Ghost Story

This is a ghost story that takes place in an academic library, where there are floors and floors of book stacks, very close together. The floor is made up of thick glass tiles - so thick you can’t see through them, yet you know you are walking on glass, and, if the tiles should break, you have a really long way to fall.
Corinne was an information science student. Information science used to be called library science, but everyone found the word "library" too difficult to pronounce, and in any case, the printed word was said to be going the way of the Pinto or the Lada. She had a part-time job, reshelving the books on floors 8 to 10 in the academic library. She was working the late shift, which was kind of spooky in itself. Even though there wasn’t any natural illumination in the stacks, only sodium pot lights set high in the mould-dappled ceiling, it seemed darker and gloomier at night. On this particular evening, as she went about her work, she had the uneasy sense of being followed and watched. She heard muted footsteps, as if someone was scurrying out of sight, whenever she wheeled her cart around corners. Occasionally, a faint cough or a stale odor, like rarely washed wool, drifted her way. Of course, none of this was all that unusual - many academics practiced poor hygiene, had lousy immune systems, and preferred to avoid other people. Therefore, she wasn’t too concerned - although a very unappealing graduate student had stalked one of her colleagues, and having persuaded the colleague to join him for a coffee, had slipped some kind of aphrodisiac into her drink. Rather than getting her turned on, however, it had merely made her vomit, repeatedly. Corinne hoped she wasn’t going to encounter somebody like that...
It was ten minutes before her break, and she had almost emptied her cart, when, parting a row of books to make room for the one she was trying to place, she saw a pair of black eyes, seemingly without pupils, looking right back at her from the other side of the shelf. She gasped, and involuntarily took a leap backwards, hitting her head on the bookcase behind her. She tried to steady herself, but she lost her balance and slid to the floor. She landed on her back, the wind knocked out of her, gasping for air. Looking up, she saw the face with the pupilless eyes hovering overhead. The face belonged to a very pale woman with very black hair. She was wearing a navy wool sweater, a plaid skirt, and a blouse with too-short sleeves that had once been white, but were now gray with age and indifferent laundering.
"Corinne!" the woman rasped. "Corinne!"
Corinne shivered and tried to shimmy backwards along the tiles, but the stabbing pain in her bruised deltoids rooted her to the spot... She tried to avoid looking at the face looming over her, but when she couldn’t avoid it any longer, she found herself staring upwards with horrified recognition. It was like looking into a mirror in a dream and seeing yourself as a corpse.  "My God!" It was the face of her twin sister, Marianne, who had died at the age of 15. "Marianne, is that you?" Corinne cried.

She reached out her hand, hoping to grab the other’s arm ... but that arm was the consistency of smoke, and her fingers closed around nothing. The figure laughed - a sinister and echoing laugh, hollow with viciousness and pain - and Corinne fainted, after pissing herself in fear.

When she came to, she was alone, spreadeagled on the thick glass tiles. She hauled herself to her feet, and, heart beating wildly, her jeans wet in several places, she searched each aisle for a glimpse of her phantom sister. A few stacks later, she thought she saw a whirlwind-like mane of hair whipping around a corner. She ran after the vision. Again, as she turned the next corner, she saw it. She began to run up and down the aisles, then along the sides of the stacks, trying to outrun the ghost, wanting to get ahead of it and meet it again face to face. Instead, she ran smack into a student who was himself turning the corner. He looked at her angrily - then taking in her wild and agitated expression, her fear-blanched face, and the smell of urine from her damp trousers, decided that confrontation was to be avoided. Corinne muttered apologies, her face red with embarrssment. She decided it was a good time to take her break, clean herself up in the staff washroom, and pull her wits together with the aid of a cup of Salada.

X-Fan Files

Mulder chewed thoughtfully on a sunflower seed, then carefully spat the shell into his hand, languidly letting it drop to the floor, where it joined the mound that had already been accumulating. Scully pursed her lips in disapproval.

“Scully …,” he began.

“If we’re going to take another cross-country drive, and end up in some cornfield, I’d better get my epi pen. Since that bee sting … remember that?”

Mulder grinned at her. “You bet. One minute, we were exchanging saliva…”

Scully sighed. “Next thing I know, I wake up in a fish tank, with a tube down my throat. It’s enough to make someone phobic about kissing.”

“Gee, Scully! Well, I was going to ask you if you wanted to fool around, but I’m guessing the answer is … whoa, let me consult the magical sunflower seed…”

Scully walked over to Mulder’s desk, hoisted herself onto it, and began playing seductively with her little gold crucifix.

“Speaking as a scientist, when a woman’s chest and face is flushed, and her pupils are dilated, the answer is likely to be a yes,” she remarked, staring pointedly into his eyes.

Mulder grinned at her, then dropped another shell onto the pile, before pulling her down onto his lap.

Scully coyly brushed a bit of shell from his lower lip before leaning in for the kiss. When she broke away, Mulder inhaled deeply.

“Now it’s your turn,” she cooed, looping a slim finger into the Windsor knot of his flying-saucer- patterned tie. He buried his fingers in her neatly-coiffed hair and pulled her close.

 Suddenly, they both smelled cigarette smoke, and simultaneously turned towards the door.

A Computer Story

It was a Friday evening, around 10 o’clock, when I got home from an interesting and chaotic Japanese dinner at Katsu on the Danforth, with a bunch of classical music fans and amateur musicians. Time to check my email one more time, but, with horror, I realized the screen was so dark I could barely see the Windows XP logo and the mandala I had captured as my background image. I was truly desperate, realizing how much I depend on my computer for my social and creative life, and disappointed, since I’d only had it for 17 months. In denial of the problem, I tried various ploys – plugging my laptop into a different electrical outlet, using battery power alone, using AC alone, but I continued to face a dark screen. In my desperate rebooting I had somehow turned the sound off, thereby losing even the canned reassurance of the Windows XP music. At last, dejected and worried, I gave up and went to bed. The next day I think I bored everyone with my nervous rehashing of the situation. At my boss’ suggestion I Googled the dark screen problem, only to find that it was fairly common with Dells, and not always cheap to fix. Around 9:30, I called a computer repair shop near where I live, thinking I could take the afternoon off and bring it in to be looked at. On the phone I was told that it was probably a bulb in the screen, or the inverter, and that the cost of the repair would depend on the model of the laptop.  I rushed home to pick up my laptop and bring it in. Once at the repair shop, I tried to rent a replacement, but they wanted me to come back again, after they had opened up the machine and called Dell about parts. They called me twice after I got home. The first time, they told me it was indeed the inverter, and that it might cost under $100. to replace. The second time I was in the bathtub, so I didn’t get the bad news that Dell sold this particular part in conjunction with the whole screen – therefore it would cost $325. plus labour, and the cost of a rental – until I showed up at the shop. The monitors they wanted to sell me (cheap, very cheap) were way too big for me to carry or even find a space for in my apartment. Therefore, I had them reassemble the Dell and after paying for the diagnostic, I dejectedly took it with me. I’d asked the repairman if this happened with Toshibas (I’d been looking greedily at them in a nearby computer shop on Spadina), and he told me that he’d seen it with every brand, including IBMs, Compaqs, etc. I was thoroughly pissed off, given the fact that my computer hadn’t even lasted me 2 years before breaking down. That evening, I ran into a Toshiba owner who had a similar issue with a darkening screen, corroborating what I had heard. In a zoned-out mental state I went looking for computer monitors at a nearby The Source and a second-hand shop, but they were both closed for the evening. I decided to head down to Future Shop and Staples in order to do some price comparisons before making a decision on purchasing a new computer. As I looked down Bay Street, I saw Canadian Tire and Mark’s Work Wearhouse signs, neither of which had been there the previous week. Nearer to the Eaton Centre, I noticed that Best Buy was also open. I wandered in, headed directly for the computer section, and began a two-hour odyssey that ended with me heading home $1025. poorer, a spotted cow box in my hand, thoroughly dazed and confused.

In the computer section, a young salesperson saw me looking at the lower-end laptops – Toshibas, Compaqs, and Gateways – and began her spiel, describing all the features in detail, steering me away from the lowest price one (only one left, possibly defective, not enough computing power for my needs, etc. – no commission, no pressure, my arse!). I circled the section several times under the powerfully bright sodium lights, looking at huge flat-screen monitors (some around 200 dollars), at desktops – better, because cheaper and sturdier, buys, but impractical given my space and transport limitations. Finally I returned to the spotted cow brand, determined, in my state of confusion and desperation, to go home with a new computer. I had one of the overworked Geek Squad – they were literally running around trying to serve about a dozen customers – open up and test my new laptop after I’d bought it; then I proudly and nervously took it home, hooked it up, and voila! I was in business again, although due to my mid-life eyesight, I couldn’t see the product key digits on the bottom of the keyboard, and had to contact Microsoft for a new one, after being rejected several times while attempting to initialize some of the software.

Thursday, I went to buy a second-hand monitor on my way home from work, and purchased a 15-inch old fashioned one (baby got back, but she’s flat up front) for 45 bucks from a used computer store, and then tried to get it home. Luckily, I live close by, as dragging all 25 awkward pounds of it back to my condo nearly killed me. When I finally got into the lobby of my building through the back entrance, a police officer, who was checking on the office building next door, assisted me in carrying it to the elevators, noting that I was sweating profusely (no shit, Sherlock!) while a neighbor helped me get it into the elevator and up to my floor. I got home and nearly keeled over from fatigue. But, anxious as I was, I had to try it out, so I hooked it up to my Dell, and (thank you, God) it worked. Finally, after testing it pretty thoroughly, I turned it off, content, if half dead. 

Six String Nation

The Six String Nation guitar made a stop at our workplace today. This is a guitar made by George Rizsanyi, a custom luthier who incorporated 60 or so artifacts from Canadian history and culture into its design. It has already been played by a number of Canadian folk musicians, and civilians are also having their pictures taken with it, as did two of my co-workers, becoming part of the Six String Nation project initiated by CBC radio personality Jowi Taylor. Although I haven’t heard it played, it certainly looks beautiful, in a honey-colored Canadiana kind of way. It contains a wooden nickel from the Maid of the Mist (don’t tale any wooden nickels, as my mother used to say), a piece from the second oldest stone in the world, fragments of Montreal Forum and Massey Hall seats, bits of a log from Jack London’s cabin, shavings from Wayne Gretsky’s and Paul Henderson’s (Canada vs. USSR) hockey sticks, gold from Rocket Richard’s Stanley Cup ring, wood from: L.M. Montgomery’s family home and post office, Trudeau’s canoe paddle, a Finnish soup stirrer, a bagel shibba (from Fairmount Bagel Bakery – they were great right out of the bag, still hot from the oven), a Doukhabor grain elevator (I had a distant relative who was a Doukhabor – he liked to run around naked, which I think was one of their customs), and the doorway to the first Chinatown in Canada (Fan Tan Alley); as well as various First Nations artifacts, and more…

A Red Green Moment

I had a Red/Green moment today when I tore my skirt while bending over a filing cabinet to retrieve some CD-cases that had fallen behind the bottom drawer, onto the floor. I had on a narrow gray skirt that I’d bought just after Christmas, a cheap designer bargain issue. (I needed to wear a long skirt in order to cover the wound on my left knee, still as red as a bad 1st degree burn, which I’d recently liberated from its bandage). First I tried sewing up the tear in the skirt while in my office. However, the few needles in my travel sewing kit had eyes that were too small for me to thread, so I used transparent tape, but it wasn’t sufficiently strong to hold the torn edges together. Suddenly, the image of Red Green flashed through my mind, and I began looking for a roll of duct tape that I thought we had stashed in one of our supply cabinets. It turns out that I had given it to the workman who installed the blinds on our office windows, who had used it all up. My boss suggested I used book tape – thick black tape with a strong adhesive backing, actually superior to, but far more expensive than, duct tape. It worked brilliantly, although I was a bit embarrassed going home with a taped-up seat. At least I knew why people were staring…

Don’t Come Knocking

One of the more interesting German new wave directors that emerged in the 1970s along with compatriots Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, and Volker Schlondorf, Wim Wenders evidenced a fascination with place and a deep admiration for American popular culture. In Don’t Come Knocking, the principal action is set in his favorite American town, Butte, Montana, which was the locus for his favorite American novel, Red Harvest, by his favorite novelist, Dashiell Hammett, to whom he had paid homage in the rather awful film, Hammett, made for Francis Coppola’s Zootrope studios back in the early 1980s.

Working with playwright/actor Sam Shepard, Wenders has created a visually stunning, yet emotionally shallow film in the ‘male menopause’ genre, with many similarities to Jim Jarmusch’s superior, but also somewhat empty, Broken Flowers.

Shepard plays the lead character, Howard Spence, a broken-down actor in Western movies, who scuttled a once-promising career through over-indulgence in the prerogatives of stardom. His piercing blue eyes puffy, his crew cut patchy, he neverthless evokes the rangy spirit of Gary Cooper. Escaping from the set of his latest film (Phantom of the West) on horseback, still in costume, he heads home to mother. Meanwhile, a comically repressed and anti-social bounty-hunter for the film’s insurance company, Mr. Sutter (played in an intensely deadpan fashion by Tim Roth) is hot on his trail. Sutter must have been a throwback to Hammett’s Continental Op detective, based on the strikebreaking Pinkerton agents of the depression era. After a night of drunk and disorderly behavior in a local (Elko, Nevada) casino, Howard is informed by his mother (Eva Marie-Saint, of On the Waterfront and North by Northwest) that he has a long-lost son in Butte, Montana, whom he fathered with a local waitress during his biggest movie triumph 25 years ago. Howard makes contact with his old flame Doreen (played by Shepard’s real-life partner Jessica Lange), following her into a club, where he learns that his son, Earl, is the musician performing on the bandstand. However, Earl, who has seemingly inherited many of the character flaws of his prodigal father, is not happy to see him or even know of him. Howard also has a daughter - Skye, played by Canadian actress Sarah Polley – who is searching for him: a rather angelic figure, she carries around the cremains of her mother in a big blue earthenware jar, and a memory stick filled with evidence of her lost father’s exploits around her neck. In his fury at Howard’s reappearance, Earl trashes his apartment, throwing all of his possessions out of the window, including a floral-patterned sofa upon which Howard spends the night (with the camera constantly circling around him, again reminiscent of the penultimate scene in Broken Flowers). Urged on by Skye before she goes off to scatter her mother’s ashes, Howard walks down the empty Western street to meet Doreen on her way to work and beg for a reconciliation. This also fails, and he is found in his car by Sutter, who has faithfully tracked him to Butte. After saying goodbye to his two newly-discovered children, Howard is led off in handcuffs to complete the picture from which he has fled.

As are all of Wenders films, this is in some sense a movie about movies. One of the principal themes of the Western was the protagonist’s search for a place where he could fit in – a place he could call home; which, due to his internal psychological conflicts, he could never remain. The character Howard Spence is also invested in this search, riding off into the sunset, again and again, only to find the nothingness of self-destruction in real life.

 Don’t Come Knocking is a picture filled with implausibilities – the timeline for Howard’s career is way off – classic John Ford-style Westerns were not being produced in the 1970s, when the Shepard character would have been at the apex of his stardom. It is also hard to believe that even as irresponsible and self-indulgent a man as Howard would be so out of touch that he ignored his mother for decades, and was unaware of his father’s death – the same father who has left him a mint-condition 1954 Packard, just waiting to be driven over the salt flats.

The visual iconography of the film consciously echoes the work of painter Edward Hopper, with its lonely, bare vistas, underlining the principal characters’ futile search for connection, and its use of Hopper’s color tones. Structurally well-crafted, Don’t Come Knocking is worth seeing just for the visuals, which won Franz Lustig a European Film Award for cinematography. To some degree, this film evokes the feeling of Paris, Texas, a far superior film with a similar theme that Wenders made back in 1984. However, none of the characters, and especially Howard, is interesting enough to raise the picture above its inherent sense of futility, resulting in a rather lacklustre piece of work which, like its main character, squanders its own potential.

The Pillowcase

The motel room was dimly lit and stank of cigarettes. She sat down on the double bed nearest the heavily-curtained window and peeled back the bedspread. On one of the cushions she noticed a faint stain, the outline of a spreadeagled person, like a gingerbread man, left behind by a previous occupant. It was much faded with repeated laundering, but still visible, pale brown as a scorch mark. She put her nightgown on, then lay down on the bed, listening to the cars rushing past on the highway until sleep overtook her.

She was driving along the highway in her rental car, her eyes transfixed by the license plate of the pickup truck just ahead, in its neon-lit chain-link frame. It was late evening, and the highway signs were whipping past. Mesmerized by the truck and the white lines on the blacktop, her eyelids drooped and she decided she had to stop at the next motel, providing it looked halfway OK. On her right, a motel, country-cottage style, shimmered faintly in the darkness, white woodwork and little wooden tulips in the gravel yard, “No Vacancy” on the flip sign. She drove on. The truck in front of her suddenly made a sharp right turn, and she found herself alone on the darkening highway. Twenty minutes went by, with fewer and fewer billboards, then a deserted gas station, the old-fashioned kind, with chocolate-box turrets, gas pumps ripped out and covered over. Across the street, the kind of motel with separate little cottages that Film Noir gangsters hid out in. It called out to her, but a sudden rush of traffic in the other lane made it impossible to turn. She kept going.

At last, a big yellow sign, crowned by a bowling ball. A few empty parking spots. She pulled up in front of the office and went in, hesitating for a few seconds, somehow expecting the door to be locked. Of course it wasn’t. Tiny bells jingled, announcing her arrival, as she entered. The desk clerk, a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves, who had been watching TV under the counter, looked up at her sleepily.

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No, but…”

“That’s OK – I have one room left on the ground floor.”

“That’s fine!” she said eagerly, needing to use the bathroom. He took her credit card, interacted intensely with the computer keyboard, then handed her a plastic keycard. “Room 14, at the end of this hall,” he indicated with a stubby finger, which spoke of impending circulatory problems. Dragging her suitcase behind her, she started walking, passing machine after humming machine – ice, soft drinks, chips, more soft drinks. The last door on the right – her room. Fumbling at first, as she always did, she finally got the card to work. She entered the room and switched on the light.

A queen-sized bed, covered by a floral bedspread, took up most of a pinkish room that reminded her of the inside of someone’s mouth. First things, first, though – she went into the bathroom. There were the usual little soaps and bottles, and a few hairs the maid had either missed or left behind herself. She avoided looking at her face in the mirror. Afterwards, she hung up her suit and crawled under the covers in her underwear.

 She thought she had been sleeping for some time when she heard knocking. Startled, she looked around. It seemed to be coming from the window, not the door. Wrapping herself in the bedspread, she went to the window and parted the curtain.

 She found herself eye to eye with a man, who was staring in the window at her. Because it was so dark outside, his features were indistinct, except for the eyes – his eyes, glowing like tiny flashlight beams.

She awoke to find herself sitting up in bed, screaming. With the back of her hand, she mopped cold sweat from her face. Then she heard the knocking – sharp, insistent, determined raps. They seemed to be coming from the window, not the door. She did nothing, not wanting to investigate. The knocking persisted. She could hear the window vibrate as if someone was throwing their full weight against it. Holding her breath, she sharply drew the curtain aside. The window was actually a sliding door, leading directly from the room to the parking lot. On the other side of the door a man was spreadeagled, peering in at her and grimacing fiercely.Pinned to the spot with shock, she started screaming.Someone from the room next door began pounding on the wall and shouting in unconscious counterpoint to the man outside. She threw herself back on the bed and reached for the phone to call the front desk, while picking up the pillow she had been sleeping on and hugging it to her chest. As she tried to explain what was happening to the drowsy desk clerk, she glanced down and saw the stain, shaped like the maniac at her window. The pillowcase man.

Phlegm – In Honor of Flash Fiction

Jacob was sauntering down the refuse-studded street early one morning on his way to school when he noticed a glob of phlegm perched like a seagull on the apex of a military statue, in the middle of the sidewalk, regal and pristine in its aloneness. He stopped and studied it for awhile, knowing better than to touch it or to try and pick it up, even though it called to him seductively. People hurrying to work scurried around him as he hovered protectively over the phlegmy glob, still staring.

He thought of giving it a name: Mr. P., Blobby the Phlegm Man – then he saw a familiar pair of Nike-shod feet walk by him, belonging to Jeff from his class at school.

“What tha …” Jeff stared at the ground; he too became transfixed by the perfect pearlescent puddle.

“Man, there’s even colors in it,” he marvelled. Jacob looked over at him without straightening up.

“Yeah, where?”

Jeff snickered and slapped him on the back, between the shoulder blades.

“You been starin’ at that shit for all this time and you didn’t see the colors in it?” Jeff forced Jacob’s face toward the pavement. “Lick it up, asshole.”

Just before his face met the ground, Jacob turned his head to the side and wrenched himself upward against the pressure of Jeff’s hand.

“Go kiss it yourself, you f—ing phlegm lover!’, Jacob shouted, shoving Jeff so hard that he bounced off a nearby storefront window.

That’s when he made his fatal mistake – turning his back on the enraged other boy. Jeff reached into the depths of his lungs with all the pigeon-breasted muscularity a nine-year old can muster, dug up a copious quantity of moist mucus, and propelled it towards the back of Jacob’s gray t-shirt, where it landed, triumphantly, glistening in its filthy purity. Unknown to him, Jacob wore it all the way to school.

Faces

I hate watching faces get unmade. When I’m watching TV, and they’re running a video which has been through the heads of the tape player numerous times, causing it to deteriorate and the faces of people to start breaking up into squares and lines, I experience some sort of primal fright. As a kid. I would have nightmares consisting of a continuous montage of human faces morphing into monstrous or animalistic ones. Those 80s rock videos, Smile, by Godley and Creme, and Black or White, by Michael Jackson, give me the shivers, as do photos of people with their heads replaced by happy faces. But why? What is so disturbing about a dissolving face? Is it because our face defines our public identity? My fears and phobias usually have some symbolic underpinning, and usually I’m not aware of how important these subjects or themes are to me psychologically, how deeply I care about them, unless they whack me over the head with some kind of primitive dread.

Water

Some people are followed around by fire – I’m followed around by water in the various places I’ve lived and worked. Aside from the usual dripping taps and leaking toilets, I’ve experienced a major flood. While living in a basement apartment many years ago, water accumulated in the window wells and came in through the electrical outlets, destroying my bed and some of my furnishings. I was left without a proper floor for weeks, after the wall-to-wall carpeting and underlay were ripped up, forcing me to negotiate the damp, nail-ridden base. A year ago, my next-door neighbors loaded up their washing-machine and went out for the day, leaving me with a squishy and stinky living-room carpet (admittedly, those living below them suffered more damage). Several years ago, when I was living on the top floor of an apartment building, a leaky roof resulted in an icicle and mould-striped wall that had to be periodically bleached. In my last workplace, thanks to the dampness, the carpets were buckled and dotted with mushrooms. Leaks in the ceiling where I now work force us to shield desks and computers with plastic garbage bags every time it rains heavily. Most recently, I had a clogged kitchen sink, which no home remedy would unblock. After the plumber came and fixed it, I noticed a fine but steady stream of water pouring into the cupboard underneath – the plumber had created a pin-size puncture in the metal.

Now, my sun-sign is Aquarius – the water bearer, commonly pictured as two wavy lines denoting water, or a person pouring water from a jug, although it is an Air sign. When depressed, I have fantasies of swimming in healing, calming, probably womb-like waters, or submerging myself, just short of drowning. Running water, like fire, is said to destroy in order to revive. It forces action. It can indicate the overflow of accumulated emotion and initiate change and renewal. Other than forcing me out of complacency (in the case of drips and links), or cleansing me of negativity and stagnation (bathing, swimming), I have yet to understand the meaning of water crises in my life. Am I being warned of the passage of time, to get moving, to make changes? I often find myself stuck and don’t know what to do to get unstuck. I just recently realized that sometimes a life situation can become so much a part of one’s identity that even if circumstances change, one’s self concept resists changing along with it, resulting in a lot of internal pressure and misery.