by Steven Snell
Banff, where the mountains and nature descend on a few streets town. I drove into it and stopped for a coffee and continued past it and continued on deeper into the Park waiting for a peak to compel me. I pulled over to one that has a waterfall cutting it in two.
I woke to the phone ringing. I laid there in bed and pushed Answer on the phone and raised it to my ear, the receiver far from my mouth. I didn’t say anything at first, I just wasn’t in the mood.
There was a hesitation. “Hello? Shawn?”
I held my hand over my mouth and yawned morning into my palm. I swallowed.
“Yes.”
My voice was full of cotton and feathers. I could hear a radio on in the background, muffled office noises, someone talking. Karen silent on the other end as if wondering whether to wait for me to continue or fill in the emptiness herself.
“… Can I come over?”
I shook my head rolling it on the pillow and moved my hand over my eyes down my face and opened my mouth and closed my mouth and coughed onto the back of my hand.
“Aren’t you at work?”
“I can be sick too.”
I moved my phone from my ear to the other and sat up on the edge of my bed and hung my head down, my phone pressed to my ear and my other hand rubbing the back of my neck.
Hesitation. She said, “Don’t make me be at work. If you are not here, I don’t want to be here. Can you tell me a story?”
I pulled the sheets off my lap and stood up and adjusted my underwear and walked around my bed and leaned against the window. I looked down from my third storey apartment and watched. I responded, “About what?”
“Take me somewhere.”
A yellow taxi cab passed.
A bus.
A courier truck.
A shirtless man in jeans, a fedora and snow mitts pushing a shopping cart full of bottles and cans and an area rug.
“I want to picture something other than my monitor.”
I rubbed sleep out of my eye then spoke, without urgency, without knowing where I was going to end up. “Today is the end. Yesterday, yesterday the world began crumbling, mountains sank to meet shores, limbs of the Amazon sagged and soil turned to mud turned to sludge and began to boil. … Houses burned and cars exploded. A tanker slammed into the Great Barrier Reef. A polar bear drowned. Atlas stumbled.”
She waited to see if I’d continue. “More please.”
“… There’s no night, no darkness. The world is full of light. Houses on fire. Car headlights hanging on to the last few minutes of battery life. We’ll never need to say a word again as there are no more stories to tell.”
Karen, I pictured her sitting in front of her monitor and holding her phone tucked away from colleagues and work and a meeting to go to.
She said, “I want to be there beside you.”
“You’re at work.”
“I know … I just want a day again with your hips pushed to mine. I want to hear your laugh.” She lowered her voice. “I want to be above you and watch you smile and make love to you not worrying about when I need to leave.”
“When your husband is at work.”
“Don’t say that. I just want you to touch me.”
I pulled back from the window and saw the oil from my forehead smeared on the glass.
She whispered, “More story please.”
I walked out to my living room and sat down on the arm of my couch. “There’s no more story. It’s the end.”
“Tell me one about me.”
I yawned into the back of my hand again. “What part?”
“Surprise me.”
“Your fifteenth birthday?”
“You remember that?”
“I remember that story.”
“Tell it to me. I want to hear you tell it. I want to see how much you remember it.”
I turned to look outside and start talking again. “You were in your bedroom having the whole house to yourself. Your parents were out; your sister was out. The entire house all yours. You said something about as if you were in the clouds.”
“Fluffy clouds.”
“Yes. Cumulous clouds. You had a long bath with candles burning and… Enya?”
“Mmm, Enya!”
“Enya was playing on the stereo outside your bathroom. You soaked your entire body and shaved your legs smooth. You drained and added more hot water every few minutes. You had a washcloth over your eyes. You laid there until your fingertips wrinkled and then blew out the candles. You stepped out and toweled yourself and moisturized every part of you.”
“I like how you remember the details.”
“It’s what we’re made up of.”
“Go on please.”
I continued, “You looked at yourself in the mirror, front and back and then took from the counter your white and black polka dot underwear and pulled them on, and then your white tank-top. You brushed and blew-dry your hair and put on head band on and walked to your room and crawled under the covers.”
“I loved that bedroom.”
“I remember you saying that.”
“It was so big.”
“It was pink, yes?”
“So much pink… Go on, I like this story.”
“It wasn’t late but it was dark out and your body sank into your warm sheets. You turned off your bedside lamp and stared at the ceiling and night was lying across your bed and not one sound came from outside. Your window was cracked open level with that poplar tree you climbed and fell out of and broke your arm when you were young –”
“That’s the only time I’ve ever been to Emergency. Sorry, continue.”
“You placed your hands on your stomach, it up and down with your breathing. Then your finger back and forth along the waist band of your underwear, up to your stomach tracing around it, up and then down. You said your underwear felt soft against your fingers, as you lightly danced them back and forth, feeling your pubic hair.” I could hear Karen breathing as if being there again. “Then you slid your hand underneath. You held your bare hip and then brushed over your pubic hair. You took single hairs between your thumb and middle finger and pulled them gently to their end. You spread your legs slightly and moved your one hand to meet the other. Then you pulled off your underwear. Both hands between you and you felt something firm and a spot of moisture below it and you spread your legs wider –”
“Wider.”
“… Your feet meeting at your heels. You began moving your fingers around that warm, wet spot.”
“Mmm.”
“You moved your hand to your breast and held it and squeezed it –”
“My right one.”
“Your right one. Then circles became back and forth and you pushed your middle finger inside of you. You said it felt hot and had no idea how hot you were on the inside.”
“An oven.”
“… You were breathing deeper now. You pushed your ring finger inside as your pinkie and middle grazed your inner thighs. You pulled the moisture out. You slid your finger back up to that firm spot and began again to dance on it in circles. Deep breaths became deeper and you moved your left hand down to meet your right. Your breathing became audible, louder, hesitated and then louder. Your toes began to curl. You flexed your thighs, your bum, your back, your stomach, your chest. You pushed a breath through your nose and your middle finger sliding inside. Then the wetness of you emerged soaking your finger.”
“Mmmmmmm.”
“You sighed a deep sigh and sank into those sheets and surfed the cumulus clouds of after effects. You smiled a thin open mouth smile and then your hand to your nose. You smelled it and stuck out your tongue to meet it. You said you felt older and laughed a small innocent laugh leaving that smile on your face. You took your sheets and pulled them up tight to your neck and curled into the fetal position, closed your eyes and felt birds soaring inside of you. You felt free, mature. You said for the first time in your life you found a place where you could go every night and have it to yourself. Your bed
room with a locked door and alone with your hands.”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
Neither of us said anything more.
Karen broke the silence. “Shawn?”
“… Yes?”
She hesitated. “I miss you.”
I didn’t respond.
She filled up the dead air. “What’re you thinking about?”
I replied after hesitating, thinking about her question, “Hiking.”
“Oh… okay.”
“I should get going.” I stood there silent. Karen sat there silent. I looked outside at nothing in particular.
“Karen?”
“Yes?”
“Enjoy your day.”
She said weakly, “… Okay.”
I pushed End on my phone.
I stood up and walked to my bathroom. I turned on the shower then picked up my toothbrush and put a small dab of toothpaste on the bristles and turned back and put my head under the stream and drank some water and then spat it out and brushed my teeth. I adjusted the temperature and brushed and spat that out and stuck my tongue under the stream and rinsed. I gurgled and spat again and turned up the hot water and tested it with my hand making sure the water was burning hot. I put my toothbrush down and stepped in. I sat down and hung my head and searched for decompression feeling the hot water relieving the congestion in my head. I watched my feet turn red from the heat and breathed. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Repeat. Repeat. I stood up and turned the faucet to cold alarming myself to alertness. I turned off the water and toweled and hung the towel on the back of the door and walked to my chest of drawers and took out a pair of underwear. I picked up yesterday’s clothes from the edge of my bed and put them on. I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge and took out the tub of yogurt and a bottle of cranberry juice. I grabbed two bagels from the freezer and filled a bottle of water. I ate and drank and closed the fridge and cupboard and put my dishes in the sink and grabbed Cynthia’s camera from off the couch and listened one last time to the sound of my apartment. Nothing. I put on my shoes, grabbed the bagels and bottle of water and my jacket hanging over the back of a chair. I walked out, the door locking behind me and down the stairs, across the street, into my car, started it, put it into first gear and drove west to the mountains and Banff where moose walk down Main Street and continued on until a mountain split in two by a waterfall.
I’m gazing at distant peaks listening to the wilderness. A marmot crawls out from behind a boulder and squats on its hind legs, paws up as if penitent. It turns and stares at me. I stare back. I cross my leg under me and smile at the little creature. I shift and a rock loosens and tumbles and the marmot ducks away and the rock rolls and drops over the cliff. I say, “Rock” but only to myself.
On the way up I passed a sign that read, BEAR IN AREA. PROCEED AT OWN RISK. I paused for a minute but I wanted to sit on top of something high and take pictures. I didn’t see any tracks or fresh scat so I walked past the sign and began my hike up. I’ll tell Cynthia that when she prints the photographs I’ll bring over a fern for one of the corners of her apartment and we’ll drink a bottle of wine and re-experience me not falling off the mountain. She’ll say, “Don’t ever paint your death image to me again.” I’ll reply, “Okay.”
I brush a fly off my leg and the clouds begin to roll in from the west and I zip up my jacket a little higher and pull my toque down to cover my ears. I take a photo. Another photo. Up here on this mountain, on this peak, I take my time listening to what’s in my head and contemplating what’s below. I see glaciers blackened with soil and swathes of green trees ending in grey and copper gravel, a tarn hundreds of metres below. I turn and see a crow floating above playing in some anabatic wind. Hovering and then it soars away. A spider climbs over a rock beside my knee. It stops. A shadow descends on us and it scurries back under the very rock it crawled out from back into the bed of scree. A large body jet to the north flies over striking a line of condensation in the blue distance. Then the mountain air settles and the wind fades to nothing and there is now not one living thing making its presence felt on top of this world no immortals no disease no parables. Nothing.
Indeterminate.
Insignificant.
The earth slowly begins to reach out to cover the sun. The days are getting shorter and today dusk is slowly closing in. I stand and turn to descend the ridge, past slabs of rock the size of houses and descend farther. I brush against the branches and the smell of some wet Christmas scent stands suspended in the air. Farther and farther I see where I’ve parked and I walk and walk and more trees and water spilling out over the trail and walk and round a bend in the path and see my car again and slide my pack off and search through it and find my keys and cross the gravel parking lot and unlock the door and open it and sit down inside. I take out Cynthia’s camera and scan through the pictures. I smile. I put the camera down on the seat beside me and turn the key in the ignition. The car starts and the music starts, Red House Painters music. I turn up the volume waiting for that voice and that guitar, that velvet perfection. I smile again. The smell of Christmas still on me and I put the car in gear.
Driving now, alone on this gravel road, gravel knocking up at the undercarriage of my car, I wish I could play the piano.
11.
Jacob moves his Bishop to King’s Knight, which might be a chess move but means nothing us. We can name the 16 pieces, well, the nine different names. We can beat each other. That’s our skill level. Calling a move is just a good way to fake thinking we can think more than one move ahead.
“Your move,” he says.
He stands to help a customer.
The coffee shop Jacob works in is a converted heritage barber shop. The only thing changed is the addition of a few chairs, tables and an espresso machine. The original barber’s chairs are typically the first to be taken.
Jacob’s recently returned from two years of studying and travelling to avoid studying here. When he first arrived back from completing his MA we were out at a film and walking back to our neighbourhood and he seemed abnormally quiet. I asked him what he was thinking and he replied, “Too much.” He got a job in a coffee shop because he says there’s something satisfying in manual labour after so much thinking. When he’s not at work he designs prints for T-shirts and writes freelance news articles. On his shirt he’s scrawled, This is a love story.
Jacob hands the gentlemen his change, makes his Americano, sets it on the counter for him, smiles and sits back down across from me. “Moved yet?”
“Leave me alone. I’m working on it.”
Jacob crosses his foot over his knee and leans back against the chair. He says, “So, I’ve been working on a theoretical paper during the quieter times here.”
I’m looking at the board. “Just like at a patent office?”
“Yes, but minus the prickly moustache.”
“That look wouldn’t suit you well.”
“What, I can’t pull off a moustache?”
“Sure, just not Einstein.”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
“You’re the smartest person I know.”
“I love you too. Now listen –”
“Done.”
“Good. … I’ve been writing up some ideas exploring how the size of one’s flat impacts the probability of getting laid.”
“Apartment size and sex?
“Right.”
“Definitely not Einstein.”
“I’m going to grow a moustache just to spite you.”
I look at him. “Your hypothesis please.”
“Right… this is my exploratory framework: how does the size of one’s flat, for example, the size of a flat in Cambridge versus the size of a flat in Calgary, impact, or at a finer investigative lens, if there is a correlation between square footage of one’s flat and first date sex.”
This is why Jacob went to university on scholarships.
“See, in Cambridge, flats are small. There’s
no sitting area. So when one brings home a potential bed partner – sorry, candidate subject – the couple is required to occupy the bedroom, it’s the only place to sit, yes?”
“Sure.”
“The intermediate step of couch sitting and groping and the possibility of that leading to the bedroom step has been removed.”
“I’m still with you.”
“Once home, sex is all but a postulation to verify because the structural norms of the living area require it. Get to flat, sex. There’s no step of fooling around in the intermezzo couch area in that sort of purgatory-esque place, and then having to end that moment, that energy, that place of lust, and suddenly pausing to get up off the couch, walk to the bedroom to throw each other down and bed each other – because, seriously, am I personally going to lift up a girl while making out and carry her to her bedroom with her legs wrapped around me? Only in the movies, my friend.”
“You need to work out more.”
“I’m an Arts major. Working out to me is like Jesus in a tutu.”
“Huh?”
“I have no idea. It just sounded awesome.”
“Oh it was.”
“Where was I?”
“Living space and sex.”
“Right. … See Calgary, Calgary is big spaces, is big rooms, is more steps, is less sex, is a sexless city No wonder this place feels so stressed and everyone only talks about and thinks about his or her job. Sex takes too much effort here, or tonnes of alcohol to get up off the couch and into the bedroom. You have to think too much in this place or be so polluted that you’re not thinking, you’re just trying to get up off that bloody couch after getting home from that faux Irish pub where you met a bird cute enough to bed in your drunken state.”
Jacob looks at me. “Did I go off track there?”