For weeks, I had been trying to get Perry to choke me a little during sex, like my old boyfriend used to. But Perry was reluctant and a little mean when I kept asking, night after night. He made me feel like there was something wrong with me for even bringing it up. I wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t pull my hair and fuck me like the secret in the knot was the same secret contained deep inside me. Perry was always quick to brush off what I wanted, no matter how passionate the moment was. Read more →
I tape posters of Red all over, at the grocery store, where I skillfully avoid eye contact from the rainbow dreaded girl and her brown dog begging outside, at the dog park, where Red had dog friends and I pretend to not speak English or French well, at the pet store, where the owner, who doesn’t speak any English, once gave Red a rawhide bone, repeating “cadeau, cadeau, cadeau” until I just accepted because it was easier than explaining that rawhide would give Red diarrhoea. On every lamppost in Parc LaFontaine and Parc Baldwin is Red’s shit-eating grin. As I flatten tape onto posts, I keep hearing the suggestion of roller blades. I dive into alleyways to hide. I post on Kijiji and call the SPCA daily. There is no response. Google tells me to leave a piece of clothing on the porch, so I do. An old sweater I like to wear. I remember to fill her water bowl. July has been hot and she’s probably thirsty. Read more →
He smiled at me. His goofy grin with cheeks like the creepy cherubs you see in Cambridge churches, his sleepy morning hair covered with a backwards cap. “You think that guy is cute,” Joan said to me once. “Yikes.”
We walked together in silence to the light rail train to get to the house where he was living. We occasionally looked at each other and he quietly pointed out decrepit landmarks. All I could do was nod. Despite dozens of letters and hundreds of electronic communications, I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know anything about him. It felt better existing together in the ether, I realized, but then immediately forgot again.
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The second day, and the first morning in our new apartment, I was awake first and I relayed the news to my husband: 130 people were dead in Paris. He charged his phone and began reading the updates. “I have been to that restaurant,” he said. “My friend from high school was at the show,” he said. “He survived, though.” This was the second time this year that I had not known how to help him in a situation like this one. This was the second time this year that his home city had come under attack. We were quiet for most of the morning, and then later, hungover, took a long, pointless bike ride through the autumn of Berlin. It was easy to feel far away, easy to be distant. Read more →
In the dark before dawn, I wake and don’t know where I am. For one chilling instant, I’m amnesiac. Then slowly, finally, pale memories arise from my half-sleeping mind and shed light on my surroundings. Opening my eyes, I can make out the faint edges of shadows: this is my room, and I’m alone. Outside my window, the mountains beyond Peshawar sketch a cragged line in the dark ashen sky. At last, I draw in a deep breath, and feel like my body is filled with substance. Read more →
I was barely twelve when he brought me to his castle in the mists, built into the side of the Simbi volcano, more than two thousand metres above sea level. I thought he had summoned me for a simple visit, but I quickly realized that this visit signified the end of my boyhood. Dagano had decided to make me his companion in seclusion in the large wind-wrapped hut. For two long years I was cut off from the world, a captive of the tropical thunderstorms unleashed by the massive cloud banks that rode the Indian Ocean’s trade winds. There, where the torrential rains are born, there, where life begins, Dagano initiated me into the age-old secrets.
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