"Her husband was quite cross when he'd come home and found out", said Aunt Lillian. She was an older woman who'd had three children, all left for school. She liked to drink wine out on the porch with old friends and talk while staring out onto the garden. Summer was so short.
Today, her neice Raya was over to talk about Lil's sister Martha.
"So, she'd taught this new kitten to not chase mice?" asked Raya.
"Well, yes." She replied and topped off Raya's glass of white. "She didn't want 'icky dead mice' all over the place for the baby to put in it's mouth. Not like they really seemed to have any rodent problems. So she bought this wind up mouse toy and taught it to love the toys and to ignore other things like mice. I'm not so sure as to how. I never really got to ask her." She remembered that cat well and how adorably it tousled and fought with it's precious toy.
"I don't understand how this has anything to do with her husband divorcing her, Aunty." Raya was used to the long drawn out stories of bridge and Club that her aunt told but when her side stepping became part of a story she actually wanted to hear, it was a little annoying.
"It was because of the baby," replied Lil.
"This baby again. What baby? Aunt Martha doesn't have any children. She never has..."
Lil shook her head sadly and hated being one of the last to be around to tell these stories. She preffered happier tales.
"The cat has to do with him leaving her because when a rat bit their newborn baby and killed the poor thing, her husband blamed the cat for not mousing it. And blamed Martha for teaching it to be the way it was and consequently for the death of their child."
Raya was so lost and stunned that she'd never heard of this until now. It just explained so much but she'd always taken for granted that Martha was the way she was just because. Such childish logic, really.
"She went mad, then?" ventured Raya.
Lillian looked out at her peonies and thought of that little kitten and how cute it used to be until Martha had murdered it and run it's blood all over the babies room walls. The mess had been horrifying.
"Oh, yes." She refilled her glass.

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This is an old one, from back in the day!

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Red to Portage

Lazlo's only real hobby was walking about the streets late at night and 'collecting' graffiti artists. He'd pull on his soundless, sneaky hightops and a black hooded sweater and jump from his bedroom window to the garage roof to the backlane. His neighborhood was beautiful in the daylight but at 5 am it was a mysterious wonderland of thick sleepy greenery. Lazlo would spend the kind of time he couldn't find to clean his room on scouring the streets for tags he hadn't seen yet. He sincerely enjoyed the odd piece of art that someone would leave for him but the rest was like a living game of Where's Waldo.

Marking wasn't something Lazlo was interested in for himself but he did leave a small red check next to all the graffiti he noticed. These marks were only so he knew what was old and was new. Sometimes it was honestly hard to tell the difference. He stalked the whole neighborhood from the river to Portage Ave and so it wasn't always easy to keep up with 23 blocks of dark lanes and unlawful citizens.


Lazlo took great pleasure in his hobby and the sensation and thrill of seeing change all around him. His neighborhood would grow and increase like an ant farm that he only had to watch and never water or feed. It was a living breathing pet that never died and never needed him. Which is why it was deeply disturbing to him when his own hand was drawn into his project.

On a hot night in early June, the lolipop moon sitting above the trees caught his eye from the window and he decided that night bright enough to take a walk. Upon landing in the broken cement and sand of his back lane Lazlo pointed his feet in the direction his bangs blew. Lighting a cigarette, he walked out to the park. The only sounds at 5 am is of far away traffic and restless birds and while he scoured backlanes and dumpsters and fences for new art and new intrigue, his music player slept at home.

A new artist had left their mark on the fence across the street from the swings. His heart lept and he bounded over to go inspect their work. Getting closer, he read it as a message written quite plainly and in large block letters. They'd written in a large blue marker that you could only buy at a shop downtown and there only in black or white. This blue ink was unique.

I LOVE YOU

He grinned widely and checked the graff with his red marker. He imagined the writer to be a child of a hippie with long hair and a cassette tape collection.

Two weeks later, the message was written on almost anything that wouldn't blow over and Lazlo had decided it was in a very distinctive trail from the park outside his house to his highschool at the edge of the area. The idea that it was maybe somehow possible that someone was watching him and leaving him a message along the way he walked to school everyday was maddening.
Who would do that? The mystery of it assaulted him daily.

Lazlo started to take the long way to school and one day stopped in at the Cafe. He deliberately walked into a small cute short haired girl with a white cotton top, her messenger bag was knocked from her shoulder. All manners of things fell out and he bent to help her pick them up. He inhaled deeply when he saw the blue graff marker she shoved right quick back into her bag. She pulled teacher black glasses from her capri pants pockets and excused herself, " I didn't even see you. I'm sorry, I'm so blind without these dang things".
Lazlo's heart leaped into his throat and his knees would have buckled if he hadn't already been kneeling.
He bought her a soy green tea latte and she gave him her phone number. She'd just moved here from Vancouver and had seen him wandering everynight and had fallen hopelessly in love with his mysterious restlessness.
Lazlo joined his new girlfriend in her hobby and by summer, messages of love and devotion over crowded the gang symbols and art filled the streets by night for years to come.

Awkward Affinity

She seemed like a very nice girl when Jan first started working in Public Communications. The only thing off about her was how she interacted with all the other people she worked with. Despite being in a department where the sole purpose was to communicate, words between her and her collegues were kept to a minimum. She seemed to disappear during lunch while no one was looking and then to sneak back in before anyone else got back.

After getting to know all six other team members, Jan wanted to at least introduce herself to this girl in the far corner by the broom closet. She spoke to Tim about the idea first. Tim was a balding middle-aged man that always had mustard on his dress shirt, no matter if it was 9 am or 9pm. They both prefered black coffee over fancy italian drinks and owned the same model hybrid car.


"I almost forgot she works here", he first said in response to her query about whether to speak to the lonely girl. That is what Jan began to call her in her mind, the Lonely Girl.


"She's been here for almost three years now. She's a little nuts... Laughs at the strangest things", he said, scratching his nose. Tim's nose was often itchy when he had something to say.


"What do you mean by that? Did she laugh while running down a dog or while in the washroom stall or something?"


"Oh, no! Nothing like that... She just has the most odd sense of humour and it makes for very awkward conversation. So we all just kind of avoid her."

Jan was a little upst by this.

"You mean to tell me that everyone in the Com department avoids this girl and does not invite her to lunch because she has a tendancy to make conversations awkward?" Jan questioned furiously. She was so angered, her voice was very close to almost rising above the average whisper level used in office type settings. Tim of course, seemed to think that awkward conversations were very unpleasant and so he harumphed and swiveled his desk chair back to it's computer tasking position without answering her.


The next day, Jan was very determined to make her best effort at including Lonely Girl in some sort of social activity and so, she baked a big chocolate cake. To Jan, the best way to get several business type people with too much to say together and have them not say anything at all is to have them conglomerate around twenty five thousand calories.


Arriving at work, she set down the cake on the break table and waited for free-food-intuition to bring her co-workers to her and to form a social setting. It was rather fast and before she really realized that Lonely Girl wasn't there too, Tim was on his second piece.


She strode past the row of cubicles and sought out Lonely Girl. She was sitting down at her computer and it honestly looked like she was doing actual work for her job.


"Hi!...There's cake", Jan stammered, so blown away that Lonely Girl was not slacking off or spacing out or on Facebook.


Lonely Girl kept a steady gaze on her writing and without really bothering to check who had spoken she replied, "I'm a vegan ; I don't eat eggs or milk".


Jan felt like kicking herself.


Lonely Girl was actually named Meredith Alarming and she liked her job. She loved to answer questions she knew the answers to and to speak to the people who phoned her. She loved these people because they were the main source of all her entertainment. Meredith loved puns and the people who phoned her were so consistantly full of contradiction and unintentional hilarity she could hardly tear herself away for lunch or sleep. Before Jan left to clean up her cake plate, Meredith turned in her swivel chair and looked at her. She began to smile and then outright giggle. Meredith had noticed that Jan had a pencil behind her ear and that it was dull. Jan wasn't really sure what was going on.

"What's so funny?"

"Your pencil. I wouldn't write with it."

"Why's that..."

"It's pointless."

Jan couldn't help but think what a terrible play on words she'd just walked into but couldn't help but smirk (just a little).
"So how do vegans eat?" Asked Jan.
"With a knife and fork, i guess."
They both kind of chuckled.

No More

He had finished dragging all the big pieces to the shed by moonlight. He couldn't remember how he did it. Did anyone see? The boughs of the elm in the yard shaded the radiating street lights that vainly try to brighten the lives of those who wander the backstreets. He shrank into the shade of the doorway and fell silent, listening for the sounds only a suspicious mind could imagine. A pause, feeling like an eternity was filled with nothing but dead air. He inhaled deeply and closing his eyes he leaned into the wooden frame of the door. It smelled like seasoned cedar. He looked into the garage at what he'd dragged in and descended upon it. Closing the door shut tight before turning on the hook light, he took in the seriousness of the situation. Frightening shadows cast by the lamp made his thin and normally harmless form turn into something as macabre as his intentions. Disbelief would have crowded his wrenched mind if only he would stop rationalizing his actions. It's too late now... He needed something sharp to finish his work. The clockwork of his brain was so jammed. Everything was built up to this and the release would be the end of all his frustration and pain. The first blow came and the tension from his knotted neck and face unwound and gave him the courage to strike again. A large chunk flew off and hit his shins. He would clean it up later. For now, it was about the violence and he brought down the axe. The axe he had never used because he told himself that he bought it for cutting hedges and yard work. He'd known all along what it was really going to be used for. He looked down at the destruction created by his hands and the tool held in them. He exhaled years of lies and poison. He would never use a computer again for as long as he lived.

Giant Beans

She was stolen from her parents when she was five years old while waiting for a bus. There were big colourful bean shaped seats meant for patrons of the public transit system to wait on and take in the refreshing smells and sounds of a small garden in the middle of downtown. She saw the same giant beans almost everyday but she never played on them again. Was it so horrible that she knew what happened to her and didn't do anything to find her real parents? Everyday she sat in the bus and was brought to the giant beans and thought asked that question to the window pane. She hadn't been so young when she was lead by the hand of an old woman away from her family and she remembered what those people meant to her. They were disorderly and mean people that hardly fed her and just barely clothed her. These people that occasionally put her to bed at night would strike her in foul moods and lock her in closets so as not to be bothered by her presence. She was always hungry and dirty and stopped going to school because no one cared if she went or not. Her things were kept in a garbage bag.
Then came a very nice lady who cried for her and promised her that Jesus loved her very much. These days she knew that Jesus was really just an idea and she watched those giant beans everyday through the thin pane of glass and remembered how ideas saved her and how ideas loved her. Something invisible loved her more than her real parents did and although she didn't choke up anymore at the idea, a big stone of sadness was still sitting at the bottom of her stomach. She loved her new mother more than Jesus ever could and always would but pain has a long memory and the stone of sadness would not be digested.
That particular day, a group of kindergarten children were waiting for a bus to the museum and while they stopped they played on the giant beans. They rolled over them and jumped off of them and slid down the sides. No one looked very hungry or especially filthy and this warmed the frosty hurt inside her. She smiled to herself and at that stop a boy her age sat down next to her and excused his guitar because it was rather large. They talked about music for almost half an hour and about half a year later they moved in with eachother. Eventually, they bought a car together and she didn't pass by those giant beans anymore. Eventually, the giant stone beans at the bottom of her stomach shrank like the wad that is eaten away with time and acid when you stop swallowing all your gum. They moved with her mother and their new daughter to just outside Toronto and those giant beans never saw her again.

Opportune Moment

He shared a classroom with her for over four years but he had still only spoken to her once when they had been paired as project partners yesterday. He fully recognized how madly in love with her he was and that is why it was completely unbearable to know that she pretty much held him in common thought with mud and the goo of bugs on the front of your car after a long drive. She moved like an angel... He thought about her in Biology the most because she sat directly infront of him. That was mostly the reason they had been set up into that fateful group.
Her friends thought that he was really strange and she generally agreed ; he wore a towel around his neck. If maybe he was a jock and always sweaty then perhaps the sporting of absorbent cloth would make a little bit of sense but he actually just wore a towel for some kind of statement. She had read his favourite book in grade 9 out of curiosity and thought that that kind of dedication was somewhat admirable but after four years she was begining to think that he was actually out of his senses. This meaning that he be sentenced to social ostracism for being different and difficult. It was never her intention to bring this about but she realized it the day they were partnered and they spoke to eachother for the very first time in four years.
He thought she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen and the most perfect human that had ever been created. He stashed his towel in has backpack to get to Biology so that no one would steal it as a prank in the hall and he really felt like the connection between them was so strong that the teacher had chose them together because he could sense it too.
All class he thought about taking her out to dinner and making her think that they were going to work on their Bio project but really it was a suprise! She sat infront of him unmoving and quietly. Then the bell rang and she stayed seated while the class packed up their things and filed out, shuffling their lazy feet like penguins waddle. Still she remained seated and looked nervously around for her girlfriends. He felt something was wrong and decided to bring it up.
"Is something the matter?"
She seemed so embaressed that she could die and kind of muttered something short and quiet.
She waited a second until the teacher turned away and the last classmate left then sort of arose from the chair a slight little bit. It was covered in blood.
"I didn't know it was coming. I can't leave the classroom like this." She snivelled and broke out in tears. He took his towel out of his bag at that moment and offered it to her.
"Wear this until you can go change in the locker rooms. I'll cover your chair with papertowel until you're back and changed."
She shuffled into the towel as fast as she could and took off down the hall. He covered the messed chair and felt hurt that she hadn't thanked him at all.
Then he looked up and she was there, changed into her gym shorts and flushed with embaressment and hurry. He couldn't remember how she got from the door to him but he liked to think that she floated over. All he could remember was that she kissed him and that they missed their next class together and that he never got his towel back. Slut.

Jenwa and Eli Hang Out (part 1)

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Jenwa and the Pepper Spray

Walking home late at night down the tunneled streets of Wolseley Avenue is probably my favourite thing to do on this planet. There is however, a very big difference in walking home late at night and walking home very late at night, completely trashed. The air is still and quiet almost like it's sleeping too. The sound of your footsteps are the loudest thing for blocks and the light of the moon is kept away by the very trees so adored by the dozing hippies all around. The deep wish that everyone dangerous has already passed out by 3AM becomes more and more feverant. Being a small and weak creature, clutching desperately at a small can of dog repellant/pepper spray is the only line of sanity keeping me anchored and safe from the raging waters in the Bay of Panic and Run. Every shadow is a rapist and every tree in the wind a robber.
What a perfect time to practice my Kung-Fu!
Lawn Gnome casualties: 7 and 1/2
Jenwa casualties: 0