Life Is So Unfair!

My grandmother, she’s this little woman with kind of curly, silver hair and she used to look after me every day from the time I was an infant until I was nine, when my mother was out to work. Well, she sometimes laughs at me. It can be infuriating, really. It’s not laughing, actually, guess it’s more like teasing. Deliberately, of course. I’m not dumb, I know she’s trying to get me to realize what I’m saying before I do it, and then stop saying it. But it’s hard.

And, as I say, infuriating, depending on when she does it. If I’m with friends, and she does it, it makes me feel pretty annoyed. I don’t bother saying anything to her, what’s the point?
I just kind of laugh along with her. Every time I say something like “it’s not fair”, or - and I know this sounds kind of silly, since I’m in my teens now - “it’s not my fault”, she does it.

Not my fault if those phrases just kind of come tripping out of me. See what I mean? I’m so accustomed to saying them, I don’t even think about it. And knowing that, I see what my grandmother means. The minute one of those phrases has come out of my mouth, she turns to me, and in a loud voice, with a kind of whining inflection that is truly awful, copies me.

“Not my fault”, she deliberately, emphatically repeats with a kind of nasal whine. I swear I don’t sound like that, not really. It’s just her way of drawing my attention to what I’ve said. Thanks a whole bunch, grandma. On the other hand, I know very well she doesn’t mean to make me feel bad, just her way of trying to make me more aware of what I’m saying.

I shouldn’t feel so abruptly defensive about anything. And, as she has always (at least lately, now that I’m older, noticing things more, and remarking about them to her) said to me, life isn’t necessarily fair. It’s just life, you take it as it comes and make the best of it. Still, it’s not, in a sense, respectful of me, I think, when she does that. Maybe I will get around to asking her to stop. If I can’t manage, somehow to stop myself belting out that automatic defense-mechanism. Well, I get her point.

Still, it’s true, and I defy anyone, anyone at all, to prove to me that life is fair. Because it most definitely is not. My grandmother says I’m much too sensitive. She tells me that when I was really young, much younger than I am now, say around second grade, my teacher then told my grandmother that she was impressed at my natural sense of justice. Don’t even ask me how a grade two teacher would arrive at that kind of conclusion of a little kid. My grandmother took it to heart, proudly. Insists that, on the evidence before her, I have been imbued (likely through my genetic inheritance, as she always says), with an enhanced, natural sense of justice.

Maybe that’s why I’m so outraged at my grade eight teacher, for not respecting us kids as thinking human beings. She assumes we’re idiots. Claims we are, anyway. And I’ve never before had a teacher who resorted to hysterics, thinking that will make us behave better. It may be true, and I believe it is, that this class is one of the rudest, rowdiest ones in the school. We’re just incidentally the only grade eight in the school, since the entire school enrolment is only 220. Shrinking year by year.

The first year I came here it was 260. Seems the rural areas of this province are seeing a decline in the elementary school population. That’s why schools are closing all over the place. Even my old school, in the city, where I used to go when we lived close to my grandparents has closed. Well, it wasn’t exactly in the city proper, although it’s considered to be now, through amalgamation. Back then it was considered the suburbs. The suburbs are moving steadily outward.

Anyway (where was I?. I get that kind of thing from my grandmother, going off in a tangent. Too much either on or in my mind, she says). Right, my teacher. She will not listen. She thinks she knows what goes on, and draws erroneous conclusions. Just because I’m the tallest kid in the class, taller even than the guys, she thinks I’m the number-one class troublemaker. Maybe too because I talk a lot, but what can you do when someone is talking to you? I turn around to answer a question or to respond to something someone says beside me or behind me, and whomp! She leaps all over me. When I try to explain she screams.

I should explain, it isn’t only me that gets ripped into, it’s most of the class, with the exception of a few of her favourites. Heaven save us from class favourites, those snivelling little angels who can never do anything wrong. They’re actually the sneakiest, most untrustworthy kids; the snottiest ones too, for that matter. There’s a bunch of us kids, guys I hang around with, that she picks on, mostly. Although she’ll scream at anyone, when she’s irritated. And lately she’s always irritated.

No wonder no one listens to her, why the class just keeps on behaving badly. She’s lost our respect. I’m ready to tell her that to her face. That’s no way to behave, to control a class, to discipline us collectively for something one or two people have done that has outraged her. That we don’t even know anything about. But she won’t listen. She wants respect, but isn’t prepared to extend it to any of us. That’s fair?

Things got so bad that a few weeks back the principal sat in on the class, while our teacher was away on sick leave. No, she wasn’t sick, it was her kid. That’s another thing, she’s there to teach us, right? So why do we have to sit there, bored out of our skulls, listening to her talk about her family situation? Who cares?

Her three-year-old kid seems prone to getting sick. You’d think she’d have someone else she could rely on when the day-care insists they can’t take him back until his fever is gone. She’s got parents, her husband’s parents. She’s tried using them in emergencies, she told us, but she doesn’t trust them. Doesn’t trust her own parents, her husband’s parents to look after their grandchild! What is the matter with the woman? She says they don’t understand her child, don’t know how to look after him properly. Sure.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain about that. After all, when she books off sick, we get fill-ins, replacement teachers. Some of them are okay, mostly they’re pretty clueless. Can’t work with the curriculum. So it’s a wasted day. Wasted with her there, when instead of teaching us, she assigns us really stupid homework, or just stands around talking about her family, about her week-end, about her state of health. She’s only in her late thirties, what happens with people when they get that old-not-old, do their brain cells go suddenly plunk?

Right. Like I was saying, the principal came in one day, and sat with us, to discuss the reputation this class is acquiring, which is how she put it. There’s only 23 kids in the class, not a big one, you’d think our teacher would be capable of putting in the effort she’s getting paid for. My mom says teachers make very good salaries; their union contracts see to it. And she’s been teaching for ten years, has some seniority, so she’s making good bucks. There I go again.

Anyway, the principal kind of prodded us, asking why did we think it was that our teacher was having such problems with the class? Why she kept sending so many of us over to talk with the vice-principal, when she was ‘at the end of her tether’. Why ask us? Well, presumably, she’d already discussed it with our teacher. No one wanted to say much of anything.

She took a different tack; said something general about the situation and asked us to raise our hands if we agreed, sit on them if we didn’t. That told her something, since when she asked if we were comfortable in the class, felt like we were learning, everyone sat on their dumb hands.

Well, said the principal, she was stymied. Didn’t know what to think. Never came across anything like it before. I guess not. She’s new at the school, but our old school records are available to her any time she wants to have a look at them. Mine, for example, will inform her that I’ve been commended many times in the past for my academic achievement, but more, because I’ve been useful to my previous teachers in helping shy students, or misbehaving students feel more included, getting them to thaw out, loosen their attitude, become less hostile.

I even had a thank-you note from some kid’s mother about it, and a certificate that went out in the mail so my mom could see it. Big deal. I actually did nothing extraordinary, nothing at all special, just treated them decently, that’s all.

Which is more, far more, than this teacher has ever done. At the beginning of the year I thought she was pretty cool. Truth is, she did help me in practical ways, like with my math, helped me to see it in a different way, so I was able to understand things better. I don’t know what happened after the first two months, things just disintegrated. And she’s been really horrible ever since.

I don’t enjoy people screaming at me, yelling in my face, accusing me of things I haven’t done. My mom, actually, says it’s partly my fault for judging my teacher. I’ve judged her to be incapable of performing her teacherly duties and as a result I’ve withheld my respect. I’m cool and polite. Evidently she takes umbrage at that. Tough.

The principal’s prodding was going nowhere. I raised my hand and offered my opinion, asked if I could proffer it. She said, go ahead. So I did. I told it like it was. Said we were as entitled to respect as our teacher, and if she couldn’t bother to offer it to us, why expect us to respect her in return? So we’re noisy and don’t pay attention. But, I emphasized, this happens precisely because we’re driven to it by our own exasperation over having to submit to this woman’s tirades, each and every day.

And, I said, this is interfering with our education, diminishing the level of our education, and we’re certainly entitled to more than what we’re experiencing. I wasn’t the least bit scared. I felt I was right, and when you feel that way, you’ve got a responsibility to yourself to proceed.

The principal didn’t scowl, didn’t look condemnatory, just looked at me kind of thoughtfully. That impressed me. She turned to the class and asked who else felt the way I did? Almost everyone lifted their hands. And then there was utter quiet. The principal heaved a huge sigh, got up, said she’d give it some thought, relay what she’d gleaned from us to our teacher. She turned to me before she left and asked if I’d be willing to repeat what I’d said to her, directly to my teacher. Most certainly would, I said.

Since then, nothing. Nothing, nothing at all. No acknowledgement from the office, nor our teacher that anything had taken place out of the ordinary. I felt pretty deflated, I’ll tell you. My mom said to give it a rest, just go with it, and forge ahead. Not to take things so seriously. It’s all right for her, she isn’t assaulted on a daily basis by the accusations of someone who won’t listen to reason.

And then, of course, there’s the little matter of my report card, my latest report card. She gave me marks in the mid- to high-70s. Patently absurd. I’ve earned much better marks than that. This report card punishes me for being outspoken, for being the victim of a personality clash.

Exactly, said my mom, your personality is clashing with that of your teacher. What’s happening in the classroom, she said, is exactly what occurs out in the real world, where people often don’t get along and have to make a concerted effort to do so. She herself, she told me, had to learn the hard way. She thought I would be smart enough to learn quicker than she had.

Obviously, I’m not. And I’m not.

My literature and English marks are absurd; no one reads more than I do, and I’ve got a perfect (well, pretty good) command of the language, and my tests are excellent. How can she interpret that to a slightly-above-average class mark? Ditto for geography, social studies, art and music. My French and math look about where they should be, but the rest is a travesty. She’d give me worse marks, I know, if she could get away with it. But she can’t, because I am a good student. I’m really, really pissed off, big time.

She’s really not very professional at all. My mom’s a professional. She takes pride in the work she does, and she does really complicated, important work. I don’t know all the details, but she can do these really amazing drawings, like architects do. She works on contract for the government. Makes more money that way, she says, than having a permanent job with them, though sometimes she gets really anxious when one contract has expired and she has to go looking for another one.

My teacher should be invited to go look for another job. I know that’s not very nice, but she isn’t very nice, and that’s the absolute truth. My mom says I’m too negative. My grandma says the same thing. What really, truly bugs the hell out of me is that this teacher, who makes everyone miserable around her, has said the same thing to me. She should know, she’s the very epitome of negativity.

And there’s a parent-teacher interview coming up. My mom was supposed to go in to the school on Monday for this interview. Me too, I was supposed to be there. I was looking forward to it, kind of in a twisted way. I know that whatever my teacher says, my mom will support her. Mom thinks I should be more disciplined, less inclined toward criticizing my elders, that I should learn to take advice, and be less judgemental. My grandmother has told me that my mom’s experiences at school paralleled mine; in other words my mom was just as critical of her teachers, as they complain I am with mine.

Listen, I was never exactly in love with any of my teachers. I liked some of them, didn’t care for others, but they weren’t like this person, not at all. I had more respect from my teachers when I attended pre-school, than I get now. And there’s something pretty wrong with that. If someone like my teacher hasn’t the necessary patience and the fortitude to teach a class of 12 and 13-year-olds, she shouldn’t be doing it.

My grandma told me there’s a glut of teachers, most of them can’t find jobs because of declining enrolment, and new graduates are just biding their time, waiting for older teachers to retire, or just making do, taking on temporary fill-in jobs. They’re on a list that the schools use, for emergency calls. And for the most part, when they come in to fill in for a day or two they don’t really do much of anything, other than baby-sit. That’s right, they don’t know where we’re at in the curriculum, and they’re not in a very good mood because they haven’t got permanent employment, and it just seems that they sit there resentful of us, as though we’re the ones who’ve gotten them into that mess.

Anyway, I repeat: life just isn’t fair. Here’s something that really bugs me. Every day after school I’d come home and first thing getting in the door I’d go over to speak with my little pig Henry, stroke his tiny head, and ask how his day was. Fill up his water, just to give him clean water to drink. And a bit of a treat, a piece of celery or apple. I got him at the Humane Society - mom’s big on rescues - when he was only two, they said. I loved him, I really did. He was so cute, made these really sweet little sounds.

Okay, I was kind of scared of him, too. Mom would laugh at me, she is used to handling animals. I should be, I’ve lived among them long enough, but Henry was different. He was so small. Mom would put him in my lap, and I’d brush his hair. And pet him. Sometimes he didn’t want to be handled, and he’d nip my fingers. Hard. I was just kind of leery of picking him up, in case I did something wrong, and hurt him or dropped him or something, even after Mom showed me how. I lacked confidence she said, and I certainly did.

Henry had a little cage when we first got him. But Mom decided he needed stimulation and more room, so she expanded it to two stories, and another area just for him to bounce around. At first he was just still all the time, didn’t move about much. But when he became accustomed to his new expanded cage, he began to explore it all. One level was for sleeping, the other for eating, and the large area on the first level for him to do whatever he wanted. His cage was right next to Mom’s rabbits, so he had plenty of company. They snuffled one another.

Actually he became so bold that Mom would sometimes leave the door to his cage swung wide open and he’d just go out and amble about everywhere. He was good about confining his droppings to a special area in his cage. For the most part, that is. He was a curious little devil, always wanted to know what was going on. The cat just paid him no mind, and Mom’s two dogs got used to him really fast. The smaller one even tried to play with Henry sometimes. I was always worried he’d get hurt, he was so small. He was afraid of nothing.

Along with his regular food, he’d also get a daily salad, fresh fruit and vegetables cut into little pieces. He would actually squeak repeatedly at about the time of day he knew he’d be getting his salad, impatient for his bowl. Made us all laugh. It really was funny seeing him padding around on the kitchen floor, in between the cat and the dogs, everyone politely managing to sidestep the other. Although when the cat started meowing, and the dogs barking, impatient for their meals, with Henry squeaking along, it reminded me of one of those old nursery stories grandma used to read me when I was small, The Musicians of Bremen.

One day I walked into the house, went over to Henry’s cage, and stroked his little head. He slept a lot, always, but that’s normal. I thought he was sleeping. Although I did think, at the time, how strangely his body seemed to be laying there, not the way it usually looked. His body looked stiff, awkward.

I soon realized he wasn’t going to respond to me. I freaked out, I really did. I just ran out of there, and shut myself into my bedroom. Until Mom got home. She sat down with me and we both cried. Then she wrapped him up in a tiny blanket and put him in a freezer bag and into the freezer. It was winter. She planned to bury him in the spring, soon as the ground thawed. He’d only been a year with me, my very own companion pet.

See what I mean?

My grandma says most teens are grumpy and inclined to fuming about things. Hormones, she says. Bullshit, I say. Not to her, of course.

The Ravine Keepers

"Back off Asshole!" he screamed at the younger of the three men. He swooped, raised an old piece of tree-limb, swung it at the smug face, missed by a mile, stumbled closer on the uneven trail, determined to do real harm. Veins bulged in his forehead, his eyes were squeezed with rage, his grey goatee dribbled with spittle.

“Whoa fella“, said the other, backing off, arms extended, hands forward, as though to fend off the frantic attack. The two other men, older, burlier, one clearly in authority, ordered him to drop his cudgel, get back to his hovel, wherever it was he crept out of. “Make yourself scarce, bud”, he said. “We have legitimate business here. Beat it!”

His head reeling, white-hot anger consuming him, he did, nonetheless drop the piece of wood, but stood there, glowering, a strip of the bright yellow tape that had encircled the collapse in his hand. It had been put there to shut off what was left of the path. He defied their authority. Who did they think they were, with their grey uniforms, their smirking faces, as though he was the day’s entertainment? They resembled Nazi shock troops, he said, and he called them Nazis, SS troopers. They shrugged their shoulders, turned away from him, continued their work. He made an awkward attempt to kick a boot-full of wet gravel at them.

His hair was grey, his eyes a steelier colour. His complexion a waxy grey. Their turned backs infuriated him. He screamed profanities. His voice shrilled, cracked, creaked. His body shaking with impotence.

Down the long hill entering the ravine another man, a regular who hadn’t missed a day in two decades, wondered what all the noise was about. He entered a higher, parallel cut in the side of the hill, newly bulldozed by this same crew earlier in the week, equipped earth-moving equipment sized to fit the tight area. They had bitten into the side of the hill above the creek, taken down a few trees to clear the passage, then flattened and gravelled the new trail. Taking the place of the collapsed one that had fallen with the shoulder of earth rampart into the creek bed.

As he paused, he recognized the man. He walked on, lifting his shoulders at the workers facing him in the near distance. He had only yesterday used the alternate trail for the first time. Thanked them for their efforts, said what a relief it was, to have access again, what a good job they’d done of relocating the trail. They appreciated that. Said wryly that not everyone appeared happy, but hadn’t elaborated.

They were in the process of re-inserting the metal posts closing off the old trail, at either end, where it had collapsed. And tried also to re-wind the yellow warning tape, to alert people to the danger of proceeding straight ahead. The slope had disintegrated, had been doing it in intervals through the years. The trail at that point had always made his wife nervous; she had seen it over the years becoming more narrow, precipitous. He had worried about the potential for some kid on a bicycle, not noticing the collapse, barrelling along, coming to grief. They’d been glad at the arrival of the public works crew.

They’d wondered, they said to him yesterday, who it was that removed the posts. He had too. Now they knew. The aggrieved man still stood there, back to him, screaming invectives. The elderly man said nothing, turned around, left.

This was a fellow he’d seen often the past few years on his regular jaunts in the ravine. A genial man with a wide smile of friendly recognition who liked to stop, make small talk, before moving on. A reflection of the civility most people extended to one another, passing on the trails. People who considered one another ravine-acquaintances, familiar through years of convivial small-talk as they walked together, then exited at different places along its trajectory.

This fellow he’d seen occasionally, axe in hand. He’d surmised that he’d taken it upon himself to ameliorate little awkward conditions that arose from time to time. Chopping off errant tree branches overgrown into the path. The occasional fallen tree whose trunk rolled across the trail. Those that kids tugged at, attempting to uproot, partially successfully, with immature trees. He’d thought that to be extremely public-spirited and had told him so. Eliciting a broad smile of bashful appreciation, and surprisingly, an emphatic handshake. He had an accent, which he placed as Eastern Europe, though he’d never asked him. None of his business. We all came from somewhere, at some time, in this country, he said to his wife.

It’s a bit of a geographic anomaly, a long ravined area directly in the centre of a built-up urban area. Because it’s an urban area and because the land there is so naturally given over to a series of ravines and interlocking forested areas, with narrow ledges dropping off on either side, then meeting up with more briefly open, meadow-like areas bordered by forest, the land, unfit for development because of its boggy nature, its large creeks and the clay and sand upon which it all sits, has long been a recreation site. In the sense that it provides for nearby residents an untamed landscape of nature at its finest. The creek and its tributaries, non-productive because of the lack of nurturing qualities, but picturesque, with the municipality having erected bridges here and there on the network of trails, crossing the creek as it meanders off the landscape.

Those residents who prefer to stir themselves physically, get out into an atmosphere of calm and natural beauty, regard their access to the ravine highly. It has immensely improved their quality of life. Those far greater numbers of nearby residents who have never ventured into the ravine, nor with any intention of so doing, have no interest in its welfare. A welfare that has entitled them to cleaner air living nearby, as the trees in the forested area act as a carbon-dioxide sink.

People who do venture into its rugged interior have long been familiar with the small wildlife abounding there, although the foxes, porcupines and quail that were regularly seen even a decade earlier are no longer there. Even deer were seen on occasion, picking their way across and onto the broader landscape closer to the Ottawa River or in the opposite direction where the greenbelt encircling the city centre, simply absorbed them. Though this past winter talk was rife of the presence of coyotes in the canyons where people didn't venture.

But squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks are often encountered; the more secretive moles and mice rarely. Birds of all descriptions, owls and blue jays, various types of woodpeckers, and hawks, chickadees, nuthatches, robins and cardinals. Insects, and occasionally snakes and toads seen in their season. In the winter months snow accumulates and the woods take on the sparkling aspect of a white wonderland, exquisite in the smooth luxury of a calming blanket of warmth to those small creatures seeking refuge from the dense, icy misery of winter in the snowiest, second-frostiest capital in the world.

Springtime is a gradual melting process, with the trails upheaved from being trodden upon frost slowly being absorbed back into the earth, while the sodden landscape eventually dries, the muck caused by the clay reasserting itself, drying back to a passable trail. Wildflowers begin their blooming season, from spring well beyond late fall. Mosses, lichens and all manner of odd alpine-appearing fungal growths, inclusive of mushrooms and shelf-fungi, enliven the trunks of trees, the forest understory, soon to be overtaken by shrubbery, ferns, saplings, and members of the ‘bane’ family.

From time to time the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources recalls the presence of the ravine and others like it, to dispatch surveyors to measure changes over the years, and find little to be perturbed about. Yet those whose quotidian habit brings them there and which habit has instilled in them a broader recognition of the anomalies and disintegrations of the area, do see alterations. Some of them take decades to finally occur. Some, helped along by neighbourhood children delighting in muck and digging where they should not, lighting fires where it can be dangerous, hacking immature tree trunks to the disadvantage of long-term growth, take the vandalizing measure of changes.

In some areas over the decades, the protected area has seen alterations such as the collapse of earth ramparts rising high above the creek, where trails lead in opposite directions. When those collapses accumulate, gradually narrowing access to the trails, the perambulators express real concern that they may be cut off from access to those areas so dear to them. Most people, and they are the middle-aged and the elderly, do nothing, and hope that others will take steps toward remediation. Calls are made to the public works sector of the municipal authority and eventually crews will be dispatched to assess the troubled areas and to determine what, if anything can be accomplished.

When unusually brutal storms have suddenly brought down elderly, mature firs, whose shattered corpses clutter the trails, the works crews bring their saws and make short work of clearing the trails, piling the heavy, green-needled limbs to the side, the trunks remaining where they fell, pitiable fallen giants, with the snags of the stumps raw-white, fingering the uncaring sky, silent witness to the waxing and waning of the forest.

And there are a few - thank heavens, only a few - who take it upon themselves to actively grapple with what nature has in her lapses of blind fury, left behind. Those who consider the appearance of a work crew sent out to ameliorate situations by the city, a personal affront. This large, green area is seen as their personal property, the workers unwanted intruders. Whose solutions to problems are a nuisance. Arborists employed by the city, and landscape professionals who may be called in to recommend courses of action could take lessons from these enterprising locals whose scorn for the disinterested inertia of their fellow ravine enthusiasts knows no bounds.

And if they merely scorn the inactivity of ravine users, their scorching disdain for the municipality’s works crews is far more often in evidence. The two of whom we speak are in fact, a married couple, a man and a woman, he of obvious European descent, she a local, much younger than he, both utterly dedicated to nature, raw and determined. Expressly seeing themselves as environmental help meets to nature’s plans for this valuable piece of property. She can be seen occasionally in the spring, digging into the yet-frozen earth to install a short piece of piping, to allow the melting snow and ice passage beneath the trails, forestalling the inevitable pools of water where people are wont to trod.

More latterly both have been engaged in a two-year effort to re-build an original portion of trail, utterly destroyed by the final collapse of one of the highest portions of the creek’s banks, leaving a much-used portion of a major trail suddenly off limits, a great gaping hole where the trail and the adjoining ground used to hang over the creek. As people bypassed the area reluctantly throughout the remainder of the winter, wondering what kind of remediation could conceivably take place, the mystery was solved in the early spring when the ground had thawed sufficiently to allow a miniature bulldozer entry.

When the municipal crew had finally finished and departed after some days of work, the trail-minder, for that was the name he was given by the elderly couple, returned with his wife. They worked tirelessly, almost every day this fall, regardless of the cold and the rain, on their self-imposed project; the remediation of the old trail. Actually they’d done that the fall before. A passable job, too. But once again the bank eroded and took along with it what remained of their trail. What they were working on this time was the labour required to dig further down on the bank, closer to the creek bed itself, to produce a new, wider trail, one they felt would be more reliable than the older one. He worked at digging into the wall of dirt, the rampart above the creek. And she, wearing knee-length rubber boots, worked in the creek itself, fashioning a new channel for the creek, taking it further away from the bank. An immensely ambitious project. Altering what nature had designed.

The elderly couple had their doubts. First few big storms to come along would return the creek to its natural form. After the freeze-and-thaw of winter and the ultimate spring thaw, the friable clay and sand deposit that made up the creek bank would give way as it always did. They said nothing of this to those dedicated trail workers, volunteering their time to their obsession. They did stop occasionally to speak with them, complimenting them on their dedication to hard, physical labour. The younger pair beamed.

They really were left to their own devices; no one from the municipality ever had reason to return once their work in establishing an alternate route had been completed. And it was this alternate, secure route, higher up on the bank of the ravine, within a forested area, that the elderly couple confined themselves to. As time went on and the enterprising couple working below continued to put in daily hours of work, the elderly couple began to ascribe their abnormal behaviour to the idiosyncrasies of the mentally unbalanced. And began to avoid them.

They actually were successful over time in leaching away the hillside beside the creek, sacrificing a few saplings in the process, but widening the trail below the collapsed portion, proud of their efforts. They’d even hauled a pair of tall folding lawn chairs in there, so they could rest and treat themselves to a packed lunch. The lawn chairs were left there, no one disturbed them. Their shovels and rakes were also left on site, so they could pick up their work whenever they presented themselves without having to haul things back and forth - to and from wherever it was they lived, on some nearby street.

They worked hard, you had to give them that. They really were obsessed, intent on restoring not the original trail now, since that was impossible, given the ongoing collapses, but another replacement, below the original. They felt utter contempt for the one that the work crew had put in place, much higher up the hill.

Nothing daunted them, not inclement weather, nor hard work, nor being covered with clay day after day. This was their very special project. Their diligence would pay off, their hard work appreciated by people who hiked and bicycled through the ravine. They’d had recognition from a teacher at a nearby high school who led a group of enthusiastic bikers through the ravine on a regular basis, on school days, for Phys. Ed.

Finally, the new, improved trail was almost completed. But the exposed, wet clay on top made it awkward for people to pass over it. Thick muck clung to their soles, to the bicycle tires, and people began diverting themselves back up to the upper trail. The couple patiently laid down a thick layer of dried leaves and pine needles, but they simply stuck along with the clay to those same passing soles and tires.

Soon, people began noticing that gravel was disappearing from other areas, from the official trails. Day by day, deeper and wider ruts appeared as long areas of the upper trail were looted to be trundled down to the lower trail. And that made a significant difference. Their trail was eventually completed, and just about ready for use, when it had been overlaid with an excellent layer of gravel from the higher trail. Depriving the trail above of half of its width; where the gravel had been taken away, that trail began to dip down into the hillside.

This truly disturbed the elderly couple. That these people, so dedicated to their task of ameliorating what nature had wrought, found it necessary to destroy part of the official trail so they could finally give their own a gravel coating to increase its use. At the first opportunity they remonstrated as diplomatically as they could their concern over the diminished structure of the official trail. Those formerly friendly faces turned dark. No, they denied ever tampering with that other trail. How dare they, who did they think they were, to suggest they’d done something wrong?

“I know my rights. This is a free country. I pay taxes too!” the goateed man said sharply.

A few days later, it was noted that the main trail parallel to the improvised one was missing another wide swathe of dirt and gravel, so that half of the trail leaned precariously into the hillside, no longer flat. At the entrance to the ‘new’ trail there was a small wood sign that read: “Chickadee trail, completed and dedicated December 6, 2009”.

When they came abreast of where the pair was standing, at the other side of their completed trail, the old man cautioned his wife, “hush”, and laid a gently restraining hand on her arm. She shook it off angrily, and confronted the young, pretty woman with the blonde hair, telling her in no uncertain terms that her activity was “uncivil”, destroying public property that others depended on. “Sheer vandalism!”, she said, her eyes flashing, her frail figure quivering with indignation. “I have a mind to … inform the authorities.”

She did not see, though her horrified husband did, the gnarled bough in the hand of the man whose aim was sufficiently accurate to crack the dome of her skull. She pitched slowly forward, her limp body rolling downhill, through the muck of the others’ labours, and into the creek, her head and shoulders submerged in the shallow waters. While her stricken husband’s anguished cry elicited a grimly satisfied exchange from the others as they strode off, shovel and rake tucked neatly under their arms.

Resigned, Not Stupid

She was stolid, and solid. Immovable, imperturbable. Nothing like when they were young. Younger; they were not yet all that old. Nothing like the slow-moving Elderberries next door, with his wrinkled, pinched face, her grim grandmotherly eyes condemning everything. Reminded him of his own mother.

The Elderberries, together it seemed since time immemorial, yet he couldn’t recall either of them directing a kind word one at the other, or even engaging in the most basic conversation. They communicated through grunts and otherwise seemed to just ignore one another, moving around each other, as though they hardly knew who they were.

His mother; dead now, so it’s not true that the good die young; sometimes the miserable ones do, too. She was adept like no one else he could imagine, at throwing things at him and Hughie. Likely blaming them in some way that their father had left her, gone out on his own rather than continue to live with a shrill fishwife.

Hughie’s done all right for himself, a good cartage business, making money even in this tight-market economy. Like their father, Hughie had that genial kind of personality that drew people to him. He made lots of good contacts at city Hall, knew who to support in an election. Those politicians, they know who put them there; payback guaranteed.

Hadn’t done too badly himself, a born salesman; again like their father. Some people even considered him suave, self-assured, a good talker. You do what it takes. For him it was an act. Hughie was the real thing.

He heard kitchen sounds as he trod quietly downstairs. Walked the short hallway to the kitchen entrance, watched Edith, her heavy, resigned back at the stove, stirring a pot. He had to give her that. She’d developed into a fine cook. Wasn’t always that, not when they were younger.

Her mother had groomed her precious prom queen to be precociously aware of the thrills inherent in attracting the attention of males; they flocked around her as though around a honey pot. She could have had her pick of any of the school jocks, and she chose him. It amazed him then, puzzles him still.

She had no practical knowledge from watching her mother do housewifely things. Little surprising, since her mother never indulged in the pedestrian. Taught her daughter to preen. Well, it worked, caught him. He was the lucky one, the envy of all those other guys who kept asking whether she’d put out yet. He’d kept them guessing until.

He wished her well, just wasn’t prepared to waste any more of his life with her.

“You can’t” Hughie flatly denied.
“I can, I intend to, and I will.”
“She’s given you 25 years of her life.”
“Her life? You have any idea what those 25 years cost me?”
“You’ve had kids together, what about them?”

You just had to laugh. Hughie, for all his experience in handling matters of business, fending off competitors, manipulating the city councillors who had learned to depend on him, had this old-fashioned mindset when it came to the ‘sacred vows’ of the marriage bond. It was all right for him, his wife was intelligent, she was capable, she maintained her appearance, even though she’d had four kids, not two, like Edith. Who just let everything go, desperately trying to cope with two well-behaved kids who would have been a breeze for anyone else to nurture and raise.

“Well, what about the kids? They’re both older now than I was when I was trapped into marriage.”

Hughie laughed, but there was no amusement in his voice. This really bothered him, who would have thought? “You were trapped into marriage? Hey, doesn’t it take two to make that exotic dance? You trapped her into pregnancy, how do you like that interpretation?”

“Well, guess what? She’ll survive the trauma of my leaving. She gets nothing out of my being around, as it happens. We have nothing to discuss, we’ve nothing in common any longer, now the kids are at university. Her financial status won’t change. She’s well looked after.”

“It will humiliate her. You can’t treat her like that!”

“When’s the last time you had a stimulating conversation with my wife, Hughie? Looking at her, the way she appears, would you, in my place, feel stimulated to have sex?”

Hughie flushed, would you believe it, he blushed. As though he were being accused of letching after Edith, and was caught at it. On the other hand, if he ever viewed her as a possible lay, he’d have something to blush about, he mused. Obviously, it was a mistake to ventilate like this, thinking to prepare Hughie for what he’d planned, get some feedback, see how he felt, how he’d think of his plans. Now he knew. A sage he is not; strait-laced he most certainly is. You’d think, he prodded himself, that I’d know my own brother better than that.

“Sex, is it?” Hughie shot back at him. “Got someone lined up?”

“Not your business, not anyone’s business. Anyway, sex would hardly be the primary motivation for leaving Edith. There’s a whole lot more to it than that. Companionship, for one, a huge component. The potential for the occasional lucid remark about something meaningful. Pride in someone who means something to you. There’s none of that with her.

I’ve already given up too much of my life because I didn’t have the guts to defy Mother, and then events just took over. Hughie, I helped raise those kids of ours. I sacrificed enough time to do that. You have no idea, no idea at all, what it’s like to be around her. Even the kids are glad to be away from her morose, miserable presence.”

“You can take credit for a whole lot of her misery, you know that.”

“Look, I’m sorry, really could kick myself for mentioning this to you. I wanted to prepare you, that’s all. Seems I needn’t have bothered.”

“What you do is your own affair”, Hughie responded stiffly. He could hardly recognize him. “Anything I have to say just washes off your back; you’ve got an answer for everything. I’d just like to remind you that your relationship with your wife resulted from your unwillingness to reach her, just as much as her incapacity to engage you. Takes two to make a success, two to reach failure. You could’ve tried harder.”

“Damn, Hughie! What the hell’s the matter with you? Haven’t you ever looked at another woman, spoken to someone whose grasp on life’s issues earned your respect? Sorry, forgot, born-agains don’t indulge, and your wife knows all about life’s issues. Look, let’s just give it a rest. I’m leaving.”

That was two weeks ago. He’d been so troubled by his brother’s response that he kept putting off the inevitable. But it was past time, and he was ready to leave. It wasn’t that he feared facing her, to tell her directly he was leaving. He’d spoken of it often enough in the past when his patience had worn to a threadbare mantle of husbandly devotion threatening to unravel, long before the kids were old enough to be independent. He’d tried, he really had, as long as the kids were young. But they weren’t fools, not stupid the least bit, like their mother.

They’d accept with perfect equanimity what they knew would happen sooner or later. It just happened later. Mightn’t have happened at all if he hadn’t met the right person. And that was serendipitous. He wasn’t looking, he didn’t think he was in the market for anything like that. Just fed up, wanting to ease himself out of Edith’s life. Nothing unfair about that. They had nothing, absolutely nothing together; a younger version of the Elderberries. In fact a carbon copy of his own parents’ dysfunctional marriage.

He’d rather emulate his parents’ parting, than stick around and become the Elderberries. Anyway, he knew he wasn’t patterning himself after his father. His memory of being left in the care of a bitter, foul-tempered woman with no father to temper the blows ensured he’d never do anything like that to his children. And he hadn’t, so the comparison is trifling, superficial.

He could not, and would not put the thing off any longer. His leaving. His final departure. Leaving behind the bleak existence he had reluctantly shared with his wife, made tolerable only by the presence of their children. He’d waited too long as it was. Given up too much. His sense of moral and emotional obligation to their children was the only thing that had kept him glued to the sticky mess of that marriage. The glue had gradually dissolved, and he felt completely free now to leave, to make his own way, to finally realize the opportunities he had so long dreamed of, and been forced to evade.

He’d changed his mind about one thing. It would be more honourable, if he could use that word, to face her directly, before parting. He’d meant to leave a note, nothing more. Truth was, nothing more was required. They hardly spoke, hadn’t for years, other than required exchanges of information. Any warmth they had once shared so long ago had utterly dissipated, and so had the memory.

It pained him to force himself to look directly at her. She was so physically unappealing, there was nothing whatever about her that warranted a second look. She was a pitiful façade of a woman, nothing more. Representing one-half of a failed conjugal partnership that any self-respecting man would long ago have abandoned.

He felt not one iota of remorse over his decision. He was well justified. He deserved far better of life. Likely, so did she. He had no idea what she dreamed of, what she envisioned as the closing chapters of her life. And wasn't interested, either. Surely no prolonged extension of their mutual pain.

No shrill recriminations issued from her, nothing like what he so vividly recalled when thinking of his mother and her incessant accusations darkening their days. He and Hughie absorbing the bile meant for their father’s ears, while their father was blissfully removed from it all. No Edith, just slumped about. Did what she had to, without rancour or even a hint of blame. No sense of humour, of proportionality, never attempted to make something of herself. Instead, satisfied to blur herself from the past into the present, become an unattractive, unassertive blank.

Not even the mildest regret passed through his mind when he asked her to come and sit in the living room, where they could talk. He could almost swear he saw the word “talk?” reflected in her suddenly-alert eyes. Those washed-out grey eyes. Washed out? From weeping? He never once saw her crying.

He hardly believed she could surrender to emotions. Her stolid demeanor was all he could ever recall. As though she’d set up a barrier, perhaps protecting herself from ever having to defend herself. Better yet, be encouraged to do something with herself. Her voice betrayed no emotion, when she spoke in response to something he might say; dead, lacking inflection. Denial. Take me as I am, or leave. Well, he was leaving.

When, sitting across from her, and noticing again how lank her hair was, how pale and lined her face, jowls more evident with that ugly turtle-neck sweater so often worn, he hesitated. Looked momentarily beneath the features to find the young woman he had known and married, his own memory unable to supply him with even a notional recovery of her looks.

As he was about to state what to him seemed obvious, there was the sound of clicking nails. Heralding the arrival of Herrold. A golden retriever; typical family dog. Oddly, Herrold positioned himself directly before Edith. He felt a pang of regret; hadn’t meant to take the dog with him, although it had always been ‘his’ companion initially, not hers. In its younger days accompanying him on long walks, on outings with the kids. Though she was the one who fed him.

Edith looked directly at him, Herrald settling himself down before her, laying his shaggy old head on her lap. Her hands absently reached toward the dog, smoothed down the hair on top of its head, began to massage behind its ears. When, he wondered, had that happened?

He cleared his throat, said to her, simply, “I’m leaving”. Then waited. And waited.

She had dropped her eyes, to regard the dog, her fingers in constant motion behind its ears. A swift half-smile displayed itself, then disappeared. But even that brief smile took him by surprise. It completely altered her face, brought back memory of an earlier time. She looked so different in that instant. Then she spoke.

“Finally. I’ve waited long enough.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me. I won’t even ask how stupid you think I am. It’s been patently obvious for long enough. I suppose I should really thank you for this, for finally coming around to collecting enough courage to make the move. What took you so long?” She took a long breath. “You’re a selfish, self-involved man. You’ve no idea how much I’ve suffered over the years. You’re cruel, thought nothing of me but a succubus to you. I was your wife, your slave, your children’s nanny, your cook and house-cleaner. You think I couldn’t see the contempt in your eyes when you spoke to me? How much you hated to look at me? And then no longer did, and spoke only when you felt you had to, as sparingly as possible? Making me feel like a nonentity, a worthless, unintelligent harridan, a slob, an inadequate mother?"

He sat there, speechless. Hardly believing what he heard. He felt like how he imagined the 17th Century Dr. James Murray had, facing the astonishing reality that the most reliable of his volunteer lexicographers - the enigmatic Dr. W.C. Minor who had contributed more than any other to the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary and whom Dr. Murray was intent on honouring - turned out to be an inmate of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

The Cupboard Bare

Every time she saw that elderly couple come into the store, she smiled broadly, cleared away whatever she was doing behind the cash register and made her way over. To one or the other. Each of them carried a small dog in a carrying case under their shoulder. Which they speedily deposited on the child seat of one of the store’s shopping carts, on entry.

They looked for different things, so she would find the woman peering about at the clothing, and the man looking through the stacks of books. They were nice people, but it wasn’t exactly they she was interested in, but the dogs. Small-breed dogs, though she preferred, herself, large breeds. It was the size of the dogs, inconspicuous, settled into their little bags, that allowed them entry.

She loved animals, she really did. Didn’t matter, dogs or cats, she loved them all. Wished she could have one of her own. It would mean a lot to her, she said to herself. She said that actually, to anyone who would listen, including the public housing authority, but they simply reminded her that if they permitted everyone to have a domestic animal in an apartment the place would soon be overrun with them. Was that what she wanted? They asked. No, she agreed, that wouldn’t work very well.

In her younger days she had known how improvident a decision that was, when other accommodations had permitted them, and the residents would be awakened at odd hours by dogs barking, and they'd discover excrement left in the hallways.

So she had resigned herself to her solitary residence in her cramped, but sufficient little apartment. And thought often and fondly of the two large Labrador retrievers her aunt had kept. But of course that was in a house, a house outside the city, with a huge backyard where the dogs could be left out all the time, and be of no concern to anyone outside the family.

That was during that period when she lived with her aunt. Her mother’s older sister. Who in fact, bore no physical resemblance whatever to her mother. Where her mother had been blond and pale-skinned, her aunt had red hair and a freckled countenance. Where her mother had a timid, nervous disposition her aunt was harsh and authoritative.

What they had in common was that they were half-sisters. And that each, as it happened, was single, each with one child. When her mother died, it was her aunt who took her in. She was not yet in high school, her cousin a grade ahead of her. It was nice, living with her aunt, having all that room to move about in a large house, in comparison to the miserable hovel she had shared with her mother.

Her shame at living in poverty, never having intact and clean clothing to wear to school, always hungry, becoming an object of pity, had taught her how cruel life could be.

All that changed when she went to live with her aunt. Why, her aunt, she was convinced, was rich. Though why that should be so when her mother was poor was always a mystery to her. She daren’t ask her aunt; she was not a person to whom one posed questions. She was restricted to answering questions, to responding when she was spoken to. She was not encouraged to ask anything.

She did develop a close tie with her cousin, though and became fond of him. It was special, having someone to share thoughts with, to forge a friendship with, without worrying that they’d be critical of her, because he never was. And for the first few years they had a casual and warm relationship. He entered high school before her, and she had two years of high school before her life with them fell apart.

He’s been long dead. By that time she didn’t care. Their relationship had long since been sundered. He had become increasingly hostile, school authorities warned her aunt that he was getting out of control, resistant to authority, belligerent with the other students. And that was when he also turned against her. That puzzled her; she was always nice to him, felt comfort in his presence, and trusted him. He seemed to reciprocate, then suddenly, the relaxed comfort dissipated. He began taunting her, saying she was ugly, no one would ever want to be with her. He was doing her a favour, he said, when he raped her, said it would be the only time she would have the pleasure of sexual congress with a man.

Her aunt is now in a hospice, being cared for, an end-of-life situation. She visited her occasionally. But her aunt really was beyond recognizing her, or anyone else. It likely wouldn’t be long, she told herself, when she’d be given notice to come for a last visit, to say goodbye to the woman who had given her shelter and a brief hope that the warmth of a family would be hers. If she hadn’t been such a cold woman … even her son feared her anger, her frigid denunciation, her angry despair at her lonely life. How could a child of that household develop into an empathetic, decent adult?

She was past fifty herself now, a large pleasant-faced woman with short-cropped hair, dyed a brassy red. When she smiled her eyes narrowed, her teeth glinted through a slender crack between her lips, and onlookers thought she looked happily comfortable with herself. Well, that is precisely how she felt. Yes, she had high blood pressure, and a heart condition, and her doctor was always sending her off for more tests, told her she was a good candidate for diabetes and scolding her when she admitted she hadn’t followed his prescriptive orders. She had a few hospital stays, but she felt good about life, and enjoyed herself. She loved being with people.

She lived alone in an income-assisted apartment and travelled by public transit - an hour each way - to reach her place of employment. The store sat, actually, on the edge of a public housing authority project for new immigrants. She could write a book, she often said to herself, about all the different kinds of people who came into the store. She'd been told she had to be 'sensitive' to them, because their culture was different. She needed no lecture, she was always empathetic, aware and kind to others.

She was regarded as a capable employee, trustworthy and friendly to the clients, most of them repeat customers who would come in regular cycles, missing a week, two weeks, then turning up to look around at the offerings. Especially when they’d acquired too much inventory, and planned a sale. That’s when everyone showed up, eager to take advantage of those giveaway sale prices.

Seniors came on Tuesdays, when purchases were 20% off for them. That helped the working poor, the elderly retired on very fixed incomes, the welfare recipients, and those on the pogey. It helped that there were no taxes charged since the Sally Ann’s thrift shop was a recognized charitable institution. She knew, though, that it wasn’t only those who hadn’t money to spare who shopped there. Those were the ones who did so grudgingly, because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. And they parted with what they had sparingly, an item or two here or there.

It was different with the other crowd, and they’d begun to represent at least half of their clientele now. Those were the people with money to spend, the people who came in well dressed. Well dressed, even though what they wore was what they bought at the Sally Ann. In a spirit of waste-not-want-not, as her aunt always used to say. When she stood over her at the table, if there was any hint of a suggestion that she might leave something over on her plate. As though that was likely.

Living with her aunt, grim as the woman was, she never went without, never felt hungry. Never had a meal that wasn’t cooked from scratch there. Her aunt had pride in that, what she did, how she looked after her charges, so conscientiously. She knew the woman meant well, she was simply incapable of expressing warmth and compassion. She'd patterned herself after what she had herself been exposed to, as a child.

She meant to get off her bus two stops early on her way home tonight. She groaned just thinking about it. Two stops earlier than she had to, but she had to. It would mean a long walk the rest of the way home, a walk she would never become accustomed to, because her feet would hurt, her flat feet that couldn’t stand up to too much walking. She could stand around all right, but not walk all that much. That’s all right, she told herself, she’d bathe them afterward in warm, salty water. That would help.

If she’d remembered yesterday to stop by the little grocery store she wouldn’t have to do it tonight. If she forgets to stop by tonight she’ll have nothing to eat. That should spur her memory, she thought glumly to herself. She meant to pick up a few boxes of macaroni and cheese. That would do her. With a nice cup of tea. Some soft fruit too, if there was anything reasonable enough; something that had been discounted, bananas, maybe. A few bruises never hurt anyone. They tasted better really ripe, sweeter. No apples; too hard on her teeth.

It had been a slow day, not that many people coming in. But what a succession of people she normally saw. Whom she was always delighted to see, fulfilling her gregarious need to be around people, speak with them in a tone of familiarity all the regulars were accustomed to. Didn’t matter, she knew, if they were poor or had money, they all regarded her with a certain air of trust, regard. For they’d had a long relationship, she there to smile widely, greet them effusively, then let them go about their picky-picking over the garments, kitchen wares, linens, footwear, old CDs, videos and books. Plenty of bargains to be had. People coming in with their little kids could afford the toys there. If they couldn't, she had the discretion to just give the kids a toy.

She knew, as they did, that a nice proportion of what they were donated had hardly been worn, some items not at all. People with money to spare - and even those without nowadays - were given to impulse buying, to stave off boredom, to apply themselves to their aspirations of looking right up to date with fashion, then realizing afterward they’d got the wrong size, the garment wasn’t comfortable, or simply that it looked awful on them. Out with it!

And into the Sally Ann. She had customers who would come in bi-weekly, mosey about for an hour and walk out with fifty dollars’ worth of acquisitions. They certainly weren’t representative of the working poor, the welfare types, and the Sally Ann depended on them. That too was reciprocated. Those people were involved in a kind of feeling that nothing needed to be wasted, that recycling of goods was a fine idea. Best of all, they felt good about contributing to the Salvation Army good deeds in their own way. At least that was her impression.

Her aunt was so tetchily focused on manners. It was “yes’m”, or “thank you, Auntie” and remembering to keep her elbows off the table, using the napkins set so carefully at each place setting. Learning to set the table properly, aligning all the cutlery, knives and spoons on the right, forks on the left. She had watched her aunt dust furniture, mop floors, get down on her hands and knees and scrub the bathroom and kitchen floors, like it was nothing.

Stern as her aunt was, she never, ever, demanded that she too, apply herself to chasing dust and dirt. No one was permitted to wear outside footwear in the house; unshod at the door. No exceptions, not even guests. Not even the Reverend Munroe, who visited on occasion. Nor did he mind, far as she could recall.

Last time she saw him was because her aunt had rung him up, asked him to come along. To speak with her, because she was explaining - or trying to - why it was that her conformation had altered. Not her fault, she said, imploringly.

She wasn’t entirely ignorant. She knew that she was pregnant, but didn’t know what to do about it, so she just ignored that reality. Until it became impossible to shield herself from notice any longer. A discreet note from her grade ten teacher. She watched her aunt read it, and look at her in astonishment, a black mood settling over her sharp features. And then the questioning began.

No, she had never, ever had sex with any boy, she hardly knew any of them, even the ones in her class. There was only her cousin, he was the only one she knew. Intimately. Thunder shot from her aunt’s eyes, turning into piercing lightning that throbbed right through into her own and gave her an instant, mind-crippling headache. Aunt, she cried, believe me, it’s true. I didn’t do anything, I was just there, he did it.

Later, the Reverend Munroe questioned her, in isolation from anyone else. He probed her mind gently, not blaming her, pitying her. He believed her, where her aunt hadn’t. There was nothing she could do to restore herself in her aunt’s good graces. She believed what she had to.

Reverend Munroe spoke quietly afterward to her aunt, turned to her, told her to pack some of her things and he’d be by in an hour to pick her up. He had some arrangements to make, beforehand.

She’d been upset yesterday, after work. That’s why she’d forgotten to get off at the earlier stop, to get some food for herself. Good thing she had some leftover pizza from the week-end, saved, actually just in case something like that happened. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Upset because some new people came into the store. She knew them all, the cool young things looking for vintage clothing, which they’d never find there. The elderly women, their husbands sitting impatiently in the car, parked out in front, waiting for them to get on with it and depart. The work-worn women with too many children in tow. The well-off older people who came along regularly, to pick up things for themselves, and for their children, their grandchildren. What, she always wondered, did they tell their children, let alone their grandchildren, about where it was these gifts had come from? The dark-skinned Middle-Eastern women with their head coverings, and their surly-looking men folk.

Yesterday, though, it was two young women who came in together, nicely dressed, very attractive, lots of make-up. They were black. She had no feelings against people of colour. She had her own colour-thing, she grinned to herself, tossing back her hair, cut perkily just to the edge of her ears, the sides flipping up, her only true conceit.

Those two had snapped their fingers at her. To gain her attention. She’d been busy serving other customers. She pretended she hadn‘t seen nor heard them. Completely ignored them. They, in turn became increasingly annoyed, began to speak loudly between themselves about the “ignorance of some people”. Good thing her supervisor clued in on what was happening, and smoothly took over, brought the two over to another cash, and served them.

She’d worked there a long time. Her supervisor would never want to chastise her for anything. They were friends, and more than friends. Everyone who worked there regarded one another as family. That was it, they were family. They were her family. She treasured that thought. Beamed a smile at her supervisor, who tipped her head at her with a small smile playing about her lips.

Still, she’d been that upset at the women’s behaviour that she’d grumped her way home, brooding. Very unlike herself. Angry enough to forget she needed to stock up on some food. She hoped nothing like that would happen today. It shouldn’t; it rarely did. She had faith in human nature.

A Golden Marriage

Her memory dispatched itself on its mission. No need to make a conscious effort to send it rummaging among the dusty piles of her life experiences. Her memories stirred, oddly enough, by her present. Why that should be was a trifle confusing. Why, she wondered, would she dredge all that up in her mind, at a time when there didn’t appear any reason to. It happened so long ago, was an anomalous occurrence, and she’d been so young, so inexperienced.

This was a special occasion. Well, she considered life in general to be special, and occasionally not. Everything about her quotidian life was special, though. And the way she felt about her husband, well, she cherished him, was restless away from him. His mind fascinated her by the generosity of its content (its comprehensive scope), his store of acquired knowledge, his interests he always shared with her - not that she was always happy to share them; their interests did not always converge. But his smile lit her soul, his hugs warmed her heart, his presence comforted her. They had been together a very long time.

Back then, during the time her memory nudged into mind, she had been captivated, entranced, swept away by the heady romance of a young man determinedly directing his energies toward attracting her to him. As though that would have been difficult.

She’d met him at her aunt’s house. He was with her two older cousins, a new friend. A handsome, muscularly compact college student, studying architecture. He had a confident presence, an assured manner that struck her. He was definitely an adult, mature well beyond her years. And he was interested in her, and she found that amazing. She felt herself to still be an awkward kid. Nothing particularly distinguishing about her; not very pretty, not that interesting, just herself.

He had an odd accent. Not surprising. He was new to his adopted country that had so recently absorbed him as an immigrant - a refugee, actually. From one of the displaced persons camps that abounded in war-torn Europe. All his family had been obliterated in the Holocaust. He would be starting an entirely new life. In the country that he understood had been hugely instrumental in liberating Europe from the looming possibility of thrall to the 1000-year Reich.

In very point of fact, he looked precisely like the Aryan ideal of the perfect male figure, absent a cap of blond hair. How many Germans or Austrians (or Italians or Japanese - honourary Aryans as an integral part of the Axis), sported blond locks? His hair was dark brown, almost black. His eyes, she recalled were deep brown pools of anguished memory. It was clear, even to her, even as the young girl she was back then, steeped in her own Jewish heritage sans the religious part, and having been aware at a young age of how the Nazis had targeted Jews, that he was intent on forging his way.

She was thrilled that he was interested in her. She hardly understood why. He was six years older than her, and that age differential placed him in an entirely different dating game, if she could call it that. She thought she was almost pretty, held back though by the fact that she was physically un-sensuous to say the least, not remotely endowed with soft curves; hardly the outline to entice a mature male to cast his attentions upon. She felt, at one and the same time, flattered and frightened. What on Earth could he possibly see in her?

Still, she was young enough and imbued with enough vanity to accept her appeal to him. She felt, actually, like a country bumpkin next to his cosmopolitan elegance. For he was elegant; the way he carried himself, the way he spoke, the patience he exhibited in explaining things to her, introducing her to world affairs in a way she had never quite thought of. And then, suddenly the two weeks were over, and she and her mother were returning to Canada on the long train journey that would take them home.

She hadn’t felt guilty about her brief and exciting time with him. Her boyfriend, the one whom she had dated steadily for the past three years, was her own age. That, now, seemed passe. Two kids pretending to be adults, pretending to be deeply involved with one another, pretending that their futures lay together, pretending that they shared a deep and abiding love. After her short exposure to having a man turn his attention on her, she thought of her link with her boyfriend as expendable, juvenile, a nuisance.

For on her return home there was a letter already waiting for her, from him. He would be coming to visit with her in Toronto. He’d been drafted into the military to do his stint, and before he became really involved, he would come and visit. She had explained to her boyfriend that everything was off. She had met someone. Someone else to whom she was more attracted than to him. He’d been devastated, watching her lips form the words that seemed to destroy him. She shrugged mentally; he was young, he would find someone else.

She felt badly for him, but excited for herself. Three years earlier when they had first met at a party, she had felt a shock of recognition. Before she even turned fourteen she’d had dreams of meeting someone. Her dreams had etched that figure for her, even the face. She yearned for that person to appear in her life. And when he had, at a casual party, when they were both only fourteen, she recognized the boy of her dreams. He’d laughed when she said that, and she’d felt insulted. Which hadn’t stopped her from pursuing him. Eventually he succumbed, and they became inseparable.

She attended a commercial high school, he a collegiate. She had no special aptitudes, but he was, though a few months younger than her, in a higher grade, played school football, excelled in all his subjects. She was more than satisfied with his companionship, found it thrilling and compelling to think of herself as having a regular boyfriend. He would visit her often after school, and they’d go for long neighbourhood walks. On the week-ends, they would go to social club dances. They hung out with a group of others their own age.

The only disturbing element in all of this was her parents’ attitude toward him. He was a nice boy, they said, but he didn’t come from a good family, and they’d prefer her to distance herself. Her mother, in fact, forbade her on several occasions from seeing him again. Which she neatly ignored. But then, she was late one day for a baby-sitting assignment because she’d been out with him and forgotten the time, and she was told in no uncertain terms - this time by her father - that she was instructed to break off her friendship.

This was no friendship, she grieved, this was someone she loved. They couldn’t do this to her. So she met him covertly, at times and in places where she knew she could cover for herself. Eventually, though, the truth revealed itself and her parents relented. What else could they do, after all?

And then came that fateful trip with her mother who wanted to visit her older sister who lived with her family in the United States. And her introduction to this exciting young man, whose appeal was such that she decided she saw more in him than in her long-time boyfriend.

She tried to persuade her younger sister, then fourteen, that she should think about looking at her old boyfriend as a possibility for herself. As though through suggesting it she could manipulate such an outcome. Her boyfriend’s sister telephoned her to tell her that he was disconsolate, she found him weeping often in utter despair, and their mother hardly knew what to do for him. She tried to ignore him when she saw him hovering near her home - far from his own - on the off-chance he could see her, persuade her to change her mind. She had no such intention. She ignored his pleading presence.

By then she had left school, was out in the workforce. She worked for a health insurance company, on St.Clair Avenue, in Toronto, across from Peter Pan park. Before she had so harshly parted with him, he would occasionally meet her after work - he was still attending school - and go along home with her. Now, with their having parted, things were different. He no longer had any place in her life. She would exit the building, walk briskly along the street, and wait to catch her bus to take her home.

She often saw him across the street, waiting to catch a glimpse of her. It irritated her. Made her feel badly for him. Guilty. Not her fault. His problem. He just had to get over it. Why he thought she was such a catch was beyond her, anyway. She no longer thought that way about him. He just had to surrender to reality.

By then she’d had more than one visit from her mature and handsome boyfriend. Once, they’d gone to Niagara Falls, just the two of them. She was surprised her parents had given permission. They’d caught a bus at the terminal downtown and driven to Niagara Falls. She’d never been there before. He had thought it might make a fun trip. By the time they arrived it was dark. She saw the famed falls in the dark. Felt the soft mist fall upon her, as though blessing this union. They walked, hand-in-hand, to a nearby park, sat on a bench and kissed passionately. In a few hours they rushed to catch the bus returning to Toronto.

He had groped her breasts, and she was excited and breathless about it. Worried, too. Because they were so … insignificant. She thought he would realize she was too immaturely formed, not exciting enough, hardly material for an ongoing relationship. He would look around, make comparisons, find someone else. And she’d be left.

Of course it wasn’t the first time a man had touched her breasts. Her young boyfriend always did that, and the touch elicited the same sense of physical enticement, and excitement that she’d experienced now. She compared her reactions to each. Thought of how hard and muscular his neck was when she wound her arms around it, pulling his head down to hers for a long embrace and kiss. Tried to recall whether her old boyfriend felt like that. It was so compelling, so irresistible, so amazingly exciting, that hard, muscular neck on his hard, muscular body.

But she was familiar with another hard, very well-muscled body, one she had seen unclothed, and whose conformation and bulging manhood had delighted and intrigued her, reminding her of statues she had seen of Greek male beauty. No, they had never had sex, that is penetrating sex. They had shared other urgencies of sexual gratification, never the final one.

Finally, once he had returned back to the U.S. after his second visit with her, when she had known him over a six-month period, she had second thoughts. She missed her young boyfriend. She began to recall all the time they had spent together, the activities they had shared, the long, intimate conversations and even more intimate physical passion. But really, it was what she knew of him, how well she knew him, his thoughts, his feelings. She was flooded with shame that she had so lightly, effortlessly discarded all that. She missed him. Terribly.

She sat herself down and wrote a long letter of explanation. To her U.S. suitor. She tried to be honest. Said how much she appreciated that he liked her company. She reciprocated, she said, she had enjoyed being with him. But she had reconsidered. She found it, she said, difficult to reconcile herself to the loss of her boyfriend with whom she’d shared three years of companionship. So the letter he was receiving was to inform him that she had decided she would no longer wish to see him. She would try to make amends to her boyfriend, ask him to forgive her.

She did that. She telephoned him. She heard the gasp in his voice when she quietly asked him to overlook what she had done. She wanted to see him. She wanted to explain her rash behaviour, her regret for what she put him through. And hoped he would agree to see her. Would want to see her, so they could talk about things. Put things into perspective, decide whether it might be possible to gap the void of the unfortunate six months, and try anew to re-forge their relationship.

She'd heard - a few years back - more, actually than a few years - from one of her cousins in casual conversation thanks to the Internet and email, that their mutual friend was a successful architect with a prosperous well-connected firm of his own, in Hawaii. Married, two children. That oddly enough, spurred memory of his long-ago careful scrutiny of her hands, his comments on how delicately well-formed they were, her nails perfect ovals, his recommendations that she take better care of them…

The little dog they had brought into their household many years after their children had moved out to form households of her own, was verging on 17. She was still bright and lively, energetic and clever. Her husband absolutely doted on the little thing. As he had doted, albeit differently, on her too over the years.

Theirs was a golden marriage, in so many ways. At intervals he bought her gold bangles to wear on her wrists. Later, when they could afford such baubles, when the children were older. The first one when they’d visited Washington for the first time, spending a week there looking at the museums, the art galleries. Another for her fiftieth birthday, an Italian bracelet, spiralled and heavy with gold. She has never taken either off her wrists.

In a month she will have her 73rd birthday. Elderly, like their little dog. Her dark hair has turned silver. Their little dog, black in puppyhood, now has grey sprouting in the strangest places; on her chin, under her tail, the joints of her legs. But she’s still sprightly, still engaged with love of life. So too is she. Still engaged with the love of her life.

He just cannot keep a secret. He’s already given her the birthday gift he’s bought. Another gold bracelet. It will join the others on her wrist. He’ll artfully create a birthday card as he usually does, to present to her on her birthday.

The Short Story

Not very enlightened
nor expressively creative,
but most certainly qualified
as a short-short story.

About life in general
and an evaporated passion
in particular degree
well beyond rescue.

They met, they tarried.
Sharing the veneer of
common interests
but not, alas values
and cultural background.

He as disinterested in hers
as she in his. Still, they married
and celebrated a scant few
years of mutual neglect
and growing revulsion.

Though neither would
offer the other release from
tension and aggravated
bitterness in expectations
drowned in grievance.

Theirs was a story
abbreviated by his final
solution. Her ultimate demand
answered by his final decision.
He did not attend her funeral.

Inflicting upon him
recrimination and blame
that only a faithless woman
is capable of wounding a man by;
her final act to seal his future.

The Bus

This was her usual bus after all, she sighed with satisfaction. She’d feared she would be too late at the bus stop, have to wait twenty minutes for the next one, and be late for her downtown appointment. Not so at all.

She settled herself into a seat on the mostly-empty bus. Watched, as she so liked to do, the bus pass by the houses on her street - critically comparing them with her own - then do a sharp left-hand turn at the corner to make its way up the main street bisecting the housing development. She waited especially to see the handful of new houses that had been built in the last few years on land that had been vacant since she’d moved there, ten years earlier. These houses were different, obviously not built by a housing-tract builder. Their differences made them interesting. Not of the same predictable mould as all the other houses. Although they too were attractive; she had no quarrel with them. She was more than happy with the two-story single her family owned.

They’d originally come to the city and anxiously looked around at the available housing. Her husband’s employer paid to put them up at a hotel-apartment complex where they were comfortable enough with their two children. The apartment in the hotel was almost like a house. They had their own little kitchen with modern appliances, two bathrooms, and two bedrooms. And, of course, a spacious living room. Their first morning at the hotel apartment her husband had arisen earlier than all of them - they were all fatigued from their long drive to the city for house-hunting even though he had done all the driving - and bought breakfast deli delights to surprise them all. They stayed there for two weeks, that’s the time they were given in which to find a suitable home for themselves, before selling and packing up their house in Toronto.

They’d contacted an area realtor and the woman took their specifics, then hauled them around to a number of different areas in the city, where there were homes for sale. They had contacted the realty office after a search on their own netted them nothing. They were, in fact, dismayed with the quality of homes; it was a tight market, a sellers’ market, they were informed. No new houses, just re-sales, and those re-sales they saw didn’t fit their bill at all. They were leaving behind a real honey of a house they’d lived in for just two years in the city they were departing, and they wanted something at least equal in quality and comfort to that one.

Eventually, after rejecting houses which neither she nor her husband liked, they did find one that they felt suited them very well. By a well-known builder, in an established subdivision not all that far from downtown, with a series of interlinked parks, nearby schools, even a library. Their backyard had mature maples and an elm tree. It backed onto one of the parks, actually. She loved looking out the small window over the kitchen sink, watching the antics of the squirrels.

Their younger son had built a birdhouse for a class woodworking project and it hung for years from one of the maple trees. She'd watched the seasons change the trees and new birds nesting in that birdhouse. Until they'd finally had to take it down, because it had rotted, and inside, on the floor of the small wood structure they'd found a mass of squirming, disgusting maggots. Not fit to return to its perch under a maple branch, welcoming new residents.

It was a neighbourhood they learned to love. One where walking after dinner was a pleasure, since they could walk as far as they wanted, through all the interlinked parks, and even further, if they went in the right direction, right into the greenbelt encircling the city proper. It's where, in the winter, they snowshoed at night, all of them, thrilled to be out there under the bowl of a starry sky, with city lights reflecting in a peach glow off the snow.

And that’s where they now lived, and just loved living there, too. But for a few irritants. One being the gravel pit about five miles’ distant at the top of the main road, just about where it hit the highway, where daily blasts actually rocked the house on its foundation; a complaint of all the area residents, one which the municipality claimed soothingly would soon be solved, as the pit was due to be closed. That was eight years ago; it was still going strong, and a new high school had been built adjacent to the large gravel-pit property.

The second annoyance was the very convenience of having a bus stop just up the street from their house; the very stop where her husband ran to catch a much earlier bus on his way to work. On week-ends, when they slept in, buses driven down their street, hitting a culvert close to their house, would waken them, the house shuddering from its passage.

She recalled their first week in their new house, when she scrubbed everything she could, from the kitchen cupboards to the walls where the previous owners had allowed their young children to run crayons over their bedroom walls, even on the hardwood floors, and along the mesh screens in front of the windows. She was certain those marks weren’t there when they were inspecting the house, prior to putting in their offer. She’d never do anything so uncivil as that, and she hadn’t, she’d left their old-new house in immaculate condition.

The memory of walking up the street, her housework done, children still at school, a few letters in her hand, preparatory to putting them into the mailbox, and hearing someone shout “Paki go home!”. God, she thought to herself, who on earth would be shouting something so shameful as that at some poor immigrant? She looked behind her, in time to see the figure of a teen on a bicycle, pedalling furiously in the opposite direction. And there was no one else on the street. Only her. She was the Paki. It was she who was being invited to return from whence she had come.

She steamed with fury that anyone would raise children and imbue them with that kind of social bigotry. A hateful ideology of exclusion directed at those unlike the majority. And then, after all, she was Canadian-born. And not herself from the Indian sub-Continent, as well. But she knew the syndrome well, had been exposed to it from the time she was a child, when people would question her about where she came from. But where did you really come from? they’d persist, dissatisfied with her response that she was Canadian. Most of those questioning her, she later came to understand, wanted to pin down her ancestry to determine whether or not she was certifiably Canadian-by-emigration.

She wasn’t even what the government quaintly termed a ‘visible minority’. There was nothing about her features, her colouration, that distinguished her from any other Canadian. She was of slight build, dark hair (did I forget to mention her peculiar hair-conceit, that she washed her hair daily, despite it was so thick and long and took interminably long to dry? That she made her own shampoo, from equal parts dishwasher detergent and vinegar, and three parts tap water? That she wore her hair in two long pigtails, tossed over her shoulders?), dark eyes and spoke perfect English. Why wouldn’t she, having been educated in Canadian schools?

Later, when she was a little older, and people still hadn’t figured out what ethnic group she might represent, perfect strangers would still approach her and hazard their guesses. French? No? Spanish? Incredibly, when she was in her late teens, and in the summer had acquired a dark burnished look because of her love of basking in the sun she had even been asked by someone of her own ethnic group if she was from Yemen. Aren’t people strange, she mused often to herself. Taking umbrage and at the same time, laughing at the crude incivility of it.

Now, when she looked out the bus windows at the houses flashing by, the bus gradually slowed, to pick up another passenger. At a stop, imagine, right in front of one of those new houses. An elderly man entered the bus, dropped his fare in the fare box and proceeded up the aisle. All those empty seats and he decided to sit directly beside her, to share the double seat with her. She smiled at him. He obviously lives in one of those uniquely different new houses she told herself.

He certainly was elderly, hair perfectly white, brushy moustache as well. He was neither lean nor bulky, wore a light jacket against the cool of an early fall day. He was, or had been, a tall man. He stooped slightly, and walked falteringly. She felt such compassion for this man, so frail looking, yet determined to get about on his own, not allowing his years and his obvious ill health deter him.

She decided she would offer a little chat, speak to him about the wonderful fall weather they'd been enjoying, and when the words tripped off her tongue, he turned to her, smiled widely, and said nothing. Then turned back to face the front of the bus. So she turned back to her window, and continued to look out, comfortable that she’d made the effort and he wasn’t really ignoring her, simply wanted peace and quiet.

The bus slowly filled to the point where at least fifty percent of the seats were taken, before it wheeled onto the highway and began its run straight to the city centre. She felt something odd. A hand, a hand creeping across her lap, was that possible? She looked down, to see the man’s blue-bulging-veined hand moving steadily on her lap. Instinctively she gasped, and threw his hand away. Turned and glared at him. At the side of his head that is, for his head wasn’t turned toward her; it was held fast looking ahead, toward the front of the bus. Was she imagining things, was she suddenly going crazy?

She turned back to the window, and there it was again, that same creepy feeling, and once more she glanced down, threw his hand away from her. The third time she was unable to move his hand, his arm had stiffened and she was amazed at the iron strength of his arm, his hand determined to reach its goal. And its goal? Why, to reach between her thighs. Grimly, she struggled, centimetre by centimetre nudging his hand away.

Why didn’t she scream? Why didn’t she alert the bus, the driver, to her dilemma? Well, it was a dilemma. She did nothing to indicate that she was being molested by this white-haired elderly man. She felt fear and shame flood her, even while she was struggling.

She’d get up, move away to another seat, but she wouldn’t reveal what had happened. How could she remove herself from her shared seat? He was immobile, staring straight ahead, immovable. What did she do then? Why she held her large square portfolio over her lap, hoping that would dissuade him, and it did no such thing. What it did was to shield from view, from any passenger who might leave their seat, make their way down the aisle toward the exit doors, who might casually glance down, to see what was happening. As though that was likely to happen. As though what was happening to her was likely to occur.

The bus sped on the throughway toward its first stop in the downtown area. It wasn’t a very long drive, but it felt like ages had passed, to her. Her silent struggle with this elderly, determined man, continued. She would succeed in wresting him away from her crotch, relax for a brief instant from the effort, and he would resume his own struggle to foil her, and satisfy his obstinate determination.

She felt perplexed at what was occurring, ashamed for him and for herself. She was reacting, not thinking, a victim when she needn’t be one. A loud, sharp denial. That would bring attention. But she didn’t want attention. She felt as though she was somehow complicit in what was happening. Later, when she thought about the incident, she agreed to herself, she was complicit, however unwillingly, however unmeaning.

By not insisting, loudly, that he remove himself, by not revealing to all those others seated in the bus that she was being assaulted, she had actually assisted him in his endeavours. Did she fear no one would believe her? Her word, a still-young woman, against that of an obviously elderly, patrician-looking man. A respectable man.

Perhaps he felt that her silence was acquiescence, despite her attempts to stop him. Perhaps he felt she was somehow an outsider, an immigrant whose value was less than his, and he could abuse her as he wished. Perhaps he knew, somehow, that her silence implicated her in what he was attempting. What was he attempting?

She felt nauseated, disgusted, both with herself and with the old man. How could such a frail appearing man have the brute strength her own much younger arms were unable to counteract? She felt confused, and she felt soiled. She felt pity and she felt anguish.

Finally, she half-rose, pushed him so hard he almost slid off his seat, and into the aisle. She rose fully, slid herself past the off-kilter old man, and rushed down the bus aisle to exit the opening door. She could hear a commotion behind her, as people close to where she had been seated, rushed to assist the poor old man, and offer him comfort.