Sibilance

Grade 8 music, 1974, and Miss Matthews has just introduced us to Roberta Flack. We are hers for the next 40 minutes, and she’s determined to teach this captive choir to sing Killing Me Softly with His Song. She plays our first attempt back at us from a big reel-to-reel she’s hooked up to the music room’s sound system, so that we can hear for ourselves how harsh all the s-words sound. The trick she tells us it to sing them as if they start with the letter Z, and so by the second take we’re already zinging with ztyle.

Inspired by Wrapped Up Like a Douche. Image by Atlantic Records.

Wrapped Up Like a Douche

Malapropping through the Eighties, everyone sang She’s So Popular instead of Jeu Sans Frontières. But since I was a kid, I’ve excelled at getting lyrics wrong. At six, instead of sending our Queen victorious, I wished her “Fletcher’s Castoria, Happy and Gloria.” Younger still, I warbled to the Singing Nun, “Domma-nick-a-nick-a-nick, une After Eight c’est all I want . . .”

But I loved to sing, and still do. I think I sound like Carole King. Dan says I bray like a donkey. A high-school teacher once called me Joanie. I thought Joni Mitchell. He meant Joan Baez. It was probably the moustache.

Inspired by Ron’s take on Games Without Frontiers. Photo by 20th Century Fox.

The Art of the Bluff

He took another peek. A 7-2 offsuit, a really raw deal. He’d have to bluff on it. He glanced around the table. Emannuel looked smug, but he always did. He was weak. Keir looked like that Muppet, Beaker—he’d cave for sure. So would the Dutchman next to him. The kraut, he wasn’t sure about. His eyes shifted onto Giorgia, who was unfathomable; he’d like to get her alone sometime. “Raise,” he said, pushing his memecoin stack forward. He finally looked across at Volodymyr. 

      “Donald, you haven’t got the cards,” Volodymyr said. “Too bad there's no trump in this game.”

Inspired by Poker Game and this week's gathering of international leaders. Image based on a photo by Elina Manninen, modified by Copilot.

Poker Game

Mary Ann was charming and funny, but she lacked a “stop” button. Take the infamous strip poker game at the back of the school bus where the six graders sat. Among a crowd of boys teetering on puberty, Mary Ann, past teetering, made the most of that 30-minute ride. When her opponent lost a round, she took off one of her many rings, which she wore just for the occasion. When Mary Ann lost, she went right for her shirt, and then her jeans. Her eyes were ablaze, chasing the attention, looking for the self-worth, she could not find elsewhere.

Inspired by Jordy. Photo by Stephen Rees.

Jordy

Jordan was his name. Jordy for short. He had it in for me and I never knew why. I think he literally hated me. It wasn’t any kind of secret crush as I was called a bone rack back then. Too skinny. Too awkward.  One afternoon, he raced by me on his bike and launched a rotten tomato at my head.

It caught the side of my face and exploded. I tried to pretend I wasn’t phased as tomato juice saturated my hair. But I felt shame and it stuck for years. I’ve always wondered what happened to that prick.

Inspired by Jerry Maybee. Photo by aquaArts studio.

Jerry Maybe

There’s a hole in my memory the size and shape of a ten-year-old boy. No idea who he was or what he looked like, just the memory of that time he blocked our toilet with a mess that would’ve kept me home from school, and the afternoon he convinced me to play by the tracks and how, sliding down the embankment, he somehow caught the branch of a prickle bush in his butt and made me look to see if he was bleeding. 

     Bad things happened to him . . . little things, sure, but just enough to warn me off. 

     Sorry, man.

Inspired by In search of Sheryl Hickory, 1961-1993. Illustration by the author, with a big leg up from Google Gemini.

In search of Sheryl Hickory, 1961-1993

Sheryl’s family was in a bad way, so Laurette looked after her. She fixed her hair, bought her school clothes and supplies and let us play together, until my bruises made it clear that her trauma was trickling down to me. I never went to her house, but I did have a nightmare that has stayed with me for fifty-eight years: I walked into the Hickory’s kitchen and saw her family seated at the table. As one, they turned and looked at me, except they had lizard heads. I woke myself up to escape these monsters. Sheryl wasn't so lucky.

Inspired by Sheryl, who was my friend for 620 days. Photo: “Underbelly” by Laurie.

The Gate in the Middle of Nowhere

Off-road, we encountered locked gates, and we had to hand our bikes across to another rider, then climb over ourselves. On one two-metre giant, I clambered onto the narrow top rail, which was strung with barbed wire, swung my legs across, perched gingerly, and jumped. There was a disconcerting tug and rrrrrrip as I let go. Yes. Those barbs; my shorts. For the rest of that day, I rode with a fist-sized tear on both buttocks. But cycling shorts are made of resilient fabric. That night, I sewed them up, salvaging them, and some dignity, for the ride next morning.

Inspired by Rosehill and Dale. Photo by Bob Miller, of a team-assisted, Flag-on-Iwo-Jima-like crossing of a much shorter fence.