Outreach Night

Sometimes, the same distance
becomes longer.
When the far-off rattle of a train
weaves its way through the city.
When I can take comfort
in the willow trees.
When friends become
strangers.

Climbing the stairs
and I’m thinking of
rooftop explorations,
boastful indiscretions.

Last night
I was ten seconds
ahead of the future.

But now I’m reaching the second floor
And it feels like
it should be
the fourth.

Heaven waits
past the fifth floor landing
But that door
has been locked again.

Back in my room
the mirror is clean,
clothes cover the bed,
and narcissism reigns.

The first lesson is that you can’t trust yourself.

A knock sounds
invisible and impatient.
I can guess whose hand
and the present rolls into focus.

But now I am reminded
how the past is subjective.
I cannot remember
if I said it or not
or whether or not
it was heard.

We make our
short-lived goodbyes.
Urgently chasing
our own happiness.

In the shower,
I curse the rain outside.
I’m trying so hard,
running in place
on slick bathroom tiles,
trying to emerge clean.

The second lesson is that no matter how clean you get, you’ll always need to wash again.

The stars must be there, still,
somewhere behind the pink smudge.
Luminous brushstrokes of light and vapour
fill a sky that I now ignore out of habit.

I am
fixed
on playing catch-up.
Not just for this
lost half-hour
but for the past month.

Lengthy strides are punctuated
by glances at the time,
and anticipation creates the illusion
of deep space.

It’s a fair walk
but what a flight of fancy.
Past the front lines
marked by construction fences.
Behind them
uniform ranks of houses,
sentinels
keeping watch on the road.
What once was ordered
is now swathed in a sea of mud,
pockmarked with footprints
holding murky pools.

Eyes ahead.

Not the time
to look at the past
while on the way
to meet the future.

The third lesson is that everything seems to mean more than it actually does.

I’ve been told
that it’s different each time.
The crowd, relations,
always a new arrangement.

And maybe
it’s a trick of the light,
how our bodies shrink
and our heads
exaggerate.

I see friends
transformed.

Two bright young women.
Two aged and young men.
One pair has ensnared the other
but which holds the leash?

In the verbal scrum
I am cast about.
Friendly words hide the sight
of a scrambling heap of egos,
one clawed down
that another may rise,
only to have its foundation
ripped

away.

The balcony is cold,
and I find no warmth inside.

And now, some words from our generous sponsors.

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Why does the conversation keep going like this?
Who cares?
Aw… you guys look cuuute…
Yo! Hold up!
Okay, this is your song.
Ten minutes.
Where’s your offering, man?
It’s just gross.
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Hey, can I borrow that?
You see, that is the Battle of Balls-Deep!
What the fuck did you just do that for?

And now, live from a dirty closet, we’re back to our program.

We just got our second wind,
and it’s an hour after midnight.
But it doesn’t feel like
nearly enough.

Strange,
contemplating
while the DJ plays
a game of musical chairs.

It’s still the same room,
but it seems somehow wrong.
The world, tilted,
one degree off-axis.

I’ve run through
an election-year’s worth
of televised debates
in twelve seconds.
But the words
that would have made
a gracious departure
are only showing up at 4am.

The fourth lesson is that chance always trumps fate.

I should be asleep.
As it stands, I’m halfway back.
And once again
the sky is smeared with grit.

I’m being called home
in the company of
far-off train whistles,
a row of willows,
and an automatic door
with a mind of its own.

I guess the real lesson is that nothing ever works the way it’s meant to.

lost in the summer haze

roads, trails, bent blades of grass - they all mean the same thing

Joe was cruising.

The highway unrolled in front of him, sped under his wheels, and was relegated to the rearview mirror and memory.

With the experience of long practice he maneuvered his car around a minivan that lumbered up a hill in the roadway. Cresting the top, the road undulated further and higher up ahead. Beyond the high barrier walls on either side of the highway stood the tops of the city buildings, but above the furthest rise ahead of him there was only sky.

Joe accelerated up the hills and coasted all the way down, notching his speed up every time. As he got closer, he noticed there were no cars coming in the opposite direction any more.

Strange. Maybe an accident - if that was it, it was a bad one.

Nearer to the furthest hill, he saw a huge traffic snarl that began halfway up its slope, and continued for who knew how far past the top. Applying the brake gently and with increasing force, he coasted into a spot at the back, only to notice something even more peculiar. People were getting out of their cars and standing at the top of the hill.

This was beyond odd. Something must have played hell with the traffic on the other side of the hill. Joe yanked the parking brake, shut off his engine, and got out of the car. The heat and humidity blasted him immediately after opening the door. Shading his eyes from the afternoon sun, he walked up to the group of people at the top. They ignored him, their attention focused ahead, and as he looked he saw why.

Not even fifty meters in front of him, the highway simply ended. For fifty meters there was a tangle of stopped cars. After that, there was just a tangle of branches, a line of trees forming the front rank of a forest that stretched across the highway and as far as he could see in either direction.

He didn't stop, but just kept walking down the hill. He passed by the legion of stopped cars, then came to the line that divided ashphalt from earth. Pausing only a moment, he stepped into the forest, dropping his keys to the ground.

what is to save us from this madness?

Over the past three weeks, something very strange has been happening to me. I've never had a thing like this happen, and I have no real clue what's caused it. I've been remembering things long forgotten - dreams I had years ago. Every day, it seems, I remember at least one part of a dream that has laid unnoticed in a dark corner of my mind since the day I woke up after dreaming it, however long ago that may have been. These are dreams that I've never thought about before, and now, they're all coming back to me at once.

Most of what I'm remembering is visual - places, spaces that I've created and moved through in my mind. Most of them are based in some way, shape, or form on areas of downtown Ottawa. It's recognizably the same sort of space - it has that feeling of familiarity in my mind, but the physical specifics are often very different. And sometimes, of course, this non-Ottawa serves as a sort of gateway within my dreams to places far removed from any sort of world that I have ever known.

I remember one quite clearly. I was moving alongside that stretch of land just south of Ottawa University, where the Transitway and the Rideau Canal are side by side. Yet, it was a blasted red wasteland of old brick buildings. A few surviving walls or sections of houses poked stubbornly out of the rubble, outstretched like refusing fists towards the unearthly sky of blood. And yet... as I walked through this bizarre landscape, it changed before my eyes - a shroud was pulled away and where moments before was desolate ruin, now was a land of unrivalled richness and natural beauty, the kind now relegated to fanciful tales, full of magic and life. But I couldn't stay long...

Score Another One for the Bad Guys

Who do they think they are? The thought came almost automatically. And then it was followed by its faithful companion. Why the hell do I keep doing this to myself?

Although she could think of several answers, Sarah could find none that held up to scrutiny. Especially right now. She had discovered quite some time ago that her mind was never clearer or sharper than in the hours after sex. Although it was never any help to her; quite the opposite. Another thing that she had discovered was that it didn’t pay off to think here. She couldn’t help it, though. No matter what happened to her, it was her own fault, somehow. But for some reason, she just couldn’t stop.

She picked up her form-fitting black dress from the chair and slipped into it. Surveying the empty room around her for the first time since she and James had gotten there, she sighed. She didn’t think she’d been here before, but she’d seen all too many rooms like this. She’d gotten to them in different ways, but once inside, everything was all the same. Well-lit, clean, with pastel walls and floral upholstery on the furniture. Picking up her heels, she noticed the strap on the right one was snapped. Damn. She pursed her lips, paused a moment, then flung it across the room.

It left a hole in the wall, and a bit of white dust settled to the floor. Plaster… a façade, just like everything else here.

She padded across the carpet to the bathroom. The cold tiles leeched the warmth from her bare feet. Checking in the mirror, she quickly touched up her makeup, then made her way back to the bedroom.

The king size bed was unmade, as they had left it. She almost opened the door, but decided against it. What was the rush? Running on automatic, she stripped the bed, and then made it again, sheet by sheet, layer by layer. When she was done, she almost laughed. Ready for whoever needs it next, I guess. I wonder why I even care.

Once she had left, she walked down the dark hallway in the direction of the party. No matter how far away she had gone – or was gone, for that matter – Sarah always knew where to go, and how to get back to the party. At least she could take pride in that much.

The cold floor was beginning to become more than an annoyance. Hearing faint voices from a down a hall that opened to her left, Sarah turned and headed in that direction. Not having gone far, she came to a door with light spilling out underneath.

She opened the door on an empty foyer. Sofas and bookcases lined the walls, and a mahogany coffee table with a half-full bottle of rum and some glasses sitting on it was in the centre of an elegant rug. A few clothes were scattered on the sofas and even the floor, and she saw at least twenty pairs of men’s and women’s shoes. From the adjoining room, the door slightly ajar, came soft human noises: giggles, breathing, moans.

Sarah rolled her eyes, went to the table, picked up the bottle, and took a drink from it. She grimaced, put it back, then bent down and started checking shoes. The noises from the other room never abated; rather, they seemed only to increase in intensity. After a minute, she had found a pair of stilettos that fit her feet. She had just finished putting them on when the door to the other room opened, and a young man walked out of there. He was naked but showed no sign of embarrassment. When she remained silent, he tilted his head at her.

“Are you coming or going?” he asked, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

She looked him straight in those eyes. What was it about boys like him?

“That depends. You?”

“Depends.”

She smiled, walked up to him, and put a hand on his chest. She could feel his heart rate jump up, and that sealed the matter. She ran the tips of her fingers down his torso to his waist, then withdrew them. Through it all, he didn’t even flinch; he just looked at her through half-closed eyes.

“Get dressed, then.”

Moments later, they were walking towards the dance floor, his arm around her waist. He looked at her.

“Do we have to do this dancing crap?”

She smiled coyly. “Well, you’ve got to do these things in the proper order. I won’t do anything without dancing first.”

God, listen to me. Why do I keep letting guys that I know that will be no good seduce me? Even if they don’t know I’ve let them do it, I have anyway. I can’t even say no to myself, let alone them.

“Yeah, that’s a good philosophy, I guess,” he said after a moment, and grinned.

They continued walking, as the music ahead of them got louder. He gave her ass a squeeze. She cocked an eyebrow at him, then looked ahead and smiled wryly.

Participation at last!

We had never seen anything like it before. I had no idea what this being was made of. It was in the same room as we were, and we couldn’t see it at all. Then one of us stretched out her hand. It broke the vertical surface of some till-then invisible liquid. There was nothing that we could see that contained it. The hand moved through air, and then, creating ripples, into this thing. She took a step forward, immersing her face, and started to blow bubbles.

This was when the thing was friendly.

By the end, we found ourselves running up a steeply inclined hallway, in some kind of weird hotel. We were holding bundles of papers in our arms: printouts, notebooks, reports, scribbled notes… But it was there, trying to stop us. We couldn’t see it until it let fall from itself litres of water at a time, which soaked the papers we were holding. We were suddenly struggling with far heavier loads.

When we got to the top, and rounded the corner, we found ourselves in an empty restaurant type lounge, the sunken dining area of which was covered in about a foot of water. The temperature in there was falling rapidly. We had to hurry, throwing all the papers – everything that anyone had written about or because of this creature – into the water, before it froze. Only then was the danger removed.


Three of us were walking through the wasteland at night. All around us was an industrial debris-strewn landscape of grey. We were walking along near the top of a ridge, which peaked to our left. We were just walking, but I wanted to leave that place.

I climbed to the top of the ridge. Far beyond, I could see a smooth inwardly sloping tower, with a beam of red light stretching upward from its top. I moved to walk towards it, but my companions told me not to. It was someplace we couldn’t go.

I noticed a line along the top of the ridge. On the other side of it, a fine grey dust had accumulated on the ground. I picked up a rock and threw it in front of me. When it crossed that line along the ridge, a small distortion spread in the air around it, like a ripple. When it struck the ground, a red glow surrounded it for a moment.

I jumped through, and though I created a bigger disturbance when I crossed over, I didn’t feel a thing. When I landed, the red glow started at my feet and climbed halfway up my legs before dissipating. I half expected to start becoming invisible or to disintegrate and become more of this grey powder that had cushioned my landing, but nothing really happened. I said farewell to my friends, and started walking towards the tower.

When I got there, I found an entrance at the base that led to curved stairs down below. Not far down these stairs, I came out into a semi-crowded sort of subway or tram station. I got on one of these trains just before it headed out.

Once outside, we were on streetcar rails set in a busy city street. Ahead of us, a large bridge spanned a river that flowed through the city. As we were crossing the bridge, I realized that this wasn’t where I wanted to go, so I got off once we got to the other side. I was still trying to find some sort of “way out” (way out of what, though?), and I noticed a big cargo yard next to the bridge and the river. In this yard were many containers of the sort used on trucks, trains, and boats. I wanted to explore, but along the guardrail on the side of the road was an electric fence. So I walked along the roadside across the bridge, until I finally found my way back to the subway station.

Inside, one storey above the platform level, not far from the ticket booth, was a stairway that led into the next part of the building, which appeared to house a school. However, the stairway had a metal gate in place, so that no one could move between the school and the station.

I was standing so that I could see the landing on the floor above in that stairwell, where students were going to and fro. Two of them seemed to get into some kind of altercation, which rapidly escalated to the point of one of them pulling a kitchen knife on the other. (It is probably worth noting that the guy who pulled the knife was a Frosh here this past year.) I looked around, but nobody in the station seemed to have noticed. Frantic, I watched the events unfold. The two struggled together, the knife-wielder slowly closing the distance between his weapon and his opponent’s face. Suddenly, in a flurry of motion, they were apart, then the attacker started slicing the other guy’s head. At one point he seemed to be trying to cut his ear off. I screamed for people to stop them.

I don’t know what happened then. I can’t remember a thing.

The next thing I do remember is making my way around to the other side of the station with a group of people. We had some kind of lighting kit with us, with a light and collapsible parabolic reflector on a pole. We found a large stairwell that extended for about five storeys above us and at least as many below.

We needed to fix the light, though. I started fiddling with the cables, attaching another light. When I went to join the cables, I found that they weren’t power cables, but RCA audio/video cables. When I looked again, there were two microphones, not two lights, attached to the pole.

We went down one flight of stairs, stepping past some rather bohemian-looking guys and girls half-sprawled out on the lower landing, and found ourselves in a vast underground excavation project. It appeared to be the construction of a new subway line. We weren’t the only people there. There were lots of construction workers, but also just as many people – just ordinary people – down there taking tours. I passed the guy who works the door at my college’s pub on Thursdays, and we greeted each other friendlily.

A train came, and a bunch of us got on. Eventually, we came out above ground, and when I looked around, I found that I was travelling with my family now. We were on our way to a movie theatre. My sister was saying something about the (to her mind) excessive profanity in entertainment these days, and some twentysomething guy started to make fun of her. I told him that things were cool, and just to leave her alone. Then we arrived at the station by the theatre.

I don’t know what we were going to see.

Going All the Way

It was a good night. Shuffling down the street, Tom knew this. It was one of the few things he did know at that moment. Everything else was lost in the haze of the evening’s indulgences.

Those lights were so bright – he hadn’t noticed ever before. And the shadows they cast, they seemed alive. He knew them all by name.

There had been friends, drinks, girls, more and more…

The street stretched on in front of him like a tall hallway, its ceiling lost in shadow. He could feel himself moving along it, but nothing seemed to get any closer. Tom couldn’t tell if he’d been walking for a few minutes or a few hours. That really didn’t bother him.

What bothered him was the fact that he felt himself coming down. When he’d started walking, he’d stood hundreds of feet above the cracked cement, and was still able to count every chip in its surface. Now he felt himself diminish, receding towards the ground, which seemed to blur and become an abstraction.

Fuck that noise. He pulled his last joint of the evening out of his pocket along with his lighter. He’d been saving it for a good time, but this was a necessity. When he got where he was going (where was he going, anyway?) he could always roll a few more.

The alley to his right beckoned. Taking off his backpack, he sat down and lit up. Shit, that was really harsh. He had just the thing for that. He reached into his backpack, pulling a bottle of beer from it. Twist the cap, tip it back. That made two left.

Like the passing of his own personal civilization, Tom left behind the telltale traces to be swept up in the flood of time: an empty bottle with the butt of a joint in the bottom. And, a few feet away, a twist-cap.

But he didn’t go back the way he came. At the other end of the alley, he saw a subway entrance. Fuck yeah. Sure as hell beat walking in the wind. Making his way towards it, he tried to remember which one it was, and which way he needed to go. But he couldn’t quite tell where he was, so he shuffled the question off to the side of his mind.

Down the stairs, down the halls, towards the noise, and onto the platform, where a train was just opening its doors. He made it on just before they closed and found a seat. As the subway began to move, he saw that his car was empty.

Where was he going, anyway? And where was everyone? And… had he even paid a fare? He must have, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall having done it. The train steadily picked up speed. Head spinning more and more, he managed to form one last thought – this is not so good.

Black.

Up. Through the open door. Onto a deserted, semi-lit platform. Fall. Puke. Better. Up again.

He found himself walking down a hall. Where to, he had long ago given up wondering. It was lit by intermittently spaced naked bulbs directly above. Then from up ahead came the sound of footsteps. In heels.

The door at the end of the hall opened. There she stood, framed and silhouetted.

“Hey.”

“Oh,” he managed, “Hey…”

She paused, tilted her head. “You lost?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever, though.”

“The party’s just down that way,” she said, with a nod of her head to the hallway behind her. “Come with me.”

He made his way towards her, knowing she studied his every step.

“I’m Amy,” she told him, extending her arms towards him.

“Tom,” he said, returning the hug.

“Do you have anything to drink, Tom?”

Wordlessly, he slung his bag off his shoulders and unzipped it, revealing the two remaining bottles. Amy smiled at him and pulled both out. He couldn’t help but be infected by that smile, and replied with a grin. He put his bag back on, and she handed him a drink. They opened the bottles, tossed the caps, began walking, and drank.

After a moment, he laughed softly. She looked at him questioningly.

“What?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Oh, no, never mind.”

“What?!” She was laughing now, grabbing his free hand.

“Hey!”

She led him through a side door.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“The party can wait for a few minutes, don’t you think?”

have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

I often dream movies. In shots. In such cases, I am not a participant; I am a disembodied observer.

A group of pranksters were setting up a slingshot stretched across a town street. When they had tied both ends to lampposts, they pulled it back and launched this great gob of goo into the crowd walking down the street away from them. Chaos. Everyone began running towards the castle on the point beyond the town. People were running along the top of the aqueduct that lead to it, against the flow of water.

The slingshot people started launching boulders up onto the aqueduct, whose momentum carried them up the incline to the castle.

Out on the water, the pirates were watching. They made their way past the castle on the point, watching everything unfold, and headed into the bay.

In another place...

It was a very baroque room. It had character, of a studied, regal, and somewhat menacing kind.

It also had a wall that wasn't.

Where the rest of the room was ornate, this wall was conspicuously blank. Defying all expectations of what the room should be like, it was as if this wall was not a part of the room at all. Perhaps that was the best description of it.

It seemed to those who had gathered there that something had sliced through the middle of the room, leaving this blank grey surface as a divider. No one went near it, they just stayed by the opposite wall. Then someone decided to try to bounce a ball off it.

The ball simply passed through the surface without a sound. Wordlessly, the person produced a second ball, and tied a length of string to it. He threw the ball, holding on to the end of the string. After the ball and half of the string had passed through, he gave a tug. The string remained taut and he couldn't pull any back through the wall. But he kept pulling harder and harder until it finally snapped. They all left the frayed tail end of string sticking out and never returned.

The Exit Light

Chris fancied himself a writer. Maybe that was because no one seemed to listen to him any more. He was always on the periphery of the party, now. The action no longer seemed to hold the same appeal – at least for participation. He still wrote about it, though.

Notebook under his arm, he realized that there was something vaguely poetic about walking across the dance floor, unmoved by the shifting mass surrounding him.

Of course, by the time that thought finally crystallized, he’d left the dance floor behind. In the place of its fading noise, he tried to remember the words to some song. He couldn’t remember it ever having been played at the party, and he couldn’t think of where else he could have heard it. Just my imagination. In his head, another neuron flared.

He walked on until he found the stairwell. After going up a couple of flights, he sat down on the broken heater in one of the landings, settling his notebook on his lap and pulling out his pen.

What was that song?

The door half a flight below him was pushed open, and a young couple entered, unaware of his presence. Gathering up his book, Chris made his way up the next flight, catching a last glimpse of the two of them – the girl, seductive, and the boy, lascivious.

The laughter of their supposed discretions pursued him further upwards. He’d lost track of how many floors he’d climbed when it came to him that he just wanted out. This was a thought that had never occurred to him. He didn’t even know where “out” was, but he knew that’s where he wanted to be.

He kept climbing.

Why can’t I remember that song?

Some time later, he came to a door marked simply “Mechanical Room.” Trying it, he was rewarded with a blast of stale hot air and the metallic rumble of machines. Boilers of some kind, it seemed. While passing between these, he heard the door close behind him. He walked back to try it, but the handle refused to turn. Making his way around the room, he found another door.

This one opened on a small white stairwell that went up one flight of steps and then turned abruptly to his left. The once-white-painted cinderblock walls had been covered in various messages and drawings of paint and ink. The air was rank with pot. He turned to look at the door as it closed behind him. On it were drawn flames, and, crudely, the number 666.

From up the stairs and around the corner came the sounds of people approaching. A door opened, letting their conversation in. He walked up and turned the corner.

At the top, a few steps up from where he was, two girls and four boys had entered the stairwell from a side doorway, and were walking down the steps. They grinned at him mischievously.

“Hey dude,” one of the girls said.

But he looked past them, out the other door at the top of the stair.

It let in the moonlight reflected off of snowdrifts.

Chris walked past them, nodding in acknowledgement of their greeting, and pushed the door open a bit. Then he turned and looked at the six of them, who were forming a loose circle on the landing.

“The stars are so nice tonight.”

“Yeah, man,” one of the guys said.

As he turned to walk out the door, he caught a bit more of their conversation.

“Look, guys, she’s in the corner again!”

“Man, this is such an episode of ‘Danger High’.”

Walking out under the stars, Chris began to sing softly.

“Mirrors on the ceiling,

Pink champagne on ice, and she said:

‘We are all just prisoners here,

Of our own device…’”

Another Story from Inside

Tessa was dying. Ben knew that.

As surely as he couldn't remember the sun, he couldn't remember a time without her. Despite the fact that she was younger than him (a fact which amounted to naught there), she had been at the party much longer than he had. She couldn't imagine living without it, and now it was killing her.

Ben had fallen for her, he didn't know how long ago. He would have said "God knows how long ago," but he knew that they had no God. God simply did not exist there.

A newcomer on the scene, Ben had learned everything he knew from Tessa. She had relished combining her party life with that of a mother hen of sorts - one that had no problem with incest.

Neither of them were sure if they could call it romance. Not in a place like that. It was what it was.

Ben knew it wasn't going to last. Every instant, every hit, every drink, every fuck, everything brought Tessa closer to the nothing that surrounded their world. She had lost control before they ever met, and he knew she was going to crash. But he couldn't leave her.

As he walked with her away from the noise, away from the crowd, and into the familiar stairwell, his left hand held his pipe in his pocket while the right had his lighter flick-flicking out in front of him.

Minutes later, he watched Tessa, the hash burning away, the pipe to her lips. After taking a hit, she held her breath and leaned forward to kiss him. He let it all in, the smoke crossing from her lungs to his - but Tessa dissolved the bond in a fit of coughing.

"Sorry..." she managed, offering up the pipe and lighter to him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied between coughs, and smiled.

He lit what was left in the bowl and, closing his eyes, took as big a hit as he could. It didn't help that he could still see her. All the times he'd found her passed out. The time she'd choked on her own vomit. All those times that he was holding onto, despite the party's efforts to make him forget. How could he forget? Those moments had become so many he couldn't distinguish individual instances any more.

He realized he was just inhaling ash and opened his eyes.

And saw Tessa's staring into his. She seemed to be in one of her lucid moments, now.

"Ben... do you love me?"

He stopped. Put the pipe and lighter down on the step.

"Ben..."

He took her head in both hands, brought his face right up to hers, and kissed her. For what seemed like-

eternity.

Which perhaps it was.

"But do you love me?"

Back to the (n)ever-changing present.

"Tessa... do we even know what that means?" The only answer he could think of.

"No... I guess not," she replied, her eyes already starting to glaze over. "Come on, Ben, let's get back in there. The vibe should be getting good around now."

He picked his implements up from the stair and they returned, hand in hand. Maybe this would be her last round. She was already talking about the amazing coke that Brad had stashed away under a certain couch. He knew he couldn't stop her. And that was what made her.

Interior

The party had been going on for as long as everyone there remembered. They couldn't tell whether that was an hour or a hundred years ago. Nor could they tell where it was. People came and went - where to or from, no one could recall, let alone say. It was a party and they were there. That was all that mattered.

It was a party of ever-changing constants. Some people had been there the whole time (for lack of a better expression). Some had just "arrived." But the party stayed the same. You could get anything you wanted.

Elise wanted everything. James wanted Elise. Katherine wanted both James and Elise at once. Brian wanted to get high and forget his troubles. Simon wanted to beat the shit out of Brian. Jennifer wanted to watch him. And then afterwards she would fuck Brian. Ad infinitum.

No one knew how big the building the party was in was. There was a main room with dance floor and alcoves. There were side rooms, hallways, stairwells... places for secret trysts, sessions, orgies... the inevitable tears. Anything the mind could think of doing, someone could find a space for it. But everyone gravitated around the party itself. Where else was there to go? There was no exit, no outside - and no one cared.

It was as if no one ate or slept. The building and all the people in it were alive with a permanent buzz of substances and sweat. Emotions ran continually at peak amplitude- things were usually consistent -and sometimes into the red. but occasionally something snapped

Jane had been dancing with Rick for a while. He wasn't a great conversationalist, but she could live with that - at least until she grew tired of him. He was a good dancer, though, and besides that he was fun. What more could anyone expect, really?

After coming back from the washroom, where she'd done a couple of lines with Jasmine, Jane went over to the bar to get a Rum & Coke. By the time she finished it and got back to the floor, Rick wasn't where she'd left him. Turning to a side exit, she caught a glimpse of him being led by the hand out the door into the dark hallway beyond by Jasmine.

Following at a discreet distance, Jane caught their excited whispers and hushed laughs down the hall ahead of her. They turned aside at a numbered door, and she waited a couple of minutes before pushing it open and proceeding warily inside.

The door opened on a small lounge, with Jasmine and Rick's clothes already strewn about. Murmurs and laughs came from the hall beyond the brightly lit kitchenette. Jane paused next to the counter as footsteps approached.

Jasmine rounded the corner, nude, and her eyes widened as she came face-to-face with Jane, who immediately closed the distance between them. With her left hand, Jane brought Jasmine's head towards hers and kissed her full on the lips. With her right, she grabbed a steak knife out of its rack on the counter and plunged it into Jasmine's side, between her ribs, and into her heart. What little noise escaped the union of hers and Jasmine's lips was little more than a gasp.

When she entered the bedroom, she found Rick lying naked on the bed. She ran up and straddled him, bringing the knife to his neck.

"If you move," she panted as his eyes snapped wide open, "I'll fucking kill you."

She proceeded to get into position, preparing him and adjusting her dress and undergarments with her left hand while her right never budged. After several minutes, when she was about to come, she sliced as deep as she could. She remained mounted for a few seconds more before disengaging, dropping the knife and shedding her bloodstained clothes on the way to the bathroom.

Jane remained in the shower until it was so foggy she could hardly breathe.

When she emerged the bedroom was spotless, without a trace of blood or violence. No body, no clothes, no knife. She found a clean dress that fit her in the walk-in closet. She took the care to turn out all the lights as she left.

When she returned to the party, it didn't matter how long she'd been away. Nothing had really changed.

Jane realized that no one would even remember them, anyway.

incomplete

I met Eric a few weeks ago. I was exploring a construction site in the area that had been intriguing me to no end. I wasn't sure why I went in there. But after I met Eric, he told me the answer. It's interesting that someone can have the same restless curiosity and appreciation of strange beauty as me. I had thought that I was alone in that.

Eric used to be an accountant. When he was twenty-six he abruptly left his job, his home, and his girlfriend of three years. When I asked him why he just tossed his life, he said, "That wasn't my life. Those were my circumstances. If I'd stayed much longer, I wouldn't be really alive any more."

That night, in the construction site, I was just poking around idly when Eric and I stumbled upon each other. He was looking around for a suitable place to bed down, while I was framing up a shot of what looked like an empty elevator shaft on my SLR. When we both realized that the other was harmless, we got to chatting about what the hell we were doing there. I think he was impressed that I fancied myself a photographer - even more so that I hadn't gone digital. He got talking about how this place was a work in progress, and that's why he dug it. I realized that's exactly what drew me to it in the first place. Leave it to a total stranger to make you realize what you're thinking.

He told me about another site he'd seen that he really wanted to get to before "they ruin it" by completing construction, and he said that with the floodlights filtering through it I could get some great shots there. The next night I took the bus to meet him at this place. I brought my camera, as well as two rolls of film and a few bottles of beer. After I'd shot the rolls, we sat down to drink and we shot the shit. It turns out that after he "dropped out," Eric started wandering around the city, sleeping only in construction sites that he could break into at night. He's twenty-nine now, and although he looks ten years older, he swears he's never felt more youthful.

When I asked him how he managed to survive when he had no job, he just shook his head and smiled a bit. I asked him what that was supposed to mean, and by way of reply he pulled several folded sheets of lined paper out of his coat and handed them to me. I read the pencil-written text for the next ten minutes or so. I was absolutely enthralled. Here I was, in the company of an enlightened soul, a philosopher-tramp.

It turns out that Eric writes whenever he has a chance. He'll write anything - short stories, non-fiction, manifestos, editorial work. He freelances and is published by some small papers and magazines. This gives him enough money to eat. What really got me, though, was his admission that he writes far more than he publishes, and that if he had his way, none of his work would be published at all. "Whenever I know I'm going to need some more damn money, I'll submit a few things. But only when I have to. Getting them out in the popular media just cheapens them. Besides, most of my stuff is unfinished - I write best that way."

I could write a book about our conversations, but I'm sure he's going to actually do that before I could motivate myself to bring pen to paper. I know if he writes that, he'd die before it got published. I know I wouldn't want to publish it either if I wrote it - a little bit of Eric, rubbing off on me. Right now I'm just trying to get into this creative process, this state of mind that this man lives every day.

how to properly enjoy 1st year film screenings

I swear, film students are depressed all the time. It's like we're afraid if we start being happy we'll start doing shitty work. Oh, how we suffer for our art. Oh woe.

I mean, really - last year, at the screenings of all the first-year Film student final projects, some guys came up with a drinking game involving one shot of tequila every time there's death, two shots if there's a suicide, one shot every time there's a scene in a graveyard, and a shot every time there's Radiohead or Philip Glass on the soundtrack. An hour into the screenings, they were fucked out of their minds.

Which is hilarious, yes, and I'd like to attend the first-year screenings with some friends this year and play the same game. The theory came up that you get all that morbidity out of your system in first year, then go on to making better stuff. Perhaps.