dreamszilla

A tall tale about Tommy O'Brien, who was so enamoured of limericks he could express himself no other way. Image generated with OpenAI My father told me about Tommy O'Brien. It was late one night and he'd been sitting in the dark in the kitchen, filling himself with whiskey, the Pierian springs of his wit. When the spirit was with and in him, he was the best of storytellers. He waved me to sit down and he slopped me a glass. Then he began. I can't say even half of what he said is true, but I'd like to think all of it is. Maybe Tommy's charm for me is only of that night, one of those rare times I could actually talk with my father; the sobriety of the day silenced us both, him in his hard world of hands and me in my books. I have, on more than one occasion, tried to look up Tommy in the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador , hoping that one time I'd find what I know I hadn't missed, and renew that silenced voice. Tommy, I heard, was born about a hundr...

Two rival writing groups engage in a literary rumble for access to their favoured corner of the Mega-Libro Bookstore. Image generated with OpenAI I had no idea how it had escalated to this, but there we were in the Java Jones Café in Mega-Libro Bookstore downtown ready to rumble, two writers' groups face-to-face in a confrontation that resembled a Saturday Night Live parody of West Side Story. Just beyond the Prose and Cons, a coffee barista had leaned over the customer-free counter and watched our exchange as he sipped away at a foamy mocha-cappa-frappa-something. The Prose and Cons was the other writer's group whose members mentored recently-released criminals, encouraging them to use writing as a creative outlet. I had hated the Prose and Cons. Maybe not so much the whole group, but I had hated their leader, Rich. He was a smarmy, egomaniacal 30-something substitute teacher who had a few publication credits in small magazines. To hear him talk, you'd think he'd won ...

Meg reminisces about her summer vacations growing up, reflecting on her friendship with Charlie and her interest in Henry. Image generated with OpenAI When the three of us were eight, I saw Henry for the first time. He painted on the rocky pier above the tidepools where Charlie and I hunted for hermit crabs. Even back then, Henry wore a tan fedora hat like an old man, and I knew from the serious way he studied the easel that he was on a whole other level from us regular eight-year-olds. His presence made me notice the world more: the cove with its fishing boats bobbing near the cliffs, the dogs with their salted fur stealing sandwiches from unguarded blankets, the tourist women lying face down with their bikini-tops untied. I tried to keep Mom's word about them, slutty , squashed down in my mind. But whenever I saw hints of skin, the word slutty popped back up again. Even the twelve side-by-side cabins of the Seaside Motel where Charlie's family and mine stayed, seemed more...

In Budapest, a teacher visits the home of one of his students and is struck by the contrasts in his city. Image generated with OpenAI The 11th district has wide streets and trees so tall they nearly cover the tram wires. When we walk to the schools to talk about the virus and the blood, the air smells like lime blossoms. Balázs is a student who listens; he wears a sweater that is too thin for November, and he sits in the front row. He doesn't say much, but he looks at the diagrams of the cells with a focused, quiet intensity. Veins branch blue and red across the projector screen while the other students whisper to one another or stare out the windows toward the street below. Balázs watches as if the body is something he himself might someday need to repair. One day I see him at the fruit stand near my house. He is stacking apples, making sure the bruised ones are at the bottom. The owner of the stand is my acquaintance; he tells me Balázs is a good worker, that a colleague gave him...