They love blueberries and Kale. You should see them. You just put it down and it disappears. It’s so fast. One minute there’s a huge mound of food, and the next, nothing. Just a dimple in the soft earth where the fruit and leaf cabbage used to be. Footprints in the mud. Shit and feathers.

How is this possible he wondered? The toast popped up, he took the slightly burnt sourdough out of the toaster, buttered both pieces, a liberal application of honey: sweet and crunchy goodness. Glorious, glorious carbs. He put his hands on the edge of the marbled countertop, bowed his head as if he was had to collect himself before passing out. Perhaps if spotted through the kitchen window one could be forgiven for assuming prayer, though neither was the case. No, not the case at all. He took a bite. The toast crunch was loud as he chewed. His brain was loud as he tried and tried to remember if he had ever experienced that feeling before. He must have, mustn’t he, I mean he’d been driving for what, Christ, 33 years now?And nothing came close to touching it. The low growl of the engine as he pressed the ignition button, a growl that if he heard it in a parking lot he would be like “hey, what now?!?” 500 horses. 4 liter. 8 cylinders. Twin turbo. 0-60 in 4 seconds flat. Every component in the car doing exactly the thing it should be doing at exactly the time it should be doing it. That feeling of pushing the right foot on the accelerator, zero lag, the further you pushed the faster you went. Closing on cars, riding up on vehicles that seconds ago he could just barely make out in his lane. Cornering up the on ramp, the car hugging the pavement, like it was afraid to let it go. Perhaps, he wondered, he had come close? Close to feeling this before, behind the wheel? One time? A long time ago? No, not once. Not ever. Never!

She doesn’t need this. She tells herself this every time. Over and over and over again. But net listens. Never takes heed of that voice that says. You are better than this. You don’t need this. You can work 1000 better jobs tomorrow. Instead she drives to the bottom of the driveway. Parks in front of the front door. Thinks about the when she was in stillness

It’s the same fucking email we have read for ten fucking years. The same fucking one! Ten years ago it’s A. you need to help your fucking sister and today it’s A. you need to to help your fucking sister. Doesn’t he fucking get it? Your fucking sister can’t be fucking helped. She’s a fucking addict. A fucking addict! She doesn’t give a fucking shit about you or me or her kids. And, fine, he is scared her fucking dying. Well guess fucking what? We all fucking are. Fucking terrified of finding her with a cracked skull bleed Out on the bathroom floor, blue and still at the bottom of the pool, neck broken on the first floor landing. What did C. fucking say? Got to let go of the rope. We all do. Right fucking now!

He has is boots on. Pointed toward the door. Has his jacket on. Both sleeves, unzipped. She stands, her back against the tiny closet in the tiny foyer of her one bedroom, two story walkup. He is leaving. It is late and he is leaving. There are voices in the hall. Laughter. A door somewhere nearby opens then shuts. Silence. Bye he says. Bye she says. He kisses her. And kisses her again. One, two on her neck. Her cheek. Then lips once more. He has boots on. It’s late. And he is leaving. Only he doesn’t. Because he can’t. Not now. He smiles. What? She asks. I have to tell you something, he says. He tells her. And she him. He takes off his jacket, both sleeves. His boots are off. Pointed away from the door. It’s late. It’s late and he isn’t leaving.

The steam from the open shower door, billows like smoke into the room. “The dog puked in his crate, twice” she said. “One in one corner and one in the other. “He looked so sad” she sad. The water dripping from her auburn hair, spotting the bath mat. “I put him outside. He puked again. Watery this time. Tried to go poop. Poor dog, he tried and tried but couldn’t do it. I don’t think he liked me watching him.””Oh, okay, yeah, I’ll ah, I’ll take him to vet tomorrow morning.” He said. Still in his boxers. Hoping for a quick piss then half hour more sleep in, it was Sunday morning after all. “He managed to poop it out last time” he said, the sock in a zip lock bag, some of it still pink, held up by the vet , as exhibit A when he picked him up last time. “What?” The vet had said “you are not putting it back into rotation? “He can’t keep doing this” she said, He won’t make it” and shut the door. The steam trapped inside, swirled against the glass walls, desperately searching for a way out. He lifted the toilet seat, looked out the open window, cold air seeping in, the dog lay in the backyard, sheer black smear on the hard snow, without light, without shine, a shadow, a hole in the ground.

“I saved something for you” she says. “Yeah?” he says, knowing by the tone of her voice that it’s not the last of yesterday’s blueberry muffins, that it’s not the last of the roasted maple almonds that came in the Xmas gift bag from the bank, that it’s not the last piece of bacon that she spent most of the morning hiding from the kids. She walks to the sink, pulls open the cupboard door to the cupboard underneath, the one you open if you need a fresh dish towel, soap for the dishwasher, if you need to dispose of a banana peel into the organic bin full of apple stems and orange peels, the tops of strawberries, macaroni left too long in the fridge, lettuce that somehow made its way into the freezer. “It’s in here”. “Ok” he says, wondering if the exposed sink pipes had started leaking again, if she was going to show him a little puddle of water that has no discernible source but will keep appearing after they clean it up, that will cost them 150 in labour and 35 in parts to fix. She steps away from the open cupboard to give him room. “I don’t think it’s a cockroach” she says.

The clock reads 7:30. He is supposed to be sleeping. Lost in a dream. No idea what it is about. No idea how he would be begin to articulate it to the outside world. Knowing that it would be good. Aware, at the outmost edges of consciousness, that he was snoring. Aware that his wife left the bed some time ago. Replaced herself with their eight year old daughter. Took over her bed. A quiet island at the end of the hall. The one room in the house with a radiator that works the way it’s suppose to. The picture window framing the stark, naked branches of January trees, wavering in the cold wind. Squirrel nests, invisible through summer foliage, clinging to the exposed bark. Soon she will open her eyes. Earlier than she had planned. The snow, still on the ground, will make the room seem brighter. The newly painted walls, a tint slightly more yellow than intended. A little bit to the other side of ideal.

He often wondered what it might be like. What it might be like if his first thoughts weren’t catastrophe ridden. If his mind was able to, for just one second, perhaps two, exhale. Relax. Let the positive in for one goddamn second. He wondered how people do that. How people stay in the moment when your child’s consuming month old yogurt in the fridge that your wife refuses to throw out because expiry dates are, I don’t know, a tool of the man to keep the people down? a conspiracy theory invented by grocery mart to sell more goods? a theoretical construct? instead of science, fact, proof. What would it take forthoughts in his mind not to runaway train, not to think fuck botulism, fuck Hospital stay, fuck ICU before the first swallow.

He often wondered what it might be like. What it might be like to stand on the porch as you leave the house and have your first thought, or any thought , be about the scent of the air, about the feeling of the sun warming your face or the rain on dampening your scalp, or the melodies and choruses of early morning bird songs, rather than did you just lock the door, pretty sure you did, better check to make sure, and you press the top button with your thumb, push, ok locked, one more time, ok locked. You descend the five steps to the cobblestone parking pad, unlock the truck, slide into drivers seat, and think, are you sure it’s locked? the door? I mean are you sure? You jump out run across the cobblestone parking pad, up the five steps, press the button with your thumb, push, ok it’s locked, descend the five steps, run across the cobblestone parking oad, glide back into drivers seat, start the engine, put it in reverse, edge out into the street, thinking – the door, is it locked? yes, must be locked, but what if isn’t? you reach for the radio, Van Halen, you crank it up, Hot For Teacher mutes that wretched little voice inside your head, for now.

He often wondered what it might be like. What would it be like to know that your gum is clean? To be absolutely 100% positively certain that when you slide the cardboard cover down, push the tiny white square through the shiny foil onto the palm of your hand, that it is ready to be put directly into your mouth. That it does not require a pursing of the lips, a gentle blow of air as if extinguishing a candle, your breath flowing over every millimeter of that hard caked shell, the contaminents, too small too see, caught in your breeze, carried helpless off your piece, that now, and only now, is clean enough to chew.

She loved the gerber daises. At least he thought she loved them. The flower cart, always in the same spot, half a block from his office, two blocks further to hers. He would stop and breath, survey the tulips and lilies, orchids and dahlias, the peonies. As if his hand could reach for any one of them. As if any one of them could be plucked from their black bucket, water dripping from their glistening stems, wrapped in shiny crinkly paper, presented with a slight bow, arms outstretched . As if any one of them was so deserving.