All One Song

In this valley, thronged, the crack of ice as bluest shards implode and drop, crystal tails and powder—oh my dreamland castaway lady and lord—trailing. When at last we emerge from this frozen northern twilit place, a dark hut squats in our path, weak smoke tendriling from a busted chimney, the faintest muddy orange dim and low in its pitiful windows playacting muted glances.

Inside is a place of men. Large and bruised men, nursing their watery beers and their cryptic histories.

Bradford finds a small table and we sit opposite, like chess rivals. A man brings us beer in bottles.

“Tab?” he asks like he knows.

We both nod and he leaves.

I point to my head and point with my other finger at another part of my head. “Look at this. Look.”

“What?” Bradford is somewhere between bored and on board.

“I don’t know how to make this part work with this part.”

“Huh?”

“I got an intellectual and a lowlife creep at war in here. I don’t know how to reconcile these parts. I’m a goddamn high-rolling sweet-ass motherfucker with negative aspirations. One foot in the gutter while the other strolls the shining city on the hill. No sooner do I sink a Bud Lite than I dream of Freda Kahlo. I sue for peace while spoiling for a brawl. I don’t know what the fuck I am.”

“You a whole circus without the ringmaster.”

“I guess. And no taste-master either. I got no taste ’cause I want to taste all the tastes.”

“Not sure I can help you with that, brother.”

“Place needs music,” I say loudly, which only makes the barroom quieter.

These hard-drinking men might be men at a stream, casting lines. Steady. Stoic. No one really knows. The night outside might darken or not, the songs of birds stretching out some elongated moment. Might could drop a quarter in the slot and hit a letter and a number, hoping for Neil or Drake or Lana or RiRi.

Men like these don’t compromise—a weakness, not the strength they proclaim. Look. A tree connects the sky to the earth. And it reminds us to also grasp limbs. Put it this way: even the guys who ridicule “tree huggers” still knock on wood, I’ll wager.

A song selects, and y’all know its effect, and its dress rehearsal respect blares external. 

Neil. Old now. Grey. Still shredding those one-note solos. What something was and what it no longer ain’t.

The stymied wolverine wince and ruined caribou rasp of Old Black. A dark northern lament under slow-turning star wheels, the nighttime snow wide-as-fuck open blue under a half moon. Or under the aurora. And yes, as the man said, the old man now, go look at his life, it’s all one song.

He enunciates the word borealis like Elton sings auditorium.

Whatever the grisly outcome tonight, this is all and fine and damn near everything. 

___________________

Image © Rebecca Loranger

Red White Bitch

CanLit is short for Canadian literature. Geist is a Vancouver literary magazine. Over the years, it's featured some excellent writing challenges. The idea of this particular contest (the Can't Lit Without It CanLit Short Story Contest) was to grab a randomly generated Canadian premise from the canlitgenerator.com and create a piece of fiction no longer than five hundred words.

Anyway, they received around two hundred entries, and though my story didn't win it did manage to get itself shortlisted, for which I'm proud.

So here was my premise: "A family and their dog struggle with what it means to be Canadian. To each other, they say nothing."

___________________________________________________________

The world is filled with things. Lodgepole bark, cribbage boards, a softening of the eyes.

But the world in this moment is filled with two things: red and white, blood and snow.

Five beings in a cabin trapped by a blizzard don’t tend to open themselves to the lone canine, and I must accept that.

***

“If someone doesn't shut that fucking mutt up, I swear I’ll carry it outside and turn it into a dogsicle.”

“Leonard, that dog isn’t an it. She’s a genuine hero. She once saved an entire SAR team somewhere west of Tumbler Ridge. Long story, but trust me.”

***

Did one of them just speak up for me? I’m impressed. If I end up going rogue, perhaps I’ll spare her, let her be the one to lead us back to the bright lights and the furry microphones. We all love a survivor tale.

***

Grandpa decided it was time. “I ate many a critter I was once partial to.”

No one knew what to say to that. Grandpa claimed to be Métis. Most thought of him as a wily grey fox who’d seen better years.

***

Marie-Louise said, “What say we turn on the TV?”

Snow punctuated the windows in grainy tattoos.

***

“Before we return to Peter Mansbridge, we would like to express our condolences to all Canadians who have erred in some way, to those who left it late in October to buy a snow shovel after they disappeared from the shelves, who belatedly learned about block heaters that first winter after moving to the Prairies, who assumed milk in a bag was a prank, dismissed Bubbles as a retarded kitty-loving Rush stan and nothing more, barely registered Sidney’s goal in Vancouver in 2010, looked blank at the mention of Christine Sinclair or Hayley Wickenheiser, remained unmoved by the quietly revelatory stories of Alice Munro, or unimpressed by Tekahionwake’s gentle retellings of Coast Salish stories, or perplexed by phrases like bunny hug or gonch launch. Please try to be better at this Canadian thing, okay?”

***

For fuck’s sake. To you folks, Drake is a male duck.

I yelled and rapped (yapped) into the night, Leonard be damned. And no one stopped me.

***

“Morning’s coming.”

“I’d never have guessed, given the steady increase in light from the east.”

“You’re a good girl, Lorena. Sarcastic and filled with love for the finest things. Let us smudge.”

“You mean ash on the forehead or burning a sage stick in an abalone shell?”

“Does it matter?”

***

It might. Crossing the border for a gallon of milk and a block of American cheese the size of a shoebox, alongside a tankful of cheap gasoline, you remember those days? Red and white doesn’t only refer to wine.

***

“Me, I don’t ever forget.”

“Yeah. Right. That old Trudeau, though? One mean, contrary sonofabitch.”

***

It’s morning. I need to pee. All I see now is red and I itch. Okay. Let me out of here. Please.