FICTION SUPPLEMENT
Imprint, Friday, November 30, 200 1
Romeo And Juliet ir A Tariq [after Shakespeare) The story is about two-years-old, when Romeo and Juliet were accounting students here a t the University of Waterloo. Romeo was in third-year year while Juliet was in 2B. One day Romeo was surfing the net, When he started to chat with this girl, Juliet. Soon they learnt that both of them were a t Waterloo, &soon they exchanged sweet messages &fell in love. It was a love at first chat! So after a while, the usual chitchat was transformed into a exchange of pledges of love. And i t b i n , they felt that it was irresistible to stay divided, and therefore longed to have a meeting. Romeo was very miserly, a penny saver, who would never take a bus to save a dollar. Romeo: Juliet, my love, my life, you do I worship, For you I have great affection, & my whole heart is in your love's grip, Our love's profound, of high benchmark, So let us meet soon in the sweet Waterloo Park. Juliet loves it when guys take her out to posh restaurants and lavish their wealth to buy hergifts. Juliet:
0'Romeo, my Romeo, my asset Romeo, There isn't a lovely man like you, from London to Tokyo. East Side Mario's is delightful or will it be Mongolian, We shall meet and begin our romance of high premium. Reading these words of expense, the prudent Romeo questioned the affordability, Whether this was true love, or a long-term liability? But love was tender; love was forceful and passionate, And convinced him to deepen the relationship at an elevated rate, So our miser Romeo, the clever Romeo said: Romeo: Juliet this is about love, for you my heart is at stake, Worry not about Mario's; I've a co-op job. Later I'll serve you on a gold plate, Avoid risky strategy, this time we shall not go far, Impatient I am, let's meet tomorrow at the office of Registrar. By this time Juliet is so truly, so madly impatient to meet her love Romeo, that she decides to forego Mario'sand theMongolian. Juliet: 0' Romeo, my Romeo, I agree: to wait is a great deal hard, Therefore, at 5:30 I will be at the Registrar holding my Watcard. So come my love to meet me with a red rose, I'll know you, Romeo, by your handsome pose.
The next day at 5:30 Juliet stood near the office of Registrar, Immensely anxious and nervous, uneasy yet silent, the feeling was bizarre. Tense, she did tremendous nail biting, But with Watcard held forward she seemed inviting. And then from the corner downstairs, emerged a hairy man with hunched back, Was this her Romeo, 0'God it better be some other crack! The hunch-back reached for his pocket to grab a limp-rose, as she fret And soon he glimpsed this girl with a Watcard, and cried Juliet my Juliet. Juliet was now thinking to escape and betray, But Romeo rushed towards the hippie-designed crooked stairway, With great skill, he climbed at a speed unsurpassed, Poor soul, poor Romeo, slipped on the step very last. And right before the gleamful eyes of her lover, Great deal of pain did our rolling-down Romeo discover. For a moment Juliet feared that Romeo might have survived, She gazed down the staircase, to see he had indeed died. Delighted that her fears didn't come true, she was in disbelief, And then she exited from the back door with a sigh of relief, "For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
Sanctuary Pete Snow Music fills the air for me, The soft words of one maestro's soulful voice, Can not help but elevate my mind, I begin to experience deeper thought A newer understanding of the old world A place that held so many mysteries, And a great organization of sacred shrines, Gold arches, stone masonry, a bronze workers glory, Attempting to steal a bit of glory from above, While protecting it with noble purpose, We all get lost inside the monument, Its mighty walls and coloured windows, Providing an old safety net, Is it true they burned the peasants alive? While they clung to the cloth of martyrs, This place doesn't, But others remind me that the beast always wins, Here on this rock, Maybe its those who create their own hell here, Or their own purgatory, Don't they understand that if they don't enjoy now, And still live like snakes, They will lose after it is all over, Perhaps a visit to the sanctuary is needed, Lock them inside the wooden doors, Resist the urge to burn the new peasants, We are about saving, Not starving.
The Eggplant Revolution Pete Snow Latin dancers swaying in the sky Against a midnight sunrise Flashing little men Filing down their motorized paths Too concrete for me Ever feel the robot spiders, or the soaring platform under your feet, Life is so fast, Why not make it faster? Foreign T.V. signals beamed into your living room Don't you want to think straight? Too many queer messages I lost my Saturday cartoons Someone bought them up whole, Swallowed the whole thing The white suits came Driving their white vans They walked past my wooden fence Sprayed my house Marked it white So I had to leave Next thing, I was looking over the world Off-centre, the green carpet Next time you look outside tilt your head, it makes for a clearer shot.
. ..
...
..
Based on a true story There is a pink elephant that stands by the railroad tracks of this town. He is made of concrete, with steel reinforcing rods, and is painted bubblegum pink. He is this town's claim to fame. I was told the storv, bv, a woman in red jeans and blown out hair that was the cashier of the drugstore. Her words went like this. "Well y'know who P.T. Barnum is right? Well, this elephant was his elephant. Or I guess you can't really say that it was his elephant; do elephants belong to people anyway? "If anything I would say that the elephant made Barnum. But this elephant, his name was Jumbo, the largest African elephant in captivity. So he was one big elephant. I think he weighed around seven tonnes or so, and 12 feet high. One big fucking elephant, and his name was Jumbo." At this point she began fiddling with her blown out hair. "So Barnum brings him over to Canada for a tour or something-I think it was 1885. He brings this poor elephant to our little town, and what happens is, he gets run over by a freight train. The elephant that is. Or the train couldn't quite run him over; more like the train ran into the elephant. "The train got derailed, all that hassle. They had to get 150 people to drag the corpse up the embankment, too. Took apicture with it andeverything. I personally think it's rather morbid to take a picture with a dead thing, never mind if it's Jumbo the elephant or not. It's dead for chrissakes. What good is it for now? But I guess it was a big deal back then.
Circuses and all. But now I'd say we have more sense. It's rather cruel to keep animals in captivity anyway, don't you think?" She looked at me agreeably. "Why yes, yes, they're much better off in the wild," I said. "Exactly. But yeah, Barnumhad the damn thing stuffed anyway, for business I think, and here in about '85 some foundation had this elephant thing built. If you can believe it, it cost quite a pretty bit of money. And now some damn kids went and painted it pink, like those elephants in that Disney movie, the hallucinations you know?" There was an inkling of a conspiratorial smile here, but I had only one question. "So how'd did it get in the train's path anyway?" I asked. She paused "Well there's some story about the elephant wanting to save another smaller elephant named Tom Thumb? But it's too sentimental for my liking. "I like to believe the other story: that he stood firm in the way and refused to budge. Not even for the train. Maybe he was fed up with being towed around for show. Or maybe he thought he was large enough to stop the thing." She giggled slightly. "But1 gottaget back to work. Have anice stay here, sir." I thanked her, and walked out. I looked over to the frivolously pink elephant who wanted to stop a train, as if his simple presence was enough, and in commemoration, decided to go over and take a picture with the damn thing.