Jon’s footsteps crunched on the packed snow as he neared home. Between strides, a whimper threaded through the wind. It must be the squeak of his boots. But there it sounded again, a mournful cry. His flashlight cast a bluish tinge over the stark Yukon terrain, the shadows of spruce and pine trees stretching like sentries across the snow.

You're driving home and the radio's on but you're not really listening you're thinking backwards to things you forgot to pick up at the supermarket (chicken thighs, buttermilk, Tylenol) and forward to things that need done at home (pick beans, get some editing done, maybe if there's time mow the lawn.) You more or less have your day planned and that's one nice thing about living alone is that you can plan almost to the minute and nobody is going to say, "hey, honey have you got a minute?" which never means one minute at all but a big black hole of minutes that you'll never get back.

As he swung his dull middle-aged frame over the fence he repeated to himself: They won’t charge me for stealing junk.
He landed with a loud, graceless scrape, gravel and dirt rolling slowly down the slope, enough to draw attention even at three in the morning. The nails and broken glass meant he couldn’t just scurry to the bottom of the pit where the streetlights didn’t reach.
Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy because they should have just asked for the damned piano when they had the chance.

Last evening a comfortably fat marmalade cat plunged from a balcony and landed on Thomas Wu, who now lies, all his certainties numbed, in St. Joseph’s Hospital. So far, Mr. Chuckles is still at-large.
The police, with more pressing cases in a rough, but slowly gentrifying neighbourhood, arrived late this morning and are now on the top floor of my apartment building. I know I’m sole witness to the near fatal encounter. The question is: Will I tell them the truth or offer something more useful?

There are a lot more hoarders out there than people think.
I’m not talking about the extreme cases we see on reality TV shows where there are rooms full of cat poop and nobody can find Grandpa.
I mean people you know, people you work with, even the type of people who carried hand sanitizer in their bags before it became the norm.
Now, I’m no minimalist by any means, but I’d like to think that most of the stuff I keep around serves a purpose.

The beat of my heart is hard, harder than the black slab serif, blank space stark. Brutal bullets break down Dad’s life. Brown for undergrad, McGill for the PhD. Then a string of adjunct jobs. A gap. One more job.
Dad had cloistered himself in his office, penning an exquisitely nuanced argument for The Sackville Journal of Gender and Culture on the need for men to make an equal contribution at home. The coffee cups crowded his desk, pale brown circles staining the overflowing paper alongside red slashes and scribbles.

The ivory patterned wallpaper flickered in time with the movement of the fireplace flames. They were hypnotic, reminding Annie of the way she played the drums, keeping time for the music that swept through the air during band practice. Annie felt warm and content.
“I think we need a night off,” Steve said in a sleepy southern drawl as he laid his head on Carley’s shoulder.
“Hmm,” agreed Carley lazily.
Ben looked questioningly at Annie, his black hair falling across his face. Annie shrugged noncommittally, “We could use a break. We’ve been working so hard.” She could not imagine getting up and banging on her drums, sending the spell of flames and sleepiness spinning out into the night.

I had been suspicious for a time that my wife was being unfaithful – like her sudden focus on personal grooming with only the slightest increase in observable sexual desire (directed towards me at least), the supposed early morning yoga or late-night book clubs, decreased nagging activity on certain days, brief and wondrous like an eclipse – but the notion was merely a tickle, a soft breeze tugging conspicuously at one’s pant leg, not yet a hurricane force gale. It was not until later that I became sure.

Andrew nudged the door with the toe of his boot, the barrel of his rifle pointed straight ahead. The hinges whined as the door tilted open, the glass closet in the foyer smashed to pieces. Ribbons of drywall peppered the floor leading to the staircase with several of the steps torn off. The wood paneling was stripped, many electrical outlets pulled from their mounts.

“They do this stuff to cover their ass,” was the first thing you whispered to me after the teacher ushered you in to the assembly. “It’s called P.R.” The projector cast the words, Be Rail Smart, onto the gym wall. CN Rail. They were doing school visits. That was your first day in our class. “Call me Kat,” you said. “I’m Milly,” I replied. From that day, we hung out at recess. We painted our nails wacky colours and yakked about wicked new bands. Your hair entwined with mine as we shared your headphones—volume cranked. Bush was your favourite. When “Glycerine” came on, you’d play it twice. We both knew the words by heart.

The gentle lapping of waves against the side of the large ship lulled me, and I inhaled deeply of the crisp night air that arrived as the leaves turned to flame in this part of the world.
The cold blue-white stars shining in the velvet night kept my mind both present and far away. Soon, I was in a familiar daydream, inspired by one of the books I so loved to read in the library below.

The fear was a living thing.
It swelled, icy and fierce within her, and throughout the crowd as it surged against the concrete wall before her. Atop the wall, uniformed guards stood between them and the runway where the military transport aircraft waited, its massive turbines idling.
The crescendo of voices was deafening, and she worried about the wailing infant girl she clutched at her breast and the son who clung to her arm. She had been standing in the crowd for so long that she had lost all sense of time. Her attempts to be seen and heard in a seemingly endless sea of despairing cries had failed.

The bartender asked me what I wanted, and I said a vodka soda. It felt like an appropriate drink to order after being ghosted by my internet boyfriend.
“You got it,” the bartender said, winking at me.
He tossed ice into a tumbler. Poured three glugs of Absolut into the glass and topped it up with soda. Added a dried-out slice of lime to the rim. Then he placed the tumbler atop a felt pad and slid it across the bar.
“Thanks,” I said.
I took a brief sip of the drink and opened George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“Great book,” the bartender said, gesturing to the novel.

“Gord, just go with Nadine, please! I’ll come later with the car.” How can he not even try to understand how much I need a last private walkthrough? I’ve explained, why can’t he give up? He seems to have no problem leaving this house we’ve shared for 46 years. Always the optimist, always looking forward. Seems easy for him, somehow excited about going to live in a brick and concrete box. I know he wants me to be happy but I want him to stop trying to convince me how much better the condo will be for both of us. I still don’t like it. I need to accept change the way I always have; let it worm its way into my mind and settle in slowly, even if not comfortably.

The smell of sizzling bacon fills the air. A young woman pops a slice of bread into the toaster and inspects her image in the shiny surface. The diamond nose stud glints back at her. Dark hair falls softly over her shoulders. Her face seems fuller, her skin smoother – with no vestige of facial hair. Zee smiles and cracks an egg into the frying pan.

When we first sit down, the doctor sitting across from us does not meet our eyes. Instead, he twists in his seat, twirling his expensive pen between his fingers — as if it’s the keeper of secrets, holding the answers to our unoffered questions. He’s balding but fit. Perhaps, a runner? My husband ran. I’ve spent the last five minutes staring at the doctor’s bulging forceps that crest his rolled-up sleeves and at his tie — it’s crooked, which also reminds me of my husband. I want to reach out and fix it. I want to ask if he’s married or in a committed relationship. If he’s ever lost anyone. To begin a discussion of my choosing so I will not have to listen to what he has to say.

Under an overcast sky, mountains hunker down. The valley is sprinkled with wildflowers and a ladybug convention. Blades of grass tickle me as I run circles around Mama.

Whoo-hoo! We made it. A butterfly trio plays hide and seek among the peonies and I yearn to join them. I blink back tears. The view is spectacular. Inhaling deeply, I attempt to absorb every sweet scent.

“Take them away,” the gatekeeper grunts. “We’re overcrowded and short staffed.”

I stumble along the icy road after Mummy, my face stinging where it’s not covered by my scarf and every breath freezing my lungs. Down the hill the low buildings of the town puff clouds from their chimneys. A few people are out on the white-and-grey harbour, small shapes bent over small holes making long shadows across the ice. If we had a toboggan I wouldn’t have to walk but we don’t and Daddy took our Ski-Doo to the airport when he went to go flying so Mummy and I are walking today. Clouds puff from my scarf. I’m a chimney.

Randy always unplugs the table saw before he adjusts the blade angle. Dad had started drumming workshop safety into both boys one summer morning before Randy could even talk, after Bill had puzzled out the catch on the ratchet set and spent a half hour toddling around the house in his footie pyjamas hiding the metric sockets like Easter eggs. The last two to surface had come clattering out of the plastic Santa face when Dad hauled it from under the stairs in December. The sixteen millimetre had never turned up.

I am a sucker for blue eyes, a bit of a bad boy, and responsibility. Responsibility became part of my must-haves, to my surprise, some years back. I don’t remember what “responsibility” replaced, possibly a guy that can lift heavy stuff. But blue eyes, the hues of Irish sky, Scottish azure, Nova Scotia Benjamin Moore 796, pop my bubble gum.