Toronto

The flies showed up in January. I left for work and there was nothing, but when I got home there they were—maybe fifty of them, coating the long fluorescent light above our bed, like fuzzy, vibrating moss. I called my wife’s name. Even though I knew she wasn’t home. I closed the door and went out into the living room, sat on the loveseat and stared at the wall.

The wall looked different. I couldn’t tell how from across the room; in our attic apartment all the walls slanted so steeply that they made me feel claustrophobic. They disoriented me—were they walls or ceilings? But today there was something else about the wall across from me. Like it too was buzzing with life.

What was that.

A sound. Outside, by the door.

Paul?

Wait. He’s in Ottawa. No. Miami.

Even further.

I feel around for the phone I always keep in the bed when he travels, but nothing is there. Sheets and pillows, softness now stripped of comfort. A memory of plugging my mobile into the outlet by the kitchen table last night, the battery dying in my purse earlier in the afternoon. I never bother plugging it in to charge overnight like he does. Not until it’s dead. He’s good like that, preventative. On top of things. On top of someone else now, maybe.

1998 Pre-Season

My sister Wookie moved to Toronto to join The National Ballet. She arrived with a small suitcase in hand, leaving the bulk of her belongings back in Ottawa at Mom and Dad's.

I felt bad that my hermetic tendencies kept her from meeting new people, but I knew she'd get all serious and start hanging out with dance people soon enough. We spent days on end in my basement bachelor, playing poker and running to the Queen Convenience to satisfy cravings. I'd wear my lumberjack coat, long johns, and moccasins.

"At least put some pants on,”she'd say.

"It's Parkdale,” I told her. “You could be naked and no one would notice.”

We'd always buy an assortment of gummies for her and chips for myself.

Close quarters—my apartment—brought us back fifteen years.

“Remember the alligators?” I asked her.

“Yes. Then you tried to bribe me with money.”

Called my ex on the phone and said how about now. They said not so sure bout it, I know we’ve talked about things in the past but I’m in a strange place right now and it would be weird I think. Called everyone I know on the phone said I don’t want to be like whatever but I have a bad feeling right now. They said I’m twenty-two, across the seas, don’t speak the language, this country’s gonna break into war any second, I haven’t spoken to my parents in eight months and all I can think is how exciting it’ll be when the soldiers start pouring out the tunnels along the border. They said I’m nineteen, the like fifth guy in a row told me he won’t seriously consider someone as young as me as a boyfriend, I’m gonna have to wait like five years to be able to really date anyone I like.