Triangles were first on my shopping list

also wax, Wendsley, crans, and murder so like, thanks, auto-current and Siri, you guys sock

So I just got ice cream, the chocolate and peanut butter kind, and when I pick it up all cold out of the freezer I get without even trying that Marie-Condo-don’t-ever-let-me-go feeling.

I also get that joy about certain cookies, shorelines and from writing stories

And then I bought cranberries I mean it seemed like the right thing to do even though I resent that they’re sweetened, candles because April and wax, but I didn’t bother with the Wendsleys or murders these things will just have to wait I guess I can likely forever do without the Wendsleys and I don’t know what on earth I meant by murder either except maybe merengue although I’ve never actually seen either of these items for sale especially spelled like that.

I can glaze my eyes at will – look I’m doing it now – and it’s what I do when people start telling me their dreams so here’s a nice little italic apology and here’s the dream I had last night and I didn’t know it was a dream until the stewardess offered me salmon seasoning for my popcorn which I refused but she gave it to me anyway sprinkled it like little pink shoes and that’s when I started to twig that I might be in a dream and I looked around and they were all people I had invented for stories, the most notable of whom was Vidal from the carnival one but there were others too like Dead Harry and Theo Waits and my sisters Cape and Genevieve, also the many incarnations of Claire, it was like some big flying surprise party and all I could say was

I didn’t want salmon shoes on my popcorn

I think I might have said it out loud too because Daisy’s been side-eyeing me all morning laying there her stomach looks a little big-bloated and I know just how she feels but at least she doesn’t have to deal with waistbands. I know it’s due to the hard-boiled egg I dropped yesterday, such a disturbing landing sound it made like I thought I lost a vital organ or something fell out, but the splat and subsequent stank was the egg and although Daisy’s getting hard of hearing I mean you should see how many times I have to yell for her when we’re out walking but she heard that sucker land alright and I think she swallowed it whole like a snake.

She’s farting it out now in hazy speech bubbles that say ewww or maybe owwwww or sometimes eeeeek I can’t quite make it out.

Jesus aren’t you glad you clicked?

I went to the optometrist yesterday got my prescription and last time I got glasses there the lady oversold me and I’ve resented her since the clever little toad. I know it’s my fault I should have had my dukes up or at least some sense but you know you’re sitting there all drop-dazed and vulnerable and she really put the pressure on and said if you don’t like all the bells and whistles I’ve just made you say yes to you have 30 days to return but three days after I picked them up we were in the pandemonium so I never did and always hated them and resented her as I said so yesterday I said to myself and everyone else I am not getting my glasses there and I was early and like what else are you gonna do but try on glasses and I found a pair I liked and when I popped them on they went – do you know what I mean? – they went with my face and hair which is too fucking short I’m having trouble looking at myself in the mirror also clearfish clearfish fuck clearish vision allows the gruesome details, but anyway I loved like cookies et al and then they called my name I passed the super-sales-lady shoved her a glare, but thankfully it was another one I got after the exam and she said did you find any glasses you like? and I said yes and she said go get ‘em and I did and she smiled when she saw them said good choice they just came in on Thursday and my colleague got a pair and she pointed and it was super-sales-lady-toad there in my glasses so fuck.

I got them anyway but the thought of them is not giving me the Marie Condo it’s tinged with a little something opposite

Didn’t even have an Easter here this past weekend I don’t know what happened but it sure didn’t and we spent all three days in the warm yard half feeling great about not having to be the easter bunny any more and half wishing we still were and it was my youngest who suggested that next year we should have a beer hunt I said beer hunt? she said there are so many hiding places out here you should hide beer and give each of us an empty six pack box to fill up and I now I can’t wait for next year.

Or maybe we will have a belated Easter next weekend because I don’t wait well

Like I said a while ago I am going to start posting stories without sending an email so if you want to just feelingfunny.ca and look for the big yellow spotlight that will be the latest story. Each one will only be up until the next one takes its place then it will disappear and leave a small hole in you because one day I’m going to compile them all and sell them and take over the world, literally, and you’ll buy one because of the hole it will fill up in a Marie-Condo-has-nothing-on-this kind of way.

They’re short flash fiction without the flash and I try to make them stick like what happens with a good movie or a dream.

Poignant’s the word, Wendsley

Like I can’t get Vidal out of my head now I find myself wondering what he’s up to he’s realer to me than real people if you know what I mean and I miss him dearly. Funny the last thing I wrote about him he was on a flight to White where he’s from. I wonder if he said yes to the salmon shoe seasoning for his popcorn.

I was speaking with my friend Bev who’s in her eighties and she said I’m about 50-50 these days when I think of people half of them are dead and I didn’t say it but thought I have a whole other bubble of people who don’t fit into either category, they are people I’ve made up, and it’s kind of weird but I love them with a love that is more than love.

Sigh

Anyway here’s a happy little story if you feel like reading it and if not, here it isn’t.

And please if you enjoy these stories tell your friends and even strangers to help my taking over the world scheme…

SAVED

I am the dull one can you hear my head it goes clunk there is no way I can keep up my end of a conversation I am the opposite of these cottage people all of them can jump from any ledge into the lake, it’s called Easy Lake, and I am the only one for whom this is excruciatingly difficult, and by this I mean nothing I am just sitting here on this rock doing nothing, I came here with my cousin Tom, who glances my way puzzled but leaves me alone.

Later Tom says how come you’re like that.

I say nothing but move closer to him our shoulders knock once or twice the path along the river is narrow. I try to achieve with proximity that which I cannot explain. If I had anything to offer him instead of the normalcy he asks for I would give lavishly.

We are here for two weeks always two weeks mid-summer. Thirteen days to go.

Tomorrow Tom says we will go to Slate Island by canoe.

All night I float on my back.

We have one each, he has them ready by the time I approach he smiles, indicates the one for me, the red one, newer smaller floatier, the paddle inside I’ve done this before but not on my own and am surprised to find it is easy, we cut through the fog like peel.

There is a certain silence available in the canoe, I feel it like something absent and so does Tom, this joy we toss back and forth like brothers.

Three hours we get to Slate Island, a long rock like somebody planned it, it’s like the sunken living rooms in the city but without expectation, and the pines spaced out along the edges like they were planted I know dirt is scant but you better grow you only get the one chance.

We pitched a tent and stayed overnight and in the morning I was the one to say let’s go the other way, not home yet, and Tom smiled, said sure so we went to another island, this was Lake of the Woods in northern Ontario where it’s half lake and half woods we touched islands like join-the-dots, caught pickerel, ate fiddleheads and dandelions, and saved a turtle, his mouth gigantic was sewn closed by fishing line like a spool I used Tom’s knife and it was when I was cutting the line, one strand at a time it was wrapped around maybe 20 times, embedded, and each cut the turtle a snapper indicated he knew what I was doing I freed him and he was cut and sore but he knew I saved him.

The rest of the time flew by, I couldn’t believe it when there was only another week then five days, then tomorrow already and when we left my father said you drive and it was my first time behind the wheel those winding roads we saw a couple of my friends, Cindy waved blew me a kiss of all things, Brad waved, Chris hollered something I don’t know what.

Those sunken living rooms were a cinch to navigate after that, the velocity of life in general, it was like I’d been cut free just like the turtle.