiction is mostly about Ethan, the narrator's long-dead brother, but the landscape is almost a character in its own right. The dim, dusty backdrop sets the stage for the siblings formative years. 

The Years of Night. That's what we called them. Although it wasn't the kind of night we knew years ago, when I was a small child. It was more like a permanent haze, an erasure of stars. One day the Big Star forgot to rise. The next day it did the same. After that, crops failed. The forests suffocated, struggling onward, trees stunted, foliage brownish gold. At least, that’s what happened here, in the mid-continent.

My mother had picture books, made before. She spent hours reading them to Ethan and me as children. In the books, the trees are garish, painted bright, bright green. The skies unnatural blue. There is the Big Star, of course. The lost sun, not a bulb behind a dusty pane, but hanging there, often drawn with a smile or wearing a pair of goggles. No, that's not right. We called them sunglasses.

The world wasn’t like those pictures. I was there, and though it was a long time ago and I was very little, I would remember colours like that. The sun didn't wear glasses of course. But the people did. Sunglasses. Like spectacles, only the lenses were tinted. Can you imagine? The Big Star was that bright! And the colours were infinite, so bountiful that they were taken for granted, many left unnamed.

With The Dusts, the landscapes lost their crisp corners and contrast. The blacks bled into white, greens into reds, indigos into yellows, until everything was soaked and brown. Everything we observed, everything we knew, was filtered through The Dusts. Forests eventually turned into clumps of standing spears, rampikes ready for lightening to burn.

Ethan was nine and I was six when the crops were moved indoor so that the growings could be done in shelters. All the grown-ups complained: dreary, they said. My brother and I adapted. Ethan taught me what my parents could not. We approached our world with fascination when all the adults could see was entropy.

That was the thing about Ethan. Curiosity was his defining feature. It ruled everything he did. When you have that kind of thirst, it leaves no room for the baser levels of personality: ignorance, judgement, bitterness, lethargy. Sometimes it made it seem as though he cared more for ideas than for people. That wasn’t the case. He was simply preoccupied.

I had friends at school, for Ethan it was harder. Something about him spelled difference, and children are like animals, they scent difference from a great distance. He was never disliked outright, only gently cast out, which he never noticed or minded. His mind was on broader things: the movements of the invisible stars, the echo of molecules, the polarities of the earth and the jigsaw of numbers that hummed a foreign language in his synapses. As for me, life was simple. I kept an eye out for beauty and I kept my hands busy. I’ll tell you this: I always enjoyed my brother’s company best.

Pirates, Part 1 (excerpt)

This is an except from "Pirates." This is a story that is told from four separate character perspectives: A former flamenco dancer named Althea; her teacher-husband Tim; teenager, selfie-taking Turner; and, beat-boxing Diego.  Oh, and of course there might be Pirates.

Tim Morgan

The Medusa Virus, that’s what he had nicknamed it. Tim would never say that out loud, though. Especially not to Althea. Joking was no longer allowed. The words she threw at him. Chop, chop. Sharp like a cutlass. She threw objects at him too: old records like throwing stars, once a potted plant.

Tim scrubbed half-dried egg yolk off the garage door before she found it. He tossed the burning bag of dog crap sitting by the front door, grateful she had slept through the doorbell. Now he sat in his SUV, stalling before heading home from his job, back to the real work of handling Althea.

Those kids she blamed, they weren’t bad, he had taught almost every one of them at one point or another. She spent so many hours now, sitting at the window, watching them walk to school. It was her opera seria, the neighbourhood in three acts. The school kids were an easy target for her ire. Everyday they migrated, like the Great Blue Heron that flew over the neighbourhood, east to west in the morning then back again at dusk.

There was Diego, so dark he’d disappear at night, tiny like his mom, singing all the time. Sweet kid. Althea hated his headphones. Adam, hair like the straw at the end of broom. A twit, no question. But a rifle? Althea said she saw it sticking out of his backpack. When Tim saw him slouch up the sidewalk he said, “watch it, young man,” just in case. Loyalty, it mattered. Althea was the love of his life.

Young man. His father used to call him that. As in, you, young man, are in trouble. Tim let out a weasily giggle and glanced at the brown, bottle shaped bag he had flung on the passenger seat.  He caught his own eyes in the rear view. He needed to shave. His face was red, raw looking, as if he had a sun burn or had bathed in brine. Sand was crusted in the corners of his eyes.

When he really was a young man, his parents drove into the city through the east side. The bums stumbled and swayed and sat in circles at Pigeon Park, swilling from brown paper bags. It was right there, this foreign land, just around the corner from the scrubbed tourists. All it took was a wrong turn, an innocent semi circle. Imagine the horror, one minute they’re watching the steam clock blow and the next they’re tripping over drunks, passed out in guano-splattered sleeping bags. Trying not to make eye contact with the panhandlers, eyes empty like craters on the moon. He said: “Bottles in the bags? Do they think they’re fooling anyone?”

He picked up the bottle and untwisted the cap, poured the amber liquid into his stainless travel mug. He stuffed the bottle back into the wrinkled bag then pushed it under the passenger seat. In the mirror he saw an old man.

Walking the Beach

This is a little story inspired by a writing prompt I did with my writing group. It is a fun slice of fictional narrative that is a bit meta - a writer writing about a writer and writing. Enjoy!

    It’s cold out, the wind whipping the ocean into a frenzy. Still, Daisy needs walking and I best do it before the sun slips down the horizon and the daylight is gone. I shove my feet into my rubber boots, feeling like a failure. I shrug into my jacket and we’re off, my dog full of the enthusiasm I lack. I was supposed to be writing today. Spinning my imagination into gold.

     I sat at my desk for nearly an hour, staring out at the choppy grey waves waiting for inspiration. I folded laundry. Wrote two hundred words, deleted them, started again. I swept the floor. Wrote fifty more. Deleted. I sat on the third to bottom step and counted my losses: my father, my best friend, my favorite sweater, a five-dollar bill, my sense of humor.

     I’m not sure where it has gone -- the idea I worked out last night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Something about a one-legged clown falling in love with a totem-pole carver. The one-legged clown wiping off his make up. The carver glistening, wood chips collecting in her long black hair.

    It was good, really. Brilliant even. The setting evocative: a Ferris wheel being built, a dust storm in the desert, the taste of salt in the air.

     On the beach, the dog bounds ahead, crashing into the waves and then jumping back again as if the novelty of the ocean surprises her. Ecstasy. Ah, to be a dog. The wind is biting and I’m waking up from my fugue state, my word-rich coma. My clown. I’ll name him Circuit. He will fry eggs with his electric fingers.

     I find a suitable stick and throw it for Daisy. She bounds after it, into the crashing surf. Happier than a moment ago, if possible. We play this back and forth game until finally she loses interest. We continue along the beach. She starts digging. At first, I don’t notice because I’m naming the totem-carver. Aleka . . . it means “she who makes the wood speak.”

     I’ve kept walking and Daisy’s not catching up. She’s nosing something frantically. Paws working the sand, inhaling in greedy breaths. I make my way to her and kneel. Something metal, rusty. I brush away the sand. It’s a box, metal, with blooms of rust decorating the top, the corners are sharp. There is a looped clasp, no lock.

     I unclasp the latch. Inside there’s a book. Perfectly preserved as though that rusty box is waterproof. On the cover there is clown in white face. The title of the book is titled “Circuit.” I turn the book over. A tragic love story between a one-legged clown and a totem pole carver, set in the desert during a sand-storm.

    Daisy and I walk on, toward the middle distance, where I see them erecting a Ferris wheel on the board walk, the taste of salt in the air.