Definitions

The other day I was casually conversing with a stranger. After we’d been talking for a while, she asked if I was a writer. I smiled and said yes. Maybe I was comfortable saying that because she didn't know me or maybe I’ve finally become comfortable with the idea itself. I’ve been apprehensive simply because I’ve never been paid for it, so it’s always seemed misleading, but now that I think about it, do we define ourselves by what we are paid to do or by what we enjoy doing? More importantly, why define ourselves at all?

Only The End Of The World Again

Last night I had a dream that I was the only one who saw the end of the world. And I didn't want to wake from it.

I was out in a field with hundreds of other workers, picking berries or tilling soil or planting seeds, as was my job then. A tight, pulsing trail of fire leapt up into the sky, bright against the starlit backdrop. It swirled in a giant loop, burning so dominantly that there was nothing but absolute nothing in its wake. Slowly, the fire descended from the sky. I knew, somehow, that we were the last people on Earth, however long such a thing could be true and boasted about. Everything the fire touched was devoured - the field, the soil, all the workers that were standing around me, one by one, some not even aware of what was happening. The fire came for me last, slower than ever it moved. I stood there amazed, eyes wide open, staring with struggling confidence and hopeless curiosity. I watched it swirl in small circular patterns as it approached me. I just stared, and stared, and...

The Punchline

We sat by the window facing the street, giving names to all the people walking by. We saw Samantha, Rick, Chris, and possibly a Gerard. We saw Gerry with a G, and Amy, and even Leonard, though he prefers Len or Lenny. Eventually they were all named and so we went to wait for our trains home, which were going in opposing directions, and although my train came first, I was the last to leave. It's funny how things work out sometimes.

In A Fraction Of A Moment...

I was thinking about something to write, and my eyes drifted up and caught hers as she walked by. For half a heartbeat, she passed out of sight, and my view followed the trail of where she would have been, then caught her eyes again. She gave me a wide grin and looked down before I could return the smile. I'll never know what we were thinking at the time, because I am not her and because my mind was somewhere else entirely.

The Tumbling

Life begins at the crest of a mountain, where everything is at its most simple. Then we tumble down the side, gathering choice and dilemma and opportunity, growing into an enormous and complicated mass that tumbles faster and faster. Things speed past us as we fall, and we start to notice what we missed and can't return for. At the very end of our lives, at the base of the mountain, we are only what we've accumulated along the way. We are not what we wanted to be. Not completely. Only the luckiest and the liars.

Being Friendly

The last time that I burned myself – or, more accurately, was burned, as these incidents don't happen intentionally insomuch as they don't happen by chance – I cursed and pulled myself from the pain. Now, looking to the future, what should the next action be? To get rid of the fire completely or leave it around as a warning? It's still sitting out of view and reach, ignored, but not so far that it’s out of my mind. I'm no longer drawn to it in the same way I was, but it still bothers me. It was all a constant challenge and now when I want to warm myself, the fire flares up unexpectedly, and pulling away is easier than it ever was.

We said we wanted to be friends. We both said it. But now whenever we talk, everything is taken out of context. The same harmless dialogue we've ever had is being read with hostile voices, and we're both guilty of this. I don't think anybody who says they want to be friends ever really means that at face value. What they mean is that they want to be friendly, which is much easier to do.

Mosaic

I went to a certain restaurant last night for the second time. The first was almost a year ago, and I didn't find my meal overly enjoyable; as it turns out, that item has since been removed from the menu! Coincidence? Or were they getting a lot of those same meals returned uneaten? (For the record, my meal last night was very good.)

An interesting moment happened when I sneezed at the table. While we were walking down Whyte Ave to find the restaurant that must have gone invisible the first time we passed it, I mentioned something about lucky pennies. Well, at a point towards the end of the meal, I turned my head to the side and sneezed. When I opened my eyes, right on the ground near me was a penny! But who's to say that it would have brought me any more luck... I did, after all, get a goodnight hug.

I went grocery shopping yesterday for my upcoming long weekend camping trip with the guys... and the bill came to over $200 just for the food! The liquor, just for me, was around $120. The forecast is very optimistic (low -10 C, high of 2 C) and Randy picked up over $80 in fireworks! It's going to be such a good time. In fact, I'll be disappointed if I don't come home with a broken something-or-other!

Good and Evil

I've been thinking a lot lately about good and evil, and how our choices define us as individuals. Do good people do good things because they want to, or because they want to appear good? If it's for the second reason, as I suspect is the case of many people - myself included, occasionally - then the good deed is being done in the name of pride, which is a sin, essentially doing something good for a bad reason. Being good, then, simply isn't enough; you have to be good sincerely. And sincerity is even harder to fake than being good.

Tea For Two

After finishing my TESOL course this weekend, I have to say that I've gained all sorts of new respect for teachers. Now that I have a bit more insight into all the planning and preparation they have to do, it seems that it's an even more difficult profession than I once believed. I'm reflecting back on the teachers that I had growing up and seeing them in an entirely different light. Some of them better, some of them worse - all of them facing a difficult challenge with a confidence that soon I'm going to have to wear. Over the last week, I've had a lot of moments where I dipped back into memory and tried to learn something other than the lesson I was being taught. If only I had realized at the time that the delivery is just as important as the content, maybe then I wouldn't have denounced a 'silly' activity as such if I knew that sometimes it's the best approach.

Break.

She was behind me as I was walking out the building. While I held the door open for her, she had stopped to look at a book; maybe she stopped because she knew what I was thinking. I came back over - feeling a hint of future regret - and asked her if she would like to go for tea some time. Actually, that's what I should have said, what I really said was that we should go for tea some time. There's an implied difference there and I hope that's what she was overlooking when her eyes darted off to the side as she apprehensively agreed. But I know that look now. I know that tone when saying yes. I know it all means something else entirely.

Unnoticed

Every guy notices her as she walks into the room. I do too, of course, but I'm more interested in everyone else noticing her. All of us are sitting alone at long tables with empty seats; there are no empty tables. I'm sure she can feel all the eyes on her but she avoids them all, sits near me and flips open a textbook. She has long sun-coloured hair that must have taken her the morning to set in its perfect, unmoving shape. Her shirt doesn't come down all the way to her pants so to tease the world with lascivious smooth skin. She must make an affair out of everywhere she goes, even on a Sunday and even to the library.

The others share their attention equally with their books and her. She pretends not to notice.

And me? I'm pretending too, like I don't see her because I'm writing this. Like there's no trace of her perfume between us. But soon she'll be alone at this table, pretending, and I'll be gone.

Lacuna Inc

I have memories sitting all around my mind like litter on a city street. Pieces of my life crumpled up and tossed aside, still vivid and accurate when they're unfolded and pressed flat. It isn't often that I remember something incorrectly - either I remember it or I don't. I know exactly where I've been, what I've done, and what's been done to me. I trust my memory more than I trust people, and many times I wish that my entire life had been logged by some omniscient author so I could have undeniable evidence to support me. That, or maybe I wish other people had a similar capability in memory or, at the very least, could admit when their own memories are potentially flawed. Honesty is never overrated, especially not at the expense of pride.

My Memory Lane is a superhighway. I'm trying not to hold grudges, trying to be a better person than that, but sometimes it's so hard to do when I know who has slighted me and how. It would be great to have the superhighway paved over but somehow I think that's unrealistic. Especially for me.

Under the Layers of Years

His stare keeps drifting down below the slim Beatles book on the table in front of him, and, eventually, it falls down to his lap, and his eyelids next, then his chin sinks to his chest. He is an old man, dressed in a bulk of thin layers to stay warm. Tattered shirts and sweaters piled on top of each other to fight the cold outside. Security walks by casually, gives him a light poke with his radio, hard enough to feel it but soft enough to say, "you are welcome here." He slowly stirs to life, returns to his book, and a few sentences later, he can't fight how tired he is, just like he can't really fight the cold outside no matter how many layers he wears. Age has caught him, just like it catches us all.

Toothouch

When I close my mouth, there is a pain that I feel that starts behind my eyes and rises up to the top of my head, then back down. A constant dull throbbing, a slow scraping of well-manicured nails down the side of my brain. It's as though the inside of my head was being pulled behind a horse through a dusty desert.