FALL 2014

t v

h e e g

l i t e r a r y magazine fall 2014

poetry

An Anne Carson Interview on CBC Radio 1

David Helps

7

Osler

Erin Masters

9

Unfinished

David Helps

10

A Question for Nelson, in China

Julia Isler

15

On the Night of the Last Year’s Solar Eclipse, at 5:45 AM

James Dunnigan

16

Womanhood

Inam Anina

18

mike’s dad never did refuse

Henry Kronk

19

For the Sun

Matthew Rettino

23

Lines

James Dunnigan

24

The Sea under the City.

Inam Anina

33

The Scarf

James Dunnigan

34

our life as a western

Henry Kronk

35

Thoracic Spine

Erin Masters

37

prose

Sahha

Joseph Renshaw

11

Chet Benson’s War

Emery Fine

25

art

sudden loss of breath

Katie MacKinnon

8

Fly true

Jehane Yazami

14

I can’t hear it, whisper

Galit Sandaev

22

The Understanding

Galit Sandaev

23

breeze

Elena Lin

32

untitled

Katie MacKinnon

36

the veg literary magazine fa l l 2 0 1 4 v o l . 1 1 # 1

/ 400

design Hera Chan The Veg Literary Magazine is funded by the Fine Arts Council of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) of McGill University. The content of this publication does not necessarily represent the views of the AUS or McGill University. internet veg.magazine@gmail.com twitter.com/veg_mag facebook.com/thevegmagazine thevegmagazine.tumblr.com printing by

Dear Reader, As Demeter, Freyja, or Mom might say: there is nothing like heartily partaking of nature’s bounty as the winds turn cold and winter looms. Or eating pancakes at midnight. But you and I are wiser than most. While those deities speak merely of roots, legumes, and pulses, we find ideal fare between The Veg’s leaves.

Or at the bottom of a frying pan at midnight.

And thanks to those who shared their produce this autumn, we are able to provide a most savoury feast.

To those about to partake, as well as those whose works are on offer, we bid you thanks and welcome! Cardstock is no hug, but we offer it in full.

Love, The Editors Hera Chan Christy Frost Jenn Jesmer Clara Lagacé Özlem Maviş Zain R. Mian Tristan Petsola Matthew Redmond Jacob Wald Mark Weissfelner

An Anne Carson Interview on CBC Radio 1 The simple poet sipped dead languages, coaxed the words in bluish b’s and in p’s and q’s that ached. The heartbreak a heartbrake, a brother’s life abridged in poems— about injustice and the simplicity of loss. (All the silly, cosmic themes.)

Broken arms in photographs as lessons you can’t paraphrase. Lessons you can’t teach without hurting.

7

Photographs like black magic, like staring into the eyes of a dead boy, a boy you knew, you think, you’re not sure. You’re never sure. Let us put into place all the things you can’t.

Making simplicity and linebreaks and prettiness and the hopefulness of structure when there is none there.

D av i d h e l p s

K at i e M a c k i n n o n

sudden loss of breath 35mm Fujifilm ISO 400 Fujifilm QuickSnap Marine

Osler She could fall asleep in city parks under linden trees and call it a canopy bed.

Her head in my lap, her onion skin cheek cupped in my palm, like she was water, like I was thirsty.

Cribbed in chain-link the rest of it is a tremor, a nervous vision and smells of something newly sprouted.

But the summer months are easier.

Her sleep-talk becomes virgin and unweeded— I can whisper back in the lacuna.

9

Pollen will collect around her mouth like thrush like sparrows on the wire fence.

erin masters

Unfinished We leave our fathers’ houses, learn the bricks were always ash: held up at the cost of our blue eyes, our pale, scarless backs.

d av i d h e l p s

10

Sahha j o s e p h r e n s h aw

The rap on the wood left Baffin’s knuckles stinging. Hudson stood pacing behind him, on the lookout for people coming up the stairs—though the boards creaked so much it would have been impossible to go unheard. “OK. Try not to say anything,” said Baffin, at the sound of footfall behind the door.

“Ah ha!” They were lead into a large 17th century apartment, bright and cool and smelling of dust, by a man of such average construction that he could well have been humanity’s mean.

A window above the street had been left wide open, allowing the chatter of the cafés below to waft in. By the windowsill were two young men at a table, between them an open notepad marked by dozens of randomly arranged straight lines. “Come, sit,” said the man. He placed Baffin and Hudson on a cracked leather sofa at the fireplace, taking for himself the small wooden chair opposite, which he occupied cross­legged in tattered underwear. Sahha was a person who could talk wildly, gesticulating with both hands above his head, and roll a perfect cigarette at the same time. In this way (and in others besides) there was something of the Vishnu­travesty about him. Even his beard, half woven into his shirt, had a squalid divinity about it.

“Baffin!’ he shouted, arms aloft. ‘How have you been?”

“Er, well, very well. I—” “And Hudson, is it?”

“Yes, that’s right.’”

“Yes, yes. Long time, no see. Far too long. So much has changed! I got the new place, as you can see… And those two have moved in.” He waved vaguely at the ceiling, then at the boys by the window.

Unaware that he was taking the bait, Hudson said, “Yes. I don’t think we’ve met.” Sahha jumped up. “Of course! Where are my manners? Come, I’ll introduce you.”

They went over to the window. >>>

11

12

“Baffin, Hudson, meet Kyle and Carl.”

“Hi. A pleasure.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“What are you doing with the pad?” asked Hudson before Baffin could stop him.

“They’re playing the Game of Two Points,” trilled Sahha. “Look. Kyle here must place two dots on the page in such as way that Carl cannot join them.

Boys, demonstrate.”

Kyle looked at the page carefully before marking down two points, about two inches apart. Carl slapped a ruler down and connected them unceremoniously, leaving yet another black line on the white sheet.

“But…there’s no way of winning—for Kyle, I mean.”

“It’s a motivational exercise,” Sahha replied on queue, catching nonetheless Baffin’s quiet sigh. “Kyle continues to play, with the knowledge that he cannot win, because the effort alone is worthwhile. Endurance and effort are worth more than success.” Sahha’s intonation was odd. It sounded like he didn’t understand the words he was saying, or had said them too many times.

Baffin wandered back to the sofa, followed by Sahha and Hudson. “Let me tell you a story, and maybe you’ll see what I mean. There’s an old man, left alone to babysit his grandkid. The little un’s parents are having a night out, so it’s just the two of them, in the old man’s pokey front room. Soon enough the baby wakes and the man takes him up and sits him in his lap. The old man loves the baby massively, more than he thought was possible, and when he looks at the baby’s face he doesn’t see a little brat with a runny nose. He sees invisibility cloaks, teleportation, spaceships and wormholes. He sees the future, and instead of being depressed that he’ll be dead when all that comes about, he’s delighted that when it does a small part of him will be there to see it all.” Hudson nodded.

“Anyway, after a while the baby falls asleep again. The old man lays it down quietly in its cot and when he sits back down he switches the TV on, with the volume kinda low. The news is on, showing all the usual stuff.

Thirteen dead in Bladeebla, and the government making a stupid mistake. But then—right at the end of the show—is a little story about some scientists in America who’ve managed to disprove their own existence. Thanks to quite ridiculous mathematics, they have managed to show the only thing that exists is the old man—or rather the old man’s mind. After the report the anchor turns to Camera 1 and points at the old man from inside the TV, says the old man’s name, assures him there has been no mistake.”

“Well, the old man is obviously baffled, but the first thing he thinks of is all the great things in the world. Shakespeare, the pyramids, the Himalayas, Michelangelo—he has created all of that, even though he’s seemed and felt mediocre and middling his whole life. Really it was the old man who figured out DNA and split the atom; really it was he who eradicated polio and it would be he who’ll cure cancer. But cancer and polio get the man thinking about all the awful things in the world, all the terrible things people have

been through. Slavery, the holocaust, the nuclear bomb. He starts to feel responsible for all those deaths and all the cruelty—because he made the world. He is the world.”

“It’s then that he realises that actually none of those things happened.

The scientists told him so. They said he was alone in the world. So he’s pretty relieved he isn’t responsible for the holocaust, but, if the scientists are right, nothing exists outside his little front room. The baby might exist, for now at least, but its mother—his daughter—doesn’t. She’s stepped out with her oafish husband for dinner in oblivion. The old man can feel a nervous breakdown coming on, not helped by the thought that there’s no one to comfort him.

Then, out of nowhere, the baby wakes up and starts to cry, to scream. And the old man, without thinking, immediately rushes over to comfort the child, and he spends the next hour gently rocking it to sleep…”

Hudson leaned back and exhaled slowly. The look of having learnt something, though he was not quite sure what, and the fear that he would forget it before he was out of the building, was written plainly across his face. Sahha, having seen the very same face three times in the last week, smiled reassuringly, “You see? He could have stabbed the kid. It wouldn’t have mattered. But he carries on trying, carries on being himself—even with certain proof that it’s not worth it. Or, if you like,” he said in an off­hand sort of way, “in the Game of Two Points the old man is one point and the little un another.” Hudson looked like a man who, braced for baptism, had found himself involved in a surprise drowning. Baffin had to move fast, else they be there for hours. “This has been fascinating,” he blurted out, with volume and great desperation. “As ever, really fascinating. But we do have a boat to catch.”

By the time they’d reached the street the meaning of the story was utterly indecipherable. Vaguely aware that something must have happened because time had passed, Hudson felt like he’d just woken from a snooze and was watching the nonsense of his dreams disappear. “What on earth was he talking about?” he asked on the way to Msida Marina. “I don’t know,” said Baffin. “But for this it was definitely worth it.” He took out and shook a little zip-lock bag, momentarily oblivious to the hordes around them, then, realising everyone at once, he quickly jammed it back inside his pocket. “Are you insane?” said Hudson, himself unable to summon the presence of mind to be angry. “Sorry, sorry. I forgot we were in the street.” Before long they were not, but on the bridge of a cruiseship, watching Valletta as it bobbed on the Mediterranean.

13

j e h a n e ya z a m i

Fly true 35mm film ISO 400 Ilford Delta 400 Professional

A Question for Nelson, in China If I have always been here, rooted to this spot,
 how is it I remember wading softly, not to upset the shallow roots of rice?

julia isler

15

On the Night of the Last Year’s Solar Eclipse, at 5:45 AM My Lord is as a day’s eclipse when moves the sun from dark to dark, on mornings where the stars have waited long— too long in people’s eyes.

His light is light in shade, shaded so bright and yet so far behind the moon and earth we cannot see.

16

Make I no sorrow for His passing.

My tears are for the Earth, for sorrow was my gift from Him, to build, to sing that He has made the fire to slip from but a spark into the wood; that He has made the frost, an inverse fire, collapsing on itself to dig the valleys; that He is the maker of voices, keeper of tones, that He is the note that shakes the breath.

My Lord, you are eclipsed today.

At five o’clock the moon will cross the sun, they said last night.

The sun is late in rising. No one notices.

The moon’s slim bone is gone under the house to scrape the feet of continents.

Each one of us is still asleep, eyes crusted from no dream, a sleep somehow itself asleep and dreaming.

17

May you tarry on again over the further countries, so that all my better nights are cool.

May all my further days be dark.

james dunnigan

Womanhood I’ve had a visit from the future: With his creased and almond eyes he said he grew in a cavernous womb, soon warming.

I knew because I’d seen those eyes before.

He summoned another. A child. A girl; her grey eyes shone like the shell of a beetle, quiet.

She bore dominion in her chin, funneled at my chest.

They took each other’s hands, my children, spun into the lilting wind.

O, you, who chant in the deepest caverns blooming like a fetus like the blood red fruition of the minyan, Do you love me?

Even when I don’t believe your God?

18

Those Friday night fires rise between Oregon & New York.

I can strangle them.

But those wedlocked embers may never grey.

Will you wither when I tell you about the golden babies who visit me in my sleep?

Their precious minds?

I’m born another kind.

My long robes Erupt The Angels lick them off Up The clouds shout down strips of the Bible.

I’ve seen the faces of the Holy, covered in April muck.

They opened their empty mouths and filled the room with flowers.

This is how they made the world—they never told their Father.

inam anina

mike’s dad never did refuse Old man tells a story: look down: here in my coffee cup

coffee and soy milk—original flavor

not properly shaken, see? sediments:

soy? plant matter? original flavor—? all swirling together diving and surfacing in the pattern, ordered. My coffee spoon—the tide. Look. The most amazing synchronized swimming

it—dolphins or whales, orcas?

very smart I hear Alright then, yes he had this dog, named Dali after Salvador it was a lady dog. Mike’s mom named her, she didn’t care. She knew art and things that made her feel deep and swirly.

Mean motherfucker Dali the dog

once passed out in a diving suit the man caught somewhere deep in the synchronized. surfacing. my coffee spoon—the tide.

19

—the house down the street on the corner, the green paint—mike lived there—i lived right next to a house that was seafoam green—really, whole house, yes—great big white pine out front of mike’s, worried that it was going to fall on the house someday—also, seafoam is a lie.

once me dad uncle mike cutting down white pine in ON. dad: chain it? / uncle: no I have a chainsaw. / chain saw: rummbbbbmbmbmb gasoline combustion plastic assembled in Norway maybe slice through bark/ skin into soul goodbye tree / tree: If you strike me down now—I’ll—I don’t believe in my own death/ corner of porch: [swoons under weight of crashing tree] all i ever did was love you. why?

Mike short hair buzzed hair got my hair buzzed too to be like him people treat you

to lunch, to treat differently with shaved hair

never refuse free alcohol

nothing in life is free

>>>

mikes dad never did refuse

that free and easy booze

took a lot of wine to ever calm him down

but he loved us all top notch

every one and every scotch

and red blood ran feverish through his veins

thank you.

20

First wake I ever went to I think mike’s dad’s, yes

never did wake up remember dark room, windy night, October

mike’s brother stoic

mike’s mom laughing, yukkin it up, hiding probably trying not to

think, self-medicating mike crying

myself? something like

liberated by reason of its cunning spring, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side insensitive, I know I believe want there to be an open bar at my funeral

so I can make everyone drink

soy cocktails that

stirred not shaken you know

mike like brother like best friend

til I was ten til he/I changed Once we compared penises. Curiosity I suppose.

first wake, yes, never did wake up

never did refuse

mike was only fourteen I believe

mike had a dog named Dali after Salvador. dog was a mean motherfucker—barked and bit— used to chase us around

stared into that dogs eyes right as it caught me once that bastard— saw fear—cosmic fear that the swirling diving surfacing matter—the coffee spoon—of this world will one day conspire against me/you and there would be no one to protect you

no one to

stared into mikes eyes through the seafoam—the tears at the wake— and saw that same hopeless fear thought—

thought he was going to crash and bring me down with him

Henry kronk

21

galit sandaev

I can’t hear it, whisper Sharpie, black ink pen on paper 27.9 x 35.6cm

For the Sun Rose magnolias Fall on pavement, making tears A silk red carpet.

m at t h e w r e t t i n o

23

galit sandaev

The Understanding Sharpie, black ink pen on paper 27.9 x 35.6cm

Lines I often ask myself which way the razor went that cut those hairs which cut my tongue.

That low serrated surface which served our exchanging prick for prick and for confusing thoroughly separate things.

Which way does it fold now to straightness?

Which way, unbending, goes to easiness?

24

You bent my fingers into something like a question mark, directed me straightway— still now I ask the question: where?

james dunnigan

Chet Benson’s War emery fine

Two trenches had been dug out of a cold stretch of land. The slab between them was littered with the trash and potholes of war. There was one trench, to the west, that had been ripped out of the earth by a troop of tortured and underfed animals. The other trench was a more professional job, rimmed with wooden planks and dug with precise measurements; the troop of underfed and tortured soldiers who had dug it out were now sleeping on the trench’s muddy floor. The sun, pale through the mist and fog, was setting over another horribly quiet day, and a pen was scribbling on paper.

One tree still stood. It stood somewhat bent, but was healthy otherwise. It was a beacon for the dead or dying, forgotten and caught somewhere between their home and foreign terror. Past midnight, when the moon was invisible in the darkness, a brilliant light crept slowly out from the trenches. A scuffling sound could be heard between the moans of dozens of soldiers reliving the day over and over again in fitful sleep. Eventually, the light rose above the ditch, illuminating a man kneeling in crisp military dress, pulling his lamp out like a rat hauling away a hunk of cheese. A ragged notepad was snug beneath the man’s other arm. Rising to his feet, he found his way towards the tree in absolute silence. Clearing some of the lighter dead from the trunk, he sat down and began writing in short inspiration-sparked bursts.

“There is very little in the world that steals away from the charm a dying tree in autumn holds for the true artist,” Lieutenant Chet Benson said to himself as he polished off another limerick. One of the wounded soldiers, broken body draped over one of the raised roots of the tree, used his last ounce of strength to try to tell Chet to shut up, but all he could manage was a weedy and useless, “Chet, you…” before collapsing. In the distance, someone swore in a language Chet hadn’t bothered to learn.

Chet woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. Despite the great volume of good work accomplished the night before, a phantom pain resounded in his head. Mornings, oddly enough, did little, if anything, to inspire him. The sun’s first ray creeping across the muck and violent filth, freshly moist with dew, provided nothing but enough illumination for the >>>

25

26

troops around him to take finer shots at each other. Perhaps if Chet were a better soldier, if he had spent his youth conforming to society’s vulgar quest to mold him into another one of these trigger happy dolts, then he would have been able to see the savage beauty of a wartime sunrise, the infinite library of symbolism and poetic material within those early beams slipping into his office. But for Chet, there was nothing so conventional, so petty, so inarguably nice as the sun. Life was bursting with things much more fine and worth a serious artist’s attention.

“Say Fred,” Chet guessed at one of the enlisted men’s names, “come see what I can make my pen do.”

“That’s …” Fred, or whoever, scratched his chin. “Subtly impressive, sir.”

“Thank you Fred. Impressive use of subtle, by the way. I could see you’ve been taking my advice about inventive diction!”

“Thank you sir. I actually came here to ask you something, this time. You see, the men and I were getting curious today, sir, if there had been any news?”

“From HQ, you mean?” Chet grinned, cherishing every chance he had to use the abbreviation he’d caught from one of the new arrivals, a young Brit with a limp and a knack for synecdoche.

“More or less as much, yes.” Fred stammered. Chet stood up, slowly as not to shake the table or upset the pen he’d balanced so precariously on its edge in any way.

“No Fred. Nothing worth relaying to the men. A letter came in for someone, someone named S. Cheswick yesterday. Now Cheswick wouldn’t still be alive around here, would he?”

“Yes Sir. Cheswick broke his arm two days ago.”

“I could have sworn I’d heard he’d died last week.”

“I’m absolutely certain, sir, that he’s somewhere around here with a splint around his arm.”

“Oh splendid.” Chet frowned. “Scratch that. Oh jolly good. Get this letter to him then. Tell him his wife’s just had another baby.” Fred took the letter and jogged away. As Chet returned to his writing, the report of a rifle tore across the sky, followed by the soft thud and silence that always came after the more accurate shots. Chet ran out of the office, overturning his table along the way, and burst out into the trench. In a voice loud enough for both sides, he shouted: “That better have been one of ours! I am still keeping score!” It didn’t take long for Fred to come running towards Chet, his face contorted as though to show a month’s worth of mourning in one rainy afternoon. Besides the grief, Chet noticed that Fred was clutching Cheswick’s letter in his sweaty hands, “it was gibbons sir he must have snapped he just pulled himself out of the trench and started running and i think he thought he knew which way to run—” “Well, now. Isn’t that just a terribly cliché way for someone around here to die? Eh? There are a lot of opportunities for an interesting death around here, you know.” “of…Of course sir. A downright shame.” He handed Chet the letter.

“Might as well send this back, too, sir.” Chet accepted the letter with no ques-

tion, dismissed Fred, and retreated back into his office to compose letters of condolence. He found no small amount of consolation himself in the skill he possessed in breaking this sort of news, and relished the opportunity a death as boring as Gibbons’ posed to his writing. He knew that it was his duty to allow Gibbons some of the glory that war had promised him. However, while he wrote, Benson felt anxious. Somewhere in the back of his head he could still hear that barbaric cursing from the night before. Sometimes it came to him sounding distinctly German, sometimes in a softer French sort of tone, sometimes in plain English, but never in a language he could understand.

Unashamedly vulgar regardless.

It only took a week after that for the already dismal war’s condition to worsen, and Chet noticed that night and day barely bothered to matter anymore in the sky above the trenches. He wondered if this celestial confusion of time could be the cause or the consequence of the adjustments he’d made to the rations, but either way, he wouldn’t start regretting that. Introducing brunch into the soldiers’ diets was destined to be one of the stellar achievements of his career. All in all, especially when one took into account his happy ability to avoid bullets, Lieutenant Chet Benson thought this was turning out to be quite a great war.

A great war, he thought, if it weren’t for that stench, that stench penetrating the walls of his impromptu office, that ubiquitous stench, that scent of death, new death and old death that no one could be bloody bothered to mop up…Bloody Bothered…Something about those two words so close to each other sounded brilliant. Chet quickly wrote them down on a scrap of paper and filed them under “Briticisms” in a recently plundered filing cabinet before sitting back at his desk. Within minutes, the excitement of this new phrase had worn off, and he began tapping his pen on his desk, trying in vain to keep in time with the stumbling racket of conflict outside. That noise was becoming more annoying every day, that Rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns reminiscent of the fine typewriter he had had to leave at home and the grunts and shouts of men hard at work outside sounded like the summers spent working off various debts at an uncle’s farm out west before the war or school or responsibility.

Confronted with these occasional discomforts which were the unfortunately common consequences of serving one’s nation, Chet anxiously turned to the one thing in the world that still managed to provide him with a sense of calm. He breathed deeply, pushing his chair back while reaching for another cabinet shelf, and let his eyes linger over The Miracle. This was a miracle bound in a stack of papers yellowing and crumpled at the bottom, fresh and unmarked at the top. Written between bouts of mortal danger, it was Chet’s sanctuary and grail. It was also Chet’s novel, and when even the slightest crack in war’s noble and fruitful façade started to show, Chet only had to reread some pages to remind himself that this book proved time and time again how he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time in history. After looking over the last three pages, Chet launched himself once more into his efforts. Outside, rain was slowly building in intensity. Over the sound of the >>>

27

28

overworked guns, Chet heard one of his men swearing. He was almost certain that the swearing came from his own men.

As the machine guns kept a steady beat above his head, Chet absentmindedly wiped his hands on his pants, noting with a bemusement that escalated to terror within seconds that his hands had left runny black stains. He frantically observed his pen and saw that it was indeed leaking. Next, he checked his novel, and saw that the leak had already ruined two pages of the day’s work.

The throbbing of the guns overhead droned under the throbbing of the stress headache he was now developing as he crumpled up the ruined paper and walked out into the trench. Chet tossed the bunched up mess high over the trench, and waited for one of the sharpshooters on the other side to take care of it for him. When the sheet landed down unharmed, he clucked his tongue, amused but disappointed, and turned to the closest enlisted man.

“Now Freddy, did you see that just now?”

“Yeah Chet. I guess nobody’s perfect, eh?”

“But it was one of them that got Charlie just last week, wasn’t it? Didn’t I always say his head looked just like a crumpled up bit of paper?” Freddy’s neck itched.

“I guess they had one of the perfect ones up back then, sir.” Freddy waited to see if Chet wanted to chat any more before hoisting himself over the trench.

After a few moments of quiet reflection, Chet walked back to his office, the reckless futility of war convincing him to return to his work. Between fits of creativity, he would look around his dank working space, imagining that he would soon have the resources to mold it into something he’d be able to show off someday to fellow officers. The idea of adding some nice potted plants in the corners held a curiously strong appeal, and he would sometimes find it impossible to stop imagining all the plants he could try importing. But Chet knew these were useless dreams, and when he saw one of his men stagger into his office, he welcomed the distraction.

“Why hello Fred. Is something the matter?”

“It’s uh…Geoffrey, sir.”

“Ah yes. Sorry about that.”

“Yes. Well sir, I just wanted to inform you that we just had a bit of a rough time holding them back just now and—” Geoffrey coughed, “I think it would be a good idea for you to come outside and look around a bit. Sir.” Geoffrey leaned against one rotting wall of the office as Chet brushed past him to survey the damage. Geoffrey was sitting down against the same wall once Chet finished his tour. Chet shut the door against an onslaught of agonized moans and a slow chorus of obscenities lumbering towards him from a bend in the trench.

“Now Geoffrey, while you’re still here, I was wondering if you would answer a question I’d had recently.”

“Yes sir?” Geoffrey flinched, nervous that Chet had discovered some new creative use for the men’s rations.

“Ah Geoffrey, I was just meaning to ask—What…well, which…team, are we on, Geoffrey?”

“Team?”

“You know, what side? Are we the bad guys or the good ones? I’m pretty sure we speak English, but that’s as far as I feel certain about here.”

“Well, I’d like to think we’re doing the right thing sir. I know it can get pre—” “Good good. Or should I be saying jolly good…Geoffrey?”

“I’m, uh, not sure sir?”

“Well then you’re not too good for me then, eh? Do me a favour and see if those chaps in the other trench have any idea what team we are.”

“Do you mean the people who shoot at anyone who tries to leave the trench? The ones that were just trying to kill me just an hour ago?”

“Yes, yes. They seem to have a pretty good picture of this whole mix-up.

Tell them Major Chet Benson sent you.”

“Lieutenant Chet Benson, sir.”

“Ah yes. Of course.” Geoffrey didn’t move. Chet returned to his writing.

Even when fighting was at its thickest, when vast tracts of land were being tossed between countries too fast for anyone to make a profit, when bullets flew over the trench for so long that they almost blocked out the sun, even then, Chet saw to it that his writing group was able to meet every Sunday about an hour past noon. Every week he’d set the small table up in a special widening of the ditch he’d gotten the men to work out, sweeping any garbage out of the area and sharpening some pencils for the rabid editing that the group would bring down upon any piece of writing presented to them, especially anything written by Chet Benson himself. Although appreciative of the input of his peers, Chet knew, and was quite glad to remember, that the only reason he worked this hard to keep the group together was that their weekly meetings often contained more spite, restrained hostility, and tragic lunges at progress than the war itself. In fact, Chet saw his writing group as a manageable sample of all the themes and characters he looked for in a war, which is why he thought it only reasonable to use one of the relatively peaceful Sundays, one of the ones that let a bit of sun through, to introduce the group to Klaus, a struggling young poet whom Chet had discovered attempting to bayonet a stretcher bearer earlier in the week. Chet met some difficulty bringing Klaus into the mix, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Until then, he’d have to pull rank if things were going to go smoothly.

“Now I will assure you that Klaus has every right to participate in this as any one of you. He has a brilliant artistic voice—a heart wrenching romantic vision—that I will not allow you to silence.”

“He can’t even speak English. How is he supposed to contribute if he can’t speak the same language?” An Australian who made a four mile commute to the trench piped up.

“No, he can’t speak English...yet. But we all know that a great deal of good things take time. Remember when we had that thin boy here who couldn’t tell the difference between constructive criticism and those awful insulting comments he loved making? Time sorted that mess out for us, >>>

29

30

did it not?”

“He died sir. After his second week here. You had us writing eulogies for him the next Sunday,” one of the Freds said.

“Yes yes, it’s very unfortunate that some people die. But it proves my point exactly. Trust time, gentlemen, and it will take care of you.” Klaus coughed quietly into one of his sleeves. He was hunched over, constantly looking out to make sure his head was well below the top of the trench, and he nervously patted his pockets down every few minutes.

“Look now, I won’t have any more argument. Klaus is staying. If any of you wish to protest this further, I’ll invite you to peddle your writing out in O’Flynn’s trench.” An embarrassed hush settled over the writers. O’Flynn was insufferably modernist, and was bound to deride and molest any bit of writing that hadn’t first been drowned in a stream of consciousness. O’Flynn had also been cut off from most supply routes for about three weeks by then, behind enemy lines, and some of the rumours that drifted from trench to trench had been grotesque. Regardless, if you asked any soldier on the Western Front, they’d tell you that were Chet not there to guide them, O’Flynn would be worth the trip. “That’s better. Now, McCollough, you were in the middle of a great—Klaus, stop gnawing on that rat and pay attention, dammit!”

Some time later, Chet was sitting down at his desk, the colour drained out of his face, his lower lip quivering, and his eyes fixed at the two words he’d just written extra large to fill up the sheet in front of him.

“The End.” He muttered to himself in disbelief. He tried to mutter it again, but all the strength had gone out of his lips. The men were making an effort to keep their complaints to a minimum that day, since not a single one of them could recall the last time the unflappable lieutenant had looked so, well, appropriate for his time and place. Chet’s depression was a terrifying mystery throughout the trench, and one of the soldiers who had managed a peek at Chet’s paper was constantly bombarded with requests to clear the question up.

“I don’t get it. Chet’s finished that damn story a hundred times already.”

“Maybe he means it this time. Maybe he’s done.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. This war’ll be over before Chet’s satisfied with something he’s wrote.”

“Satisfied?” Chet’s voice boomed, as he caught the enlisted men gossiping.

“Me satisfied? You’d bloody well better believe it!” He handed his manuscript to one of more literate and able bodied men. “Let’s see that blockhead in Flanders try to top this one, eh?” he said, pointing to the poem he’d written in place of a preface. “I’ve written a masterpiece. A work to be taught in schools for centuries to come and, if you will excuse me, I have recently been so lucky to have fallen upon the most marvelous idea for a sequel. It may be a trilogy, a quartet if this war gives me enough time!” Chet returned to his office, the scratching of his prodigious pen almost drowning out the sigh of relief that coursed through the trench.

Chet enjoyed much of the free time his position allowed him, and he’d

recently taken to long walks between the trenches whenever his writing slowed down. A recent trend of curiously pleasant weather had made these walks quite the looked toward part of the daily routine. Although the walks were much more enjoyable when taken alone, should company present itself, Chet was not opposed to a little bit of conversation.

“Hallo! Fred!”

“Yes sir?” Charles shouted.

“What’s martyr mean again? I’ve misplaced my dictionary, you see.”

“Sir, is this really the best time?”

“Any time is the best time, my boy!” A bullet whizzed past, taking out one of his pens.

“I’m pretty sure a martyr is anyone who dies fo—” Chet rushed over to kneel down by Charles’ suddenly prone body.

“What irony! What luck! Martyred describing martyrdom! Do not fret, Fred, your sacrifice will be writ and remembered!”

After grabbing Charles’ wrist to check the time, Chet stood up, put his pipe in his mouth, and kneeled down again to see if Charles had died with any matches on him. It was a lucky sort of day, and Chet was soon strolling across the field once more, bullets whizzing past his ears as his men said “that was a close one, sir,” or “that was a close one s—” Soon, Chet knew he’d have to succumb to his obligation as a role model to the troops, so he waved his gun about menacingly for a few minutes until he got bored. After this, Chet found himself a comfy and mostly empty foxhole, and began revising a preface he was planning for his novel. Unfortunately, one of the hole’s other tenants was intent on making conversation, punctuating his guttural and dirty speech with ferociously incoherent questions and short rhetorical stabs from some long sort of Teutonic knife.

“Why Klaus! How did you get here? You missed group last Sunday, you know. We wrote sonnets. You definitely would have benefited from the conversation afterwards.” As Klaus continued to chatter, Chet smelled the faint smell of chlorine in the air, as all around, the roar of skirmish switched to the tune of retreat. “You know, Klaus, I’ve been thinking. We’re really lucky, you and I, to be artists in this great age. With a bit of pen and paper, we’ve damn well rendered ourselves immortal.” As Chet continued to speak, Klaus began to cough violently, dropping his knife, while Chet jotted down another beautiful comparison between art and war in fine professional handwriting, writing on both sides of the page and skipping lines, never looking further than the tip of his pen and the margins. Moments later, he pulled himself out of the foxhole, for a second walking on all fours, belly close to the ground, almost like a cockroach, like a god-damn son-of-a-fucking-bitch cockroach.

31

elena lin

breeze pen, colour markers on paper 15 x 25.5cm

The Sea under the City.

Can we bottle July?

Your bare feet haven’t touched the grass.

It’s been two weeks since The grass blades cradled us like fresh infants.

Cigarette smoke crept round your lips.

It’s the only thing we said we saw.

I had gathered my angels from the naked housing lots and I think they spilled the beans.

33

The last time I stalked the city, the distances felt whole in their vacuums.

Like balled up children in egg cartons, and I was scaling up that wall you built aiming over the top— until I reached the roof: your will caged beneath me.

I, become a bird.

You are a stone.

You’ll wait in walls forever, seeping through into my dreams.

inam anina

The Scarf That I should come away with this, of all the things I could have kept—this scarf you wove with fateful hands. The threads, blue-green; your alternating nails and nailbeds red and dried as scalded, dipped in salt; the fingered thoughts of all these laboured things around my neck.

So much of your hair I have found in the folds.

The whole world I have wrapped against myself; a sea of wool, deepened and cooled with sweat.

The thought of all these things is all that touches, with warmth as of a palm in dread receding —your hand as it retreated from the loom, and hovered on the flap now by my throat; your fingers, pausing there, to snip the thread.

34

james dunnigan

35

our life as a western i love to watch you grow slowly fat your legs that I’ve skimmed—your cheeks I have glided over—your back upon which I drew outlines of the Van Der Rohe chair and illustrations of our life as a Western me: the tumbleweed. the wood used to construct empty facades of every building; and you: every grain of sand. every cactus spike. the curve of the river that el ultimo hombre reaches as his blood dries and his horse snorts. He sits down to count his gold.

henry kronk

K at i e M a c k i n n o n

untitled expired Kodak 35mm ISO 200 Canon AE-1

Thoracic Spine In our most callow hour we stood with distance between us, my red-faced craving hiding behind my skirt like a shy child.

We are too small still to be good lovers.

Still praying to our totem vertebrae, that we might become taller men, longer women.

That our viscera might not feel so thick and unyielding.

They fell of their own accord—your shirt, my blouse— along with the little glow left in the basement.

They all lay muddled together on the carpet.

Our tops and the light pollution Unsure of my forms you count my ribs.

Trying to keep the urgency from your fingers.

Trying to keep your fingers from my bra.

37

In this place we’ve only whispered.

We’ve been afraid of the echo, to reverberate within ourselves, against each other.

Too small then to be good— Graze me with your termite teeth I am ready to feel hollow.

erin masters

D av i d H e l p s is a third-year Hon-

in order of appearance

ours History student with a minor in English Literature. He feels that his work is best understood as unashamed plagiarism of Irving Layton without all the misogyny. He is forever indebted to his parents, Jack Kerouac, and public transit for giving him all his best ideas; and to alcohol for giving him all his worst ones. This is David’s second time being published in The Veg. K at i e M a c k i n n o n is a U3 history

38

student at McGill who owns too many film cameras and has been shooting since 2009. She likes experimenting with what film can do, playing with its colours, and often collaborates with her friends and brother. You can find more of her work at: katherinecmackinnon.tumblr.com E r i n M a s t e r s is a Toronto-born person who is currently residing in Montreal to attend McGill University and test the limits of her grade eight French. Erin Masters is about to graduate with a BA in English, a minor in anthropology, and a deep-seated anxiety that she has squandered the best years of her life. (Something adults say, isn’t it?) Erin is currently the CoEditor-in-Chief of Steps Magazine but is planning a hostile takeover of the publication, to establish a sole reign (don’t tell Henry). Erin is also short of her 100 word limit. Rectangle.

Polyglot. Crux. Daniel.

J o s e p h R e n s h aw is U2 English Lit

Honours student, from OX4, UK. His favourite writers are George Eliot, Maugham, Woolf, and Gaddis. He has two parents, one brother and a dog called Alfie. On weekends he watches the Premier League. Some day he hopes to grow a beard. He is 20.

j e h a n e ya z a m i is a visual artist in

her fourth year studying Cultural Studies and International Development. She works mostly as a painter, filmmaker, and analog photographer.

She is currently conceptualizing her first children’s novel. She took her double-exposed photograph on an airplane last February when flying above New York, feeling the pure and immense excitement that comes from being about to see someone you love.

Jehane is inspired by witches, essential oils, radio, Bjork, and the moon.

J u l i a I s l e r is in her first year of the

English MA program at McGill. This is her third time being published in The Veg, of which she is quite fond.

When she is not immersed in poetry, she is costuming, either for the theatre or for herself.

J a m e s D u n n i g a n is an emerging writer of fiction and aspiring vātēs.

Lover of seas, worshipper of stars, he enjoys producing extremely long-winded studies of Virgil or Milton, but generally prefers to discuss W.G. Sebald with his buddy Dom over a series of particularly cold and bitter pints. A finalist for this year’s Québec Writing Competition, he aspires to one day finish writing that novel he is always talking about, as well as return to Budapest, where he intends to break the record for the longest time spent bathing in a radium spa. He is currently single.

I n a m A n i n a —who goes by Nina

Ciffolillo when not writing—is a third-year McGill student. Formerly a student in the School of Environment, she is now a member of the English Literature program. Outside of school, her studies include photography, poetry, soil, panentheism, and sudoku. She loves fresh vegetables— particularly Brussels sprouts—biking, and singing. She lives with her (aggressively) snuggly cat, Bug.

>>>

39

H e n r y K r o n k —the Once and

40

Future Intern—was born in Vermont among the mountains and the cows.

Cows are his favorite animal; they are peaceful. South of the community of El Calafate in Argentina, a Scotsman once owned a farm. In the ‘40s his whole family died of scarlet fever and he left his land, heartbroken.

His cows escaped into the surrounding countryside. Their community has survived. Today they roam the foothills of Patagonia, eating grass, drinking from glacial pools, blissfully free of any natural predator. If I could join any animal community in this world or another, I would rub horns with my feral brothers and sisters who can still be heard at night beyond the outskirts of El Calafate, mooing at the southern cross. g a l i t s a n d a e v is in her first year

studying Elementary and Kindergarten Education. She has been drawing from a very young age and never had the chance to take actual drawing classes. She likes to talk about philosophy and watch foreign movies. She is very interested by what others perceive in her illustrations.

M at t h e w R e t t i n o is a graduate

student at McGill University, presently working on a grant application to study contemporary fantasy. Aside from an eternally-in-progress historical fantasy novel and a collection of just-about-finished short stories, he writes poetry, which he finds he has an aptitude to finish faster than his other writing projects. His haiku “For the Sun” is a tribute to a neighbor’s magnolia tree.

E m e r y F i n e is a U4 student majoring

in English Literature with a minor in Russian. As President of the McGill Red Herring (McGill’s humour magazine), and as a writer and performer with BYOJ (McGill’s sketch troupe), Emery has focused on humour at McGill for as long as he has been a student. Outside of McGill, Emery is a regular fixture on Montreal’s stand up comedy scene, and has submitted articles on the subject of humour and aesthetics to numerous publications, all of which have been rejected.

E l e n a l i n is a second-year student studying Microbiology and Immunology. Besides streaking Petri dishes with bacteria and admiring the geometric nature of viral capsids, she enjoys appreciating ornate brushstrokes and unnoticed Corinthian columns. She likes working with different types of media—anything from acrylics to Photoshop—in her artwork. On most days, you will find Elena stooped over a stack of lecture slides and half-finished club event posters.

THE VEG @veg_mag – Sep 24

^^^

“Oh no, I will have none of that tonight.”

T h e Ve g w i l l never swipe left for you o n T i n d e r. ^ ^ ^ THE VEG @veg_mag – Oct 13

The Veg

smells of bitter almonds.

^ ^ ^ THE VEG @veg_mag – Oct 7

bird shit is trending in these submissions rn in the best possible way ^ ^ ^ THE VEG @veg_mag – 23 March 2013

#collegelife also t rending hard, u n f o r t u n at e ly. ^ ^ ^ THE VEG @veg_mag – 29 March 2013