#collapse

by Jeffrey Paul Dore

The woman bent at the knees, crouched, fanned her hand on the cracked concrete for support, lied on her side on the sidewalk, rested her head in the crook of her elbow. The light yellow dress spread across the ground, the pink top already dirtying from the slimy grime trail left by the garbage bin she was dragging to the curb edge. The yellow and pink striking an unnatural colour balance against the surrounding crumbling eroding city.

Markale

by Sarah Snowdon
Helen's class had chosen baseball for their activity on a sunny afternoon last July. She was chosen third last for the red team and she felt this wasn't bad. Waiting in anticipation, she watched her team-members go up to bat, most of them flailing awkwardly at the ball.

They were losing, four to three, when it came to Helen's turn. Having no idea of how to bat, she approached home-plate, her second-hand running shoes kicking up dust from the sand and gravel. The pitcher eyed her bat as he set up. As the ball flew through the air, Helen did not think, she simply moved enough the right way to hit the ball at the right angle and off it went, flying into left field.

And the team shouted in unison: "Go!" So she ran past first, second, landing on third base. The dusty wind blew in conflicting directions, coating her throat as she breathed in.

When she stopped, she glanced around the diamond, her classmates were all cheering her on gleefully. She smiled.

Eight months later, the morning sun was shining and the air was crisp as she set out on foot for the marketplace located in the historical core of Sarajevo. She checked her mother's list: potatoes, a chicken, one bag of sugar and milk.

It took nearly 20 minutes to walk from the mountainside to the market. Alyna Kowall, Helen's best friend from school, was there that day. They met up at the corner where the strange man sold fruit and polished shoes at the same kiosk.

"Alyna, do you want to come with me? I have to get these things for mama."

"I was supposed to meet with Frankie, but he must have forgotten or just went home," replied Alyna, his sister. Two young boys made circles around them with their bicycles before they peddled faster and out of sight down an alleyway.

"Come with me, we'll go together," said Helen, and they took off around the corner.

They laughed and played while visiting each vendor. Once they had finished with Helen's list, they started heading back when a deafening noise echoed from 100 feet away and violently shook the ground beneath them. Helen's jaw went limp. She covered her ears and hit the ground. Muffled voices and soft cries were heard over the clamour of the explosion. Smoke and fear permeated the air, and everything went dark. She cried out, "Alyna!" but could not hear her reply.

The red-brick wall crumbled as young Helen inched her way towards the front of the building where the national flag hung torn and wilted. Her white slip dress was smeared with dirt; her flimsy shoes stepped on jagged, dime-sized rocks. I will not get caught, she thought to herself. Mama needs me.

Her heart raced, sweat dripped down her face. She breathed heavily as she made her way around the building. Once she could make out a clear path through the debris, she would run.

Disoriented, she thought back to that day at school, when the team said: "Go!" She dropped her groceries and ran. She did not stop until she got home. She ran through the smoke, the bodies, the debris, and the hills.

untitled novel, excerpt

by Matt Cahill
I could feel the drugs working. Sometimes it was hard to feel them, but today – even if it was only my imagination – I could feel my liver working overtime: it was tingling down there. I wished I could sleep, but I couldn't. I was alone on the cot. The room was dark and fathomless. It felt like I was floating – perhaps that was also the drugs working. I couldn't move my arms. Breathing's rough – nose is stuffed and my lungs are still built up with crap. At least I'm not hacking anymore. The good news is that I don't feel any tubes in me, and nothing against my face. I can handle: not being able to sleep, or to read, or to talk to anyone, or to breath properly. I can handle all of that providing nothing is laying against my face while I'm here floating, immobile in the dark.

I could feel the question, regardless that I didn't want it asked: where was Anne?

How 'bout those Jays? Where was Anne?

How many people in the fucking world are dead now? Where was Anne?

How long can I lay here, motionless, without sleep, without the perception of space, without crying out for help?

Where was Anne?

* * *

“Can I tell you a secret?”

My friend behind the bar dumped a bucket of ice into the stainless steel sink. It roared throughout the emptiness. I knew his manner was curt. When I did hear him talk, not to me but to others, his voice was deep and came out with a thick accent. It was Eastern European – I don't know accents well enough to be more exact.

It was late and he switched to his closing-music: Bach's Goldberg Variations. It made the bar more intimate, as if we abutted a church. Silence and tension, as if in a dream. I think I come here because he trusts me enough to play Bach without asking for permission. He wasn't like the others, the ones who played dance music the moment their shift started. This man kept it silent, as if to say: let the mind roam on its own.

Maybe it was contempt? I've been coming here for months and I still didn't know his name. I just assumed he didn't think name-sharing was necessary.

It didn't mean that I couldn't bother him.

“Let me tell you a secret.” I said. I was looking at my drink while he went through his shift-chores, hanging wine glasses on a rack above me, between us.

Maybe the reason I came here is that I never know whether or not he's listening. And if not? Well, that's what it's all about: finding out.

“I'm different than people think I am.” I said. “Everyone who knows me thinks I'm...me. But I'm something else. I'm complex and unfocused, and that's not sexy. Nobody draws comics about unfocused people. For them, in their fucked-up imagination, I worked as a SCUBA instructor in Corfu. Or I sold heroin to Europeans in Nepal.”

I looked to see if he was following my admission. His eyes darted down to his glass cleaning. What does it matter?

“It's like they need to hear this. To believe this about me. People want me to have lived this trashy, boho-asshole lifestyle and the thing is... while I never encouraged this, I also never said anything to make them think differently.”

My friend began wiping down the counter. I have been tempted to learn a Slavic language just so he would pay more attention to me.

The last time I talked this openly was at Wilma's grave.

I wanted to say: I'm a lot of things, but overall I'm pretty normal. I've never stolen and, outside of the lies I can defend, I rarely lie. I am allergic to danger and ambivalent toward non-conformity. I'm not complete yet, not this soon afterwards, but I'm getting there, save for abetting a public misperception about me.

“You married?” I asked. I couldn't remember if I'd asked before.

Author Profile: Doris Montanera

Doris Montanera is an award-winning lifestyle writer and editor whose work has appeared in publications such asThe Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Elle Canada, Best Healthand Canadian Living. Her poetry has been published in the anthology Families in Transition and literary magazine Existere, where she later became co-editor. She loves to edit and can write about almost anything, but prefers cleaning the cat litter to writing about herself.

Author Profile: Jeffrey Paul Dore

Jeffrey Paul Dore is a writer, well, hopefully. With a strong appreciation of how visual images conveyed emotional experiences, film was an obvious choice. Many scripts and films later, branching out into writing novels seemed a natural progression. We’ll see where this all leads. Paul's blog of stories – both real and imagined – can be found at Contradiction of Logic and follow him @jeffreypauldore.