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      • A Not-So-Traditional Somali Recipe
      • Chocolate Chip Pancakes
      • Phillipe Style Bruschetta
      • Secret Cheese Toast
      • Apfelkuchen
      • Kringle
      • Cooper Curls
      • Life-Saver Soup
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“I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” 
― Robert Bloch



Archana Raguparan


Reality is a horror story with continuity. What people say about reality:



"Seeing the truth for the first time is different than accepting the truth for the first time,

the sooner you accept it, the quicker you can change your view."

"Success is  90% hard work and 10% natural ability,

don't envy natural ability, they can't tell if they want what they're good at."


    

Picture
Emma Cross

Newspaper headlines

Delaney McGill


"Hide your children: Vampire Beavers walk the night"
"Small Child Found Drowned in Timmy's Cup"
"Come one, Come All to the Canadian Haunted House! A-boot-le of fun for the whole family!"
"Midnight Moose Strikes Again!"



metaphorical blood

Sage Spicer



I’ve never held a knife

a gun, or a bomb

and yet there’s blood

all over me

my fingers

my arms

reaching up like scarlet gloves

worn by a lady on a fancy evening.

it’s not real, but it drips

metaphorically, metaphorically,

spinning in my head, pounding, whispering,

my fault, my fault.
Picture
Tyrin Kelly





Untitled

Ginger Hum

Your parents died in a car crash. My aunt told me a year ago. They were driving in a snowstorm and a drunk driver crashed into their car sending them flying off the road.

My parents died in a river, my uncle told me half a year ago. They were driving on a narrow bridge, lost control of the car and crashed through the railing into the water below.

My parents died at a club, that’s what the detective told me a month ago. They were caught by sporadic gunfire in a club downtown by a serial killer that has already been caught.

My parents died at home, that’s what the police officer told me a week ago. They were killed in their bed by one of my father’s old employees, seeking revenge.

My parents died in their sleep, that’s what I told myself an hour ago. They fell asleep and didn’t wake up, dying peacefully in the night.

My parents died in the garage, that’s what they told me a minute ago. My mom took my dad’s 460V revolver, my dad took her 627 V-Comp and they shot each other in the head too tired to think about leaving their daughter in this world, in favour for the next.

Auntie j

Hannah Pinilla

The dark liquid pours from the mouth of the bottle in clumps. It has the consistency of molasses and a bitter scent. She stares at me. Her black button eyes are wide although squinted. Her face is lined with light brown wrinkles in her immaculate chocolate coloured skin. Her hair curls in curt tendrils beckoning for me to come closer.  I move in my seat and her button eyes follow me. I glance down below her collar and there it is. I had heard but I had never believed. 'Table Syrup'. Table Syrup?! Aunt Jemima has left my pancakes unseasoned and me unsatisfied.



bad dreams

Tyrin Kelly


One night I dreamt my grandmother died in my arms. She fell through a thin sheet of ice attempting to save the little black alien boys that were draped in white clothing, offering herself to heaven. I screamed her name and felt my body become lifeless, and cried and puked in the cold. Her body floated to the surface and I dragged her out, clutching beneath her armpits, and took her away from the alien boys, who giggled at me in circling crowds, preserving her purity. I sat there for hours breathing life into her, pulling her close, but she was already gone. I woke up and it was morning and the sun wasn’t out yet. I was sweating and felt nauseous and depressed. Days later I purchased an Amethyst stone that I place under my pillow at night to aid me in experiencing more pleasant dreams. Yet they continue to speak to me in ominous waves that cascade over my subconscious leaving me drained at awakening.


Once a masked man bashed my skull in and thick syrup-like blood spilt itself across a porcelain floor. He ambushed me from behind. BOY carried me, scooping my legs and the back of neck with his arms, and placed my head beneath the faucet in a lavish bathtub, and ran the cold water. I felt as if I was being kissed. He left the room and promised he would return momentarily, but moments felt like hours in this nightmare, and I crawled out into the hallway looking for him. He was heavily sobbing in a corner by himself. I awoke in a pool of drool, realizing that this signified the importance of having BOY in my life.


Sleep paralysis tormented my nights for a scattered stretch in the ending of May 2014 into June. I awoke staring at the wall, dim bars of light sprawled over it from the far streetlights. I felt my sheets lifting up and down as if someone was crawling into bed with me. I couldn’t speak, as if molasses coated my mouth. My screams were audible only as mumbles, and soon after I regained movement, and speech, and was screaming “get out of here”. These series of paralysis occurred numerous times afterwards, as well as prior experiences at younger ages.


I could feel myself slip away again, into a merrier time, not long after I awoke from my grandmother’s death. We were all attending a large garden party and the stars were out and the moon was pink. I was holding hands with the hostess, who was very pretty and kind enough to give me a tour of the property. She wore her long black hair in a single thick braid. I knew her. She had entered my dreams well before. We passed a blue pool where the sirens of the sea sung and frolicked naked. Suddenly I found myself in the midst of a polluted crowd, swaying lonesome to live music. Everyone was so happy. A fight broke loose amongst the crowd, fueled with testosterone and excitement, like an old ritual. The music played louder and the violence surrounded me. I was happy. I woke to Madame Woodpecker hammering away, and the kettle whistling atop the stove element. Grandmother makes a cup of tea for herself every morning.




Picture
Emma Cross

untitled

ANONYMOUS

She hesitantly turns a corner. A beaver pounces without sparing a single second for reaction. The rest of her life is lived in the way she had not planned to: blind.

untitled

Meg Collins


Sunbeams creeped from cracks between doors and walls and windows. They brightened the dark wooden floorboards, covering them in soft sunshine, to contrast their deep stained shade. The girl was sitting underneath the window with closed curtains, her knees close, crushing at her chest and pulling at her hair. The kitchen knife was lying next to her right foot, the blood pooling, its deep red claws close to staining her white sock. She let the thick red liquid seep through. The girl glanced at his pasty lifeless face. His eyes were half closed,  cheeks and mouth drooping. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking under the weight of the lifeless corpse. Too much pressure, too little room, too little freedom. It was okay. She wasn’t evil. She opened her eyes, looking at the bloody kitchen knife and his lifeless body. Part of her cried. Part of her smiled.

untitled

ANONYMOUS

Ryan Reynolds, your average lumberjack, realized that the forestry industry was ruining his business. In order to compensate for his reduced payload and to pay for his poutines and maple syrup, he had taken on party gigs as a clown.

            On his way to Uncanny Valley, Coldsville, Ryan realized that his pet beaver had made its way onto his polar bear, 2012 model, and was chewing Ryan’s favourite hockey stick. ‘How am I supposed to entertain the kids now?’ Ryan thought, accidentally increasing the speed of his polar bear 0.5 kilometres over the speed limit. He apologized to the mountie and continued on his way.

            Ryan made sure to grab some beer from Timmy’s for the kids. Once he arrived, he was greeted with something so terrifying, so disturbing, so horrific that he nearly spit out his coffee onto his plaid shirt. Riding on a moose were three of the kids, dressed in Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys, waving American flags, and chanting a Justin Bieber song in French

two word horror story

By Patrick Ennis
Picture
Nash Grier.

untitled

Cassia Pelton

I sit in my bed at the end of the day, finally done with my work and prepared to relax. I open up my laptop and go on Netflix to find an awesome movie to watch. As I scroll through the movie options, mostly ones I've never heard of or would never want to watch, I realize that I am living the most terrifying horror story of all: Canadian Netflix.There is nothing to watch. I close my laptop and begin to cry.



Picture
Charlotte Jory


spoop soup

Olivia Belande

I found a fly in my soup. This occurrence had me spooped.

 "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup and I'm absolutely spooped," I said while handing back the soup that had me spooped. 

"I'll get you a new soup sir, right away, this time, no spoop."

CANADA


Anonymous


The fascist regime of the beavers;
Vulnerable citizens falling prey
To this apologetic sex slave trade.
We are the camping enthusiasts;
Forced to watch our loved ones die
Killed by razor rimmed snow shoes.
Turning a blind eye to
The repressed killers
In our idealistic peace corps

Canadian Horror Story: Man killed in extreme curling accident

Canadian Horror Story: Massive Maple Syrup Recall: spider eggs contamination

Canadian Horror Story: Evil French Babies taking over Poutineries across nation

Seven word tragedy

Talia Vogt


My cat can swim. Nope, never mind


Picture
Hannah Pinilla

canadian horror stories

ANONYMOUS

Canadian Horror Story: when even the zombies hold the door open for you

Canadian Horror Story: when a love for a Canadian symbol turns to fatal attractions…beavers.

Bloody maple leaves.

Gory poutine.

Wind and darkness and loons.

Lit: It’s always the quiet ones…

Every time I close my eyes, their pale, grinning faces dance against my eyelids. I haven’t slept since the night when the eyeless lumberjacks came into my bedroom to discuss the benefits of subsidized healthcare.

Picture
Archana Raguparan


"40 people are killed each year when they are swept over the falls–most of which are suicides." - Wikipedia




BLue

Claire Lauzon

Her eyes are blue,
but they don’t blink.
Her skin is pale,
her cheeks used to be pink.
Her mouth is open
Like she was trying to speak,
Or scream.
Or breathe.
Her chest doesn’t move.
A halo of red surrounds her head,
Her hands hold her stomach,
Like she was trying to hold herself together,
But there was nothing to hold.

Eh'iliterations

ANONYMOUS

  • Paranormal Polar Bears       
  • The "Eh" Exorcists
  • The Zamboni Zombies
  • Ghostly Geese
  • Toonies of Terror
  • Bloodthirsty Beavers
  • Murderous Maple Syrup
  • Syrup Serial Killers

UNTITLED

Canadian Horror Story: when the ghosts apologize for haunting you.

 “Have a nice day!”

“Oh my god, you scared me. Can you not appear out of nowhere?”

“Sorry.”

“And can you not write on the wall in blood?”

“Right, sorry. Habit.”

Untitled

Anoymous


Canadian Horror Story; Justin Bieber.

 Toronto Mutilated Leaves vs. the Ottawa Serial Killers

 How aboot we split up, eh?”

end

Emilie Montreuil-Strub


I hear them: the sounds that signal that my time here has come to a close. I slide along the wall, away from the cracked windowsill and towards the corner--the darker corner, though it was always the one closer to the light. I sit down. I don't like facing the door, but I want to see them come in.

I am not helpless. I won’t let them forget that.

do not touch 

Haunted Halls, Haunted Clear Throats, She Was Haunted So He Couldn’t Devote.

 

 

He’s sick, and wishes the right autodial weren’t a challenge.
He’s sick, and life still passes as he documents it through footprints.


Assuming everyone has bought the rich in knowledge already.

Thanks to his absence in classes to make profit 
Inside the tournament, he wasn’t ready.


But he understands that with practice

He could fit his feet onto the cracks in the concrete

And switch stances from dead leaves to the middle of the streets.

Previously dance stages because he usually says nothing,

And to be completely stable, palms hot and fascinated

As waves in his dazes looking right behind him at past days.

 

As crazy as he is for the prospect of cages, 
He does not notice that the look that she gives is


Dangerous.
And the more kids in the play


The more unfocused he is.

And staring straight ahead

He counts ten of the worst type of influences.

And ten fingers holding cigarettes in between them.

Even, maybe, often, 
To be urged and urged again before the seem seemed too thin
To slip through.

And he’s not the only one in defiance of perspective; 
She had a hell of a night too, 
Last Friday night as to be expected.


Watching the kids drip like paintings of a sunset.
The drums of a finger on a palm


Pulled into ragged banners
On the wind.


 

Well Autumn hasn’t shown them anything yet. 

And then all of a sudden


There was a jockey standing on it’s head.

And there was this snap that has long been a source of dread 
And they both


Were left hanging onto the jagged end.

Shaking the stub of a one handed man,

And the colors of fall sprinkling the land
As far as he could see from the balcony on which he stands, 
Her button eyes and fingers on her lips 
Enticing for an embracing together


In an assent to the fall back position.

Well she asked him if she could count on that.

 

He wasn’t sure how to answer back,

So he sat still a little while 
While the muscles loosened.
While she wiped the spilt booze off the tiles


Of the dinning room her face was still lifted.

And there was hardly a trace in that 
Perfectly shaped girl standing in front of him,
And all at once,


It seemed like the worlds best idea for an instant.


untitled

     Anonymous

During the season finale of Jeopardy, Alex Trebec found a beaver’s eyeball in his Timmies’ coffee.  It was from a zombie beaver and also zombified Alex.  No one noticed until he went to shake the hand of the winning player and tried to bite his head off.  Things got so bad that they had to call in the Toronto Maple Leafs to break up the fight.  They didn’t help much, but with Alex distracted scientist Alexander Graham Bell returned from the grave to create a cure out of maple syrup, polar bear intestines, and the resin of the tape of the hockey stick of Wayne Gretsky.

Canadian Horror Story, eh?

EDITION #1, VOL #3
OCTOBER 2014

Anonymous

Timbits: It’s no coincidence the kiddie soccer league and the treat share the same name.

Canadian Horror Story: Polar bear claws on the chalkboard

Canadian Horror Story: Death by maple syrup

 Canadian Horror Story: the inukshuk leads to an asylum.

Snow-shoer goes back to cemetery to retrieve the
Jos. Louis he forgot. Instead of finding a full box he finds the box empty with no tracks I the snow other than his own.


Spotlight is a publication of the Gr. 10 Literary Arts class at Canterbury High School. This issue was conceived, edited and designed by: 
  • Hannah
  • Claire
  • Karley
  • Olivia

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