Northeast Blackout, 2003
By Mary Kate Samsik
I've been staring at my phone screen for the past three hours. My thumb scrolls up and down. I could probably log onto my Facebook account with my eyes closed, and I have the URLs of my top ten favourite Tumblr users memorized.
From across the room, sitting on the other couch, in front of your laptop, you ask me if I've ever thought about just going outside and jumping in the snow. Dressed in pajamas and striped socks, to build a snowman in the backyard and not even write a Facebook status about it. Then you say you hate technology and you hate the internet and you hate everything it has made you become. You wonder what it feels like to actually feel something.
My favourite word is hyperbole, and I guess yours is too.
You get up to make tea and ask me if I want some. We have earl gray, and we have red rooibos, and do I remember the time the power went out for two days?
We were roughly seven or eight, and my parents started fighting then but your parents didn't. We spent about 36 of the 48-ish hours sitting in your backyard and eating leftover doughnuts from your mom’s bakery.
This is back when I lived in the shitty apartment across the street from you, you remind me.
We spent those hours talking about the whole world, because we imagined that they didn't have electricity either. You told me about boys in Poland sitting on back fields like your yard, talking about people like us. We had to eat all the ice cream in your fridge because your mom was worried it would spoil. You convinced me that it was a good idea to mix Pepsi with milk, but then we both just got stomach-aches.
As the water comes to a boil you say you wish we could return to a time like that, when machines weren't like our second heads. I know you're lying though, because the minute your phone beeps with a new notification you're right there to get it.
By Mary Kate Samsik
I've been staring at my phone screen for the past three hours. My thumb scrolls up and down. I could probably log onto my Facebook account with my eyes closed, and I have the URLs of my top ten favourite Tumblr users memorized.
From across the room, sitting on the other couch, in front of your laptop, you ask me if I've ever thought about just going outside and jumping in the snow. Dressed in pajamas and striped socks, to build a snowman in the backyard and not even write a Facebook status about it. Then you say you hate technology and you hate the internet and you hate everything it has made you become. You wonder what it feels like to actually feel something.
My favourite word is hyperbole, and I guess yours is too.
You get up to make tea and ask me if I want some. We have earl gray, and we have red rooibos, and do I remember the time the power went out for two days?
We were roughly seven or eight, and my parents started fighting then but your parents didn't. We spent about 36 of the 48-ish hours sitting in your backyard and eating leftover doughnuts from your mom’s bakery.
This is back when I lived in the shitty apartment across the street from you, you remind me.
We spent those hours talking about the whole world, because we imagined that they didn't have electricity either. You told me about boys in Poland sitting on back fields like your yard, talking about people like us. We had to eat all the ice cream in your fridge because your mom was worried it would spoil. You convinced me that it was a good idea to mix Pepsi with milk, but then we both just got stomach-aches.
As the water comes to a boil you say you wish we could return to a time like that, when machines weren't like our second heads. I know you're lying though, because the minute your phone beeps with a new notification you're right there to get it.
AFTERLIFE
Sacha K.W. Jules and I lie on the floor, listening to a record which sounds similar to, but not quite the same as, when we were alive. “What do you regret the most?” she asks. “I should’ve been nicer to my mother,” I answer with a sigh. Jules flips over, looks me dead in the eyes, and says, “Stop bullshitting. Tell me what really keeps you up at night.” I pause to think, then admit, “I should’ve made out with that guy I was grinding with at Sophie Lin’s house party last November.” |
scoring on our own net
Charlotte Jory “I’m so sorry, I know Dad, it won’t happen again” so over the steady brainwave buzz of this black velvet nighttime skyline & mindhack misery installing & deleting & reinstalling, pushing itself into trash folders but it’s too late to reboot the :::system::: this is the summer lifestyle: the home alone issue, wishing for the new transcension & the kairos yet fifteen is multiple duplicates of 3-6-5 too far away. It’s after 7 & after the whole thing is over I know I will be better at staying awake, much better at saying “you are brave & dealing with a lot” but there is so much & “you’re spending too much time alone” & it’s early but too late to explain & going out with this snow around your calves is walking through potential floods “it is coming & coming & I don’t think it will ever stop” it’s okay, I’m used to it, been there |
After I Grew Up
Kim Agha
Sometimes I feel like an abandoned railway. Like everyone has packed up and left. Tired of patching up the girl who keeps ripping.
My ribcage is a shipwreck left behind when I ground myself ashore. I’m still sure that there’s a cure out there for me somewhere, but somedays it feels like it must be a speck of dirt in the Garden of Eden, and dammit if I don’t keep running into snakes.
So I guess I grew tired of fighting alone. So I went in with wild eyes and unsteady feet, searching for someone, anyone, to fill me to the brim.
That was the month when I learned that it hurts more to overflow, than to be alone.
Kim Agha
Sometimes I feel like an abandoned railway. Like everyone has packed up and left. Tired of patching up the girl who keeps ripping.
My ribcage is a shipwreck left behind when I ground myself ashore. I’m still sure that there’s a cure out there for me somewhere, but somedays it feels like it must be a speck of dirt in the Garden of Eden, and dammit if I don’t keep running into snakes.
So I guess I grew tired of fighting alone. So I went in with wild eyes and unsteady feet, searching for someone, anyone, to fill me to the brim.
That was the month when I learned that it hurts more to overflow, than to be alone.
Aftermath (A Translation)
Arianna Randjbar my math teacher killed my creative spirit with linear relations, renamed my poems after mathematicians i.e. “Euler-gy” she hid my inkwells across plains of scatter plots ‘till my words withered, ‘till i was sweating the quadratic formula out of my earlobes ‘till the alphabet was little more than zeroes and ones on my tongue. |
Shakes Maia Klee I . The ash began to harden. In 3000 years, archeologists will look for signs of love amidst the slabs of fear. II. After days and days of being a moaning sweating mess, the shakes subside, and she must uncross her needle scarred arms and decide if this has taught her a lesson. III. When anger stills and cools, it turns to “crazy". That's how your eyes looked as you pounded down the stairs like you’d forgotten something. I avoided my little brother’s stare. It was just a shake, but it was the first time you’d touched him at a time like this. IV. The silence between them is not like after a gun shot. There is no shock. Her eyes don’t burn like he wants them to. He tries not to think about the way her shirt clings. While she lets him down gently, He wonders if she’s thinking, “ Boys don’t let their voices tremble”. V. After my mom got diagnosed positive every woman I drew for a year was bald. They looked like beautiful aliens, or elves, with sharp cheeks and slanted eyes. I thought frequently about death. It seems such a personal injustice when it shoots too close to home. After the Age of Humans
Vanessa Sandoval She walks around town with an elephant following behind her. There is no leash; no peanuts in her pocket. And this town, looming close to a population of 80, is nestled in the soft, rolling land between Saskatchewan and Alberta Some days Saskatcherta and some days she calls it Albatchewan. She’s the definition of purple: Filled to the brim with melancholy in the beautiful, deep way. But lately that melancholy has become less beautiful, more clumsy, & heavy & loud. The earth under her feels like it is made of paper: Trembling and shaking under the most dainty feet. She’s losing her footing, water rips the ground from beneath the sands and it drags her down every tripped step, every stumble, every pothole. And no one knows. This new age is overflowing with high-pitch ringing & downward gazes & weeded sidewalks that seem interesting. Man-made buzzing clogs the open air ‘no chance the wild birds are spared Power lines entice the sport of shoe-lynching The pores of the bricked-houses have no way of breathing someone has left a cigarette seething-- And no one sees. They’ve all got their paper plans and paper clans that battle one another. The moral compass has gone haywire with all the electricity pumping through their veins. Gravity is wrong-side up-- Sea waves wash down beaches-- The seasons could roll backwards-- The stars could circulate on an eternal rewind-- And no one would say a word. Language is technologically regressing. She’s just another purple greying and blurring into a world of elephants. |
Untitled Colleen Russett They used to bury bodies at 38 Saint Vincent Lane then the floods came and they built my house. It rested for years, secluded. In a garden of weeds spilling over into paneless windows- until we moved in, not long ago. It felt wrong there until the ground caved in and things went back to the way they were. They buried our bodies at 38 Saint Vincent Lane. In a garden of weeds spilling into paneless windows. Sorry Kade Deline I should learn to keep my mouth shut. I'm sorry for always lying. I need to stop indulging in the pit of sadness in my stomach, it will grow roots and build a home. I'm sorry for leaving scars. I'm sorry I let you leave. We're not the same anymore. My back aches from carrying this with me. I'm sorry I pushed you away. I keep punching craters in my chest And hiding my bloody knuckles. I'm sorry I never told you. I was afraid of making it worse. I'm sorry for drinking until I can't stand and crying on your shoulder. It's empty here. I'm sorry I kissed you so much. You left nothing but scabs where you touched me. My wrists are like egg shells. I'm sorry there is nothing left to say. I'm sorry about what happened. |
Outer Home
Alex McGowan
I used to peer into the night sky, trying to pick the planets out from the stars. I’d track planes zipping through the sky, their over-zealous movement offensive to my eyes with the calm of those stationary lights in the background. The focus of my attention was the subtle movement of the far-away torches.
I used to imagine I could see them moving, pretended they were satellites or the International Space Station. And I’d ask myself: What would it be like to be an astronaut? See our blue-green-brown-white Earth spinning like a top, watch the sun rise and set fifteen times each day? It would be more than ‘magical,’ I decided. It would be humbling. Humbling to realise that our whole world was just one little planet whose gravitational pull we could so easily manipulate to our own ends. Like the kid whirling around in their parents arms, going fast enough for their legs to stick out and for them to feel weightless.
Now, something else has come to light. I’ve stopped looking into the sky and looked at the ground. Because eventually, that’s where all the astronauts return. I know when I look up at night, I pretend that every exceptionally bright dot I catch out of the corner of my eye is a jumble of metal holding precious lives as it zooms around our Earth faster than any plane. But what would it mean to a newly-grounded space traveller? When they look up and see the ISS, are they seeing a memory flying around our world? Are they glad to be back home, feet firmly on the Earth that they used to be so disconnected from?
Or are they now an alien, looking back home? Because if I had the chance to see the sun opening its delicate eyes fifteen times in twenty-four hours, I would never forget that. I would never want to see the whole world only through a poorly pixelated image just outside my window.
If I were an astronaut, Earth would not be home anymore. Earth would be a foreign land, best admired from afar.
Alex McGowan
I used to peer into the night sky, trying to pick the planets out from the stars. I’d track planes zipping through the sky, their over-zealous movement offensive to my eyes with the calm of those stationary lights in the background. The focus of my attention was the subtle movement of the far-away torches.
I used to imagine I could see them moving, pretended they were satellites or the International Space Station. And I’d ask myself: What would it be like to be an astronaut? See our blue-green-brown-white Earth spinning like a top, watch the sun rise and set fifteen times each day? It would be more than ‘magical,’ I decided. It would be humbling. Humbling to realise that our whole world was just one little planet whose gravitational pull we could so easily manipulate to our own ends. Like the kid whirling around in their parents arms, going fast enough for their legs to stick out and for them to feel weightless.
Now, something else has come to light. I’ve stopped looking into the sky and looked at the ground. Because eventually, that’s where all the astronauts return. I know when I look up at night, I pretend that every exceptionally bright dot I catch out of the corner of my eye is a jumble of metal holding precious lives as it zooms around our Earth faster than any plane. But what would it mean to a newly-grounded space traveller? When they look up and see the ISS, are they seeing a memory flying around our world? Are they glad to be back home, feet firmly on the Earth that they used to be so disconnected from?
Or are they now an alien, looking back home? Because if I had the chance to see the sun opening its delicate eyes fifteen times in twenty-four hours, I would never forget that. I would never want to see the whole world only through a poorly pixelated image just outside my window.
If I were an astronaut, Earth would not be home anymore. Earth would be a foreign land, best admired from afar.
After Olivia Belande After the storm, I licked my lips, unbuttoned my pockets, and pulled out your postcard, wishing you were here as well. |
We liked you better as a smoker – love, everyone
Keara McKeown It’s been 66 days since his last But you can hear The unsmoked cigarette in his voice I can smell, that cigarette, still nestled in the packet The packet which is lined up in the carton The carton which is perched on the shelf in the store I can smell the excruciatingly fresh breath of the bony-armed 20-something Who would have sold it to him. I can hear the lighter click as he imagines The virgin edge of that cigarette catching The volume of his voice inches up, A decibel For every pack he has not bought this year. His greyish arm hairs stand up Thick, for such a skinny arm Like sentinels on a shrinking territory, One hair for every smoky breath he hasn’t exhaled this week. The hairs on his arms stand up, as if they, too, were wishing To be outside, in the cold air having a smoke Instead of here shouting about how stupefyingly Delicious he finds the steak. |
When You Die
Kate Yeadon
After death you wake up into something that feels like a hallucination caused by a drug-induced sleep. The light shines too brightly, the colours are artificial and everything blurs a little around the edges. Your surroundings slip in and out of focus like a disconnected hologram. You don’t know. Everything you see is unknown and confusing. You feel your sanity slipping away, but you don't care enough to hold on. You don’t pay attention to what you are surrounded by. You don’t focus. There is a mirage sprawled out in front of you. You walk towards it, try to step into the picture that’s forming, but you can’t.You watch your funeral as if through a window. You watch as your family’s clothing dulls into black. You hear the preacher’s sermon, carried like an echo on a wind you can’t feel. Because that’s what happens here. Your senses deteriorate, you lose your ability to feel, to think. Through the window time passes. You watch your family grieve, comfort each other, and eventually, take your picture off the mantel. Time passes. You watch your children remember how to laugh. You watch your parents relearn what it is to smile. You watch your best friend go to somebody else’s house every Tuesday for lunch. Time passes. You watch them forget. Then the window fades into your foggy consciousness. And you forget how to stand. You forget how to do anything. So you lie down and you sleep.
Silhouette
Jessica Wilson He swore he would never come back home A vow left in a door's slam Until he found himself crossing the familiar street A grey soot blanket and green lights kept the house warm He circled until he saw them Silhouettes cut out of the flower-patterned curtains A mother A boy A small girl with pigtails He didn't know he had a daughter He never bothered knocking |
Alive
Emilie Montreuil Strub I stared into the shadows of greys and blues. I was living. I fought against liquid sleep slipping through my veins. I was breathing. I listened to the high pitched rhythm of my heart. I was moving. They said I would recover quickly, I didn’t They said that I was lucky, lucky lucky I was exceptionally lucky. Now, I’m just alone. |
The First Follower
Billie Kearns Run into the wild. Leave your books behind and wander into the branches and brambles that your mother always warned you to stay away from. The ones that your sister spun you stories about before bed, leaving them to dance through your daymares and nightdreams with inviting lucidity. The forest is only a footstep away in comparison to the end of the universe, and it’s always scarier if you think about it too much. Don’t think. Once you push your way through the prickly sheath, you’ll find the wildest thoughts you’ve dreamt up become plausible. But then again, it depends on what you dream about. Even the Big Bad Wolf looks for people to hire. Look for the lushest conifer tree you can find, and behind it, he’ll have a temporary work station ready just for you. You’ll receive your fur and tail in a brief case and your whiskers in a file folder. The first unsuspecting red riding hood is your first client. And wannabe Big Bad Wolf you’ll show her the ropes of the wild. It says in the file folder that innocent children with manipulated perceptions are the least suspected criminals. You’re only following orders. Wannabe Big bad wolf, you’ll give Girly a lesson in kissing -- take away one ‘s’ because to Girly, smooching now comes after mooching and any sly fox would fall for her diamond studded stare. It cuts through their Psyche, leaving them lusting for Eros -- Girly’s got a basket full of poison tipped arrows and she’s not afraid to use them -- not afraid to blindfold men and play inside their greasy pockets, making Oliver look like an amateur and she’ll sock it to ‘em when she’s done. That’s one less pervert on the roads and few more pretty pennies lounging in your wallet. Take caution when you count your credit because the wolf has already stolen your identity. He’ll frame it and hang it in his gallery of infamy along with all the other vagabonds who thought they were on the road less traveled. By this time the head honcho of this operation who started it all, the Mephistopheles who gave you such big ears and such big teeth has sculpted you into a clever monstrosity. You, in turn, have created a smaller, cleverer diablo. But who is to say the devil himself is a monster if he’s just trying to get by. It is you, his followers, so lazy as to let your brains be washed who are darker than even the most conniving features of the original creature. After all, you had nothing to lose. |
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After The Night Faded
Isabelle Flack The night once reigned, She used to tell me. While the sun faded into slumber, A crescent moon took its place As glory of the heavens. The stars once burned, She used to tell me. Like single tears Seeping through black ink. Diamonds of the sky. The crickets once sang, She used to tell me. A lullaby of chirps, Harmonizing the world to sleep, All through the darkness. The world was once healed, She used to tell me. We had bruises, And a thousand scars, Yet we survived. But after the moon dimmed, After every star fell. After the crickets lost their song, After countless scars swelled. We were left with nothing, But everlasting sleep. |
Untitled
Maggie Nevison
I am not afraid of dying. It is inevitable, like taxes and lying. I’m not scared it will hurt because I won’t feel it and I’m not scared of how it will happen because I won’t see it.
What I am scared of is the endless void death invites. I don’t believe in reincarnation or the afterlife (though I wish I did) and I never learned anything in Sunday school, so I have to assume that there is nothing. I’m scared my final thought will be the realization that, unlike diapers or plastic water bottles, I will eventually erode and disintegrate into mindless dust. It’s an uncomfortable truth that all we care about its insignificant compared to the nothingness.
Maggie Nevison
I am not afraid of dying. It is inevitable, like taxes and lying. I’m not scared it will hurt because I won’t feel it and I’m not scared of how it will happen because I won’t see it.
What I am scared of is the endless void death invites. I don’t believe in reincarnation or the afterlife (though I wish I did) and I never learned anything in Sunday school, so I have to assume that there is nothing. I’m scared my final thought will be the realization that, unlike diapers or plastic water bottles, I will eventually erode and disintegrate into mindless dust. It’s an uncomfortable truth that all we care about its insignificant compared to the nothingness.
After
Hannah Panilla After Afternoon After shave Afterward After party After math After taste After effect After thought After life Happily Ever After |
Death of an Illusion
Katie Wilkins She wasn’t much, Invisible to the untrained eye She consisted of secretly passed smiles And unspoken desires Just another shade of grey In a crowd of bright people Unnoticed even to those who knew her best She was a possibility wrapped in maybe’s and maybe not’s No one saw the potential she had. To turn tears into butterflies, Shaky hands into steady smiles, Slumped shoulders into welcome hugs, And lonely hearts into home-sweet-homes. Most didn’t notice the day she was gone But I did Most didn’t feel her absence like a crack in their lungs An opening for emptiness to seep through But I did Most didn’t miss The fidgeting fingers And lullaby glances Velvet breath blushes And pansy pressed questions But I did |
Good Evening
Jakob Barnes
I am thinking about the space between our faces and the space before it’s time to
leave and the space from my heart to my hands and whether or not they are in sync. I am
thinking about how badly I want to write a poem called “Good Morning.” Good morning,
my hand is on your back and my heart beating wild. I dread coming home to silence. The
streets are alive the cars are awake we are at the dining room table feeling wild. I have
to stop doing this. I am thinking about drawing a picture without using your eye shape.
Writing a sentence without using your name. I am thinking about looking at my acne as
something other than ugly. A reminder that I am still alive, still growing, still learning
how to make my head quiet. I am thinking too much. I am thinking about not letting
my awkwardness stop me from doing things anymore. I am thinking of making a move.
Kissing all the 1sts out of you. I am thinking about the rhythm that would make my heart
shake to.
Jakob Barnes
I am thinking about the space between our faces and the space before it’s time to
leave and the space from my heart to my hands and whether or not they are in sync. I am
thinking about how badly I want to write a poem called “Good Morning.” Good morning,
my hand is on your back and my heart beating wild. I dread coming home to silence. The
streets are alive the cars are awake we are at the dining room table feeling wild. I have
to stop doing this. I am thinking about drawing a picture without using your eye shape.
Writing a sentence without using your name. I am thinking about looking at my acne as
something other than ugly. A reminder that I am still alive, still growing, still learning
how to make my head quiet. I am thinking too much. I am thinking about not letting
my awkwardness stop me from doing things anymore. I am thinking of making a move.
Kissing all the 1sts out of you. I am thinking about the rhythm that would make my heart
shake to.
List of possible things that could happen after I turn off my phone:
Kelsey Nowlan
-No texts. No missed phone calls. Nothing.
-He finally texts back.
-My dad sends me the set up for a joke: How did the crazy person get out of the woods? Because I haven’t received this text, I am completely flustered when I come home and he shouts, “He took the psychoPATH!”.
-An old friend tries to reconnect by sending a text to me for the first time in months.
-I create the best pun known to man, but have no way to spread the word.
-She sends me another picture of her squishing her jaw into her shoulders, creating the illusion of a million chins.
-I don’t answer my mom’s anxious call. She panics, contacts the rest of my family, along with the police. Before you know it the entire neighborhood is trudging through the snow, shouting my name into the wind, hoping it will carry their voices to wherever I am. When I walk through my front door hours later, no one seems pleased when I explain that, “I didn’t pick up because my phone was off.”
-I receive a series of texts from a mystery sender explaining the meaning of life.
-She texts me saying she finished the bibliography, unaware; I stay up late trying to put it together.
Kelsey Nowlan
-No texts. No missed phone calls. Nothing.
-He finally texts back.
-My dad sends me the set up for a joke: How did the crazy person get out of the woods? Because I haven’t received this text, I am completely flustered when I come home and he shouts, “He took the psychoPATH!”.
-An old friend tries to reconnect by sending a text to me for the first time in months.
-I create the best pun known to man, but have no way to spread the word.
-She sends me another picture of her squishing her jaw into her shoulders, creating the illusion of a million chins.
-I don’t answer my mom’s anxious call. She panics, contacts the rest of my family, along with the police. Before you know it the entire neighborhood is trudging through the snow, shouting my name into the wind, hoping it will carry their voices to wherever I am. When I walk through my front door hours later, no one seems pleased when I explain that, “I didn’t pick up because my phone was off.”
-I receive a series of texts from a mystery sender explaining the meaning of life.
-She texts me saying she finished the bibliography, unaware; I stay up late trying to put it together.
Before and After Friday Night
Peri Shaw I spent Friday night at a party. That’s all I remember, besides the taste of bile and accidental hook-ups. You came on Saturday and asked why my head hurt. I blamed it on the sickly sweet liquid poured in red cups You told me “Don’t blame alcohol for your mistakes,” I asked what mistakes I have made You said “Shaking hands with hell.” On Sunday, I vowed to stop for you But each passing Friday night brought the taste of bile threatening its way up And bruises from the places boys had been. Nothing changed Except for the slight fact That last Saturday You didn’t come back. |
Writing Practice Homework: A Quick Couple Revisions
Yasmeen Shah
November 2nd, 2011
You can come to the end of a year, a year in this context being defined as a “school year”, with nothing but fragmented recollections of the terrible and the further terrible. It’ll be the summer time, and you’ll be somewhere, anywhere you want, really, with your friends, admiring your being wherever you want, for during the year, seldom could you be anywhere but home with your “Principles of Mathematics” book and large amount of caffeine in some form or another.
Then you’ll get into the specifics, the specifics of that one time when you were tested every day in a week, despite your distress over the loss of a family pet, the specifics of that other time when you were convinced that your brain was a large block of ice beginning slowly creeping into a boil by means of electrical heating. Take the summer of ’09. Until 6 o’clock one morning I was awake, if hardly, with friends, discussing times of constant testing, quizzing, being triumphed over by a multitude different sport teams, the number weekends on end spend at home in our various living arrangements, the observed moodiness of several educators and educatees, each individual heartbreak, family issues.
Finally, it comes a point of time where social protocol dictates that white pants no longer be worn and we find ourselves back in the classrooms, reunited with the afore-mentioned moodiness, making a half-souled attempt to gain knowledge, once more. After what feels a large number of weeks, there finally comes a time when once more, you find yourself discussing the previous year, but this time, you speak of the Halloween party, of the success of your April Fool’s prank, the time your friends wall-papered the wrong locker on your birthday, the pie-eating contest that you won, or maybe didn’t win, the poutine your cafeteria used to sell of Fridays, the time you got lost during power-walking in gym and then went straight to a caf period after. And of course, the cycle repeats again.
Yasmeen Shah
November 2nd, 2011
You can come to the end of a year, a year in this context being defined as a “school year”, with nothing but fragmented recollections of the terrible and the further terrible. It’ll be the summer time, and you’ll be somewhere, anywhere you want, really, with your friends, admiring your being wherever you want, for during the year, seldom could you be anywhere but home with your “Principles of Mathematics” book and large amount of caffeine in some form or another.
Then you’ll get into the specifics, the specifics of that one time when you were tested every day in a week, despite your distress over the loss of a family pet, the specifics of that other time when you were convinced that your brain was a large block of ice beginning slowly creeping into a boil by means of electrical heating. Take the summer of ’09. Until 6 o’clock one morning I was awake, if hardly, with friends, discussing times of constant testing, quizzing, being triumphed over by a multitude different sport teams, the number weekends on end spend at home in our various living arrangements, the observed moodiness of several educators and educatees, each individual heartbreak, family issues.
Finally, it comes a point of time where social protocol dictates that white pants no longer be worn and we find ourselves back in the classrooms, reunited with the afore-mentioned moodiness, making a half-souled attempt to gain knowledge, once more. After what feels a large number of weeks, there finally comes a time when once more, you find yourself discussing the previous year, but this time, you speak of the Halloween party, of the success of your April Fool’s prank, the time your friends wall-papered the wrong locker on your birthday, the pie-eating contest that you won, or maybe didn’t win, the poutine your cafeteria used to sell of Fridays, the time you got lost during power-walking in gym and then went straight to a caf period after. And of course, the cycle repeats again.