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Of Tornados
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1494
I'm at home with my family, younger sister, it's a new house, Calgary-ish, and we're surrounded by storms. Looking out the windows - every direction, South, East, North, Tornadoes, you can see them emerging from the rain, sometimes 6, 7, 8 together, then the rain closing in and they disappear, little gaps in the clouds illuminate them in yellow/gold hues, then dark ribbons that wind and twist from earth to sky.
I've got my cell phone, am taking as many pictures as I can, am calling my Mother over to see, my sister, she's annoying me, every time I point them out she gets a better picture than me...
Every window looks out onto a prairie landscape, now, a high-rise under construction, being shredded, girders coming down, a suburban house nearby is being torn apart, someone flies past the window in a dumpster swinging on a rope, these tornadoes are getting close and I pull away from the window, head towards the center of the house...
Rossi in Revelstoke not Revelstoke
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1389
I'm in a white room with Ari & her boyfriend, it's a hotel, he's sitting on the bed, looking away, not talking. The lights, they're too bright, there's no décor, just bright lights, Ari, she's wearing a black bustier, there's another one on the floor, she's trying to talk to me earnestly but I don't understand a word she's saying...
Now, outside, I'm in Revelstoke, not Revelstoke, it's a snowy night and I'm out walking in the snow by a long high building...
I go inside, upstairs, it's a Biere-Hause of sorts, Austrian, there are tons of people, busy, and I find myself in the Kitchen - where I meet Rossi from the old restaurant, I didn't know he was back, it's good to see him. Hugs, he's telling me he's just back for the season and I'm trying to think of a way to get him to stay until summer, the place is busy, busy, crazy busy...
I leave, a long walk through a bleak and snowy landscape and I'm trying to find the too-bright hotel room again, walking, I'm in Revelstoke not Revelstoke, it appears a bit like the strip of 9th Ave in Calgary that runs alongside the railway, it's a spiritual desert, a winter wasteland here...
15 KM of Stormy
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Stormy
- Hits: 805
Tuesday, my one trip to town, get gas, groceries, cigarettes, catch up with friends. A proper blizzard, roads covered in slush, first off the bat - Stormy.
Now, Stormy should never be first off the bat, but I wasn't thinking. The hill that he's on, it's slippery in the fresh snow, the jeep stops - barely, and I'm loathe to hang out for too long, but Stormy, his scooter, the charger's off to get repaired, he's been housebound these past few days and maybe I can help him run a few errands...
The first, of course, to the bank. Where he gives me his debit card and instructs me to withdraw $200, only he doesn't have $200, so $100 it is, nice try. From here down to buy him some cigarettes, then over to Extra-Foods where I have to buy him some candles, then for breakfast. He eats, I just have a coffee, he's spotted in the hallway a painting for sale - terrible, but he wants it, and as it's by donation the waitress goes out and just grabs it for him, I pop out to use the washroom, by the time I'm back he's packed up his food, painting, is ready to go - he's tipped the waitress $35 on a $15 breakfast.
From here - some more errands - past the antique shop - not open, past the coffee-wagon - closed, to the bike shop to check on his charger, to the deli where he instructs me to honk and the cute Quebecois proprietor brings him out $5.00 worth of cheese and takes his breakfast leftovers (to presumably throw away because I'm pretty sure I'm the only human being to eat anything he's offered), back to his house to drop off his treasures, then back down to Wal-Mart to drop him off, he's been riding me like one of those demons in folk tales that get on your shoulders and never get off, gouge you with their spurs...
I leave, and am only shortly into my own errands when I discover that he's forgotten his house keys in my jeep - I return to the mall, find him, return them, and now he's waiting for a ride home ...
He's gotten some new mittens, shows me, he went to the lost and found and protested that he'd lost his, then chose the best set they showed him as being the ones that he lost, he knows, he knows...
This, it fucks up my day entirely, the blizzard is now fully underway and my need for human company has completely expired, I check my odometer - 15 KM on his errands, 15 KM in a town that's 1 KM wide.
Working on the Toronto Subway
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1391
I'm underground, the Toronto Subway, I run into someone I know standing outside the turnstiles. We talk, he tells me he's working, I can too, just standing there, people coming and going. And I'm wondering why we don't have uniforms, jackets like the other transit security people, and he's reassuring me, the uniforms are coming, we're both pretty shabbily dressed. Off in distance I see someone, older man, reminds me of Sammi from the old restaurant, Tunisian motherfucker who stole my daughter's vacation allowance, it's not him, but somehow reminds me of him, this older fellow, he has an accent I recognize, and a quiet dignity that Sammi never had...
I get bored with this standing by the turnstiles and go through, into a shop on the other side, I've got a pocket full of lottery and sweepstakes tickets I need to check. And the shop owner, a little East Indian woman with a part of the shop separated off with cardboard boxes, a half-living space, she's telling me that I can only check the one on this machine, and now I'm crawling around amidst all these other lottery machines that look like old pinball games, bright vintage and foreign motifs, trying to find the laser to check them all, there's hundreds in here, I'm not even sure that all the tickets have been drawn...
She - the shop owner - speaks with somebody that's just come in, middle aged, shirt open, unbuttoned, he's got a plastic fork stuck in his fleshy orange nipple. He walks outside, I follow him, he's talking to me while looking straight ahead..."That was real good", and I know what he's talking about, I've never tried it, too dangerous, addictive, but clearly it's done wonders if he can't feel that fork in his nipple...
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