Way of the Moose

Mike_419566_44589209.jpg

By Michael Myers

Hunched over an undersized desk, Lucas earns his nickname: Moose. “Give it to Moose,” his coworkers say. Massive filing jobs are regularly dumped on his desk and he completes them all without error.  When the office is bustling with loud salesmen, excited for their weekends and happy-hours, Lucas quietly works away.  His silence isn’t a dig at his colleagues’ shenanigans, he just never speaks, a side-affect of his autism.   

Lucas works at Choice Realty, a real-estate office that is close enough to home. For Lucas it doesn’t matter though. He’s always miles away as he’s entering, sorting and summarizing sales data. But for his mother Susanne, it’s important that her son always be close by. They keep a hard routine and live a streamlined life, but she often worries about her son.

His autism never stopped him from earning a two-year college diploma in Accounting. The routine and structure of Accounting was a perfect fit for Lucas: Mondays were Payroll and tuna for lunch, Fridays were “Pizza Fridays” and Accounts Receivable entries.  Lucas never took to speaking, especially at work where is mother wasn’t there to be his voice. Still, he could show you on an Excel spreadsheet just what you needed to see.

At 5 p.m. sharp everyday, Susanne picks her son up from work. Lucas then spends every night playing his favourite online war game, Counterstrike. She isn’t crazy about Lucas’ ritual, and at age 22, Susanne thinks he ought to have his own routine, whether or not he approves.  But along with Lucas’ gaming comes the loud pounding she hears coming from his room every night. One night, it gets really loud. Forced to investigate for the sake of her son, and her home, Susanne barges in mid-smash.

“Lucas, you are going to break that desk!”

Lucas swivels his chair to face his mom, and then turns back to his monitor and pushes it over with ease.

“Talk to me, Lucas!” she screams.

He holds his stare and kicks the monitor, which is now on the ground. This is when Susanne decides it’s time for a new routine.

The next day, she sets out to find something that will be better for her son. Fishing would be perfect, she thinks. It’s outdoors, it’s peaceful and best of all, it’ll keep him off of Counterstrike for a few hours.

Susanne makes her way into a sporting goods store and purchases two rods and a tackle box, and fills it with what she thinks are over-priced lures. It’s for my son, she says to herself as the clerk swipes her card.

Leaving the store, Susanne notices a blue flyer sticking out from under her windshield wiper. On it, a man in a Karate gi is smiling while throwing a straight high-kick. “Master Nick’s Impact Kyokutan Karate,” it says. Yeah, that is just what he needs: more violence. She pulls the flyer down and drops it on the passenger seat.

Susanne arrives to pick up Lucas from work at 5:04. He’s already waiting outside with a not-so subtle scowl.

“I got something for you,” she says.

He looks down and through the car’s rolled-down window, and he sees the Karate flyer and grins.

“No, not that. Look in the back seat. I got us fishing rods!” Susanne says, waiting for Lucas to return her a smile.

Instead, his grin drops.

“I just thought I would try something new, Lucas. I mean, don’t you want to do something other than play that game?”

Lucas picks up the flyer, looks it over and tunes out his mom.

“What? You want to do that? Fine. I’ll drive you there right now!” Susanne says, reversing the car in a fury.

They pull into the parking lot of what looks to be an abandoned office building. Susanne waits for Lucas to call her bluff, but it never comes. When they enter the dojo, they’re met with the smell of feet and the sound of shins colliding with pads: Bang, bang, BANG.

“Jeez kid, you’re as big as a bear,” says a voice. It’s the guy from the flyer, Nick.

“Funny you should say that,” Susanne chimes in. “I hear his coworkers have likened him to a moose.”

“Ha! Okay, Moose… Is that what I should call you?” Nick asks.

Lucas gives no reply.

Nick smiles. “Okay, Moose, we’d be happy to have you. Class starts in ten minutes.”

“Oh no! We are just here for some information. He’s not ready to try it now,” Susanne explains.

“Moose, you wanna try this out now?” Nick persists.

Lucas nods yes.

“Great! We have a loner gi you can wear for this class. Don’t worry, its clean.”

Lucas signals to his mother to wait outside.

“No, Lucas. If you really want to try this out, I’m staying right here.”

*          *          *

“Okay, guys. Let’s all give a warm welcome to Lucas, who’s starting his first class today.”

The class applauds and Lucas applauds with them nervously.

There is a wall in the dojo with a slogan adorning it that seems to catch Lucas’ eye. It reads: “If you know the way broadly, you will see it in everything.”

“That’s Miyamoto Musashi, Moose. Do you know who that is?”

Lucas shakes his head.

“He was the greatest Japanese swordsman ever. You could learn a lot from him. When you go home tonight, look him up.”

Susanne waits in the lobby.  Everywhere there are trophies, metals and pictures of Nick fighting in competitions. In one, Nick’s opponent appears to be lying on the mat unconscious. While he seems to be a nice guy, she hopes this will be their last trip to Nick’s studio. 

But, week after week, she drives him to his classes. Lucas’ laundry doubles from the sweat-soaked gis, but Susanne is hard-pressed to complain.  The pounding on the desk has stopped, and Counterstrike is replaced with Bruce Lee clips on YouTube and Musashi’s book, The Book of Five Rings.

Three months pass and Lucas is promoted to the rank of orange belt. The night of his promotion, Nick takes Lucas aside.

“Learning through repetition and hard training, Moose. That’s why I gave you your orange belt tonight…. You’re qualified to compete now,” Nick says as he tugs on his new orange belt. “You’re our only heavyweight.”

Lucas glanced at his mother, who was watching them both suspiciously.

“Moms worry, Moose,” says Nick. “That’s what they do. If I listened to my mom, I would have never found my own way.” Nick stretches out his arms to show off his trophies and his studio.

“What do you want to do, Moose?” Nick asks as he hands Lucas a flyer for a local competition.

Susanne sees the flyer and ambushes the conversation.

“This isn’t for him, Nick.”

“Is this for you, Moose?” Nick asks.

Lucas slowly nods.

“I’ve allowed Lucas to train here. That’s enough for him.”

“I’m going to go,” Lucas says suddenly. Both his mother and his teacher stand there, speechless.

While Nick has only known Lucas for a few months, he’s never heard him say a word, and for Susanne she can’t remember the last time she heard her son’s voice. Lucas learned to speak early on, but as he got older, fewer and fewer words were said until there were almost none.  Lucas was diagnosed with High-Function Autism (HFA). A nonverbal HFA is extremely rare, and this made Susanne wonder if his silence was a choice.

The weekend of the competition soon approaches. This time, Lucas’ mom doesn’t drive him, and she doesn’t wait for him in the lobby. Nick meets him out front and quotes Musashi, but Lucas is too nervous to pay any notice.

When his name is finally called, he’s wobbly. His competitor is shorter, but wider than he is, and confidently bouncing on his toes around the mat.

The match begins. Lucas absorbs the first strike; it lands hard on his rib cage. Lucas returns a series of left-right jabs as he charges forward, but he can’t tell if any have landed. Lucas suffers another kick to his already throbbing rib and the exchanges continue with Lucas getting the worst of it.  The three-minute match ends and Lucas’ hand is not raised. He loses the match, 5-1.

 “Great heart, Moose. We’ll go over it on Monday,” Nick says while he gives him a reassuring pat on the back.

When he gets outside, he finds his mom waiting for him in the parking lot. When she notices Lucas’ slumped-over posture while holding his rib cage, she rushes over. He pushes her away, letting her know that he’s OK. Instead, he hands her a flyer for another competition.

Susanne steps away from her son and asks, “Is this really what you want to do?”

Lucas smiles and nods.

“Okay, Lucas. Have it your own way.” 

Misplaced

By Cindy Graham

CindyG_532505_67715502.jpg

I’m sitting on the step that goes down to the porch, leaning against the door frame with my walkie-talkies in the pockets of my thick, red dress. It’s a bright winter morning, but the clothes dryer’s on and giving off its heat. The warmth, along with the rhythmic clanging of winter jackets and zippers in the dryer, has me drowsy. When my father bursts in, the sharp squeak of the near-frozen door handle jerks my head up, like a puppet come to life.

“Hullo,” he mutters, swinging the door open and stomping the snow off his boots. Our German shepherd comes trailing in after him, his fur dusted in snow.

“Hi, Dad. Heyyy, Zeus!” I tap my hands on the floor to get the dog’s attention.

The ears go up when I call him but he’s more inclined to shake off the snow. I let out a yelp as he sprays, an easy target. When he finishes he greets me properly, tongue panting and tail thumping happily against the dryer.

He lets me pat him, but his attention is on my father, who tosses his cigarettes on top of the dryer and pulls off his jacket. He walks to the closet to pull out his helmet and snowmobile suit while the dog watches him, sits properly and waits.

“Dad...” My voice is barely loud enough to get the words out. Zippers clang and Zeus pants quietly. “Can I go with you?”

My father puts on his snowsuit one leg at a time, brings up the top, arms in arm holes, and zips up. I wait for his answer.

Out of habit, I suppose, he pats himself for the cigarettes, so I reach up to the dryer and pass him his Export A’s. He takes them from my hand and sighs the way he always does when he comes in—like he wants us to know how hard it is out there in garages and under machines. I feel my face flush.

His greying hair is stuck up all over from pulling off his toque. He finds his lighter, and his voice is low and grumbly when he brings the flame to his stick.

“If you’re comin’, tell your mother,” he says. The cigarette bounces up and down as he speaks. I watch him drag and inhale before letting the smoke blow through his nostrils, then I grab a walkie-talkie, run to the back of the house and fly up the stairs, hitting the landing hard. It startles my mother, who’s vacuuming.

“Jesus, Hannah!” she yells sharply, one hand clutching her chest. “Don’t ever do that again!

“Sorry, Mom.” My face flushes again.

She goes back to her work, her long, dark ponytail moving steadily as she makes each pull and push with the carpet sweeper, and I fidget with the walkie-talkie before I dare say anything else. Through the bathroom window I can see the field covered in snow, shimmering in the late morning sun, and the river behind it covered in ice.

“Mom?” I need a second before I can continue. “Dad’s going skidooing.” And then, hesitantly, while her back is still turned to me, I say, “Can I go with him?”

It takes her a few seconds to stand the nozzle upright, shut off the machine, and turn to me. “What?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowed. I step forward to put the walkie-talkie on top of the dresser.

“I’m going with Dad,” I say, before she can think about it too much. And through the speaker static, we can hear my father getting the dog all riled up downstairs. I catch my mother rolling her eyes just before she turns her back to start vacuuming again, but since she doesn’t say anything, I assume I can go.

Downstairs, I make my way back to the porch, picking up the other walkie-talkie along the way and passing my father, who’s shaking paws with the dog in the kitchen, crying, “You coming? You coming too, you big ballafur? Hah hah hah…!”  

Normally all you hear is the fridge running and the hum of the furnace coming on steady on  Saturday mornings, so the laughter sounds weird, out of place.

The dog thumps his tail in anticipation and rises on all fours when he sees my father turn back to the porch.

“D’ja tell your mother?” he asks, when he brushes by me. I answer him, though he’s not really waiting for an answer.

While I’m finding my hat and mittens and tucking the walkie-talkie into my snowsuit pocket, he lights up another cigarette and glances at the time. There’s a clock on the wall everyone sees when they come to the house, one of those curvy pieces of wood with a picture of our very first shepherd on it. I stand and wait for a sign that we’re leaving when, without word, my father opens the door, letting the dog rush ahead. I take my cue to follow and close on my way out, and watch him toss his cigarette to the snow.

I run past them across the yard to the garage full of giant machines and the snowmobile. Gas and oil fumes permeate the air. There’s a tractor-trailer with its hood up, and I’ve already flicked on the lights and taken the skidoo key from its nail when they come in.

“Were you working on the truck this morning, Dad?” I ask, as I hand him the key.

“You could say that.” And then, under his breath I hear him say, “Christless piece of shit.”

He allowed me to go with him once before, though this is the first time we’ve gone out this winter. He sits behind me, starts it up and says, “Wanna drive?” My eyes water from the fumes,  but after he steers us out of the garage he lets me take us down the driveway to the farmer’s field behind our house, where I have sunshine, a clear path, and speed.

I push the throttle and steer us in a line across the field towards the river, where we’ll cross into the next field over. I stop and idle when we reach the bank so my father can whistle for Zeus. He’d been racing behind us, but deer and rabbit tracks have got him sniffing and distracted. My father whistles from his fingers, and it brings him immediately to us.

“Go sit on the back will ya?” says my father. I get off and take my seat behind him, put my arms around his waist and check for the dog, who follows close as we start down the bank. Once we get to the river’s edge, the sun is so bright I have to shield my eyes from the glare. Fresh snowmobile tracks are visible rising up the bank on the other side, though, so it must be all right to cross.

That’s why, when we hear the first crack, it comes as a shock. I’ve no sooner realized what the sound means than I’m in the water, plunged down with the snowmobile’s weight on top of me.  I think I hear my mother’s voice, garbled, through the static of my walkie talkie somehow, and the current has just started to take hold. I can feel the pull when my father’s arm reaches into the water and heists me up, onto the ice. Carefully, he drags me back to the bank.

“Are ya all right? Are ya okay?” His face looks wild with fear.

“I’m all right,” I would say if I could, but my teeth are chattering too hard.

He sits me on the snow bank so he can take off his snowsuit and wrap it around me, lifting and cradling me to his chest before he starts the climb up to the field. I can’t control the chatter of my teeth, and he starts to run.

In seconds I’m aware of the huff-puffing of his breath and my weight in his arms. I don’t know how far he’s come but I’m numb with cold. If I  peer back past the outside edge of his shoulder, I can see the ice floes in the river recede as my father steadily makes his distance. He’s running along the tracks we made just minutes before, and Zeus’ prints, heading in the opposite direction—for the river—merge into my line of sight now, too. They burrow deep into the snow, and I can see that as his paws emerged from each stride they scuffed the surface like some crazed pony that blazed across the field. And it dawns on me, halfway across now, our house up the hill in the distance that the dog’s nowhere around us, and hasn’t been since we left the river.

 

 

Heroes

By Glen Peters

Glen_1419930_62800736.jpg

Every day at work he earns this headache, and this call makes it worse. This job. This job is the culmination of a long journey sideways. He could say, if he had to, how he got there, but he prefers not to think on it.  He returns the phone to its cradle. It feels especially warm, especially plastic, and he can’t wait to let it go. 

Anthony stands and stretches with a certain regularity. He’s thick, and athletic, and he’s punished for the confinement of office chairs. “I have to walk, Donny. Taking my lunch.” His coworker nods, a figure in a chair that casts no shadow under the halogen sky. 

Breaching into the fresh air, he feels like he’s fallen into an ocean of oxygen. Senses are startled awake, and he shivers. That office is a dentist’s chair. It’s just a block to the storefronts and, despite his discomfort, he feels lucky. The Old Quarter by the Port has work space, green space and retail all nicely at hand. For lunch hour he has time to eat, to walk, and pick her up “something special.” This weekend, it’s her birthday. 

And he wouldn’t mind a moment by the water, just a moment.

Summer sidewalks here are insistent with life. Foot traffic surges. Office anecdotes carry across the street. Flowers (they’re everywhere) throw colour and perfume over everything like they own us. Seagulls crisscross above, and descend occasionally to shout and joust for French fries. With a similar force of life, Anthony pushes for the antiques store. 

Inside, minutes — entire minutes — pass behind two ladies discussing oak armoires before he learns they’re not in line for service. Damn it. They have his package, he only needs to pick it up. At the counter, at least, the dealer has a sympathetic look… and his parcel. 

Suzanne had seen it on TV. She loves gardening. She was Queen about her horticulture, and yet, without end, she asked his advice and shared stories about this thing that was all hers. “Look at that statue, Tony! Wouldn’t that be amazing in our spot out back? I’d put it on a pedestal, I think, over the snapdragons. And the irises, yes.” The camera panned around the pale figure, the form of a goddess, long hair and childbearing features. “See something lovely,” she said. “Make it a treasure.” 

Ten months later, and he had her in his hands. Not the very same statue, but the same goddess, the same craft — an original. Over two hundred years and an ocean and the goddess was going to answer prayers, to make Suzanne understand that to him, she was lovely. His treasure. Every day, in the garden she loves, she would know it. He carefully passes her back for packaging, and offers a plastic card for exchange. 

Outside again, he’s passing a bar and grill as four half-drunk suits exit, with too much noise — heads full of business figures, sports figures, themselves. Their leader, holding court, lurches laterally from his audience and into passers-by, clumsy elbow aloft.  Anthony hears it with a supernatural clarity: the sharp report of something undone. He contemplates his empty hands. Upon the cobblestone, in the darkness of a box, rests an untold story to which everyone knows the end. It was a piece of his spirit given shape, something he could have given her in a way he can’t with words. He doesn’t know about gods, but he has now the hollow feeling of her absence. 

“Fucking imbecile!” The ruined efforts and hopes of past and present pile up in his head and add to the mass there, the compact discomfort. In an event of frustration and aggression, desire possesses him with all his heart to commit a violence. Hands raise of their own accord for a man he outweighs by fifty pounds. This, this is the sort of person upon whom we all assume the wall of the world surely must fall, but never does. 

The god of men is dead, too. Anthony doesn’t grab the lout. He doesn’t stoop for the statue’s broken bones. He turns instead, the sun in his eyes as he surges away. Everyone’s all shadow, all noise is white. He applies upon himself a force equal to the explosion inside, all rage in stasis. He’s not going to the bar, he made a promise. And he’s not going to work. He’s going to the store, and nearly trips getting there. Soon he has his new package: cigarettes he’d forsworn, because something has to give.

There’s a network of one-way lanes in the Old Quarter. Their walls are high, the streets are narrow. There’s shelter from the oppressive sun; from the scrutiny of others; from explanations. And there are archways here that bridge these paths, and can’t be found anywhere else. They have always seemed civilized to him — proof that, at some time, it was significant that you should pass from one path to another. Your life in stages. 

The distant smell of pastry mingles with the cradled burst of sulfur, and fresh tobacco. He leans for a moment against the grey, stoned wall. It’s rough and cool and feels good on his temple. 

The seagulls are muted here, and their forms relegated to dark profiles seen briefly between rooftops, against the blue band of sky. 

“This is when quitters quit,” his old man had said. “You’re gonna, I can tell. Things get tough, that’s what you do. What you always do.” 

He won’t. He pulls on his secret cigarette (is it helping? he’s not sure). Time is short now, but he wants a little while at the Port. He wants to see the water, sure that it will help. Needs to keep it together. 

He’s on his second smoke when he emerges from the labyrinth. The calm ends suddenly. All the winds hit him at once. This is the riverside, all storefronts to the left, all water to the right. Along the boardwalk are runners, and walkers, lovers for lunch and walkers of dogs. The birds fill all spaces in between. 

Anthony pushes on. How... how to say “I love you” in three short days? It’s her birthday. 

He’s almost there, at his perfect spot where he can meet himself. He’s probably late for work, but he’s not tracking time anymore. The cobblestones are memory, and life is now wooden boards underfoot. He feels the phone vibrate, barely hears the tones these jealous winds try to steal away. It’s work, and he doesn’t pick up. “Things are getting tough, eh, kid? You wait and see.”

It seems they’re everywhere, the fathers and the mothers and the children. It seems impossible there are so many smiles. He feels sick, and lights his third cigarette all the same. Those smiling children are not beaten, their dads haven’t quit…. 

This is his place, the pier at the end of the boardwalk. Anthony likes the drum of suspended wood under his heels, likes walking its length, the shore retreating behind him. He likes knowing that at its end, unable to go on, he can stop. 

Someone has left chips in a bag. The seagulls are thick and aggressive, filling his eyes and ears like large feathered flies. Discontent and greedy, they flap and yell, and he’s sure they’re a nation of wild, reincarnated office clerks. 

I hate seagulls. 

I hate my job, gawddamn seagulls. 

He charges the last remaining stretch, swings his arms and scatters the panicked birds who circle, and scold in anger. His phone again, with a different tone. 

“What!” He has it to his ear, bunched in his fist. He can’t refuse. “What!”

Suzanne is surprised, Suzanne is angry, Suzanne is concerned — is everything all right? What’s all that noise? Where is he, why isn’t he at work? 

Anthony, struggling with himself, wants to be done with the phone, which he hates; but won’t cut the call. Anthony loves Suzanne. 

“What is it, Sue? Eh? Never mind that, just tell me what you want. What!”

She was thinking about the garden. That garden. She saw something at the Garden Centre, not too gaudy, affordable, something for the space by the irises. The focal point of his failure.

“I’m late for work, Suzanne, why would you — call now — I don’t have time for this!” 

She doesn’t understand, she’s sorry, she just…. He’s yelling incoherently now, barbs of love and shame, guilt and random, hurtful remarks. Crying, finally, Suzanne disconnects. 

One of the black and white birds, in thrall to the chips at his feet, ventures too close — and is knocked from the pier by a very mobile phone. 

Anthony knows what’s happened. What he’s done. Broken something precious and unique, two goddesses in a day. Those kids don’t know: life is loud and greedy, full of monsters with hard shells. We cut where it’s soft. Heroes please the gods; normal people keep their jobs, and lose their love. But Anthony, he won’t quit. 

If Only

By Emily Towsley 

Emily_1353560_13422799.jpg

Tom looked at his chewed up, bloody fingernails. If only he could stop taking out his frustrations on his fingers. If only he could fit in, if only, if only… Tom sighed. His life was nothing but “If onlys.”

Roaming the halls at school had become just as tiresome as chewing his fingernails. He felt scrutinized, yet invisible. His disease caused people to whisper, hiding their words behind their hands as they passed him in the hall. With such a physical deformity, he felt he would never feel normal.

“Alice!” the principal hollered from down the hall, setting off a series of giggles from students watching by their lockers. Tom barely turned towards the obtrusive sound. “Aren’t you late for class, young lady?”

“Yes sir, I’m on my way now,” he replied, heading toward next period.

The bindings are too tight, Tom thought, as he ignored the kids staring at him. My hips are growing. Why does my body betray me this way? His brain swirled with impossible thoughts. All he wanted was to be the boy he felt he was meant to be. Baggy clothes could only do so much against the estrogen betraying him, flowing through his body and transforming him.

His high voice, smooth cheeks, and delicate fingers and wrists still portrayed him as biologically feminine. No amount of wrappings or body reshaping attempts could mask the womanly curves he was cursed with.

His doctor had given him options, but they were all too expensive. “Could your parents help?” he’d asked. Maybe in another life, if they weren’t conservative Christians who considered Tom’s needs to be a sin.

There were some days when he passed for normal. A casual smile from a bus driver without a questioning look, an old lady accepting his chivalry without a second glance back to double check on the freak now walking behind her. If only they knew what it was like, having to work through your own uncertainty and self‑doubt without being able to hide it from the world.   

Tom was drawn-out of his reverie by a light tap on the shoulder. Fluorescent pink fingernails passed him his pen that he’d dropped without noticing. Tom turned around to look at the girl holding his pen. Her long blonde hair and awkward smile enchanted him almost instantly. “I’m Elizabeth…” she whispered. And then, the teacher disrupted their moment.

That day after class, Elizabeth and Tom had a conversation, she gave him her phone number, and Tom and Elizabeth began seeing each other. 

Tom was Elizabeth’s first boyfriend and Elizabeth was Tom’s first girlfriend, now that he identified as a man. Their courtship dance was an awkward unfolding of a second puberty for the both of them. Elizabeth would proudly hold Tom’s hand, kiss him in public, and lean her head on his shoulder, just like any other couple on the street. They would spend long nights holding hands, switching back and forth between whispering confessions of secret dreams, and laying in silence, just enjoying each other’s company, her hair spilling over his chest, her ear on his heart. 

She could stand up for him, and yet let him stand on his own; he always knew she was there for him. This was more than he had ever dreamed of. Maybe he could be a normal man; maybe he was truly becoming Tom.

Tom didn’t know what he wanted. On one hand, he loved Elizabeth’s tinkling laugh, her love of all things green, and the fact that she loved him. On the other, he was starting to feel overwhelmed. Things were changing so fast in his life that he started to doubt the things he could believe in, like Elizabeth’s love for him.

Later in their relationship Elizabeth told Tom that that she was a lesbian and that made him really uncomfortable. How could someone who had previously declared herself as only attracted to women truly love Tom as the man that he was growing into? She would joke that he was the only kind of man she could be with, but that only made him question whether she really saw him as Tom and not Alice.

 “I date who I want because I like spending time with them,” said Elizabeth. “I love them, and I could see myself spending my life with them! Whether their name is Alice or Tom doesn’t fucking matter to me!”

“But that’s all that fucking matters to me!” yelled Tom, throwing on his jacket and storming out of the room.

Making his way down the street, kicking anything in his path, Tom began to break down. If even Elizabeth doesn’t understand where I’m coming from, he thought, wiping his tears with his jacket. What hope is there that I’ll ever find anyone who does? My outside will never match my inside. I can’t imagine a future in which I’m happy. There’s no point in this anymore. If only there was a way to make these feelings stop forever.  

Tom felt like he was floating above his body as he continued to walk down the street, around buildings, and through parks. He was on autopilot and he didn’t care where he was headed ­— until he found himself on the subway platform. Suddenly the tears were gone, and he found himself with the first sense of purpose he had felt in a long time. There would be no more questions, no more staring, no more living with a mind and body that were permanently disconnected. He would be free. The lights coming from the darkness of the tunnel looked like a pair of cat eyes in the dark. As soon as he heard the whoosh of the train coming closer, he took a deep breath and jumped. The sound of his feet hitting the tracks was the last thing he heard clearly before everything went black.

Tom swam in and out of consciousness as the subway platform became alive with panicked people. The dull roaring in his ears obscured the chatter of the onlookers and the shouts of the workers trying to get to his body out from under the train. It seemed he had been run over, but not quite as efficiently as he’d planned. He chuckled through the blood in his mouth at the sight of his fingernails. In comparison to his broken body, they looked great now. For a second, he regretted his method. If only Elizabeth could have been shielded from this. But, what mattered then was that it would soon be all over. She would also be free — free from the burden that was “Tom.” As the world began to fade, he heard someone say, “Is that man going to be alright?”

“That was all I ever wanted,” were the last words Tom ever spoke. 

 

 

Cuarón's Gravity Pulls Space Down to Earth

The cosmos has never looked so beautiful—or so menacing.

 

By Stuart Harris

Gravity.jpg

The fortune of being grounded to the earth is something that one might take for granted until viewing a film like Gravity.

Film has long found ways to romanticize a vastness the likes of which we may never fully comprehend. However, Gravity doesn’t have to project beyond our galaxy to keep us firmly on the edge of our seats. It only goes as far as Earth’s thermosphere, where any wonderment of the nature outside our world quickly falls away to harsh reality.

The film is the latest labour of acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón, whose previous film credits include the popular screen adaptations of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men. He’s poured a head-turning one hundred million dollars into this project, and the result is a consistently thrilling space drama that relies on an extraordinary visual scope to drive its deceptively simple narrative. One is almost tempted not to call this a movie at all. It is an experience, a relentless chain of action and consequence that could only speak so well for itself in the medium of film. It’s probably the first film since James Cameron’s Avatar that must be seen in theatres or IMAX in 3D for full effect, even if it’s just for the satisfaction of saying, “Yeah, I’ve seen it. Boy, did I ever see it.”

Whereas Avatar’s visual spectacle often felt like an escape from its questionable narrative execution, Gravity represents a rare case when the cinematic action carries the story as much as the actors do. There is no antagonist other than the character given to the interstellar setting, which is done through alternating viewpoints. In some instances, the cinematography paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of space 600 kilometres above sea level. In between, we’re thrust into the helmets of the astronauts at its mercy, or the painstakingly detailed, claustrophobic interiors of orbiting spacecraft.

Immersion is completed by way of the sound design. Steven Price’s soundtrack plays a large part in creating emotional resonance during key moments. When we don the space suits, we can feel the pressure of every breath, every vibration as we’re jostled, watching in awe as a space station is ripped to pieces in silence before our eyes.

There’s never a moment where the gravity of the conflict isn’t weighing down upon our shoulders.

If all this leaves you wondering what the story concerns, don’t go getting any out-of-this-world ideas. The narrative is a simple one, and to say anything more would ruin the experience. It’s a tale of survival and resilience, of isolation in the face of the universe (think Jack London, in space). The players are few, but stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney admirably keep our attention and empathy through a minimalistic 90 minutes. Characterization might seem slight, but one thing is clear: These actors aren’t playing astronauts, they’re playing human beings facing an indomitable force, with devastating impact.

You could argue the film’s negligible scientific implausibilities, but it’d be hard to argue this isn’t a film well worth watching. It’s about as close to space as you’ll get from the comfort of a chair. It’s likely as close as you’ll ever want to get.

 

Rizzoli & Isles: More than Just Friends?

This strong female duo gets picked up for another season.

By: Allison Godin

Rizzoi Isles.jpg

Tess Gerritsen's crime novels have recently made the translation from page to screen in the TV series Rizzoli & Isles. It's a growing trend that has resulted in such primetime hits as Game of Thrones, True Blood, and Pretty Little Liars. Rizzoli & Isles makes use of a familiar trope: a cop and scientist working together to investigate murders. We've seen this done on Bones and Body of Proof, and procedurals like NCIS and the many incarnations of CSI helped build the genre. What distinguishes Rizzoli & Isles from these shows is the series’ focus on two strong, intelligent female friends at the top of their respective fields.

The title characters are Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, played by Angie Harmon (Law & Order), and Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles, portrayed by Sasha Alexander (NCIS). Rizzoli is a tough tomboy who, despite being the youngest officer to be promoted to detective in the Boston Police Department, has dealt with the prejudice directed at female cops. Dr. Isles, while brilliant and impeccably dressed, has a habit of diagnosing people in the same manner as she does those on her autopsy table. Her tendency to ask extremely personal questions and spout off irrelevant facts makes her socially awkward. This awkwardness fades slightly as the series progresses, but her love of science and logic manifests in an unwillingness to make guesses, and a lack of understanding of pop-culture references.

There is nothing particularly unique or original about this portrayal of females working in law enforcement or the field of forensics, but the close friendship between the title characters defines the show and makes it stand out from the others. In the novels, Jane and Maura gradually form a bond based almost entirely on mutual respect and their solitary positions as females in their fields. While this relationship could have been replicated on the show, the creators chose to show two women forming a close friendship. This relationship evolves quickly throughout the series and has reached a point where they are as close as family.

Fans of the show have become very vocal over the closeness of these friends. From the first episode, details such as eye contact and physical proximity have been picked apart for hidden subtext. It's been described as "the show that didn't know it was gay" because of the "Rizzles" romance that the creators never intended. Over the seasons, the show has acknowledged the input of fans by including subtle hints to an intimate relationship. Though the show will return this winter with the last few episodes of its fourth season, long-time fans have threatened to boycott the show until this intimate relationship, which exists solely in fan-fictions (for now), is realized on screen.

Watch Rizzoli & Isles on the TNT network in the United States, or Showcase in Canada, to find out if these women will remain friends or take their relationship to a new level.