Soliloquies 18 1

Soliloquies

18.1

Editorial Committee EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Colleen Romaniuk MANAGING EDITOR Chalsley Taylor CREATIVE DIRECTOR Matthew Dunleavy SENIOR POETRY EDITOR Domenica Martinello

SENIOR FICTION EDITOR Karl Fenske

ASSOCIATE POETRY EDITOR Courtney Purcell

SENIOR FICTION EDITOR Hailey Wendling

ASSOCIATE POETRY EDITOR Jenny Smart

ASSOCIATE FICTION EDITOR Rachel Rosenberg

SENIOR ONLINE EDITOR Andy Fidel ONLINE EDITOR Gabrielle Samek GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alex Begin

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Table of Contents Poetry

benediction for montréal Simon Banderob

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5:02 AM Kailey Havelock

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Drone Isaac Sénéchal

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Green Tea and Oranges Isaac Sénéchal

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Shannon Quinn

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The Animals the rat in the kitchen Christopher Mulrooney

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the crooks’ way Christopher Mulrooney

July 4, 2013 Dylan Wagman

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Chisasibi Bukem Reitmayer

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Steps Bukem Reitmayer

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Séculier Steven Mayoff

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Fiction Anchor Bright Alice Zhu

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So It Is Shanna Roberts-SalĂŠe

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Drive to the Horizon James Sandham

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Art Species of Spaces 1 Meredith Jay

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Claire Covered Tess Roby

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Species of Spaces 2 Meredith Jay

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Train to Southport Tess Roby

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Portrait Rowena Ren

Poetry

benediction for montréal Simon Banderob

In montréal, québec on the white namesake mountain, the dark silhouettes of trees root skywards as inky capillaries into the old-mauve december evening, below the long breath of winter strains itself whistling between the steel-boned cross, from summit to arm to arm in a frozen hymn to notre-dame;

beneath the canyon walls of ste. catherine the fossilised, carbonite hands of mannequins are pressing up against the glass, their perfect digits and long necks reach for your embracemontréal, take us with you, notre-dame take our hands through our knitted gloves over your rolling sidewalks blooming orange with pylons diving again and again into the long sores full of pipes and excavated earth, where the air curls down and the sound shines up from the metro on hot gusts each station made a nation by its buskers playing their anthems to the migrant professionals, praising notre-dame de turnstiles and tunnels;

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o notre-dame de les potholes and cobblestone, bless the drummers on buckets, the banjo-plucking sailors marooned under lampposts and the vaudeville singer trapped in our century, bless the sidewalk prophets and the grey lives setting under split-seam coats on our park benches; notre-dame de comicon and jazzfest and tamtam, the holy ghost of the proud and naked summer, give us strength through our wintry crusade, for we chose to live here, between the mountain and the river, and if we did not choose it, then we walk with crimson squares in hand, warming us in our blood and in our memories notre-dame, remember us too, notre-dame, brush the snow off the ghosts of jean-baptiste and charles de gaulle and doctor norman bethune; notre-dame, with your vibrator in your rosary and wickedness in your step among the unholy icons of ste. catherine and not a nickel in your pockets, raise your palms beatifically upwards under the overpass, weeping from above with overgrowth and moss, being licked below by flames of graffiti, notre-dame, hold the hand of our feverish old man streets;

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for in montréal, québec under the living the namesake mountain, the vap’rous smoke of watch-fires burning in the homestead walk-ups, the curses streaking and peeling through the air from the bike-lanes in time to the chime of cathedral bells, the light of the constellate glittering of the city raked round like a zen crescent, the pungeance of a hundred portuguese charcuteries dumped cloudward all is rising! all is rising in salute and praise to notre-dame de sun and snow to notre-dame de pigeons and poverty to notre-dame de colour and the night to notre-dame de montréal elle-même

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5:02 AM

Kailey Havelock If you wake as the sun peeks through parted drapes, scarcely stretching her rays across the sleeping skyline, before kettles boil and snowplows yawn through city streets, do not stir.

Close your eyes before they open and hold them tightly shut.

Lie still. Control the pace of your heart, your lungs, because if the sun knows you’ve woken she too will rise and the day will have begun.

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Species of Spaces 1 Meredith Jay

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Drone

Isaac Sénéchal At every tic of the clock drips in drops the coffee While I sleep through the beeps of alarms I have set, And I wonder whether monks sleep deeper than me.

By wheels and rails, I get to where I need to be While I sift, half-awake, through some trash on the net.

And I wonder whether monks sleep deeper than me.

I turn to daydream lands I may never get to see – An escape to the East without fear nor regret.

At every tic of the clock drips in drops the coffee

I hear the bells of temple towers sing serenity As I pass, on the street, every stranger’s silhouette.

And I wonder whether monks sleep deeper than me.

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And when the sun stoops for feeling tired and heavy, I go round on my feet with commuters, and fret.

At every tic of the clock drips in drops the coffee

Again, I lie alone with the smell and thrum of the city And again, I am dreaming of temples in Tibet.

At every tic of the clock drips in drops the coffee And I wonder whether monks sleep deeper than me.

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Green Tea and Oranges Isaac Sénéchal

You poured the water from your kettle and your mug cracked – a faint pop, and then the water flowed.

While still seated at the table, you watched but dared not stop the slow spread of the steaming flood.

You made a second cup and sat, recalling your reading from Sunday about the sounds of water and silence.

Your mind wandered from tract to tract, while you had, alone on Monday morning, some late green tea and an orange.

As a child, you had found a box of crosses

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in a box in a box in your parents’ basement, and held one upside down like a sword.

In youth, you found the sacred in the solace of air of which you crave the scent – of bodies that share pleasure and sudor.

Later, you wondered with waning hope – often wondered where you’d find peace and when your path will reach it, if ever.

And on that Monday of the broken cup, you thought that zen would bring release but that orange was delicious,

and you wanted another.

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The Animals

Shannon Quinn We are the animals who were left behind.

We think it would not be so very bad to be shot down by a sling shot if it meant knowing our herd, home or murder.

We the animals wait with a ferocity through the pain of nothing all around, learning to sit with begging thoughts.

We ask for a glass of water, a night light, a bone.

We bury angels to buy time.

We dig up cook fires sniff stories from the drippings.

Remembering how your mouths worked around the bleached angles of words muzzled in a cage of common language as we wait all our loveliness unvisited.

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the rat in the kitchen

Christopher Mulrooney sure enough it’s there by the light switch pugnacious as a thug when you prepare a shout it bares its teeth

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the crooks’ way

Christopher Mulrooney is always overweening for the zest of a good joke to impound the car and charge for parking to disconnect the phone and bill the month anyway to cook the kid in its mother’s milk and leave fingerprints everywhere at the crime scene

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July 4, 2013

Dylan Wagman i.

I read in the paper about jellyfish coming in record numbers to Halifax.

A week later I dreamt that I was walking in the shallows of a beach somewhere unfamiliar.

But there was light In the black of the water I felt it suctioning my foot, pulling me under.

Its sticky mane swallowing me.

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ii.

I hear you talking in your sleep.

Participating in a scene of acquaintances and paper clippings.

You sound happy.

Nonsensical, but happy.

I clinch you more firmly and watch for jellyfish.

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Claire Covered Tess Roby

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Chisasibi

Bukem Reitmayer Four thousand people Are living in a forest Of dead tradition Gather them all up And they could fit into one City skyscraper

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Steps

Bukem Reitmayer We pinky promised petals off of daisies. We unbuttoned the New World. We rolled up the rim to sin. We grew a kite’s distance apart. We knocked down sand castles. We lunged at each other like game show buzzers. We didn’t dig deep enough for a proper burial.

I became the thumbtack in your clenched fist. You became the run in my tights that never rips. I had Keith Moon beating in my heart. You threw me out of a hotel window.

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SĂŠculier

Steven Mayoff In this country, Hiver, no one pays attention to the powdered roof ledges, the icy wind knocking over patio tables and blank menu boards carte blanche.

Shivering trinkets; an airborne strain of earrings, bracelets, necklaces, tous les symboles cryptiques, tinkling a refrain from invisible lobes, wrists and throats.

Fingerless gloves warm themselves, the exposed whorls glowing red par le feu laĂŻque, wheels within

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wheels carrying ingrained odours: la charcuterie Hébraïque, les épices Indiennes. The ashes of fingerprints do not define us. Are you your sister’s hijab, or I my brother’s kippah?

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Fiction

Species of Spaces 2 Meredith Jay

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Anchor Bright Alice Zhu

If only there were more people, you think.

There are plenty of people, actually. But they aren’t here. They’re back on the ground, back on Earth. Back where everything used to be. Back in the time before. Back where everything is dead, gone.

Almost forgotten.

This is your new home now.

Your father had been a general. Not only a general - a government representative. An authority figure. Back when everything had been normal, he had Power and you were blessed with everything Good and knew to be proud of your father.

You remember the time it ended. When it all went to hell. Fires, everywhere. Poison, repugnant odors, toxic filling your nostrils. Your mother, screaming. Your own face, hot, stinging. Your father, silent.

There may have been tears on his face, but they would have evaporated within moments.

Your father was the one who had protected you.

Who protected everyone. When you were still only

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eight years old, he’d led you along with the other Survivors to an underground compound containing an emergency hovercraft. The compound had been made in case of an international crisis, with enough food supplied to last forever, and there were so many resources here that the country’s national debt suddenly made sense. He had brought you and everyone else in, shielded you from the world, made sure you were safe.

Now he is gone.

You’re shocked when he says your name like he cares about you, like he wants you. Why should he want you? He hates you. He said that he hated you.

Thomas, he says now, like he loves you.

You glare, fighting his gaze, even as you are breaking down on the inside. Gabriel, you say back, what do you think you’re doing?

Come on, he says. You know I’m right.

And you think he might be talking about this, talking about the way all of you are living - all of you going day by day, in and out. But you know that

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there is more to his words than what he says out loud, and he knows that you know.

You are God.

You may as well be. After your father guided everyone to safety he became the leader, in charge of everyone and everything. But you had seen how much damage he had taken before he realized that it was hopeless to try to rescue your mother. He would not last long.

Eight years passed and he moved on. Now you are their leader.

You had not been held with such responsibility before. But your father told you before he left that you would take over his power. But no, Dad, I can’t take this from you!

He laughed and said, Yes you can, son. Thomas.

I know you can.

You tried your best. You enforced new regulations, made new protocols. Some of the Survivors thought that you were too young. Too weak.

Couldn’t control them. Couldn’t control anything.

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You wanted to prove them wrong so everything was made stricter. You are not on Earth and this is your new home now. This is everyone’s new home.

And you rule them.

You’re frustrated when he grabs your hand and takes you away. You ignore the tingles on your wrist from where his skin is touching yours. His frame is tall and thin but he has muscles - probably from rounds at the makeshift gym- and you’re struck with awe though you don’t want to be. You don’t want to be hypnotized. Not by him. He is a Rebel, you remind yourself, he is not worth your time, you are in charge here, you created all of this - this world - this place him.

He leads you to a small dark room of guns and swords and knives. You open your mouth to ask him about it but he turns before you can speak.

Thomas, he says to you. What you’re doing is wrong. You know it’s wrong.

And you think that he may try to be scolding because he’s not, because he’s right. But you stick your chin out and refuse to have shame.

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I don’t know what you’re talking about, you snarl.

Stop it with this nonsense. Take me back before I’m forced to imprison you.

You won’t do that, Gabriel says to you, and this time you have to bow your head down because no, you would not. You can’t imprison Gabriel. Even if he’s a Rebel, even if he’s horribly corrupted, even if everything he says and does and thinks is wrong. He is Gabriel. You cannot limit him.

think.

Come on, Thomas, he says, and you refuse to

The Scientists had been Survivors as well.

They had been normal scientists before, doctors, back on Earth, and in these twenty-five years not all of them had fared well. Many of them suffered from the chemicals that had destroyed all the living things, and everyone knew that their time was coming soon, if it had not come yet.

The women here struggled to reproduce, because there aren’t as many women as there are men, and the only ones who can help them with

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childbirth are the Scientists. But most are too busy with their research and the experiments that only a few have had the time to assist the women. Many have died in child labor. And the population is weaning down.

The role of the Scientists is to figure out the state of the Earth. Since many are starting to deteriorate, new Scientists are being trained. Some Survived and some were Born here and have never known life outside of this giant metal contraption.

You feel sorry for anyone who is Born, because they may never know anything other than control, daily life, structure. They will never know freedom.

And so it doesn’t take you by surprise when he pulls you in and presses his lips against yours, yet still you pull away immediately, disgusted. You try to see him in the dark.

What was that supposed to be, you spit. You wipe your mouth on your sleeve.

Gabriel doesn’t seem bothered at all. In fact, he’s smiling, one of those smiles that you don’t want to know what’s behind it. You know exactly what that was, he says, and then he adds, you know this is inevitable.

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No, it isn’t! you say. How horrible, you think, if anyone were to discover that the Leader is having an affair with a Rebel.

You knew he had been looking at you like that for a while now, since the day in the Dining Hall when you wrenched him out of a fight because he was being an idiot. You scolded him, punished him and he had been looking at you like that ever since he said he hated you, and you’d said you hated him, but you let him go He had been looking at you like that ever since, picking fights and getting into trouble, to be alone with you.

You knew you had been looking at him like that whenever you pushed him into your office, yelling and threatening and finally kissing him.

The world disappeared because of poison.

It was a toxic gas, residue of flames that had been entwined with nuclear waste. Even when the fires had died out, the chemicals were still roaming the Earth, burning everything in their path, lingering like cockroaches on territory that was never theirs.

Now there is nothing, nothing left of the past, not a single vestige of what had been.

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You can’t remember the old world anymore: the exact shade of grass, the changing colors of the leaves or the chill of sweet popsicles on hot summer days. You can’t remember the texture of soft, cold snow, or the lights that had been strewn up in holiday celebrations. There isn’t rain anymore, no sky. There is only metal, and a world with only one temperature.

The Scientists are trying to find a way to live again, to coexist with the poison. But they never go outside, they stay isolated in the weapons room and do their tests, because otherwise they will disintegrate.

You have seen it happen multiple times before your very eyes.

Your mouth collides with his and your teeth clack horribly together. You feel skin that is heated from the cramped space. He touches you as if he knows all your weaknesses, all your strengths, you.

He whispers, Thomas, Thomas, into your ear and you can’t help yourself, can’t restrain yourself.

And you wish you weren’t enjoying this, but you are.

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You hate yourself.

You are ruthless, cruel, sometimes even stupid. You know that what you’re doing is wrong. It is what has been given over to you, like a ticking time bomb gift. You can’t take it back. You have to keep it.

You have to do what is expected of you.

What your father expected of you.

You hadn’t hated it really, at first. Maybe even enjoyed it. You may have been awed by the way people stared at you, watched you as if you were something divine. You may have made quite silly, cruel rules at first to see if they would work - and were delighted when they did (you never took those rules back.) You may have exercised your authority on others by calling them out on things that didn’t matter, things they never did, things that were your fault.

You had been young, and you made mistakes.

But as you became older, you realized the responsibility that came with power. You stopped.

Tried to be reasonable - to make everything better.

You tried to make the Survivors love you. You tried to make the Born love you. But it was too late.

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He leans in to kiss you again, and you’ve always hated that word, kiss, because it implies more than what the action does. It is only the meeting of lips, you think, of mouths, or of lips on other parts, like the cheek or the forehead. And you don’t think there’s anything special about kissing, significant, because you’ve had women before and you’ve kissed them, kissed them in places that aren’t supposed to be kissed, you’ve done things with them just because you can.

But with Gabriel it doesn’t feel like just kissing. This feels like coming together. This feels like becoming. This feels like becoming one.

He knocks you over as you continue. He’s pressing against your body, his hands on either side of your chest, and you’re giving in now as you always do. Always protesting and then being won over.

Afterward you will both go on your ways after this, as Leader and Rebel, but right now you are Gabriel and Thomas.

He leans against you a little bit harder and you feel something against your thigh.

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You still make mistakes, and though you try to make up for your mistakes it is too late. Seven years into your reign the Rebellions have started. Some of the Survivors, and some of the Born too, despite being children, rise up and try to go against you. Try to overthrow you.

You fight it, but because you know all the secrets so they can’t put anything against you. But they can protest. They can shout. They can scream.

They can cause riots. They can turn over tables, ruin everything in this compound hovercraft.

But when they do, you just punish them before making them go back to their measly lives, now with all the Guards and Generals watching them and waiting for a single toe out of line. They’ll do all they can to stop your authority, even at their own mortal expense. You know everything they say, they plan, they want, because you have more than enough ears everywhere.

So they cannot succeed against you, take over without you, they will have to find a way to use you. To control you.

You won’t let them.

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If only there were more people, you think.

You don’t need to be told the population demographics to know that everything is wearing away. Then one day, you will all perish. That one day, you will all be gone. That one day, there will be nothing, nothing but gas and land and emptiness.

You have never believed in a god, but you wish you could right now. You wish that somehow this will last. You wish that somehow, everything will turn out to be okay. To be perfect.

If only there were more people, life would go on. But there is no hope. You, your Generals, and your Scientists know this.

And one day, so will everyone else.

You wish that somehow, you and Gabriel would

Men burst in at the wrong time and they look wide-eyed at you and Gabriel and you think,

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Oh no, and not a proper amount of curse words can describe how you’re feeling right now. And you and Gabriel look up, and it’s like you can hear his thoughts and your heart and his are one because you’re both thinking the same thing, that everything is ruined, that everything you’ve been, everything you’ve had is dead and they came in here just to find you, and The floor slides beneath you and you realize you’re falling, you’re falling and the darkness suddenly becomes lighter at the bottom. There’s a gap that’s getting bigger and bigger, like a white, bright square hole at the bottom of the ocean.

There are hands beneath your armpits and they pluck you up without strain because you are their leader and you are supposed to live - but you’re not aware of it anymore because you see Gabriel still sliding, sliding down the floor like it’s a ramp and he’s struggling, struggling to get up.

Close the door! one of your Generals shouts, and you snap back into reality. Close the door, dammit!

He’s yelling to one of the other Generals, who runs to the entrance of the weapons room and is about to press a button.

No! Gabriel shouts, reaching out to you - is the floor never stopping? - and he shouts at you, Thomas, Thomas, come on! Come!

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Your breath hitches in your throat and you want to yell back, Gabriel, Gabriel, GABRIEL! and just keep going on, keep going on like a mantra of his name will stop him from sliding, will stop him from bringing you back. The Generals stop suddenly, because they’re looking at you and you’re looking at Gabriel and Gabriel is looking at you, waiting in the last seconds of his life for you to make a decision.

You do nothing. You say nothing.

His body burns into nothing.

A General clears his throat. Well then, he says.

That was dramatic. They secure the floor and it rises back up, and you see the button you’d accidentally sat on.

They lead you out, help you out of the weapons room, and you pretend that your shirt isn’t clumsily buttoned, that your collar isn’t half open, and that you don’t look like a disheveled mess, from fear or shock or love. You pretend that you are not weak. You pretend that you have not lost.

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When the Generals and the Scientists and everyone asks you about what had happened, you tell them that Gabriel had assaulted you and you had purposefully stepped on the button that would open to the burning world. You tell them that he had been a Rebel, that there was no way you would have had an affair with him. That you had loved him.

The Rebellions die down after that; you suppose they are afraid of you. You suppose that they realize that you are more ruthless and heartless than you had been before. You suppose that Gabriel, to them, like he was to you, had been a beacon. A light.

A fire.

And for you, everything ends.

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So It Is

Shanna Roberts-Salée I quickly lock all the doors from the inside of the car, just a moment after I know he’s slammed his door shut. I wait the two, three, maybe four seconds if there is something which catches his attention outside, before he realizes I didn’t step out too. My eyes are closed. I’m gripping the wheel, steeling myself for the next scene, for the exact instant when he will notice.

I can feel the stare of his blue eyes burning through the window, but I. will. not. look. If I look he will know that I know, and he will think that I’ve abandoned him.

I allow myself to shift slowly as I let out a foggy breath. My forehead touches the cold leather.

It is unseasonably cold on this September day. The conference kicks off next week and I still have an entire team of terminally incompetent trainees to oversee.

The car shakes.

That’s the first kick. The first shockwave of my tiny, perfect human earthquake.

“Mama.”

Resist.

“Mama.”

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One, two, three, four, five…

“Mama!”

I hear repeated little blasts, and I know he is drumming his fists. His tiny fists, which will be bruised blue tonight, which I will have to wrap in ice, which I will have to explain to the teacher once again tomorrow.

“Mama, I hate you.”

Well, I hate you too.

“I’m stupid and I’m going to kill myself but I’m going to kill you first so you don’t feel sad when I’m dead because I’m stupid.”

I remember when Emma was thirteen, and she would burst into her fits of adolescent rage because I denied her something, telling me she hated me and was going to run away and would never speak to me again. I would stand at the stove, stirring spaghetti sauce, or wiping the fog off my glasses from opening the dishwasher in the middle of a cleaning cycle. ‘Well, Emma,’ I would say calmly, ‘dinner is almost ready, so you can pack after, should you choose to run away. You can’t leave on an empty stomach.’

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It was funny because thirteen year-old girls are dramatic. And I knew that Emma was full of shit, that she just wanted to express her emotions. She, like most girls, had a flair for drama.

“Mama. I know you hate me because I’m stupid, I know it! I hate you too. I hate everyone, and I will kill you all.”

But Matthew is seven years old.

I grip the wheel harder. I can sense his little face is pressed against the window. I know that his tears and his snot and his drool will leave a smear on the glass, which will freeze overnight. Tomorrow morning, when I struggle to leave the house before he wakes up, I will have forgotten about this because if I didn’t block it out, I would never get out of bed. When I pull out of the driveway, I will see this stain, and it will remind me of yesterday. And tomorrow.

He’s stopped screaming, but I know this only means he is gearing up for more. The eye of the storm.

Steve will be home soon, but I’m afraid it won’t be soon enough.

He starts screaming again, harder this time, and

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he is slamming his forehead against the window.

He is afraid of pills. Paralyzed with fear. I remember the first time we got the prescription from the child psychiatrist. I remember when we came home and we felt guilty for giving in to the medication but relieved and hopeful because finally, finally, finally, after five years of hell, maybe things would change.

But he had refused, categorically refused to swallow it. He thought he would choke and die. The pill was his biggest enemy. The pill became our biggest battle. So Steve, with all of his Eastern European heritage, decided that he will swallow the pill because I said so.

I still have visions of them, fighting in the kitchen. One big man, stocky, an intelligent engineer, trying to shove his fingers down a little boy’s throat.

Both blond heads bobbing around, wrestling from the kitchen counter to the dining room table, to the couch, the dog circling around them, barking, thinking this was an elaborate game.

And finally, I, the referee for once, pried them apart. The dog had swallowed the pill.

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I wake up because it’s cold and I’m shivering.

It’s dark. Matthew isn’t at my window anymore. I see Steve’s car, and I know. I can see it. I’ve gotten so good at blocking myself off from his fits that I fell asleep in the car. Steve usually finishes work about an hour after me, which is why I always have to pick up Matthew.

After tonight, though, I think Steve will want to make other arrangements.

The alarm beeps when I enter, betraying my presence. Beep. Beep. Garage door open.

I hear Spider-man and my first impulse leans towards self-righteous rage. Matthew does not deserve to be watching TV after today. What kind of example are we setting?

Steve is preparing a salad to go with the frozen lasagna in the oven; his tired Thursday dish. Give me a pen and an audience, and I can create a masterpiece, but with a knife in a kitchen I am as useless as a deflated balloon. So Steve cooks meals, and I clear up the dishes. Another one of our deals.

“Hi.” He doesn’t answer, his lips are pursed. Matthew sits quietly in the living room. He has two slices of

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Kraft cheese laid out in front of him, and he is eating them meticulously, little piece by little piece. I can barely look at him.

“You left him alone in the cold.”

“Do you know what he did today?”

He stops tearing lettuce and grips the counter.

His shoulders are tense. I sense another storm. But I lift my head, chin up, because this one I can handle.

“Yes. I know. He told me about the stapler. Did he tell you why he did it?”

I open my mouth and close it. I re-play the afternoon in my head; meeting with team of terminally incompetent trainees, approving the last event schedule program, locking in the venue. Getting the call from the private academy right before I was about to reassure one of the keynote speakers that he would not be overshadowed by his rival. Leaving in a hurry as I have done a million times before. Promising my assistant Anita that I would pay her whatever overtime she does this week, this month, this year—because I cannot promise her this is the last time I leave in the middle of the day, forcing her to take over all my problems along with her own. I remember Matthew, sitting next to the principal’s office, sullen. Tight little fists balled up against his sides. I talk quietly with the principal, I grab my son by the arm. He refuses to move. The bell rings. Two hundred children watch as I drag him away,

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screaming and crying and kicking anything in his path.

I remember him refusing to get in the car, throwing my glasses on the ground, pulling on my scarf. I remember parents staring at me, children staring at me, because surely I am a bad parent. Surely, if I really tried to, I could control my child’s temper tantrum, and I am a lazy mother.

I remember him kicking the back of my seat the entire way, screaming bloody murder so that when I turned to grab his leg I almost hit a truck. So, no. I do not remember asking him what happened. “No, he didn’t tell me. Stephen, he threw a stapler at a teacher and slapped the principal. Does it matter?”

“It has to matter.”

“She told me they can’t have him next year.”

At this, Steve reacts. His shoulders drop, he looks defeated. “We pay ten thousand dollars a year for them to handle him. They can’t deal with a seven year old?”

I shrug. I take his hand because he won’t look at me. He is angry at me for leaving Matthew alone outside, but he also understands. That’s the hardest part for us—wanting to be unimpeachable, to be the higher moral ground, to be the example to follow, but we understand the shitty things the other one does and why we do them. Last week Matthew threw a fork at

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Steve in a restaurant, the latest incident in a string of tense moments that day, so he dragged him outside by the neck. A lady watched, outraged, as Steve screamed and shook his tiny little body. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself ’, she said, ‘that is no way to treat a child.’

Steve grabbed Matthew by the pants and shoved him at her. ‘You think you can do better, lady? Take him.’

We used to joke that if anyone ever kidnapped him we wouldn’t have to call the police because the kidnappers would voluntarily bring Matthew back themselves. We laughed, but even then, it wasn’t very funny.

“Stephen.”

He sighs. “Dinner is ready.”

We saw them all. Doctors and psychologists and holistic therapists and nutritionists and support groups and psychiatrists.

Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.

Tourette’s Syndrome.

Asperger’s Syndrome.

Fœtal Alcohol Disorder.

This is when we remind them that he is adopted, as though it makes a difference. You see, it’s not my

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fault he slapped a teacher or threw a stapler at her or cut a little girl’s hair or peed in the classroom on purpose. It’s his genetic makeup. Or the fact that his biological mother neglected him well beyond the point of cruelty for the first year of his life.

There was the doctor who told us natural supplements would work. I spent five hours every Sunday crushing pills into a mortar, mixing them and separating the piles in little plastic bags labelled ‘Monday breakfast, Monday lunch, Monday snack, Monday dinner’, for every day of the week, which required a different concoction for every meal. Our little pharmaceutical factory.

We mixed them into his yogurt or ice cream or orange juice. The improvements, if we can call them that, were insignificant.

There was the year where he stayed in the psychiatric ward of the children’s hospital during eight weeks for a study. I missed him so much I went to visit every single day, and cried myself to sleep every night I couldn’t tuck him in. The day he came back he kicked me in the shin when I leaned in for a kiss because I had told him to finish his breakfast before he could watch TV, and I almost wished for him to be back in

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the hospital.

Matthew is quiet at the table. I look at Stephen’s tired, bloodshot eyes, and I know that while I was asleep in the car there was a great deal of shouting. Only Stephen can control him. When I yell or threaten, he laughs right in my face with his gap-toothed grin: No you won’t, he retorts. Stop yelling at me, he screams back.

“Go brush your teeth. It’s bedtime.” I look at the clock: 7:02pm. But Steve’s tone leaves no room for negotiation.

“But I wanted to play with Spike!” He whines, growls and grimaces. These grimaces and these noises, we’re told, are Tourette’s ticks. They may vary, intensify, change as he grows older, but they are part of him now.

“Now,”. Stephen yells it. Defeated and tired, Matthew groans and drags himself on the ground like a snail, but under the watchful eye of his father he makes his way up the stairs, even if it is at an exasperatingly slow speed.

“Spike, come with me.”

Spike, his best friend, his ally, the only living creature with an endless reserve of tolerance for him,

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follows obediently. I put my hand on Stephen’s because I feel his chest puffing up: just let him. Sometimes it’s easier than talking, because we can’t regret the things we don’t say.

He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head before clearing his plate. I know this face. It means: if we give in, he wins.

I watch my little boy, wiggling up the stairs with an arm clutched tightly around Spike, grimacing and blinking. I notice the bruises on his hands. I don’t think anybody wins.

The next day is a Saturday; hockey practice and shopping for fall clothing. The school year has barely started but he is growing at the speed of light. He needs new clothes.

I find a pair of navy track pants. Steve glances at them. “What size?”

I look on the label and notice these pants are for girls. If Steve finds out, he will categorically refuse to buy them. I look at Matthew: he is pulling clothes off a rack and stepping on them. He is starting to lose focus, and I’m getting very hungry. I fold the track pants, the label hidden deep beneath the fabric.

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“They’re the right size.”

We buy them, and a few other items. We go home for lunch, and to get him ready for hockey practice, which is always an ordeal. Steve helps him put on his new navy track pants while he tries to eat a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Are you going to work hard at practice today?”

“Yes. ” “Are you going to listen to the coach? ” “Yes. ” “Are you going to do all the drills? ” This, he does not answer.

“Matthew.” Steve stops. “I asked you a question.

Are you going to do all the drills?”

Last week Matthew decided he was too tired to do the drills and threw himself on the ice in the middle of an exercise, causing a 10 boy pile-up. It took four parents and 25 minutes to untangle them and get him out of his skates. We were blissfully unaware of this, waiting at the arena canteen, getting all the parents hot chocolate to try to win them over from the incident of the previous practice. No wonder we don’t get invited

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to barbecues.

“Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s. I. W-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-l-l.”

When he stretches out sentences like that, it takes every ounce of patience for Steve to remain calm.

“Okay. Good. Finish up your- ” He stops. “Annie.”I look up from my computer. “What?”

He is staring at me strangely“These pants are for g-i-r-l-s.”

Because Matthew can barely make it through a day of school, he doesn’t know how to spell yet. “Yeah, so what? They fit.”

“Matthew, take off your pants and get another pair.” Matthew ignores him and keeps eating his sandwich, preoccupied with a dent in the coffee table.

But Steve is intent on fighting this out, so he overlooks this disobedience. “You knew what they were?”

“They fit. Who cares?”

“Isn’t it bad enough that he’s so different? That every day people point and we have to deal with all of this? What if people at school find out what kind of pants these are? What do you think they’ll say?”

“They won’t know.”

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“Kids are mean, Annie.”

At the mention of kids, Matthew’s curiosity is piqued. “What pants?”

We ignore him.

“Look, he needed pants. I was hungry, and he was tired. We bought him pants. There’s no problem here, okay. Let it go.”

“What pants?” He stands up. His little voice is getting louder, whiny for attention.

“This isn’t about you or your needs! What if a kid sees that he’s wearing girl pants and tells everyone?

What then? Don’t you think he hates you enough as it is?”

“You bought me girl pants? You think I’m a girl?”

Steve and I look at each other with the same expression, the one filled with accusation, the one that says you see? I told you so. And to see it mirrored on the other angers us both. Matthew bursts into angry tears, he does not want to wear girl pants, why do we think he’s a girl, did we want a girl instead of him, why do we hate him so much, why do we think he’s so stupid.

Steve takes him to hockey alone.

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Some days I go to bed so relieved, so very relieved because my husband Stephen with high blood pressure didn’t die of a heart attack. So relieved because I didn’t kill either one of them, or kick our cat for asking for food when I’m trying to relax for those thirty minutes Matthew is in the bath before I have to tuck him in.

I close my eyes and I remember the first day. The first day. When he was so young and we didn’t know the future, and as foster parents we took him home for the first sleepover. He had a tiny, little shy smile.

He took my finger. We already had a bedroom painted orange and a car-shaped bed. Emma was fourteen.

And the time Emma took him to the park. When he came back his little green corduroy pants were heavily weighed down from all the crab apples he had stuffed in his pockets because he wanted to make me an apple pie.

Or all the times, like Emma did when she was young, he brings home from the park a handful of wilting dandelions clutched tightly in his little hand.

I have to remember these moments; they are my salvation. They are my compass along this narrow, treacherous path. It serves me nothing to wonder If I had known... Because without us, there would be no Matthew.

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And as I remind myself of all this at night, Stephen snoring softly next to me, sometimes I get up.

I go to Matthew’s room, I touch the outline of his car bed as I approach him slowly. I don’t want to wake him. I touch his warm chest, I feel his heart; it beats for me the way mine, my stubborn, irascible heart, beats for him.

I go to bed.

Tomorrow I will scrape off the car.

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Train to Southport Tess Roby

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Drive to the Horizon James Sandham I “We need to get a car,” Laura says. This is something she’s come to be obsessed with, as if a car is something Missing From Their Life and must be procured at all costs if their existence is to have any meaning at all. She recognizes that it’s not even particularly practical, especially in a city like Toronto, where owning a car can seem more like an expensive nuisance than anything – but this doesn’t sway her.

She’s still determined they should get one. For her, it’s become more than just an issue of practicality, more than just a status symbol too, but more like a whole validation of their lives as adults. It’s like they won’t be fully-formed, mature beings without one, and will be condemned otherwise to wander forever in the twilight of adolescence, never able to leave and move on like they should. Stunted. Freakish. Forced to shamble about on bicycles outside the respectability and assurances of adult society.

“I don’t want to get a car,” Geoff says. In fact, he hates the idea. It’s something he’s become nearly as obsessed with as she has. Somehow getting a car has come to represent something evil for him, like selling a child into slavery, only worse; like that, but on a spiritual level. For him, getting a car is like then you’ve become complicit, you’ve willfully cast off the last of your innocence, and all in the name of some cheap,

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banal, material pursuit. And it’s like once you’ve made that decision, you can never go back. You’re marked.

You’ll always be a Car Person from there on in, a Driver.

And he hates what that does to people. It affects their whole life. The logic of the car starts to become their logic, and after that they become forever dissatisfied. Because they’ll always need to go faster.

Not just in their cars, but in everything. You start to rush through life, just because you can. You stop walking to the store; you drive there instead. Or you stop going to the market, the one they hold in the park every Monday, because you can never be sure you’ll find parking. You go to the Superstore instead, because there you know there’s a huge lot and you’re guaranteed a space. And then you’re not eating market produce anymore, the stuff the local community organization’s arranged to have brought in from all the local farms, but you’re eating Superstore produce, stuff that’s been shipped in by the megaton from Venezuela or Mexico, that’s travelled vast distances on the back of a truck, that’s had to be picked weeks before it’s actually ripe to ensure it doesn’t spoil during its long and arduous journey, and then has to be sprayed with nitrogen and hormones to ripen it artificially once it arrives.

And then you have to cook it, but that just seems like it takes so much time because now you’ve started to rush through other things too as the logic of the car becomes all-consuming and complete, and nothing

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can ever be quick enough again.

Now you drive to work instead of riding your bike, because even though you liked the way you could ride through the park and see the local community organization setting up for the market or the garage sale or whatever happened to be happening, what’s the point of paying insurance on your car if you’re just going to leave it parked in front of your house all day? And so then you drive home from work, and even though it’s the end of the day and there’s not much left to do you’re still in a hurry because what’s the point of driving a car if you’re just going to idle in traffic going no faster or even slower than the cyclists passing by along the curb outside your window? So then you get frustrated with all the other cars and people and the things in your way, and you start to see the spaces around you as nothing more than streets, nothing more than transit corridors, as opposed to arrangements of public spaces that serve to bind together neighborhoods of families, and so when the traffic finally does start to move you drive through it like a maniac – like an asshole – weaving in and out of lanes, ignoring crosswalks, and cursing the people in your way.

When you finally get home you’re so spent that you just want to eat so it’s a good thing you’ve been shopping at the Superstore because now you’ve got all these pre-prepared, plastic-packaged, frozen

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meals that they sell there and you just need to heat and eat so finally you can just stop rushing because the whole day’s been carried out at this crazy, unnatural pace and now at the end you’re so exhausted, so you eat your shitty, processed, high-fat food that’s been flavored with something called NutriGood but which unknown to you is actually produced by bacteria that eat petroleum by-product and actually shit the stuff out – like literally shit out NutriGood, it is actually bacteria poo (but you’ve only heard of it as if it’s healthy, a benign food additive, because that’s what they say in all the ads, “sugar-free, flavoured with NutriGood” – and ads are now just about the only thing you really catch, they’re the only thing that’s quick enough to hold your attention), so you eat your shitty food that’s actually made from shit… and finally you can sit down.

And so you watch TV. And you see the ads for NutriGood. And then that’s what life becomes: you end up rushing through it all. For this.

“We don’t need a car,” Geoffrey say. “It’s just a waste of money.”

“Well maybe you need to get a better job then, so we can have one.”

“I like my job.”

“No you don’t. You hate your job.”

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“I don’t hate it.”

“But you don’t love it.”

“No. But I don’t think I’d love any job.”

“You might if you were making more money.”

“If I was making more money that would probably just mean I was working a harder job, in which case I probably wouldn’t like it.”

“Well we can’t just not have a car forever,” Laura says, like it’s just an axiomatic fact, like gravity or the laws of thermodynamics.

“What’s wrong with riding bikes? You like riding bikes.”

“Geoffrey, when we have kids we can’t just bring them everywhere on bikes. We’re going to want to visit your parents. We’re going to need a car to get down there.”

“So we’ll rent one.”

“Are we going to rent one all through my pregnancy too? Because I’m not going to be riding around on a bike while I’m pregnant.”

“When you’re pregnant we can walk. Or take

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transit. But we should probably walk. You’ll need the exercise when you’re pregnant.”

“What we’ll need is a car.”

“We won’t need a car,” Geoff say. “And that’s final.”

II

So they went and got a car. Geoffrey’s dad, as usual, “knew a guy,” someone who’d give them a bargain on a used model, or who at least wouldn’t rip them off, so Geoff took a train down to St. Catharines and his dad drove them out to the lot.

The lot was one of those strictly functional, aesthetically bankrupt outposts way out past the highway, on the outskirts of the town. The sort of place you can only get to in a car, treeless, without sidewalks anywhere for miles, dusty and wind-swept, just a pad of asphalt covered in gleaming, refurbished, second-hand automobiles that sat there baking in theunforgiving heat. They did bodywork here as well, and off across the lot was a white-washed, semisinister, cinderblock garage, its paint flaking, its garage bays open and yawning darkly like the hungry maws

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of Cerberus, with the whole thing exuding the faint chemical scents of gas and paint which would waft across the lot whenever the hot wind blew and swept the dust into their faces – fine, white, powdery stuff, as if somewhere close at hand one of the many other decaying, nondescript cinderblock structures dotting the scrubby vista had simply given up and crumbled in the rippling, arid heat.

“So what kind of car do you want?” said Geoffrey’s dad.

“I don’t know. Something cheap. Practical.

I don’t think we’ll be using it too often, just for big errands and stuff…”

“That’s not the way to approach it,” his father said. “Your car’s like your watch: it says something about the man that owns it. ‘Cheap’? ‘Practical’?

That’s not what you want your car to say about you, is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

Geoffrey’s dad shook his head. “Geoffrey, Geoffrey…” He led them over to a 4x4 Jeep Wrangler.

“Now this, this makes a statement. Rugged. That’s what it says. That’s obvious. Adventurous. Masculine.

Eh? How does that sound? How does that suit you for size?”

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“I don’t know,” said Geoff. “It seems a little… insecure.”

His father shrugged. “Fair enough. What about a truck? You want something practical, there’s nothing more practical than a truck.”

“I don’t think I really need a truck,” Geoff said. “What I meant was something practical for the city. Like something compact. With a trunk.”

“Ever thought about a sports car?”

“That’s not very practical.”

“No, they’re not, but picture yourself whipping around in one of those on a day like today!

Nothing but sunshine on your face and the wind in your hair! And Laura, eh?” Geoff ’s dad waggled his eyebrows. “Women love a nice sports car. You put the top down…”

“Dad, we’re not getting a sports car.”

“Alright, alright.”

They could now see Geoff ’s dad’s buddy now – Glenn Miller, presumably – the Glenn Miller, not of jazz fame, but of Glenn Miller Used Cars and Auto Body, Auto Glass, Repairs and (added to the lot’s towering billboard in a slightly different font, as if a recent afterthought)

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RV Rentals and Repairs – coming towards them from the lot’s far side. He was a portly man, though not fat, his thinning blond hair parted to the side, tanned, clad in a baby yellow polo shirt and pressed beige chinos.

He wore dark, rimless sunglasses and a thin gold chain around his neck – nothing ostentatious – which was just barely visible in the unbuttoned neckline of his shirt. He’d emerged from a smaller version of one of the non-descript white cinderblock buildings that seemed popular in this part of town and served to house his office, smoking a thin brown cigarillo, two chunky gold rings on the hand that held it. He did look a bit like he’d been sent from central casting. His pale deck shoes were the same colour as the dust. He was smiling.

“Robert! How you doin’? I was hoping I’d see you today! And this must be your son. Man, he’s grown up hasn’t he? You probably don’t remember me though, do you, Geoff ? It’s been a while. Last time I saw you, you were probably five years old. Eh, Rob? How the time goes by. And now here you are looking for a car. Got a wife now too, your dad tells me. God bless you. So whatcha lookin’ for today?”

“Geoffrey needs a car that says something about him,” Robert said. “Something he can drive back home to the city and feel proud of.”

“Something compact. And economical,” said

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Geoffrey. “We’re really probably not going to be using it for much more than errands – groceries and stuff, maybe coming down here a few times a month.”

“I’m thinking we should look at something like a Subaru, one of the Outbacks,” said his dad.

“Something stylish, but maybe with a hatchback.

Something that says something about him. He’s a young, hip, city guy – but practical, modest.”

They spent twenty minutes climbing into boiling hot cars, sitting behind the wheels, with Geoffrey’s dad leaning through the windows going “how does that feel, eh? How’s that feel?” until eventually Geoffrey came across the one he wanted.

It was a Honda Civic hatchback, the kind of car kids drive around in lowered down and souped-up, but with none of that, this one in factory condition, no goofy kit stuff and accessories. It was a faded, orangyred. Glenn said he’d sell it for three-thousand bucks.

“Fine,” Geoffrey said. “I’ll take it.”

“Why don’t you take it for a spin first?”

“Sure. Why not,” Geoffrey said with a shrug.

He got behind the wheel. His dad climbed in beside him. Glenn ran off across the lot and returned with the keys.

“I think you’re gonna like it,” he said. “Bring

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’er back in one piece.”

“Will do,” Geoffrey said, puzzled as always as to why men refer to cars like that, in the feminine.

He put the key in the ignition and soon he and his dad had left the lot behind them in a swirling cloud of fine white dust.

They drove to the end of the street.

“Seems good so far,” Geoff said.

do.”

“You should push it a bit, see what it can

“I don’t need to ‘push it’.”

“Well let’s take it on the highway though.

You’ll want to know how it handles on the highway.”

“I hate driving on the highway.”

“You do? Why?”

“I’ve only done it a few times in my whole life. Each time it felt like I was not only staring death straight in the face, but purposely provoking him.”

“Well drive out to the nearest onramp anyway. We’ll spend a few white-knuckled minutes in the highway’s right hand lane. The other cars can whip past beside us. You know, its days like this that

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remind me of my first car. Or the first car I fell in love with, anyway. I must have been about your age, Geoff.

Actually, no, I was much younger. But I was basically where you are in life. Actually, no, I wasn’t – I’d just gotten back from Australia.

“Okay anyway, my point is that a good car can change you. Or not change you, per se, but intensify you, I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at. It can take the best elements of you and make them better. I still remember that car. A red Triumph. I took that thing up and down the west coast for years.

“This was when I was first working for NutriGood. The sense of freedom, Geoff – that’s what it was all about back then. You know, I’ve never been a money grubber, never been a materialist – or so I’d like to think – but man I loved that car. Not for the car itself though – that’s what I’m trying to get across here – but for what it represented, and for what it enabled me to do. The intangible stuff, those intangible benefits – that’s where the real value lay. It was freedom, Geoff.

And exhilaration. Out in the road in that thing, I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere. The world was mine to use. I loved that feeling. Had to cut her loose when we had kids though. But that’s what growing up is, I guess. Learning that some things you’ve got to cut loose. So I guess what I’m saying is that maybe you should get a car that you can have fun with. You’ve got the rest of your life to be practical. But for now, you

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can do what you want.

“What d’you think about that, Geoff ? What do you think about freedom?”

Geoff ’s dad had been casually carrying on this high-decibel, one-sided conversation for close to ten minutes. It was barely even inaudible over the open window’s racket. Geoffrey came up on the onramp and merged with the highway’s traffic.

“… sodomized by a pickled herring when I’m dressed as Hermann Goring, then I’d actually bat an eye,” he thought he heard his father saying as they sped along the highway.

At last reached an off-ramp. Geoff gratefully decelerated down it.

“What did you just say, Dad?”

Phwoomp!

“Oh, Christ.”

It was the sort of noise you might expect a melon to might make when rapped upon, but rapped upon a bit too hard – not hard enough to pulverize it, but hard enough at least to crack the rind – and heard in passing at sixty k. an hour: phwoomp – a dense, meaty

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noise.

Jesus, Geoffrey thought, he hadn’t even driven for thirty minutes and something was already dead.

said.

“Don’t worry, it was just a bird,” his father

Just a bird. Geoffrey hadn’t even seen it coming. It was just that sort of cavalier attitude to everything flashing by outside the windows that made him reticent to drive. Cars fostered it: a banal, callous violence.

He brought them back into the lot.

“He’ll take it!” Robert said to Glenn.

Glenn was grinning in the dust, dark crescents of perspiration forming by the armpits of his polo shirt. The car lot smelled of heat. The sky was cloudless blue. Geoffrey wrote a cheque and got back in the Civic, then drove off, following his dad, all too well aware that it was only a matter of time before his car would inevitably kill again.

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Portrait

Rowena Ren

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Contributors Poetry

Simon Banderob Simon Banderob is a poet, storyteller and actor living in Montreal, Quebec.

He is studying Theatre and Development as well as Political Science at Concordia University. He is active in the monthly Throw! Poetry Slam, and represented Throw! in the 2013 Canadian Festival of the Spoken Word, competing in the semifinals. Simon is also an alumnus of the 2013 Victoria Spoken Word Festival and a veteran of the Victoria, Peterborough and Toronto Slam stages.

Kailey Havelock Kailey Havelock began writing rhyming poems about cats during her early elementary school years. Born and raised in Toronto, she is currently residing in Montreal, while studying English literature and creative writing at Concordia University. This is her first publication. She hopes to one day become a librarian or perhaps open a used bookstore, as she very much enjoys the quiet company of good books.

Steven Mayoff Steven Mayoff is from Montreal and now lives on PEI. His fiction collection Fatted Calf Blues won a 2010 PEI Book Award, was shortlisted for a 2010 ReLit Award and was a Top 5 Finalist for the CBC Cross-Country Bookshelf. His upcoming novel Our Lady Of Steerage will be published by Bunim & Bannigan Ltd and his first poetry collection Red Planet Postcards will be published by Rufus Books.

Christopher Mulrooney Christopher Mulrooney has written poems in Red Branch Journal, The Germ, Auchumpkee Creek Review, Epigraph Magazine, Bicycle Review, Pomona Valley Review, Or, Decanto, The Cannon’s Mouth, and The Criterion.

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Shannon Quinn Shannon Quinn lives in Toronto, Canada. Some of the places her poetry has appeared include The Literary Review of Canada, Existere, Southword Journal, SubTerrain, Sand, Ruminate and Halfway Down the Stairs.

Isaac Sénéchal Isaac “Akena” Sénéchal is a poet, filmmaker and fiction writer currently in the process of completing his undergaduate degree at Concordia University.

Born and raised in Montreal, the 22 year old is involved in projects that include documentary films that try to bring to viewers the stories of people who’s voices are rarely heard both within the city and in other countries, specifically Uganda. Finding ways to merge different poetic, film and storytelling styles and mediums is also an interest of his in his art.

Dylan Wagman Dylan Wagman is a Toronto based poet and a graduate from York University’s Creative Writing program. Dylan was the recipient of the 2013 bp nichol Award and won second prize in the Robbie Burns Poetry Contest in 2011. Dylan has been published in The Steel Chisel (“Infuse”), The Fieldstone Review (“The Skyline Circus”), Bitterzoet Magazine (“Like A Body”), and Sassafras (“Ice”) with poems forthcoming in The Quilliad and Subliminal Interiors.

Bukem Reitmayer Bukem Reitmayer is my full name. I grew up on a native reserve called chisasibi, quebec, and I am of Turkish and British heritage. I am in English and creative writing at Concordia!

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Fiction Shanna Roberts-Salée Shanna Roberts Salée is a graduate of the Communication Studies program at Concordia University. She recently published a short fiction piece for Echolocation, the University of Toronto’s graduate literary journal, as well as short stories in Sunday @ 6, The Hilt Magazine and Bareback Lit. She has recently completed her first novel HELL AND HIGH WATER. Shanna currently lives in Montreal and works as an assistant director on the TV show 30 Vies, broadcast on Radio-Canada.

James Sandham James Sandham is a Toronto-based writer. His work has appeared in various independent publications, including Vallum Magazine and the anthology Writing Without Direction. His novel, The Entropy of Aaron Rosclatt, was shortlisted for Canadian Author Association’s Emerging Writers Award.

Alice Zhu Alice Zhu attends the University of Iowa. She enjoys the smell of clean clothes, perfect games of Solitaire, and the occasional tickle fight. Too many tickle fights will make her angry.

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Art Meredith Jay Meredith Jay is a multimedia artist from Aylmer, Quebec. Extending into painting, ceramics, photography, sound and video installation, her work creates a dialogue in the contradiction and fluxus of the ever-evolving self, the human as a ritualistic animal.

Rowena Ren Rowena is a little goat from Vancouver. She likes people and the noises they make. Her favourite activities include grazing, painting, chugging wine, and staring into the void. She is studying studio art and psychology, hence has little hope for the future, and will be returning to bed presently.

Rowena is not actually a goat. Nor is she a pipe, or who she imagines herself to be. Her existence I contest daily.

Tess Roby Tess Roby is an artist, musician and writer based in Montreal. Her photographs capture an eerie beauty in the mundane; a documentation of what will soon be lost. Roby has been published internationally, in the UK and Mexico, and is currently in her third year of studies in photography at Concordia.

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