Lifesaver

As is so often the case at these stupid cottage parties, I went and lost track of all the beer I’d been drinking, although it sure knew exactly where to find me, sending conflicting signals to my brain and some strange sharp warning down deep in my gut, coming up fast, and the outhouse too far in the wrong direction.
     And still I must have stumbled off the path, because I soon found myself tripping through the spongy underbrush, my legs giving way, branches scratching at my ankles and slapping my face.
      . . . now sprawled on a floor of solid stone.

I lowered myself so carefully, hands pressed to the granite, holding it steady, this rock that hadn’t moved for millions of years, and even so, probably still passed out, cuz I woke to the sun rising through a gap in the trees, brilliant and flickering orange . . . terribly hot but with no sound at all save the roar from the fire. You’d expect screams or something, but I guess they’d all run off . . . except Thom.
     “I’ve decided to quit smoking,” he said, handing me a knapsack he’d rescued, mine.
     “You’re a lifesaver, Thom.”
     “Oh yeah?” he said. “So where’s my hole?”

Photo by Aleksander Nedić.

Nearly

“What’s Lenny doing?” asked my mother.
     I turned my attention from Sophy who had captured everybody’s attention doing spectacular jumps into the pool. Tiny at two, with no fear, throwing her limbs into an exuberant starfish. Lenny was hanging a foot below the water at the edge of the deep end, where he had slipped down the sloped bottom from where he could keep his head above the surface. His arms were flailing. Luckily he was within arm’s reach and I plucked him out.
     “Mummy,” He gasped, expelling water and vomit all over me. “I was trying to call you!”

Hokem Chokem

When our son was three he choked on a hard candy. The three of us were painting my office. Rich and I were distracted with the job at hand when Dan, blue in the face came toddling over. Somehow I remembered what I read in my baby book, began the Heimlich for babies and after two fevered squeezes the killer candy flew out of his mouth, hit the wall and clattered down the stairs. “Wow! Look at that!” said Dan, his little face squeezed between the stair balusters. He returned to his Lego and I went downstairs to throw up.

CPR Dummies

Our swimming instructor had no use for CPR dummies, or maybe the school hadn’t the funds, but the upshot was that we’d be practising mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on each other, and we all knew what that could mean in a mixed class of adolescents. Or certainly Mr. N. did, because rather than spend the rest of the period listening to us giggle and groan about something we knew so little about, he had the good sense to quickly pair off the boys with each other and let us make a big show of sluicing out our mouths afterwards with pool water.

Men and Beauty

Ever notice when you ask a heterosexual male if another man is handsome, they almost always say, “I don’t know.” Is it because they are wired to notice physical beauty only in women? Or are they not sure how women judge male attractiveness, so they cannot answer that question to a female? Or perhaps, they are afraid that in noticing the good looks of another male, they will come off as gay. Maybe it is the long history of celebrating mostly female beauty in the world of art that trains men to appreciate the female form over their own.

Florentine Angel

It sounds like a cliché, but I saw the most stunning girl in the world in Florence. We were pulling out of the train station and there she was brushing a lock of brown hair out of her eyes and peering through the steam to catch a glimpse of her friend. Unlike we mortal girls, who maybe experienced a blip of pulcritude in high school or university, she was ethereal. I saw her for three seconds, twenty-five years ago and I can still remember the shape of her arms, her simple sleeveless blue dress and of course her beautiful face.

Andromeda

How’s this for timing?
     I’m walking off the effects of the last, bad, we-need-to-talk date with the worst girlfriend ever; walking the beach holding my new shiny shoes, all dressed up amongst a crowd of beach rats, watching 110 pounds of sand and fury kicking the crap from the monster of all muscle-beach boyfriends, except he’s just sitting there taking it crying, tears clearing tracks through the dirt down his face.
     And yes, that is sad.
     Except, did I mention she just happens to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and me newly single for maybe 45 minutes?

Image of Cetus the Monster from Urania’s Mirror, engraved by Sidney Hall, circa 1825.

Overcoming Indifference

She wanted to feel some chemistry with Charlie. By all rational analysis he was Mr. Right. “Who was that cute guy you were with?” her friends would ask, when she was spotted out on a date with him. And, because he was so persistent, she did toss him a date from time to time. He spoiled her with expensive dinners and flowers. Later, after she had finally managed to shrug him off, she learned of his fortune and connections. She did not care. She wondered how those women did it; the ones who overcame indifference to wed themselves to wealth.

To Catch a Thief

He grabbed her elbow before they entered the library, “Why . . . why not me? Why him?”
     “God, I don’t know, Mike, just because.” Jess knew this was coming.
     “But he’s such a sponger . . . ” He regaled her with a litany of things Josh had borrowed and not returned. He’d loved Jess for years, ever since first-year university, and had tried for ages, with invitations to cocktails, rides home, and offers to proofread her essays. Then this prick waltzes in and effortlessly scoops her up.
     She could have told him it was because Josh had hair like Cary Grant but that was cold comfort.

iStalk

After the divorce, it was me who set her up with her own e-mail address. It was me who switched her from PC to Mac. She had started writing again, so I set up a blog and taught her to use it. She’s on Facebook because of me. She’s on Flickr and LinkedIn. I was her devoted, one-man IT department, and what did I get out of it but a one-way, hi-res view into her new perfect life with her new perfect boyfriend . . . whom she met at the Apple store, no less, so I don’t even have that any more.

One Possible Future

“What’s the point of even thinking about the future?” Joan remembered thinking in her final year of high school, when Ned, dumped her, “My life is over.” Several years had passed and she was back in town from the city where she now lived, working for a prestigious design company. Sandy came by to say hello. “I was out at Ned’s place the other day,” she told Joan, “he and his wife were busy slaughtering and plucking chickens.” If there was any vestige of regret left in Joan’s soul about losing Ned, it evaporated in an instant.

Take Your Stinkin' Paws Off Me, You Damned, Dirty Ape!

I have heard the song In the Year 2525 since I was an amoeba and every time I do, it creeps me out. It was written in the early ’sixties when all we had to worry about was Kennedy’s trigger finger and being overtaken by artificial intelligence. The song starts in the aforementioned year and runs until mankind has been around for 10,000 years. Sure Zager and Evans could have benefitted from a physical anthropology course or a glance at a Jewish calendar but still the lyrics are disturbing, something Nostradamus would have written if he tried the brown acid.

In the Year 2000

I wrote my very first piece of Science Fiction in Grade 6, and remember exactly how it began.
     “In the year 2000, I will be 39 years old.”
     And that’s exactly all I can remember, probably because the very idea of ever being that old just blew my prepubescent mind, and the inevitability of actually growing up and having money and freedom and pubic hair trumped the mere possibility of jet cars and video phones.
     It’s also because Miss Hudson liked my composition so much that she made everyone write one, and most of them began exactly the same way.

Photo by Sean Mahoney.

My Kind of Domination

Keep your mysteries and your romances. My reading vice is science fiction. Not that crappy fantasy stuff, either – real science fiction with stories built around believable predictions of the future and the complications they will effect on human society and culture. I get a way better kick reading about human genetics being modified to grow gills so they can live on a sea dominated planet, than imagining being swept away by some domineering male. I got hooked on it in my early teens and have haunted the SF section in bookstores ever since – often the only female among pimply nerds.

Interstellar Bodice Ripper

The story was called Escape to Andromeda. A science fiction I penned myself. To create a buzz I wrote in parts for everyone in Mrs. Anderson’s grade seven class. And since this was puberty after all, I matched couples with specific roles. People who I thought should be together and job-sharing on this uber-cool spaceship. For example Denise and Greg, both diminutive and cheerful ran the science lab. Beefy David and Tough-gal Mary Jo were security. And the odious Zimbo was the officer who tried in vain to kill the intergalactic Targon with his puny laser but got eaten anyway.

Auriga

Andromeda was way out of his league, but tonight just drunk enough to give the poor guy a break; not too drunk to let things go too far, but just a bit slow when they did.
     “Omigod!” she screamed, pushing him off and onto the sand. “What the fuck did you just do?”
     “But they said you . . .”
     “I don’t give a fuck what anyone said, just give me your fucking towel . . . My suit! . . . Fuck! It’s everywhere! . . . You’d better just pray none of this gets inside me, you big fucking freak, because I am not having your fucking freak baby!”

Besieged

By the time Sandy got to five sons, Joan was dumfounded.
     “Were you trying for a girl?”
     “We would have stopped at two, but I kept getting pregnant.”
     “Why didn’t you go on the pill?
     “That was little Jason.”
     “Vascectomy?”
     “That was Tyler.”
     Sandy looked miserable as several of her offspring erupted into the kitchen. Within seconds the place was awash in spills, crumbs and grubby hand prints. Once fed and watered the horde moved on to wreak destruction in another part of the house.
     “We’re double protected now—both Barry and I had ourselves fixed,” said Sandy.

Orange you Glad I didn't say Orange

Ortho 7-7-7 began with a set of whites then light oranges finishing with seven dark orange pills. Being French Canadian there was always the real threat of getting pregnant just by forgetting to say your rosary, so I took my pills religiously. Once while camping I found only white ones left. I panicked, thinking I had taken the pills backwards. Not only would I be pregnant, but my child would have three arms. To my relief, I discovered that the light through the orange canvas filtered out that same colour inside the tent. I was safe to fornicate with impunity.

Crunchy Noodles

Andrew and I were pretty good at plotting the route to the next stop on our bike tour, but damned if we’d ever show up in time to enjoy it. We’d start out late, dawdle along the way, and usually roll into camp just as the sun was beginning to set, at which point it was a scramble just to get the tent up before we could no longer see, and forget about searching the forest for kindling. So, granola for supper again, and maybe some Cup-a-Soup from the hot-water tap, which isn’t so bad if you like crunchy noodles.

Artsy City Folk

The conceit was that the art students at the Banff School of Fine Arts, many from large eastern cities, had no concept of wilderness survival. We were all dragged, shrugging and moaning, for a weekend of camping led by ‘experienced outdoorsmen.’ It was a wet weekend. We pitched our tents glumly, looking forward to something hot to drink afterwards. Our guides, however, were having trouble getting fires going. I rolled my eyes and went from one firepit to the next building my foolproof Girl Guide blazes for everybody. Then I smoked a cigarette with my beret pulled down for warmth.