"q+a" by Sarah Law—Our June 2023 Silver Medal Winner

Sarah is our second place winner from the contest posted in our June 2023 issue!

What the judges had to say:

“A unique vignette: both unusual and captivating.”

“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”

“The writing style shows a dark humour reminiscent of the series “What We Do in the Shadows”... I predict great things ahead for this talented writer!”

Meet Sarah

Sarah Law is a reporter/editor for CBC Thunder Bay. She lives in Thunder Bay, Ont. with her partner and her two cats, Luna and Panda.

q+a

read Sarah’s unedited story

My brother had an answer for everything. He was driven by a compulsion to break the silence – or, as our parents would say, a compulsion to lie. And naturally, older siblings test their half-truths out on their younger accomplices to see if they stick.

Q: Who’s the most powerful person on Earth?

A = Me.

Q: What’s the world’s deadliest animal?

A = Trixie when her breakfast’s late.

Q: When’s the world going to end?

A = When we piss off the Martians.

Q: Where do babies come from?

A = People’s buttholes.

Q: Why’s the sky blue?

A = Because that’s my favourite colour.

“What does dying feel like?” I asked him one day. I was a bright-eyed, gullible eight-year-old and he was sixteen, sarcastic and walked around with headphones permanently affixed over his ears.

“It feels like closing your eyes on an elevator,” said Aiden. He always answered confidently; that was part of the trick, I later learned when conniving my own retorts at recess.

“Up or down?” I pushed him further.

“Depends who’s on it,” he said.

Aiden skipped school a lot. He used to clear the home phone’s answering machine before my parents saw the blinking red light. Then, the principal started sending absence emails, so he hacked into our parents’ accounts and deleted them (not that they weren’t aware of what was going on). He may not have scored extra credit with his teachers, but his excuses surely deserved some points for creativity:

“I was in the science lab concocting a new deodorizer for the gym’s change rooms.”

“I have an impenetrable virus that will eventually escalate into a worldwide pandemic” (he was a little ahead of his time for that one).

“I was trying to calculate a more efficient bus system so teenagers can get the eight to 10 hours of sleep we really need.”

His fatigue, however, was less about his hormonal changes and more about his habit of sneaking out at night.

Q: Who are you going to see?

A = My nocturnal vampire friend, Sam.

Q: What do you and Sam do?

A = We practice non-lethal neck bites so Sam can eventually reintegrate into society (under the cover of darkness, of course).

Q: When can I meet Sam?

A = When your bedtime’s later than 8 p.m.

Q: Where do you go?

A = The graveyard behind the old mini-mall.

Q: Why do you come home smelling funny?

A = Sam and I are members of a secret midnight gardening club.

“Why would a vampire like gardening?” I pressed him.

“Because they’re old-fashioned,” Aiden replied. “When they were young, men wore boutonnieres on their suit jackets.”

He’d often slip into the basement in the morning and sleep. My parents used to try to pry him up but eventually gave up. I saw mom put a blanket over him a couple times. The basement is where he kept what he called his antidotes – small capsules in plastic bottles he concealed behind the VHS tapes we didn’t watch anymore. He said they were for if other supernatural creatures were prowling about – werewolves, zombies, feisty fairies. I didn’t know what the pills were really for but didn’t question it; I think I liked believing in the unbelievable, as most kids do.

I told my first big lie the morning he didn’t come home.

“Quentin, where’s your brother?” my mom asked as I was getting ready for school.

“He left early,” I said, surprising myself as the words came out. “Said he had a big project or something.”

My mom sighed, and then muttered the common household phrase: “I don’t know what to do with him.”

I figured he was still with Sam – though to my knowledge, he’d never spent the night before. I wavered down the street on my bike, pedaling hard. After I made my usual right turn toward the school, I ducked down a side street and started heading west. As I weaved around the potholes, my chest whirring, I thought about the last question I’d asked Aiden, about garlic; if we had pasta for dinner, did he have to triple-brush his teeth before seeing Sam? The answer involved mixing vodka into mouthwash.

I saw the yellow police tape before I saw the ambulance. I leaned my bike onto the big oak tree overlooking the swampy pond. Aiden and I would throw pennies in there on our way to the used video game store (I’d wish for sales on Game Boy cartridges). I walked, slowly, closer to the cruisers parked zig-zagged on the grass. There were three of them, plus a big black van I’d never seen before. The officers were huddled around a bus shelter.

Once one of them finally moved, I saw the gurney, and the soles of two DC sneakers peeking out from a large white sheet, the left one blue and the right one green. I felt a burning in my stomach and started sprinting back to my bike before tripping over a tree root.

The ground. Dad’s truck. My grandparents’ guest room. Kraft Dinner congealing on the nightstand. The moments in between have long gone into my subconscious. I was tucked into a bed layered in a heap of blankets that smelled like basement, and fell asleep to the sound of ringing phones and low voices.

People always say the first year is the hardest, navigating all the holidays and special occasions without them, but I think my 16th birthday was the worst one of all.

Graduation. Moving out. Freshman 15. Girlfriend. Breakup. Senior 15.

“Hey Google, how do I unclog a toilet?”

“How expired is too expired?”

“Where do I get tenant insurance?”

Flash forward to today: moving into my first apartment sans roommates. A custodian is mopping the stairwell, so I backtrack to the main lobby. When the elevator pings, my chest scrunches up like a tinfoil ball. As the doors open and I step inside, I close my eyes, cross my palms against my chest, and sigh.