Around twelve he slipped into the boardwalk diner; a cheap little place that reeked of nineties sensibilities. He’d had too many beers to pass for sober, but too few to really be drunk. His belly was warm. His vision spun softly when he looked in...
June 2002, Before It was early in June when the storm hits us. It didn’t do much damage, besides ripping away one of the biggest branches from the maple tree. Just a week after we moved into this house, our neighbours told us about that half-dead, century-old...
Telemachus is not the only fatherless boy in Ithaca. When Odysseus left to go to war, he took the men of Ithaca with him, and now their sons are old enough to eye his palace and his wife. Telemachus does not want one of his...
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that Sunday night might always be heavy. It might always remind us of every night we spent convincing everyone else they were worthy of healing, every instance bringing rise to the nights that we didn’t want to live. Maybe all...
I found a letter in my mailbox addressed to someone who doesn’t live here anymore. The same mailbox where someone left used cotton balls, rubber bands, and needles inside. The mailbox that I removed from a crumbling brick wall to sanitize with a bottle of...
Jane was leaving the convenience store when her romcom was ruined. What they don’t tell you about meet-cutes is that meeting is never as cute the second time around. In fact, the so-we-meet-again is the most awkward part, and it always happens when you’re not expecting...
Before he died, the last time I spoke to my father we were broiling underneath the August sun in section 126 at the old ballpark. All the covered seats at the diamond had sold out, but, despite knowing we’d inevitably get sunburnt, my father had...
There is a boat in the middle of a gray and choppy sea. Actually, the boat is more of a raft, tree trunks barely stripped of bark, lashed together with the rawest of rope. Maybe the rope is handmade, too, wild grasses woven together by...
i’d never had a real coffee until the portuguese bakery on the street corner where concrete peels like dead skin no skateboarding this is toronto is dufferin grove the curb is nicer when it’s made with the opposite intention blankets unfamiliar if everyone is sober...
November 2010. It is Tihar, the Hindu festival of lights. For five days, there are fireworks and rituals and prayers; everything is done for Yama, the god of death. Each day something different is celebrated: first crows, then dogs, cows, oxen, and finally, our brothers. Crows...