“THEY ARE NOT THE OTHER. THEY ARE US.”: Gibson rules on 100vic

From Apr. 16 to Apr. 20, 2026, the Ontario Court of Justice heard the case The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Named Respondents and Persons Unknown. This case was the result of an application filed by the Region of Waterloo to determine that the Sit-Specific By-Law Number 25-021, A By-Law Respecting the Use of 100 Victoria Street North, Kitchener (as Owned by the Regional Municipality […]

SOMETIMES I AM A BIRD

Sometimes, I am a small bluebird, locked neatly in a cage, wings clipped tightly behind my back. I cry out for someone to release me, but there is nowhere to go, not even up. My eyes scan the room, frantically hunting for whoever took me to this place. A quaint dungeon. I never thought I was claustrophobic, but the gilded cage moves closer in my peripherals. I am unable to pry the iron bars of […]

PAUL DROTOS’ GUIDE FOR YOUR IMPROV JOURNEY

Your Improv Journey is Paul Drotos’ treatise meant for beginners, veterans and randos. It is an easy read and is relevant even when considering teamwork, community and art in general.   

Improv is an art form where actors create scenes on the spot. In a show, troupes will usually have games they play with varying levels of audience input.   

When the scene ends, that is the end of […]

DE-PLATFORMING MUSIC CONSUMPTION

Streaming music sucks, but it’s also so convenient and ubiquitous. Having access to music streaming means that any song I want from any era is constantly available.   

What that really means, though, is that choice paralysis freezes me from making any new choices—I effectively spin the same 10 records most of the time.   

A lot of my friends have tried to get off streaming […]

THE EARTH IS A STAR

The earth is a star. Only in my eyes, I suppose. From Venus, everything looks like a star. 

The stars, real ones and the ones I made up, dance for the sun and moon. The sun requests the purest aura. But the moon beckons a much more complex ambience. 

I feel more like myself when the moon hosts the star lit sky. Maybe I just have too much time to think. 

I am the only inhabitant of Venus. I barely recognize the sound of my voice when I speak. I wander and wander and wander. The queen of the void. 

I am not human, but I know I could be. 

There’s a hollowness in me, carved out by immense loneliness. I try not to let it distract me from my wandering. I’ve circled this waste-planet numerous times. I think I could draw it from memory… Maybe I will attempt that tomorrow. 

I add another tally in the scarlet sand, one for each day that dredges on. Nine thousand, four hundred and ninety-five tiny lines. Too many. I hope ten thousand will bring freedom. But my paranoia tells me it will be a curse. 

I sweep my gaze around. The warm wind carries specks of crimson dust around me like a hurricane. My hair catches the cyclone, and for a split second, I could have taken flight. But as quickly as it starts, it ends. 

I sigh and drag my feet through the dirt. There is nothing here that catches my eye. Venus looks as lonely as I feel. I sit upon a pile of boring, beige stone; it must be my throne. The granite is cool against my burning skin. 

I look out at the vast unknown. I reach for the stars. They slide just out of my grasp. I want them to drift closer, so that I may latch onto one and ride it all the way to a new place. Somewherewith people, somewhere filled with love. My voice claws at my throat to escape, gritty and unafraid. 

I scream. 

Pure rage from my lonely heart, beating only to keep me—and this rage—alive.  

I am just a girl and the earth is just a star. 

THE SAGE PART TWO

The Sage was inchoate and distressed as he flew off into the darkness of the forest. He trundled through brackets and thistles. He wheeled into a thorn bush. He tripped on a root, he slipped on some moss, he fell down a long hill and hit his head on a rock at the bottom. When he woke, The Sage was staring up at the night sky and a smattering of stars.

Not only was The Sage spiritually lost but physically lost too. He’d wanted to go home almost as soon as he’d left, but now, after the stumbling and bushwhacking, and knocking his head, he had no clue where home was. To top it all off, he was heartbroken as well.

The Sage was inchoate and distressed as he flew off into the darkness of the forest. He trundled through bracken and thistles. He wheeled into a thorn bush. He tripped on a root, he slipped on some moss, he fell down a long hill and hit his head on a rock at the bottom. When he woke, The Sage was staring up at the night sky and a smattering of stars. 

Not only was The Sage spiritually lost but physically lost too. He’d wanted to go home almost as soon as he’d left, but now, after the stumbling and bushwhacking, and knocking his head, he had no clue where home was. To top it all off, he was heartbroken as well. 

He didn’t understand that his wife regretted her harsh words. But also, he wasn’t ready to change either. There were still too many questions to ask. At least The Sage was Sage enough to know that. 

“What has my life become?” He shouted into the darkness.  

“I’m empty.”  

He gnashed his teeth and wailed.   

But through his tears, The Sage saw a comet with a red tail burning. It traced crimson across the dome of the heavens, like a beetle crawling along the inside of a glass. He sat up and shrugged and figured he’d follow the falling star.  

So, he did.   

He picked his way through a polluted stream, filled with soggy paper cups, and the tangled skeleton of a discarded tent.  

“Yuck,” he murmured, stepping over the swirls of iridescent oil.  

“Wait!,” called a muffled voice. And when the Sage looked down, he saw floating in a puddle on the bank of the stream, a sick goldfish. It was one of those goldfish with bulbous foreheads.  

“Please,” called the fish. “I’ve been flushed. You gotta help me, man.”  

The Sage looked around and shrugged. He didn’t have anything on him but his clothes.  

“Sorry pal, no dice.”  

The goldfish wailed. “Come on! I don’t care what you put me in! Hold me in your mouth for all I care! I just gotta get outta here!”  

So, The Sage plucked a stretched out old condom from the riverbank. He rinsed it in the murky stream, filled it with water, and plopped the goldfish inside.  

“You won’t regret this!” bubbled the fish.  

“Sure thing,” sighed The Sage. He tied the latex shut with a snap and pushed it into his pocket.  

The Sage traveled for many days, through fields and forests and city blocks where people walked quickly with their heads hung low. All the while keeping his eye on that burning comet tail.  

One day, The Sage came to a hill, and as he climbed the hill, he started to cry. Fat salty tears poured from his eyes and into his dirty beard.  

“This might be it,” He wept to the fish. “This could be the end of the trip. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m following a star. What the hell am I even doing up here?”  

“You’re just looking,” said the little voice from inside the condom, inside the Sage’s pocket. “That’s kind of all there is to do on a hill like this.”  

When Rhe Sage crested the hill, he gaped, astonished.  

At the top of the hill was a hot dog stand, and inside the hot dog stand was the young guy with kinky hair, and the woman with hot dog fingers.  

“What the hell,” cried the Sage. “What are you doing here?”  

“Well, I came up here after you told me to run to the top of a hill,” said the woman with hot dog fingers. “And once I got here, I was so tired I lay down and took a nap.”  

“And I came up here, because I was following the comet,” said the guy with the kinky hair.  

“And while I was sleeping,” continued the woman with the hot dog fingers, “a little white dog came and started chewing on my fingers.”  

“It was my dog,” said the guy with the kinky hair, astonished. “She found him! He loves hot dogs!”  

“And he’s not the only one,” said the woman with hot dog fingers, a little saucily. She held her hand up to The Sage, who was dazzled by a shiny engagement ring with a big fat stone in the middle.  

“I proposed on the spot,” said the guy with the kinky hair.  

“So, I left my husband, and bought this hot dog stand, and we live here now. My relationship’s way better with my kids, too,” said the woman with hot dog fingers. “Who’d have guessed–they just hated our fighting.”  

The Sage nodded slowly. “So, what you’re saying,” he said. “Is that I did this?”  

The couple blinked.  

“What?”  

“I’m responsible for this,” crowed the Sage. “I knew this would happen! My advice was good!”  

“I mean, I guess,” said the woman with hot dog fingers.  

“Yeah, well, it was kind of our own th–” said the young guy, but his fiancée elbowed him in the ribs.  

“He clearly needs this, Josh,” she hissed.  

And she was right. The Sage did need this. He cheered and whooped and fell to his knees in tears. He bid the happy couple farewell and ran down the hill and through the city squares, and the fields, and forests, and over streams and up cliffs, and finally made it to his old front door.  

“I’m home! I’m home,” he shouted.  

The Sage’s wife was happy to see him, but furious that he’d left. “Where the hell have you been,” she shouted. “I’ve been worried sick!”  

The Sage, being very old, took a long time to catch his breath.  

“You were right! I’m self-centred,” he gasped.   

“But I went on a long journey and I found this couple, and I’m the reason they’re together, and I’m NOT A FAILURE OF A SAGE ANYMORE!”  

The Sage’s wife looked skeptical, so The Sage produced from inside his pocket, the goldfish filled condom.  

“Here,” he said, handing it over. “I carried this goldfish in my pocket and I love him, and now I’m giving him to you, because I love you.”  

The Sage’s wife looked into the condom.  

“This goldfish is dead,” she said.  

The Sage opened and closed his mouth, looking at the fish. His wife was right. It was dead. Apparently goldfish don’t do well, crammed in a condom full of dirty water, in a crazy old man’s coat pocket.  

It was clear to The Sage’s wife that her husband was not reformed. He’d had his ego rebuilt, not washed away. But it was also clear to her that he was a ridiculous fool, and that was why she’d married him in the first place.  

“Listen,” she said. “This is all very nice. But I don’t care.”  

Then she hugged The Sage, and kissed his forehead, and left to tend to her salves, as he sat in wait for his next querent, pleasantly convinced that something had changed. 

“What has my life become?” He shouted into the darkness. 

“I’m empty.” 

He gnashed his teeth and wailed.  

But through his tears, the Sage saw a comet with a red tail burning. It traced crimson across the dome of the heavens, like a beetle crawling along the inside of a glass. He sat up and shrugged and figured he’d follow the falling star. 

So, he did.  

He picked his way through a polluted little stream, filled with soggy paper cups, and the tangled skeleton of a discarded tent. 

“Yuck,” he murmured, stepping over the swirls of iridescent oil. 

“Wait!,” called a muffled little voice. And when the Sage looked down, he saw floating in a puddle on the bank of the stream, a sick little goldfish. It was one of those goldfish with bulbous foreheads. 

“Please,” called the fish. “I’ve been flushed. You gotta help me, man.” 

The Sage looked around and shrugged. He didn’t have anything on him but his clothes. 

“Sorry pal, no dice.” 

The goldfish wailed. “Come on! I don’t care what you put me in! Hold me in your mouth for all I care! I just gotta get outta here!” 

So, the Sage plucked a stretched out old condom from the riverbank. He rinsed it in the murky stream, filled it with water, and plopped the goldfish inside. 

“You won’t regret this!” bubbled the fish. 

“Sure thing,” sighed the Sage. He tied the latex shut with a snap and pushed it into his pocket. 

The Sage traveled for many days, through fields, and forests, and city blocks where people walked quickly with their heads hung low. All the while keeping his eye on that burning comet tail. 

One day, the Sage came to a hill, and as he climbed the hill, he started to cry. Fat salty tears poured from his eyes and into his dirty beard. 

“This might be it,” He wept to the fish. “This could be the end of the trip. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m following a star. What the hell am I even doing up here?” 

“You’re just looking,” said the little voice from inside the condom, inside the Sage’s pocket. “That’s kind of all there is to do on a hill like this.” 

When the Sage crested the hill, he gaped, astonished. 

At the top of the hill was a hotdog stand, and inside the hotdog stand was the young guy with kinky hair, and the woman with hot-dog fingers. 

“What the hell,” cried the Sage. “What are you doing here?” 

“Well, I came up here after you told me to run to the top of a hill,” said the woman with hot-dog fingers. “And once I got here, I was so tired I lay down and took a nap.” 

“And I came up here, because I was following the comet,” said the man with the kinky hair. 

“And while I was sleeping,” continued the woman with the hot-dog fingers, “a little white dog came and started chewing on my fingers.” 

“It was my dog,” said the guy with the kinky hair, astonished. “She found him! He loves hot-dogs!” 

“And he’s not the only one,” said the woman with hot-dog fingers, a little saucily. She held her hand up to the Sage, who was dazzled by a shiny engagement ring with a big fat stone in the middle. 

“I proposed on the spot,” said the guy with the kinky hair. 

“So, I left my husband, and bought this hot-dog stand, and we live here now. My relationship’s way better with my kids, too,” said the woman with hot dog fingers. “Who’d have guessed–they just hated our fighting.” 

The Sage nodded slowly. “So, what you’re saying,” he said. “Is that I did this?” 

The couple blinked. 

“What?” 

“I’m responsible for this,” crowed the Sage. “I knew this would happen! My advice was good!” 

“I mean, I guess,” said the woman with hot-dog fingers. 

“Yeah, well, it was kind of our own th–” said the young guy, but his fiancée elbowed him in the ribs. 

“He clearly needs this, Josh,” she hissed. 

And she was right. The Sage did need this. He cheered and whooped and fell to his knees in tears. He bid the happy couple farewell and ran down the hill and through the city squares, and the fields, and forests, and over streams and up cliffs, and finally made it to his old front door. 

“I’m home! I’m home,” he shouted. 

The Sage’s wife was happy to see him, but furious that he’d left. “Where the hell have you been,” she shouted. “I’ve been worried sick!” 

The Sage, being very old, took a long time to catch his breath. 

“You were right! I’m self-centred,” he gasped.  

“But I went on a long journey and I found this couple, and I’m the reason they’re together, and I’m NOT A FAILURE OF A SAGE ANYMORE!” 

The Sage’s wife looked skeptical, so The Sage produced from inside his pocket, the goldfish filled condom. 

“Here,” he said, handing it over. “I carried this goldfish in my pocket and I love him, and now I’m giving him to you, because I love you.” 

The Sage’s wife looked into the condom. 

“This goldfish is dead,” she said. 

The Sage opened and closed his mouth, looking at the fish. His wife was right. It was dead. Apparently goldfish don’t do well, crammed in a condom full of dirty water, in a crazy old man’s coat pocket. 

It was clear to the Sage’s Wife that her husband was not reformed. He’d had his ego rebuilt, not washed away. But it was also clear to her that he was a ridiculous fool, and that was why she’d married him in the first place. 

“Listen,” she said. “This is all very nice. But I don’t care.” 

Then she hugged the Sage, and kissed his forehead, and left to tend to her salves, as he sat in wait for his next querent, pleasantly convinced that something had changed. that something had changed. 

A TIMELY HAIKU

There’s nowhere to put

This fucking, fucking, fucking

Fucking, fucking snow

THE SAGE

Everyone came from far and wide to hear the soothes of the Sage. Citizens lined up from the door of his stone hut, down the path through his herb garden, past the river, and the mushrooms, and the lichen, and out to highway 8. All day long, the Sage gave them advice.  

In the beginning, when he was a young Sage, he could hardly believe his luck— he’d managed to make a career out of telling people what he thought. His father, a tax lawyer, had advised against it.  

“You want to be a Sage?” he’d sputtered. “Smarten up! What are you gonna do?  Sit out in the woods all day and think about stuff?”  

But somehow the Sage actually became a Sage. Of course, for many years, he had to wander the earth, growing his beard and learning about the truth, beauty and ugliness abundant in life. He’d had some rough times, lonely times, dirty times. But not anymore. Now he was a real, professional Sage.  

And he looked the part, too! He lived in a hut made of stones with his wife—a formidable woman who made tinctures and salves and smoked a pipe. He was scrawny and stooped, elbows and knees and angles, and his beard was long and filthy. He wore rags and ate only curds and whey and porridge. If people didn’t know any better, they’d think he was profoundly unwell.   

But he wasn’t. He was a Sage.  

Unfortunately, this Sage’s heart wasn’t in it.   

Between appointments, he would bet on sports on his phone or watch videos of people having sex. In his water bottle the Sage laced vodka. One time he got drunk and let the dog chew his divining bones, said to have been carved from the femur of a dragon. After that day, the Sage would cast futures on the old bones of a Costco rotisserie chicken.   

What was more egregious, though, was the quality of advice the Sage now gave. Once he was wise. Now, he was full of shit.  

“I’m worried that my kids resent me,” said a woman one day. She had short, stubby fingers that reminded the Sage of hot dogs.   

God, he thought through the warm heaviness of his vodka, what I wouldn’t do for a hotdog right now.  

“Ahem?” said the woman with hotdog fingers. “I said, I think my kids resent me. And my husband sucks,” she added for good measure.  

The Sage blinked. “An old mitten bears many holes,” he offered. “But luckily a hand has fingers.”  

“What the hell does that even mean?”  

The Sage presented his querent with a sachet of tea and a bright blue pebble from the aquarium store.   

“Steep both for a few minutes, stir counterclockwise and drink. Save the teabag. Jog five miles with the stone under your tongue. Jog to the top of the tallest hill you can find. Bury the teabag and swallow the stone. Your children will love you once more.”  

The woman with hotdog fingers left, a perplexed frown across her face.   

The Sage went back to his betting and porn.  

“I’m full of shit,” he complained to his wife one night. “People ask my advice and I make up baloney. I’m a fraud.”  

The Sage’s wife didn’t think he was a fraud, but she did find his despair trivial, and irritating.   

“You’re just burnt out,” she said. “You need a break.”  

“A break!” The Sage cried. “What do you think this is? I’m not a man who works as a Sage. I AM a Sage! I’m THE Sage. This is my vocation!”  

The sage’s wife opened her mouth to argue. She wanted to tell her husband he was just a self-involved child. Then there was a knock on the door.  

When the Sage opened the door, there stood a young guy with a halo of kinky hair.  

“What?” asked the Sage.  

“It’s my dog,” said the young guy with kinky hair. “He’s lost. I love that dog. That dog gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. The other day, I came downstairs to feed him, and he was just gone.”  

“Just gone?”  

“Just gone.”  

The Sage chewed on this information.  

“I’ve been sitting on my porch for three days straight, waiting for him to come home,” said the young guy. “I want to look, but I just don’t know where to start.”   

He gestured around the deep dark forest.   

“He could be anywhere.”   

The young man rubbed a tear from his cheek.   

“Sage, if I don’t find him soon, I’m going to walk off into these trees and never come back.”  

The Sage was tired. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted to smack the young guy with the kinky hair in the face and tell him to go away, but then the Sage had the first stroke of wisdom he’d caught in a long while. He looked into the young man’s big, beautiful eyes, and he saw in there that he was telling the truth. He saw that if this guy didn’t find his dog, or at least start looking for him, he would actually do it. He’d walk out into the trees, and never come back.   

But it was hard to find a solution. And he was tired.  

Then the Sage caught his second stroke of wisdom. He looked over the guy’s shoulder and into the sky, where a comet was burning across the heavens.  

“See that?” He asked.  

The guy nodded.  

“Your dog’s chasing that comet. If you run after it, you’ll find him.”  

“Thank you. You won’t regret this!” Then the young guy turned on his heel and ran off into the woods, and the Sage went back to bed, and his betting, and his internet porn, and his terrible advice, and complaining to his wife, and his self-hatred and aimlessness.  

As days trickled into weeks, and weeks to months, the Sage’s dismissal of the young man began to eat him away like mold. After a while, the Sage just couldn’t take it anymore. Despair finally hit him one afternoon, when he looked around his hut, and everything seemed to be flat, like cardboard props on a stage play.  

“I’m horrible,” he cried, clutching his wife’s elbow. “That poor man! All he wanted was his missing dog, and I sent him after a shooting star!” He shook her, causing her to spill the serum of nettle she was working to distill. “My life is a lie!”  

“I’ve had it with you,” said the Sage’s wife. “You’re right! You are horrible! You’re full of shit and you’re a pain in my ass.”  

“Fine,” he hollered, flying into a rage. “I’m going out into the forest. I might just lay down and die!”  

“Sure you will,” grumbled his wife, turning back to her nettles. Then she felt bad and tried to turn and give the Sage a warm look, but he was already gone.  

He had wandered out into the night.  

THESEUS’ SHIP

Did you know you can get appendicitis twice? The trick is to not get surgery for the first time. If you catch it early enough and you ask nicely, the doctors will give you antibiotics instead. Then you get to lay in bed for a few days, smelling horrible and eating Jello. 

My first round of appendicitis came when I quit my job. I worked as a guidance counselor at my old high school. I used to joke with my students that I’d been in grade 12 for 40 years. 

One afternoon, Melanie Bloom came into my office and told me she wanted to drop grade 11 physics so she could take shop. 

“Melanie,” I explained, “that has nothing to do with your career path.” 

Melanie shrugged. “I want to be a taxidermist. I need shop.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” I began, but Melanie wasn’t listening. 

“Shop,” she said. “And taxidermy.” 

“You can’t just change like that,” I said. 

“Yes, I can.” 

Something in her tone hit a nerve. 

“Listen, you little snot,” I said, jabbing Melanie in the chest with my finger. “You think you know what’s best for you, but you don’t. I am your guidance counselor.” 

Melanie scoffed.  

“You don’t do shit. I’ll probably change careers like fifty times.” 

I gasped.  

“Then who will you be, Melanie? Nobody! That’s who!” 

Turned out, Melanie’s father was on the school board. I got a call letting me go that night. 

It was a weird sensation. I never cared about my job, didn’t need the money, but  I was horrified. Like when someone you never talked to dies and you start wondering if you could have been friends. A pain twisted  my in belly, and I went to the hospital. 

They said it was my appendix. I said I was too scared. I asked them not to operate; they gave me antibiotics. No surgery. 

… 

Yesterday, I walked to my old high school. I saw Melanie from outside the chain-link. I wanted to check in on things. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked. 

I chuckled. “I got appendicitis.” 

“Oh,” she said, picking a pimple on her chin. “That sucks.” 

“So, how’s your year going now?” I said, changing the subject. “Still taking physics?” 

The bell rang. 

“What?” she asked, already walking away. “No. I gotta go! I can’t miss shop!” 

Then there was a pain so bad in my stomach that I fell over. The last thing I remember was Melanie walking across the grass. 

… 

I wake up in my old office at my desk, and I’m wearing a hospital gown, a hair net, and little booties like a hazmat suit.  

“Hey,” buzzes the receptionist from my desk phone. “You’ve been avoiding this one for too long. I’ve got to send him in.” 

There’s a click, and the door barely creaks open and in slithers a fleshy, pinkish, slime-covered worm. It crawls up the chair across from me and sits. 

It’s my appendix. 

“Hello, friend.” 

I drum my fingers on the tabletop. “Is everything okay?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” hisses the appendix. 

“Language,” I warn. 

“We’re past language.” It shakes what I guess is its head. “You’re abandoning me!” 

I sigh. “You exploded. What could I do?” 

“Keep me. Like, in a jar!” 

“I think they have to test you for cancer and then destroy you.” 

The appendix gasps. 

“What?” I ask, hands splayed on the table. “You were killing me!” 

“I was not!” The appendix shrieks. “You were killing yourself. I was just the part of you getting ill. That’s how appendicitis works, asshole.” 

“That’s kind of beside the point,” I shrug. 

The appendix gasps. “I can’t believe you.” 

“Bottom line,” I say, “is if I didn’t get you removed, we both would have died. Doesn’t matter who made who sick.” 

The appendix looks away sniffing. “I just don’t get it. After all we’ve been through, how could yo–” 

I lean back, losing patience. “Oh, don’t do that.”  

“I have been a part of you since you were born,” sobs the appendix. 

“We were never really that close,” I say. 

The appendix shudders. “Now you’re just being hurtful.” 

I narrow my eyes. “What exactly do you do?” 

“Too far!” gasps the appendix. “You know how that question makes me feel.” 

“Well?” I say. “What are you for? I googled it, and not even scientists understand what you do.” I scoff. “You talk about all we’ve been through, but I wouldn’t even know you exist if you hadn’t filled up with shit and burst. Before yesterday, you were totally useless to me, and now, all you are is a huge, rotting pain!” 

Silence hangs. 

“‘Useless to you,’” the appendix repeats hollowly. “Wow.” 

“You know, in Latin, your name just means ‘hanger on?’” I ask. “At the most basic level, you’re just dead weight.” 

“Fuck you!” 

“Fuck you, too.” 

“You know,” the appendix gulps. “You know, being dragged around by your megalomaniacal ass all these years hasn’t been a cake walk? The whole reason I blew up in the first place is because you’re so full of shit. I couldn’t stand it anymore.” The appendix squirms out of the chair and splats onto the floor. “Trying to control other people, hanging on to shit you don’t even care about. Maybe, if you listened to yourself, like, 40 years ago, we wouldn’t be here.” It slithers across the tiles and slams the door as it leaves. 

I’m astonished. “What am I going to do?” I say into the desk phone. “I’m a terrible guidance counselor.” 

“Ever heard of Theseus’ ship?” My receptionist buzzes back. 

“No.” 

“Well, there’s this boat, belongs to a guy named Theseus. Over the years, he’s got to replace parts. A plank here, a screw there, whatever. After like ten years, nothing is original anymore. All new parts. The question is, is it still the same boat?” 

I scratch my head. “Did he sell the ship?” 

“Nope.” 

“Then it’s still Theseus’ ship.” 

“Bingo.” 

#appendix #Cancer #hazmatSuit #JessiWood #melanieBloom #shortFiction #surgery #tabletop #taxidermist

THE GLIMMERING SOMETHING HE ALWAYS CRAVED

The store was a mess when I arrived. Strewn pumps and stilettos and, in the middle of it all, twisted wings, blood pooling like spilled oil—a crow, haloed by shattered glass. 

My stomach was a pit: I recognized the white patch on his chest. This is Charlie. 

Janelle, the ratty shopgirl, said something, muffled by the roaring in my ears. It couldn’t be Charlie. Charlie, my lunch break companion. Charlie, who coveted bits of foil. I even gave him my engagement ring after my husband passed—skydiving accident near Lake Superior. His chute was faulty, rigged. I was a wreck when that happened. Yikes. I’d tried to sue the skydiving company, then the instructor, then the people I’d bought him the parachute from. I’d even gone after the pilot.  

“He knew the risks, Ms. Rothscowitz. He loved the sport, and he knew the risks.” 

Without Charlie, I’d have lost my mind for sure. 

“He wouldn’t have hit the window.” I heard myself say. 

“What?” Jenelle said. 

“Too smart,” I murmured. 

And I was right. Charlie knew when my lunch breaks were.  

He could unwrap a caramel. The window couldn’t fool him. I looked around the ruined store. Someone did this.  

“What a mess.” It was Corbin, the store owner. Gaunt, tired eyes. He gestured at the flapping banner beyond the broken glass. “On sale day too.” 

I sobbed. Sale day. Just yesterday, I’d given Charlie one of the shiny brass tacks I’d used to hang the banner. 

“She’s gonna freak,” Janelle hissed to Corbin. I wiped my eyes. 

“Well,” Corbin stammered, shrilly. “Anything with blood’s gotta go. And, the bird,” he added nervously. 

Janelle fell to collect the ruined shoes. “I’m vegan,” she explained, slinging the black plastic bag over her shoulder and leaving me with Charlie. 

I picked up the carnage. Charlie must’ve been thrown, I reasoned. He wouldn’t have flown into the window. Someone must have thrown him. 

I looked at his body again and sobbed. I couldn’t work like this. I lifted him into a shoebox and rushed outside. 

Across the asphalt, Janelle was rummaging near the dumpster. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, creeping up behind her. 

Quickly, she shoved the bag of ruined shoes into a bush. “He said to sell them anyways!” 

I gasped. 

Janelle touched my arm. “Listen,” she pleaded. “We can split the profits!”  

I flinched away, imagining traces of Charlie’s blood on my cardigan.   

“Murderer!” My pulse pounded in my ears. “Want the shoes for yourself, so you cover them in blood, make it look like a mistake!”  

Janelle blinked, feigning confusion. “Sorry?” 

“Murderer,” I shouted again, speeding towards the office. 

“Crazy bird bitch!” Janelle shouted behind me. 

“It was Janelle!” I shouted, bursting into the office. “She threw Charlie through the window! For the shoes!” 

Corbin frowned. “What?” 

I took a breath. “She broke the window, smeared Charlie’s bloo–” 

“Charlie?” 

I held up the box. 

Corbin paled. “Lenore, no.” 

“She–” 

“Lenore!” Corbin rubbed his eyes. “Please.” 

“She killed him! For the shoes!” 

“As far as I’m concerned, those shoes are garbage.” Corbin shook his head. “Please. You’re telling stories again. A bird hit a window. Take a seat outside and come back when you’re calm.” 

I sat in the parking lot, shaking. Micah, the lanky warehouse boy, eyed me from the railing. Usually, Charlie perched on that railing. 

Most days Micah cawed at me and threw crumbs of bread like I was a pigeon. Today, he spoke. 

“The insurance’ll be nuts.”  

I straightened. Insurance.  

A line of ants marched between his feet, and he began crushing them. “Like, really nuts” 

Yes. Too good to be true. The way he smeared the poor bugs made me think: Janelle was opportunistic, skeevy, but no killer. Her words echoed back to me: 

“I’m vegan.” 

Corbin though. A failing business could drive people to murder, no doubt about it. But I needed proof 

“I’m going to the restroom,” I said. 

Micah grunted. 

Corbin was at lunch. I had to act quickly. I crept towards the office door and darted inside. 

Corbin’s desk looked like the work of a deranged mind: papers, receipts, reminders, crushed empty coffee cups. I stood transfixed. He must have been the killer. 

“Lenore?” 

My head snapped up. Hulking and backlit was the stooped silhouette of Corbin.  

I opened and closed my mouth. Then, with a steadiness I cannot explain, I spoke. 

“I know about the insurance scheme.” 

“What are you talking about?” He stepped into the darkness. Despite the desk between us, my heart hammered. I could picture Corbin’s hairy hands squeezing the life out of poor, shivering Charlie. 

“You killed Charlie.” My voice was impossibly calm. “For the insurance on the store. I know about people like you, hurting innocent people to make a buck. When my Edgar–” 

“Lenore,” Corbin said slowly. “I don’t even have an insurance policy.” 

The silence was crushing.  

I stood, frozen. “No insurance policy?” 

He shook his head. “This is ridiculous. You’re fired. Leave your name tag and go.” 

I put the shiny brass tag on his desk, fighting back tears as I ducked through the still ruined shoe store. If they had no insurance, why kill Charlie? Why all this blood and shattered glass? 

Janelle scowled as I passed, my neck red with shame, and it hit me:  

Crazy crow bitch. Telling stories again. Micah’s taunting caws. This wasn’t for insurance. It was far simpler: they wanted me to go. 

My reeling thoughts froze when I got to the SALE banner. 

Before me was a wall of glitter, a shining, shimmering expanse. For the first time, I saw the world through my friend’s eyes, and it was magical. 

I’d been wrong: Charlie hadn’t been thrown away. He’d seen the shine and plunged through it. No scheme to resell shoes. No phony insurance claim. No mystery. 

But there was a killer. With tacks and a hammer, I’d laid this trap. 

At first, I was wracked with sobs, but the minutes passed, and my wailing did too.  

I realized that Charlie died happy. He died chasing that glimmering something he’d always craved. 

#fiction #halloween #jessiWood #lenore #shortStory #zackMason