M O U R N I N G
“A seagull cracks the shell of a crab & eats the meat shamelessly, watching me watch it. with its cold dead eyes.” corey.lof@gmail.com
COREY LOF NATALIA ORSANIN
part one
From bird’s eye, flying south, the roads of Vinehaven Trail form a tarmac pentagon. Its sidelines parallel and baseline continue out in both directions so it looks like the outline of a house on a two dimensional horizon. Flying north, it looks like a hole in the ground. High-end, two story homes line up, no more than 15-feet apart, on either side of the Trail, all brick, different shades of red, three to four peaks per roof, each sealed with black tar shingles, unique only in the material used for and intricacy of the walkways and steps that connect the driveway to the front door and the gardens that boarded them.
If you stand in the middle of my room with your back to the door, you can see out my window and directly into the bedroom of my neighbour and best friend, Aaron. I’m standing there now waiting for Aaron to pull back his curtain. With me I have my cell phone and a bottle of pills. I stole the pills from my grandmother. They should be strong enough. They weren’t with the rest of her medication in the cupboard above the microwave; they were in a jewelry box in the top drawer of the dresser beside her bed, hidden, like she didn’t want me to find them. The warning on them says, “Take with food.” I haven’t eaten yet today.
On the West side of the pentagon, a flagstone path starts at the top of an empty driveway, dipping into the front lawn before curving up towards a dark green panel door with a frosted glass transom.
I’m waiting for Aaron. It feels like we’re characters in a movie. It usually does with Aaron. He’s dramatic. But for once it feels like a movie I would actually watch.
A garden overflowing with fountain grass runs along the path and wraps around the north side of the house, ending under a second story window. The curtain to the window is drawn. Behind the curtain is a controlled fire. In the middle of it stands a boy with his journal.
*
He writes in pen. 60 60 ||
Muffled yells are heard throughout the No Frills parking lot, over every square foot of asphalt, in the grocery cart drop off cage, and right up to the automatic glass sliding doors. A buggy boy in a green apron that barely reaches his belt line finds it cringe-worthy, but he’s impressed when he discovers the
muffled yells are coming from a Land Rover parked all the way in the back corner of the parking lot. While passing the Land Rover to retrieve a cart, he sees a man in his peripherals in the passenger seat with short dark hair, wearing the jacket version of a turtle neck, punching the dashboard and a woman in the driver’s seat, calm. He grabs the grocery cart and on his way back to the drop off cage can’t help but look inside. The man pays no mind to the bursting vein that grows like a tree root under the skin on his forehead. The woman wears the expression of a drown victim that’s accepted their fate. This is a normal scene. Normal people wait until they get to the car, knowing the checkout line at a grocery store is not an appropriate place to air their dirty laundry. That being said, a normal person normally wouldn’t see their wife not having enough cash on her to cover the bill as reasonable cause to break into a full on rant, in public, starting with the lack of cash issue but eventually making their way through every