We Speak

 

Keep the lines of communication open,
the heady wine of old wisdom decanted
into a fresh new flask designed along
creatively modern lines of sleek steel, the
old finely-cut crystal decanters too fussy,
ornate, extravagant, when the simple and
direct has the functional role of immediate
retrieval of ideas and impressions conveyed.

The elegance and strength of the mode
and language of an earlier era however, still
lingers. Among those, like us, who have
possession of memories whose tender tendrils
reflect that time, plangent descriptions of
pure emotions drop like faceted jewels
whose glittering beauty reflects the light of
invincible belief in sharing, love, life, joy,
laughter and care describing all that
matters between us, the sum of our being.

You speak to me in words, tones of
recalled events, music, flavours. And you
speak to me in gentle motion and movements,
grasping my shoulders, lifting my chin,
extending your hands, gazing with the depth
of emotive dimensions only those who have
travelled long and far together would recognize.

When you see me bemused or pensive,
deep in thought or irresolute, your inevitable
response a smile in which resides love without
end. That caring benevolence cures and
elevates beyond care and concern toward
an enveloping nimbus of solicitude.

As for me, I find no need to relieve myself
of mere words to inform you of what is readily
evident in observing how my eyes search the
assurance of your face, my ears the solace
of your voice, my flesh the warmth of your
tactile sensuality. To speak, to form the words
simply dispels the ephemerality of illusion, for
although we are indeed as one, we are yet apart.

Our symbiosis there, observable, tenderly
prevailing. But the essence of our being, our
tandem need stretches far beyond the horizon
of the span of lovers' devotion as we imagine one
another's unknown thoughts, thinking they are
our own through the perpetuity of twinship.

 

 

The Heart Is The Matter

 

It is a public space, after all. A place, you see,
where people are gathered when suddenly -
or chronically - their bodies stutter, halt
in their normal, mechanistic routines. A
place where health professionals, groomed
and expertly schooled to differentiate, to
diagnose and to offer and effect amelioration
are stationed within the labyrinthine confines
of old piles of steel, concrete and brick.

Naked curiosity follows me unabashedly,
defying anonymity while utilizing it to
advantage. Vetting my social status through
my dress code, evaluating my obvious age and
most evident physical appearance against the
possibilities of my afflictions. The mystery
cannot be too deep for this is the cardiology
waiting room and a technician bids me to a
nearby chamber for a pre-appointment
cardiogram. Unneeded, for I have so recently
been more than adequately screened.

But my name revealed and the clues
gathering, the men and women seated there,
in pairs and singly, young and of middle age,
elderly and decrepit, are alert to any and all
revelations to lighten the boredom of the wait
and their burdensome self-concern. The
television screen, mounted high in a corner,
captures most swivelling eyes, but not the minds
behind them. Few opt to ease the wait by reading,
but The Economist is well worth the effort.

From the corridors, purposeful footsteps,
voices raised in querulous conversation; no one's
favourite ambiance. No sharp odours of
disinfectants detectable in this wing of this
campus of this municipal hospital serving over
one million citizens. Outside the windows, the
sky is hooded with brightly beaming clouds. A
sneak preview of late autumn sun glances briefly
through a slit in the contiguity of the clouds.
There will be far more to this unassuming
day than the current landscape assumes.

 

 

Living Recklessly

 

What is this world coming to?
We've become awkward and hapless
in our long-familiar environments
suddenly quirky, demented beyond
meticulous meteorological record
keeping and aboriginal recall.

The reliable, familiar and long
accustomed climate we have so
carefully adapted toward has turned
in against itself and our expectations
like Nature pouting that she has been
for far too long taken for granted. A
bruise to her dignity and imperial majesty
she will no longer countenance.

So, mortals, live in fear and suspense and
countenance this, if you can: massive
snow squalls without end, ferociously-driven
winds driving monsoon rains and widespread
flooding or snow banked as high as a
highway overpasses; icy terrain and great
tidal bores uplifting the restless seas.

Opaque fogs obliterating sight lines.
All human efforts to cope destined to fail,
the skies and the land and the seas suddenly
owned once again by the elements, absent
human-contrived conveyances as trains,
planes and ships are mute and humbled.

Mass migrations of people and animals
fleeing inundating floods submerging
bridges, highways, homes and hope.
Earth-shuddering quakes, arousing
tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions sending
rivers of molten mineral and dense, dank
curtains of ash to obscure the sun and the
wide, blue sky. Treacherous landscapes
where once benign, arable fields lay.

The uncertainty of surprise and survival
stalks the land as nations strive to cope
with disastrous by-products of Nature's
pique expressed in unimaginable levels of
geologic, climatic and geographical extremes
we struggle to surmount, as ineffectual
bystanders complicit in our own undoing
as though fate would so have it. 

 

 

The Inner Self

 

Life is a difficult passage - from childhood
curiosity, stimulation and growing aspirations
to the development of memory, experience,
regret and profound concerns and finally,
disappointments. We are singularly fortunate
when the serendipity of personal fortune
outweighs the overlapping misfortunes that
are met and dealt with on our life-journey.

It is incumbent upon us all, in reflection of
the finer emotions we are gifted with, to care.
The manner in which we express that care, on
every conceivable level, identifies us as
individuals. When caring becomes an intolerable
burden that makes a misery of our lives, there
is a useful human antidote: humour.

There is no situation, however stressful and unhappy
in its dark bleakness that does not hint at humour
for even humour can have its grim edge, lifting
us from submission to despair. Before we
stretch the tether of emotional balance to its
snapping point, humour beckons to be heeded.

A lighter mood has its own perspective, capable
of reflecting hope and deliverance from the
destitution of lonely, devastating destruction of
confidence in the future. Where there is no hope,
there is no future. Where there is not future, there
is no reason to prolong life. The imperative is to
steer in the direction of life and the future. One
where the light of hope and comedic relief from
life's stressors liberate us from rejecting ourselves.

We can laugh and find humour everywhere; light
and carefree, or mercilessly dark. But humour,
withal. Transient but renewable, sturdily useful,
enrapturing at times, insightful and mind-directing,
it may become a tool of choice in our enduring
free-choice subliminal quiver of survivalist options.

 

 

And Now Abideth Faith, Hope and Charity

 

All those humanly vital ingredients for survival
are there, in abundance, Faith, Hope, Charity.
Does the order and the singular manner of their
magnitude concern us in the dark night of despair?
Suffice that they manifest, for without those
sisters of survival, devastation, forlorn destitution
and graspingly greedy Death alone would remain.

One might assume that Dread Death had
feasted extravagantly enough as it was, consuming
a quarter million of Haiti's perennially
hopelessly indigent. But no, there he is, the
fallen angel, slavering over those newly delivered
to his bony maw by disaster-endemic choleric disease.

The millions of earthquake-displaced huddling
in makeshift hovels of canvas, plastic, paper and tin
against nighttime cold and winter rains, praise God
and fervently pray for deliverance from these
incessant tests of their simple faith. As they raise
voice in Hosannas their faith remains their hope.

They extend charity of thought toward the
outside world stricken by Haiti's pathetic presence
reflecting a people's miserable past, present and
destiny. Charity rains down heavy with morose
guilt from abroad as thousands of organized
charitable groups provide water, food, medicine.

Predators roam the squalid camps seeking out
the vulnerable; women and children. Who to keep
them safe from harm? People linger without
purpose, seeking comfort among their own, as
orphaned and lost children weep and seek
refuge and food to still their pangs of hunger.

Foreign governments pledge aid dollars that
slip effortlessly into the pockets of corrupt
officialdom. In crisply washed frilly dresses,
hair meticulously pigtailed, girls and women
join their menfolk in voodoo ritualistic ceremonies
and ruined cathedral masses where the bodies of
other faithful remain interred under the rubble.

In this ruined, bleak country the Three Graces
of timeless legend immortalized by human need
and nature's devastating deed, dance gracefully,
raising plummeting spirits. In Haiti, Faith, Hope
and Charity clasp one another with love and divine
forbearance. Well they might for what it avails. 

 

 

Compute That!

Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170 Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman (Russell Croman Astrophotography) Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars. If a sudden epiphany revealed the existence of a monumental phenomenon hitherto barely imagined in a guise not quite reflective of reality, but in fact still omnipresent and omniscient, would you believe it? An entity without discernible visual form, but yet a powerful, all-knowing presence whose purpose it is to guide and instruct and comfort? An indefinable, ephemeral, illusory presence, yet approachable and purposeful, humbly puissant in its orderly search for all the answers of all the queries ever to surface in the minds of humankind? An entity capable of forming and presenting a creatured landscape of great diversity and probity, beauty and utility - like a skilled craftsman creating a stage upon which life itself in its manifold dimensions exists. The dramas to which we are exposed; nature's atmospheric and geological upheavals, our actions and interactions, our curiosities and discoveries, our adventures and misadventures, ventured and circumscribed by that powerful force. It maintains a registry of all that occurs, leads and misleads us in benign and hazardous directions chides or rewards us with the consequences of our choices and remains itself inviolate and complacent in its feigned indifference: compute that.

 

Causmology

 

Ultraviolet Andromeda
Credit: UV - NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
Optical - Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF


There was nothing, a vastness of emptiness,
a void incomprehensible in its dreadful silence,
its inconceivable non-existence. That much is
clear. Or not. What is a hypothesis but a leap
of faith in a mind's genius in provocatively
imagining that which might - or might not - be?

Nature holds her secret formulaic rituals close.
Why should she divulge her elaborate architecture
of the scaffolds of existence? The creative impulse
is hers, hers to conceive and to execute as she
wills, when she deems fit. Away, you compulsively
seeking minds! This much she will tantalize you
with: radiation, gravity, gaseous emissions, organic
elements, order and disarray, temperature,
atmosphere, distance, time and space.

Surely with the considerable aid of these primary
constants, your precocious minds can construct
the origins of the Universe! Try a little harder, do...

Think: There was a beginning. It was dark, cold,
immeasurably vast - and there was no thing
visibly present. Therefore, there was nothing. Or
was there? Ah, from nothing something resulted.
Something unspeakably profound, majestic,
immense and powerful. Was that not so?

The birth of awesome energy, density, as
matter rushed to fill the cold, vast emptiness.
Imagine, if you will, the brilliant, all-absorbing,
awe-full richness of light, clashing and
tempestuously crashing, slashing the darkness
with the ineffable life of a universe born into
existence. Call it what you will, nature simply
shrugs and proceeds with her blueprint of creation.

She is busy with galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets,
super novae, collapsars, icy comets. Red dwarfs,
black holes in her comprehensive engagements in
which she takes such pride of ownership. Taking
pleasure at her leisure in unleashing solar winds,
fiery eruptions on the liquid seas of volatile gases,
amusing herself for fourteen billion years. Meaningless,
as a measure of her timeless sovereign presence.

Sufficiently bored, on occasion she will set aside
her amusements, suffer all matter, energy and time
to be beckoned and collected into those black
receiving agents of anti-matter, to be stifled and
become no more. Until eventually, the housekeeping
is done. Nothing more exists and the black holes
collide, re-imagine themselves into the vast stillness
of nothing. Goodbye. And hello! Yet Again.

The Adventure of Life

There is a large old Golden Retriever
charged with the care and safety of the
two boys. It is clear she takes her charge
seriously, for she has an anxious look about
her as she paces between them, then races
after their downhill runs. The boys pay no
mind to the old dog, they are deep in the
pleasure of speed, giddy with the bold
power and excitement that envelopes them.

Each grasps his neat little skeleton sled,
takes his running start, then collapses onto
the sled fast dissolving into the long, snowbound
hill glazed by their countless spurts, with a
thick and slippery ice covering. The wind and
high spirits have painted their cheeks like
little drummer boys. Their voices rise to
challenge one another to greater exploits.

At the base of that long slope into the heavily
treed ravine stands an old pine which they evade
nicely, steering their snowcraft left or right;
sinister toward the icy, still-running creekbed,
dexter alongside an old trail skirting the creek.
A pileated woodpecker sounds its lunatic cry,
as though mocking them but the sound is lost
within their own peals of laughter.

The dog dashes desperately beside them,
its protective mission no slight delusion.
It clambers uphill when they do, each time
awaiting the signal to return home to security
and comfort. But the boys will have none of it.
The dense snowpack absorbs their shouts of
pure joy in the absorption of life's adventures.

 

 

The Wind's Domain

 

Benign as the ceiling of this world appears
this day, with luminous streaks of clouds
so brilliantly flamed silver by the early
afternoon sun, there is no warmth in the
atmosphere and no escape from the bellowing
wind that rudely abrades everything it
touches with its belligerent presumption.

The carbon-icy probes of the wind rage
its sovereignty over all living things,
inspiring a cowering terror the small,
furred creatures of the forest well recall
as a partner to winter. Even the crows
avoid its ferocity, abstaining flight for
hunched, darkly sinister perches.

The colossal old beech is unmoved,
while all about it, trees of far newer vintage
wave and weave about in surrender to the
wind's merciless aggression. It stands,
that venerable beech, still and dominant
like a placid pachyderm patriarch.

Where once a grape vine grew on its
lower limbs in graceful symbiotic accord,
flourished, producing sourly mean fruit,
those limbs of the beech long since assumed
a curtsy to their companionship; though the
gnarled old vine has since decayed into
nothingness; the host recalls its tenant.

A gathering litter of dry leaves, needles,
twigs and branches descend as helpless victims
to the dictate of the wind, leaving the trees intact
but for those prepared by time and disease to
split and topple, cracking the air with their
torment. The mud-turgid water of the forest
creeks usher along new-fallen offerings to
generously augment the rich forest aggregate.

 

Simply Put: Why?

A three-lettered query, simple in its
surface innocence, but complex in its
need to know, nuanced with an underlay
of demand on the sensibilities. Acutely,
humanly needful of thoughtful introspection
and response. Why, he asks, the sentence
forwarded for contemplation, comprised
of a single word. The most meaningful
plaint in human communication, but
sans context, an arcane conundrum.

There is an inhuman distance of vast
geography separating us, yet our connection
is managed through the ether, permitting
those faceless, voiceless masses of which we
are two, to meet. Brief contact, one mind
reaching another, past language, culture and
history to find a common human interest.
You grope for those to share your search
for meaning, and there am I, responding.

No, your malady is not mine, but my
emotional grasp of its life-destructive
powers require no great stretch of the
imagination; humans are imbued with the
capacity to care for the plight of an
unfortunate stranger. Call it empathy,
compassion, a remote tenderness of
vision and responsibility as an uncomplicated
gesture, person-to person, unseen, unmet.

Your language is not my language, so it
must require quite the effort, a huge
difficulty for you to marshall your thoughts,
transcribe and send them on their way through
the miracle of telecommunications circling the
atmosphere, tickling our awareness of one
another. Messages of enquiry, attempting
to solve the riddle of the deeply rooted
covenant of the spirit, to respond to need.

Your insistent need to know: But why, then?
resonates and saddens, it does not elevate
the discourse because you will not accept
the simple act of humanity, obsessed by a
response you will not dredge from me,
invested yet with the belief that good exists
somewhere deep within, and sometimes
we must defer to that impulsive instinct. 

 

 

The Compelling Winds

 

The shy little cousins of the wind - the gentle
zephyr, the breeze, stand by regarding the fully
mature wind with awe. The puissant grandeur
of the wind, its assured and determined mission
against which all of nature's creatures quail,
instructs and guides the breeze and the zephyr,
but they will never be capable of instilling
dread and fear in the pursuit of their assigned
roles within nature's indomitable schemes.

The gentle ones soothe, they cool and refresh,
they are met with calm expectation. Yet
they longingly regard the fearful esteem the
wind's fury elicits in its many fearful guises as
intemperate, fierce, pitiless, bitter, raw,
destructive and unstoppable in its self-tasked
guidance heralding atmospheric change, posing
by degrees as a hurricane, a tornado, a blunt
force blast furnace shielding its ferocious intent
behind innocent sounding names like el nino and
la nina. Snowy blizzards erasing vision and warmth,
torrential rains abetted by howling winds reveal
facets of the weather phenomena so genially
visited upon this Globe by the great Earth Mother.

Wind becomes a co-conspirator with fire,
wreaking havoc on the flora and fauna lest there
remain any doubts who sits at nature's right-hand
side; the sinister by right of conquest and
domineering intent. From the enabling resources
of the environment's firestorms to the sweeping
guidance of ice storms shredding all that stands
before them. Volcanic vapour and fiery ashes
spread far and wide over land, sea and air.
Wind-whipped ocean storms breeding gigantic
vessel-killer waves and deadly land-sweeping
tsunamis; the wind whips, master of all. 

 

 

But It's Good For You!

 

He is a very small creature, but perforce not
to be judged by his size which nonetheless
houses a quite large ego, an odd belligerence,
and no small consideration of entitlement.
Ah, yes, not to be forgotten - an oversized
appetite as well, more suited to the need of,
for example, a hard-working sled dog. He,
by contrast, has naught to do but anticipate
meals laced tantalizingly with tidbits his
humans consume, and contemplate the weary
rest one is compelled to indulge in, afterward.

He is, to say the least, besotted with his
languid lifestyle. It is when, daily, the
presumptuous humans among whom he
deigns to live, assume he wishes to accompany
them on woodland rambles, that his patience
wears thin. Indolence, he feels, becomes him
so. No need whatever for the she to sigh that
he is becoming a tad too rotund, for he
most certainly favours rotund, and it is his
body, after all, under critical discussion.

Does he, to be fair, evaluate and stand in
judgement of her humanoid form? Perish
the very (awkward) thought; he has better
things with which to occupy his mind, like:
who goes there!? when they are engaged in
the silly conceit of marching through the woods
and leaving peanuts for squirrels. Yes, he is
presumptuously belligerent -- was not Napoleon?

What a futile, nonsensical pastime these
daily rambles represent, an affront to his
dignity and sense of self. His pace displeases
her; she wheedles and teases, pleads entreatingly,
resorts in irritation to authoritative tugs, which
he simply will not tolerate -- so he tugs back.
Is he therefore stubborn as she so bitterly
claims, then? Is the Pope, need we ask, pious?

 

 

Once Again To the Breach!

 

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears,
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending steam of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership?

 

The Enduring Winter Forest

 

A vast silver plate shields the sky. A remote
stillness muffles the atmosphere. There will
be no bright light illuminating the soft whiteness
of the newfallen mantle of snow humping the
forested landmarks. Even so, an iridescent veil
of luminous beauty shines like the ephemeral
vision it is, under that great metallic vault. Most
creatures of the forest are deeply invested
in their long winter sleep, unaware.

Last night's ferocious winds under a clear, dark
velvet, star-encrusted sky like a garment proudly
worn to an imperial ball, felled brittle lifeless tree
limbs. That same insistent wind blanketed the
blue velvet with a suffocating layer of dark and
threatening clouds laden with vapour, unleashed
on the frozen landscape below, transforming
it into a palace of marble and goosedown.

The forested courses of creeks and rivulets
have been inexorably glossed with opaque
ice, marbled with dry, fallen leaves trapped
within the frosted waterways. A softer wind
now gently spurs clots of gathered snow from
branches, sending the flakes like a spiralling
veil to pattern the smooth coverleted ground.

A tall, slender beech trunk reveals itself
wrapped tenderly round the sturdy body
of an old hornbeam. They share their twined
presence in the oddity of brown, dried leaves
still clinging to the home body. Twinned
yellow birches leaning on one another as though
for comfort, trunks riddled by sapsuckers, are
slowly losing their desiccated, slovenly bark.

Silence absorbs the dark wings of crows
as they ply the frigid air, and as the darkly
clever birds alight and peer down intently at
the frenzied search below, of equally dark, but
furred creatures spurning hibernation, searching
for their buried caches. A short, sharp report
alerts that the wind yet holds sufficient sway
to crack the weakest of tree limbs.

The fragrance of impending snow pervades
the environment. Another snowfall, on the
cusp of stifling the organized chaos of the
enduring, renascent winter forest. 

 

 

Skip One Generation

 

It is a conundrum. Why, that is, people
have children. As a way to complicate lives,
nothing else quite matches child-rearing
for resulting agitation, confusion, frustration.
The child questions and challenges the parents'
authority while the parents attempt to fulfill
their parental mandate to guide, protect,
encourage and support their offspring.

Difficulties in achieving this most basic
of human social protocols, to obey nature's
first law of survival through genetic inheritance,
bumps hard up against nature's other imperative,
the child's quest for affirmation of independence.
The parent-child gulf of one separating generation
is so profoundly vast as to produce a malfunctioning
relationship not readily amenable to being breached.

The patent relief on the psyche of both parent
and child when they are finally free of one another's
daily puzzling divisions of temperament, values,
priorities, are profound. The parents' revenge, as it
were, is realized finally on seeing their children
join the ranks of parents themselves, confronted
by the very reflection of parent-child dissonance.

Only the grandparents are firmly in the child's
self-obsessed, entitled orbit, holding no brief for
their own children suddenly confronted by that
all-too-familiar challenge. Oppositional divides
widen, converge. The new parents' methodology
confronted by the old parents whose memory
of their own efforts remain sharply astringent .

Emotions lavished on the new generation in a
conspiracy linking children and grandparents,
excluding the parents, the agony of raising
children reveals its purpose as a necessary albeit
blighted tedium whose end result, the grandchildren
who can do no wrong, delights the grandparents
into a state of exuberant elderly amnesia.

 

 

ME, LAST YEAR

 

At school one morning, before Mr. Henderson got in to home room, Pearl told everyone who was sitting around, to kindly shut up. She had something to say. Turned out her and her group of snotty, stuck-ups decided they’d like to get something for Mr. Henderson as a gift from us. So he wouldn’t forget us. Personally, I think he’d just as soon forget us all. Especially me. As soon as we graduate. If not sooner.

Anyway, what they thought was, they thought they’d collect two dollars - cripes! TWO DOLLARS! - from each of us eager-beavers. They think I’m made of money or something? They planned, they said, to get him a real nice present from all of us.

“What’re you thinking of getting him?” I asked, getting real brave. “A gold-plated spittoon?”

“Very funny, Miss Feldpoop” Pearl said nastily. And of course everyone laughed. They think it’s good fun to play around with my name. I’m quite above mangling someone’s name up like that, of course. And I just ignore them. “Actually, we’ve already come to a consensus conclusion about what we’ll get him.”

“Consensus? Hey, that means that everyone agrees. We never even heard about your plans before. You didn’t ask us. Here you are, just telling us! What if some of us don’t think it’s such a hot idea, eh?”

“How about just shutting up for a minute, Miss Blabbermouth. I’m trying to tell everyone something before Mr. Henderson gets in. When you hear it all maybe then we’ll let you have your say. Meanwhile, kindly shut up.” So I did. Like what else could I do? Everyone was telling me to shut my big mouth.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted”, Pearl went on, glaring at me in a very unfriendly way, “What we thought we’d do was collect two dollars from everyone. Then an appointed group - me and Nancy and Michelline actually - will go out and get a present from all of us. Actually, we kind of think we know what we’re going to get. It’s just a matter of going out and ordering it. Rosemary had the great idea of a silver-plated urn on a plaque, and we’d have it engraved ‘to Mr. Henderson, from all of us’.”

Half the kids were nodding their heads and saying ‘great’, and like that. Crap! Are they kidding? A bloody loving-cup? All of a sudden they’re in love with Mr. Henderson. Like, all year they never pay attention and he’s got one hassle after another (not that he doesn’t always deserve them), but now they’re so sad to leave they’ve got to get him a yucky cup with a message from his loving class. I’ll be darned if I’m going to have anything to do with it!

We couldn’t talk about it any more then, because Mr. Henderson came in and we started to do English, and he told us we were having another test tomorrow, better study tonight.

Oboy, already today we’ve got math and French homework, and probably he’ll give us geography homework too, before the day is out. Don’t they ever get together and talk about all the homework they’re loading us down with, and decide sometimes, to give us a break? Everyone groaned as usual, but I put my hand up.

“Mr. Henderson, we just had an English test last week. Do we really need to have another one so soon?”

“Jennifer, I do believe I’m the best judge of that, not you. Are you the self-appointed spokesman - excuse me, spokesperson - for this class? You’ve turned into the greatest complainer I can recall ever having in any of my classes!”

“Sir, I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to point out to you that we had a test last week. Like maybe you forgot or something. And anyway, we’re all loaded down with homework for tonight, and Mr. Levesque wants us to study French for a real big test on Thursday, and really, it’s just too much!”

I KNOW that most of the kids feel just like I do, but just because I’m the one who stood up to say something, no one will back me up. Well, Jennifer T and Donna and Diane maybe will, but that’s not enough, and some of the kids started pointing fingers at me and saying -whiney-Jenny’, and I’m sure I heard Sally talking to Pearl about me, saying I’m a poor sport and a whining bitch.

“At any rate Jennifer, this test is more than just a simple test. It’s to be a review of everything we’ve taken the past several months. And I fully expect all of you to be prepared.”

Oboy, things seem to be going from bad to worse, or something. This time everyone groaned, and he turned to the class and said “We’ve gone over the salient points time and again, and I’m quite confident most of you know your subject. It won’t take much time for you to review the work we’ve done. You’ll find that the anticipation of a test is invariably more difficult and intimidating than the actual test.

"None of you should have any trouble at all if you just skim over the work we’ve done, and tell yourself to relax. After all, final exams are just a few weeks away, and you might as well be prepared. Call it, if you will, a dress rehearsal.” And he chuckled at his sparkling wit. But no one else thought it was funny. 

 

 

Settling Into Winter

 

Wickedly bad tempered of late
she has sent one of her acolytes
to vent his ill tempest upon us
simply to remind, lest we forget,
what forces they are that obey
Nature, corresponding to our
frail-minded clinging to puny
humankind's feeble management.

That ill wind, in intense
intercourse with a tempestuously
plunging atmosphere, and a
side dalliance with those
battered, bruised clouds venting
vapour over the land
has us cringing in paroxysms
of mortal distaste.

Trees surrender to naked despair.
Fish dive deep and anxiously hover.
Birds make frantic haste
to leave this familiar space.
While insects burrow deep
to wait out the annual tantrum.

Creatures of the forest gather
what they may to make
themselves scarce as the
landscape inexorably alters. We
grimace at the discomfort of
increasing displays of distemper.

Cringe before her directed onslaughts
of frigid air, wild wind, icy sleet, rain
and snow. Like other animals
we wait out the angry funk.
Awaiting opportunity to resume
the ease of changeable
Nature's goodly graces.

 

The Sole Master Gardener

 

The gardens, muted of colour
form, texture, fragrance
are now a collapsed
architecture, delighting us
no longer as fall deepens
into garden-bleak winter.

Gone the thriving, brilliant
choreography, the boundless
exuberance of bulbs and tubers
bursting into flower, the shrubs
and fruit trees showering petals
transformed into luscious fruit.

The garden now is pallid,
exhausted, its summer audition
long past, the chorus of blooms
extinguished, no encores as the
final departure of leafy canopy
has descended echoing dismay.

The curtain is prepared now to fall.
The last bow and curtsy executed
as nature asserts sovereignty.
Casually deflects assumptions our
efforts reflected ownership
of carefully plotted, nurtured
triumphant gardenscapes.

There is no perpetuity here, merely
the gardener's eccentricity in believing
they exerted control over the order of
their gardening efforts. A brief, illusory
delusion, a borrowed vision, a hallowed
trust now returned to nature
and winter's ascendancy.

 

 

Lost In a Literary Reverie

 

 

Though expectations can collapse
you can so often tell a book
by its cover, if not its widespread coverage.
The comfort and anticipation of
hefting a voluminous promise inherent
in the prospect of another reading
opportunity to open the mind
introduce the reader to new concepts
words cleverly manipulated to convey
meaning hitherto never suspected.

The awe felt at the storytelling prowess
of some minds drenched with the capacity
to invite readers into the mysteries
of life seen in ways fey and clever
beyond belief; but not quite beyond
as we suspend mundane faculties
so given to incredulity and lose ourselves
in the bends and twists of a creative
process whose Muse has triumphed.

Is there any greater pleasure than the
expectation of losing oneself in a landscape
explored by a skillful creationist,
unhesitatingly transcribed for our
delectation in fantasy and fact
drawing us ever closer into an arras
of human emotions we may have
noted but never quite remotely reached
shielded by the soft safe haven
of our own protected lives?

Each book sends a shiver of expectation
over our minds, into our very souls.
Each an exquisite jewel of the imagination
transporting, elevating, entertaining, instructing
us in the ways of Nature and the nature
of humankind; occasionally absent
in the telling. How utterly droll. 

 

 

Boredom's a Bastard

 

She was bored. Achingly, mind-numbingly bored. Boredom had been her companion in place of any other. Boredom greeted her as casually as her husband once did, as she rose from her bed in the morning. It had its coffee companionably with her, followed her to work, and came back home with her at night. The most faithful companion she could ever imagine. It never lied to her, encouraged her, disparaged her, or evaded her.

But it did drive her to the same kind of despair she had experienced when she'd had her affair - once she realized her husband was doing the same. That despair over the unfairness of it all. Him leaving her in utter contempt, simply for doing what he had.

Her boredom is all-encompassing. However, she does not live alone with her boredom. Her 15-year-old daughter, busy with high school, her friends, and everything that entertains and inspires and brings delight to the morose mind of a teen-age girl, lives with her. Unlike her younger brother, she has never forgiven her father for leaving them. Mostly because, as she said, her mother’s incessant moody fatigues and lectures about the untrustworthiness of men drove both her and her brother to distraction. It was not exactly fun for them, living with their mother. Still, she refused to even see her father, acknowledge his existence. Her mother had succeeded in at least instilling that level of defiance and anger in her daughter.

She herself never sees him. She hasn’t ever once confronted him, looked him in the face, spoken with him over the last seven years that saw them first separated, then finally divorced. If he calls, to speak with their son, she listens mutely, puts down the receiver and calls her son to the telephone. She never says “it’s your father calling”, she says instead “someone wants to speak with you”.

Her son, now that he’s thirteen, spends week-ends with his father. Her family tells her that’s the best thing, that he needs to be around his father, pattern himself after a man, have a man’s influence in his life, to grow up normally. Although she bitterly resents this, she is resigned to it.

She tries not to dwell on the thought of her son accepting his father’s second wife, her replacement. Although she wasn’t certain, she felt her ex-husband’s new wife was likely one of those easily-laid women he’d been with while married to her. Her son says not so much as a word about either his father or his step-mother. He knows his mother has no wish to hear anything unless it is to condemn either of them, and that he would not do. He had said, at first, that his father’s new wife was 'OK', didn’t bug him. Obviously then, her ex-husband wasn’t bored. She really, truly resented that, the bastard.

He didn’t have to leave her. He could have said to her that he understood how it was, how his philandering had led her to do precisely what he was doing. But he wouldn’t admit it. He refused, adamantly, to say he had started it, that it was his sleeping around with other women that initiated her into the possibility of sticking it to him by doing the same.

“You’ve no proof” he said. “What you have is a dirty little mind, accusing me of sleeping around.”

“Right! I’ve got the dirty little mind, have I? You’re not nearly as clever as you think, mister. I’ve had reports back from mutual friends that you’ve been seen in pretty compromising situations.”

“Gossip? You depend on gossip about me to take it as proof positive that I’ve done those things?”

“Damn right, bud. I have it on the best authority. Augmented, I should add, by little clues I’ve picked up on my very own.”

“Clues? Madam Holmes, you picked up clues?”

“You’ve been too sloppy with some of your credit card charges. I’ve seen them. I can put two and two together. I never received any gifts from you from the places on that detailed listing.”

“That’s it? That’s the extent of your ‘proof’?”

“No, no it isn’t. Don’t you think even from a male perspective that it’s odd a man chooses not to have sex with his wife over a period of months at a time? Am I supposed to think that’s normal? Or might I somehow deduce that it’s normal for someone who’s getting off somewhere else?”

“Yes, you do haveyour mind in the gutter. I don’t have to explain, and I won’t. If you wondered you could have come directly to me to discuss any concerns you might have had. You might have been surprised at the answers.”

She was no fool, and she knew what she knew. It was indisputable. He didn’t have the kind of job that required working late nights, nor week-end trips. And suddenly there it was, his professional life requiring both those elements, with nothing but the most casual explanation from him.

In the end everything worked out to favour him, not her. They’d split everything, the proceeds from the sale of the house, the furnishings, everything. She might have looked for another house, but she decided to rent an apartment, instead. She did, though, move as far from their old neighbourhood as possible. No wish to see their old neighbours, suffer their pitying looks; try to overlook the awkwardness. Anyway, she never did like that neighbourhood, it was his choice, not hers.

And then to discover, once she was settled with the kids in their new home that he had decided to rent nearby as well. It was infuriating. She always feared, going out, that she would run into him. Worse, coming across his new wife, even not knowing who she was, what she looked like. She would have the advantage on her; likely recognizing her from a family photograph. It was too much to bear. She hated him with a grinding passion.

Which did nothing whatever to relieve her constant state of boredom. And the two companion emotions, depression and loneliness. She deserved better. The man she’d had that affair with thought so too. He had offered to pay for her apartment. Of course that came with a price. He would also have a key. And that was just too awkward, even if the kids were seven years younger, back then. Unlike her husband he had no intention of leaving his wife. He no longer loved her, he said, but he felt responsible for her, felt pity for her, for her compromised health condition.

“You said you love me” she wheedled him.

“It’s true, I said it, I meant it” he retorted, after one of their many heated discussions, when she had tried to patch the hole in her life by convincing him that he should leave his wife and marry her.

“You love me”, she said scathingly, “but not quite enough to want to live with me. Instead you’re happy living with a woman whom you no longer love, and you won’t commit to me. That’s your idea of love?”

“No, no it isn’t, but you’ve got to understand, she has no one else, she needs to be cared for, and I have that responsibility.”

“What about me?” she'd wailed, despairingly, when he would not be moved by her argument. “What about me? I’ve lost my husband because of you, and now I have nothing.”

“You can still have me” he said quietly.

“I won’t agree to those terms” she said sharply. “I won’t be a kept woman, living in an apartment you pay for, worrying about my kids getting screwed up, seeing some guy they don’t know hanging around, waiting for his intimate opportunities as soon as their heads hit the pillow. How long could people keep up that kind of relationship anyway?”

“You’re right” he finally allowed. Said he was sorry. Sorry about everything. About both of them succumbing to the relationship they had developed, each of them covertly and deliberately enjoying the thrill of illicit sex and misleading their spouses. It was no way to live. And she was right about that. Still, he would not leave his wife. And that left only one alternative.

And so they parted. It was far easier for her to part with him than with her husband. It was the idea of it; one relationship carnal and infused with the excitement of the forbidden, the other comforting in its implied social and relational security, infuriating though her husband’s stealthy forays for sex outside their home was. It seemed important at the time, and far less so as time widened the distance between the reality of her discovery and her resultant rage, and what she now experienced -- a great yawning distance of boredom.

She’d given a lot of thought to the barrenness of her social life, her lack of intimacy with anyone. Confided in one of the women she worked most closely with that she had decided to start an Internet-based dating service. Her friend observed that there seemed to be a lot of those around; why did she think she might be successful in starting up yet another one?

It was, she responded, her experience with being single, with being deprived of a life-mate, of a partner in life, that made her perfect for such an enterprise. She would bring to it a deep understanding of the trauma that people suffer after relationship separations. She knew from her very own experience how difficult it was to initiate new relationships, to discover others who shared similar interests, had like values, desperately wanted to find a companion. She could easily be a leader, someone to whom others could confide their disappointments and look to for guidance. Her explanation sounded entirely rational and impressed her friend no end.

Who then responded by offering a name for such a dating service. “Call it Lilith Garden”, she said. She had considered something like “Adam and Eve”, but then discovered that name had been taken. There were other possibilities, names including the word “Paradise”, that kind of thing, but when she did her Googling homework she always discovered those names had been taken. No one had co-opted Lilith, Adam's original mate, and she decided that made sense. She had someone help her with the artwork, and putting together a Web page, and couldn’t believe the number of people who responded, emailed her, eager to join her new group. The charge, she thought, was fairly modest; she had done her homework.

It was amazing how it lifted her spirits, brought her out of herself, to communicate with all these people. Lonely, like her, desperately looking for a companion, tired of looking in places where no one ever turned up but losers. Like themselves, though they never said that. She was generous in giving out advice, and people were eager to know what she had to say, they sought out her opinion. After all, she was running this greet-and-date operation, she had to know things that eluded them. She began matching people up according to their stated values, their tastes, their interests, their backgrounds. And encouraged them, when initial impressions didn’t match their anticipated longings, to be patient, give it a try, dig a little deeper into themselves to find a more co-operative spirit. In the short few months since she had launched her little enterprise she became a different person.

She felt alive again, fascinated by what she had begun, happy to act as a social chaperone, introducing people, encouraging them. She more than earned that money she extracted from her clients, she felt. They needed her, and she was happy to accommodate that need. She was less than thrilled when, on a few occasions, disgruntled clients blamed her for a series of unfortunate couplings when things most certainly did not turn out they way they even modestly hoped for. But that, she emphasized to them, sagely, was what life was like, wasn’t it? You had to take some chances, and your lumps along with them, to find in the end what you really wanted. And guess what? She archly said to them, it works, you’ll find the one you’re aching for, they’re there, you just have to keep on trying.

After another month or so she became acutely discouraged. It just seemed to flood over her all at once, as it were. One day she was alert and enthusiastic and everyone’s mentor, the next she was completely deflated, demoralized again, wondering what on earth she was doing. Finally admitting to herself she really had no idea what she was doing, playing around with peoples’ lives, encouraging them, pushing them toward a future that had no guarantees and, admittedly, most often no promise of success in discovering that coveted pot of gold at the end of their desperate social lives devoid of contact, of meaning.

Because, in fact, that was precisely where she was stuck. Mired in a life without satisfaction to her, without meaningful contact, a relationship with another person to whom she could devote herself, and who, in the end, would find her enchanting, desirable, who would cherish her.

She had lapsed back to the beginning of her intolerable, prolonged courtship with misery. And it was eating her up with anger, bitterness and utter dejection. Her children had no idea why their mother became once again that harridan that kept plaguing them with her objections to whatever it was they wanted to do.

Her friend at work hinted that perhaps she’d bit off more than she could manage, with her dating service. It was dragging on her, convulsing her own emotions with its incessant demands.

She agreed. She felt she could no longer continue the sham. She sent out a long emailed message to all of her subscribers, admitting that she simply wasn’t fit for the task of guiding them any longer. She realized, she said, that she was disappointing them all, but she emphasized that she was as greatly disappointed in her surrender to this defeat, as they would be. She had appreciated that they needed someone to lean on, and she thought she was strong enough to help them all, because she really, really cared about them. And, she said, she was prepared, to fully reimburse to any who were interested in making such a claim, that portion of their unused monthly dues that fell into the time-frame of the suspension of Lilith’s Garden's dating service.

People upbraided her through a series of emails, accused her of trifling with their lives, told her they detested her, that she was an egotistical user of people. It wasn’t the money, they argued, it was the trust they had placed in her, and she had never had the slightest intention of honouring that trust. They would never forgive her. Some threatened to take her to court, and she worried immensely about that, but it never did materialize. She emptied her bank account, grown so nicely over that six-month period, in reimbursing all the people who demanded their money back. Surrendering those funds did nothing to ingratiate her with those who now considered her a pariah, a social monster who took pleasure in manipulating other peoples’ tender emotions.

Finally, in worse emotional shape than ever, there was a telephone call. The voice sounded familiar but her mind was completely blank. It’s me, he said. Me? Who the hell was me? Frank. Frank?

“How are you?”

“Fine, I was just wondering how you are. I’ve missed you. You’ve no idea how much.”

“Really? How good to hear from you. I hardly recognized your voice, it’s been so long.”

“Yes, it has been. But you know, I thought of you constantly through the years. I haven’t been able to put you out of my mind. I recall all those good times we had together. I’d like to see you.”

“You would? Well, I suppose that could be arranged….”

She felt ecstatic, suddenly her boredom dissipated, she felt anticipatory, gloriously happy. Unaccountably happy, in fact, since this was a call from someone she'd scarcely given much thought to, over the years. Now, hearing his voice, she too thought back to the times they’d had. She contrived to recall those times as exciting, pleasurable, meaningful. Pushing back another memory of demeaningly covert meetings, guilt, and in the end, a bitter parting.

At work next day she told her friend all about the call, about the invitation, the yearning both had to see one another again. She knew, she confided, that if she agreed to meet, they would end having sex. She wondered, she threw out casually at her friend, if it would be worth it. She was dying to see the guy, he’d been really good-looking, skilled at love-making, said all the right things, bought her wonderful gifts, made her feel really special.

Well, responded her friend carefully, what’ve you got to lose? This, from a woman who actually felt scandalized by these revelations, who would never herself ever consider such an assignation. Of course this woman was sturdily, safely married, she could afford to spurn an opportunity for a little imaginative fun. She wasn’t lonely, bored, bitter. These thoughts running through her mind, she upbraided herself for thinking of her standards, not her friend's obvious need to be encouraged, to go ahead with what she most obviously wanted to do. It just puzzled her that her advice would be sought, under the circumstances. So she simply repeated, why not, what had she got to lose?

So, it was done. They met, they had sex, they parted. Meeting one another after that seven-year gap was interesting. Amazing how seven years could alter someone’s physical appearance. He wasn’t so handsome, after all. Sexy, well not so much, why did she remember him like that? But he did relay to her some interesting information. His wife had died. Of natural causes, due to her medical condition, and he was now single. After relaying that information there was an awkward pause; neither had much to add, other than her “sorry to hear that”.

And the sex, well it wasn’t anything, in fact. She had shopped beforehand, bought slinky black underwear, imagined the sensuous delight of allowing him to undress her, fondle her, speak of his urgency. That was what had happened years ago, wasn’t it? So much a part of his appeal to her? Well, all that happened, and big deal. She could tell he felt as awkward as she did, throughout the evening they spent together. Dinner was nice, the flowers he brought along very nice, but what the hell was she supposed to do with them?

Checking into the hotel was not very nice. She didn’t enjoy that. It had lost its appeal, that mysterious, mischievous frisson of pleasure mixed with social guilt that had shot through her when they’d done that, repeatedly, years ago. It had heightened the pleasure they both extracted from their furtive meetings; their frantic, exuberant, sex.

She was glad when the evening was finally over, when they parted, each awkwardly promising to keep in touch. Neither had any such intention.

Remarkably, afterward, she no longer felt bored, restless, miserable. She felt … all right. 

 

 

Entitled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is an appealing picture, on a pleasant day. A solitary figure, an elderly man seen from a distance, walking along briskly enough, slightly hunched into himself, traffic on the busy thoroughfare steady, but he seemingly absorbed in private thoughts. As the onlooker strides closer, it can be seen that the man has a shock of white hair, reaching to his shoulders, but neat, very nice looking. He also has a white moustache, a neatly-trimmed beard, bearing still a touch of his dark colour when he was a younger man. Closer still, and it becomes obvious this is not an old man, simply one in his late-middle years whose hair has been prematurely cleansed of colour. When he reaches a street forking off the main street, he turns abruptly, as though shaking himself out of a reverie, looks around him, smiles to himself and proceeds up the street.

This, he feels, is the best part of his daily routine. He used to walk a little further, over to where they had first lived when they came to Canada. A far more modest home, in a different neighbourhood. It’s been two decades since they sold that one, and bought up, to a four-bedroom, two-story with a double-height great room. As he ambles up the street he lives on, familiar with every house on the street, the semis, the singles, the larger houses mounting up the street close to his own, he indulges in his daily scrutiny. Anxious to discover any alterations in his familiar landscape. Comparing, always comparing his property to those of others, and never finding his wanting in any way.

He still holds a grudge close to his familial considerations for his cousin, the pharmacist, who had badgered him into opting for surgery. This doctor, this specialist he knew personally and would personally vouch for, was capable of operating on his shoulder. He’d make it as good as new. He’d been a pipe-fitter, and injured himself on the job. Workers’ Compensation had been reluctant at first to acknowledge that it was a workplace injury, but how else could he have injured himself like that? (Even if it hadn’t occurred when he was at work, not exactly.) The operation had been partially successful, but hadn’t restored him to full use of his arm. His right arm. Still, he looked around, took a part-time job with the new Home Depot that opened nearby. He could still drive, still do physical things.

Such things happen; he re-injured the arm. Little wonder, those racist bastards made him work back in the warehouse, slinging heavy boxes around. His old injury, that shoulder that had never really healed, was now more painful, he was unable to do anything, even drive. Again, his cousin implored him to submit to another operation; the surgeon, his friend, would this time solve the problem. His own fault for succumbing, and the succeeding operation really put him out of sorts, constant low-grade pain. Now he had less use of that arm affixed to that accursed shoulder, than ever before. Why did he listen to cousin? His own fault, for believing, for trusting family. He’d be more careful in future.

Meanwhile, work was out of the question. He was now permanently retired, disabled. Dependent on his wife, who went out to work every day. Good thing she had a responsible, well-remunerated professional position with the federal government. Good thing she didn’t really mind. Good thing she felt responsible for his well-being, was stricken by the fact she could do little to alleviate his frequent descents into depression.

Unlike his brothers he never had worn a turban, living in Canada. He’d lived on this street for two decades and none of his neighbours had ever seen him like that, wearing a turban. His wife occasionally wore a sari, but not in public, only ceremonially, for special occasions. She was as modern and forward-looking as he. They attended a local gurdwara, but only for special events. Family occasions. When there would be a sudden influx of family members from all over Canada, the United States, and India, and their house would be filled to overflowing. Of course his brother’s house, and his cousin’s too, were also expanded to warmly welcome their relatives. Neighbours in their pluralist-inhabited street had become familiar with the fragrant, attention-demanding odours redolent primarily of onions and spices, wafting over the area. That’s one thing his cousin was good for, to help with the cooking.

In any event, they were now Canadians. Their adopted country had been good to them. And they have reciprocated. They pay taxes. They have the same values as all those around them in the greater society. His son plays hockey, he plays soccer, he’s in house leagues. Their daughter - well, her wedding was a traditional one. Costly. Their family, their guests expected no less. Extravagant, but that’s how Sikh weddings are.

Nor had they neglected their obligations to their heritage, had taken the children with them twice back to the Punjab, to see family. Second time around, when he went alone, himself with Deepak, wasn’t so good. As though family ties had weakened, somehow the respect he always felt entitled to, was absent. Everyone too busy. It was deplorable, he said later, to one of his favourite neighbours, how materialism had overtaken good manners. His favourite sister’s son too busy to come and visit, to see his uncle, come so far, from Canada to India. Couldn’t get away from work, had important deals to conclude.

He was a gregarious figure, happy to ingratiate himself with his neighbours. Didn’t matter who, though he had his favourites. French, Black, Chinese, Egyptian, Jewish, Christian and run-of-the-mill Canadian-born, he liked to stand around and talk. He enjoyed his good relations with his neighbours. With one exception, the little dark Bangladeshi fellow who lived around the corner and who would stand off any time he saw his Indian Sikh neighbour holding forth. He could sense the fear and suspicion emanating from his Muslim neighbour, and he strangely relished it. It felt empowering in a way he couldn’t quite finger. Even though, when Luvaleen married, the Bangladeshi neighbour’s wife sent a very courteous note of congratulations.

Cordial relations with neighbours are important. Just as frequent trips to Toronto are, to visit with all their relatives there. It’s where Luvaleen completed her education; York University, pharmacy. It’s where she met her future husband, same university, specializing in nephrology. It’s where Luvaleen and Imran now live, where they’ve bought a nice house. And Luvaleen is expecting a baby. About time: she’s almost 29. Who ever heard of an Indian girl waiting so long to start a family?

Well, he may be unable to work any longer, but he knows his way around. They’re not short of money, and when he decides to get something done, he knows how to do his homework. Calling in the trades, getting estimates, bargaining. Finding out from others if they’ve been satisfied with the work they had done. Getting in touch with that place … what’s it called? Yes, to see if there have been any complaints about workmanship, after-service. He knows how to beat down the prices. If they’re too low, what he offers, then the trades people always have the option of bowing out. They never do, he smiles to himself. Feeling pretty good about his bargaining prowess. Which doesn’t stop him from later complaining over perceived inadequacies in workmanship. He lets them know, the owners, how he feels about their workers’ lack of diligence to the job at hand. Refuses to hand over the last cheque until they come themselves to his house to hear his litany of complaints, and shows them what he considers to be sub-standard work. Up to standard, they claim, thanking him for his business, for the long-awaited cheque now grasped tightly in hand. And they leave, beaming; another customer satisfied.

He found his match in buying a new car, though. Trading in the old van, that General Motors piece of junk that began to fall apart in no time flat, although they don’t drive all that much. Well, regular trips to Toronto, that’s all. And that bright green little Toyota that was such a fuel-efficient vehicle, but a colour his wife hated, and his son complained it had no air conditioning. He’d bought it second-hand, got it at a really good price. He consulted with some of his neighbours. The fellow right next door works for a car leasing company. He’s young, with a family of kids all under six, eager to make a deal. But no deal, don’t like the vehicles he has. Because they’re leased, they’ve got all kinds of fancy, useless gadgets and luxurious details, and who needs them. They bring the price up too high.

Discussed cars with the neighbour whose wisdom, as an elder, he most respects in the neighbourhood. Recommended Honda. Toyota a good second. So what’d he decide on? Hyundai. A lot of car for the money. He thought. Didn’t take long before all kinds of little irritants popped up. Went back to the dealer who offered him a rebate. Offered to take the car back, but it would cost him. Found his match in their sly, unacceptable solutions to the problems that ground away at his good nature. Never again would he buy such a vehicle; lousy service, poor mechanical performance.

He prided himself on giving sage advice. He listened politely, even solicited the advice of those few he liked and respected - well, he liked everyone, just withheld respect from a few. There are those whose opinions he valued. Yet he always came to his own conclusions, largely based on the bargain principle. Then, of course, groused unendingly with dissatisfaction afterward, that black and bleak temper descending, convinced he had been hoodwinked. Lack of diligence to his personal code of consumer triumph. A code he saw foolishly rejected when a neighbour to whom he had referred a roofing contractor had deigned to follow his advice and bargain down the man’s calculated cost estimate. That neighbour had sunk in his estimation.

People, he concluded, are their own worst enemies. When they could save a few hard-earned dollars, they just forge ahead and carelessly spend more than they should. And it’s not just money, it’s convenience and certain entitlements as well. After all, they’re all taxpayers, aren’t they? We’ve all got standards and there’s a social contract that speaks of an egalitarian social contract, isn’t there?

And just yesterday he came across that elderly couple out for their daily constitutional. Carrying their two little dogs, instead of walking them on leashes. They’re dogs, not infants, after all. But they don’t like their dogs walking on the street. They rove up to the greenbelt and then set the animals down, free to roam in a natural setting.

Get your flu shot yet? Talk of the pandemic and the long line-ups of people in the ranks of those deemed to require inoculation before the general public was everywhere, on the radio, television, in the newspapers. Fodder for conversation. He asked, beaming at them, got your shot yet? It’s like a game, one-upsmanship. No, they hadn’t, they shrugged unconcernedly. After all, the clinics are administering the vaccines only to high-risk groups.

They’re older than him by fifteen years, but hale, hearty. They can wait, no hurry for them, they said. Did get their annual seasonal shot, though.

Had my H1N1 shot, he says proudly. No one at the clinic asked anything. Whether he was in the critical category. Despite all the news about long line-ups and disgruntled people having to wait interminably to get their shots, his was quick. No line-up, no waiting, well, just a short wait. Smiling at their surprised countenances, he averred he hadn’t been feeling at all well that day.