I know what purgatory is like. I’ve been there. I am there. I’ve been trapped in this kitchen for what feels like hours, but when I look at the time, it still says six o’clock. The seconds are dragging. My girlfriend’s mother is staring, so too are her father and brother.

Hell, even the dog is watching me now.

I clear my throat and try out some small talk, but instead of my usual smooth confidence, a pathetic creak croaks out. Like I just hit puberty, again. I swallow hard. My saliva is thick and congealed, and it makes my tongue click, but I try the small talk thing.

“So…Mr. Anderson, are you a Flames fan?”

I’m grasping at straws, trying to bridge the gap between genders and generations. Mr. Anderson—he hasn’t offered me any other name—stares at me with a cold, blank look. His mouth is a hard, thin line, barely visible under a greying moustache.

He doesn’t acknowledge my question.

Mrs. Anderson doesn’t blink. Instead, she looks at me the way you look at mould on an expensive block of cheese, like she’s trying to decide whether it’s safe to scrape the infection off or if she has to throw the whole damn thing away. What a waste. Her eyes trace my face, my sweaty hands on her lovely wooden table, my incessant bouncing knee. My nerves are all coiled up and ready to spring, but instead of bolting, I’m forcing myself to be still.

Well, as still as possible.

“You can sit,” she said when she let me into her house earlier, motioning to the kitchen table the way an executioner points his axe to the chopping block.

It wasn’t an invitation.

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The chair creaked when I sat. Everything seems to creak here. The house sounds old, but not in that cozy, lived-in way; instead, it’s more like it’s remembering things, like how an abused dog still flinches when it sees an outstretched hand. The walls feel distended with difficult memories, and I imagine that if I pressed my ear to them, I’d hear every argument they’d ever contained.

The dog’s nails click against the floor. He circles the table once, twice, then stops directly behind my chair. I can feel his breath on the back of my calf; it’s hot and damp.

“Sarah knows I’m here, right?” I ask, finally. My voice sounds wrong in this room, too high-pitched and flighty.

Mrs. Anderson exhales sharply through her nose, “She’ll be down when she’s ready.”

Sarah’s kid brother—Evan, I think—sits across from me. He can’t be more than seven years old, maybe eight; kids all look the same when they’re that young. He’s slouched so far down in his chair that he’s practically spilling out of it. He’s been staring at me this entire time, his eyes wide and unblinking, like he was watching a centipede crawl across the floor.

He starts tapping his index finger against the table.

Once.

Twice.

Again, and again.

And again.

“Evan,” Mr. Anderson warns.

The tapping stops. The kitchen is silent. I hold my breath.

On the sly, I check my phone. No new messages. No apology texts. No “sorry, running late.” Just the same thread from earlier: Sarah saying to be at her place for six o’clock with a cute smiley face and a pink heart emoji, and my lame attempt at a flirtatious reply. I think about texting her, but I don’t.

I look at the time in the right-hand corner of the screen.

It’s six.

It’s always been six.

Mrs. Anderson stands and begins wiping down an already spotless counter with a rag from the sink. She scrubs at it like she’s trying to erase some stubborn thought that’s seeped out. She doesn’t look at me when she speaks, choosing instead to hurl the words over her shoulder.

“You’re proper. Respectful of the rules,” she says. It isn’t a question.

“I-yeah—yes,” I reply too fast, my tongue tripping over the words.

Her hand pauses mid-wipe, and her shoulders stiffen, “Good.”

The dog shifts, pressing closer. I can almost feel his wet nose against my dark jeans. I imagine his jaw opening around my denim-covered flesh, teeth sinking into my leg, the relief of having something happen, anything, that would get me out of this kitchen.

The minutes stretch on.

I’m hyper-aware of everything wrong with me: the way the armpits of my shirt are growing damp with sweat, the faint shake in my hands, the itch on my nose I’m too afraid to scratch, my uneven breath.

Evan suddenly laughs. It’s a sharp, mischievous sound. No one tells him to quiet down.

“What?” I ask.

His grin is all baby teeth.

I look to the adults for clarification. Mr. Anderson’s eyes flick to the digital clock on the stove, then back to me. They’re stony and blank. Mrs. Anderson is still scrubbing the same spot on the counter. The dog groans. It’s a low, quiet sound.

Still, they ignore me.

I imagine myself shrinking. Imagine becoming smaller and smaller until I can slip between the cracks in the floorboards and disappear into whatever darkness lies beneath this claustrophobic place. I imagine standing up, walking out of this oppressive house, the front door slamming shut behind me. I imagine never seeing Sarah again and feel a strange, guilty relief in the pit of my stomach.

The sound of footsteps upstairs breaks through the silence. We all glance up toward the ceiling. The footsteps stop, then start again, closer this time. In a few agonizing seconds, Sarah appears at the top of the stairs, radiant and oblivious, adjusting a dangling earring with one hand.

“Sorry! My hair wasn’t cooperating.” She giggles, like it’s a joke we’re all in on, and comes down. The air clears when she enters, like a window thrown open on a hot and muggy day. “Ready?” she asks as she slides her hands over her pink dress, smoothing out the invisible wrinkles.

I stand too fast, and my vision darkens around the edges. The chair screams against the floor, and I grit my teeth, trying not to draw any more attention to myself. My ass is numb from sitting, but I manage to walk away from the table like nothing was wrong.

We move toward the door, and I can feel Sarah’s family watching us. Feel their eyes on my back.

We say our good-byes in the small, cramped entryway, and I promise to bring Sarah back before curfew. The door closes behind us. Outside, the air is cold, and clean, and crisp. I suck it in as if I’ve been holding my breath underwater.

Sarah slips her hand into mine. It’s warm and reassuring.

“You okay?”

I glance back at the house and catch a curtain fluttering as a hand disappears behind the sunbleached floral fabric.

“Yeah,” I say, my shoulders relaxing, “Yeah. I’m fine.”

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I wasn’t startled when my mother and father entered the room. The draft that clung to their tattered chore coats crept across our wooden floors with a sullen countenance. Their faces mirrored that breath of cold air, horror tugging at their crows’ feet, digging deeper into those worn lines of worry.

Their hands were bloody—fingerprints smeared across the floral china plate they carried it in on. The plate had been a wedding gift, a family heirloom bestowed upon my mother by her grandmother. They rested it on our weathered wooden table—another family heirloom, this one a gift from my father’s side.

There was a dull thud as they released their grasp from the fine china. My mother stifled a sob with the back of her hand, leaving a speckle of crimson on her pointed nose and upper lip. Red was her colour.

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With a sigh, my father turned to look at me. World-weary and tired, time had weighed on him. Working a farm with just one offspring, after having lost so many—both born and unborn—changed a man. But the labour of shepherding had its demands. Being a daughter, the eldest of the lot, did me no favours. I was as useless to him as my mother’s uterus.

But he was looking at me now. Looking at me with those eyes, rimmed red from crying.

I straightened my spine, pulling my shoulders back, and clasping my spotless hands behind me. I did my best to organize my face into a mask of pleasant naivety. I was his daughter, his good little girl.

The lamb deserved it anyway. They all did. Demanding so much, bellowing to their mothers into the wee hours. It was pathetic and time-consuming; there were so many mouths to feed. So many bottles to prepare each night. The farm needed culling. Needed something to bring us all together again. My father had been spending too much time in the meadow with his flock. My mother was too weak-willed to confront him, but I knew. I knew what he was doing. It’s why his seed goes sour inside her. Why I’m the only survivor—well, partly.

My father’s hands shake, his mouth bobbing open like a fish stranded on the rocks. Shock makes a person ugly; it contorts the face, leaving their expression stupefied.

My mother has turned away from me now. Her little bird-boned body shudders with silent sobs. Her hair is in its usual tight, low bun, the streaks of grey winking like tinsel in the late morning sun.

I don’t know if I pity her or hate her. She, of all people, cannot claim innocence. She had to have known what I was doing. She had to have seen. I was her little cuckoo bird. Wasn’t that what she always sang to me as she lulled me to sleep?

They don’t understand the jealousy. The sour, acrid taste it leaves in the back of my mouth—the burn of bile.

I am their firstborn. Their daughter. Their one and only.

My father tries to stutter out my name. Fails. Clears his throat and tries again. It comes out as a barely audible whisper, as a puff of air choked out of empty lungs.

I take a step forward, and he steps back. A giggle escapes my lips. How humorous to see such a large man weary of his own creation. I cover my mouth to stifle any further outbursts before recomposing myself.

My mother’s shoulders stop shaking as she turns to stare at me. There’s a mix of horror and discernment in her eyes.

I move towards the front door, pulling on my chore coat. Twisting the cold doorknob with one hand, I pause for a moment, taking in my mother and father and the shack we call home. Every cuckoo needs its nest. Every god needs a sacrifice.

I call out, “I’ll see you for supper!”

The front door closes with a solemn click.

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Grasshoppers appears in issue 50 of Dark Horses Magazine, a home for the strange and the weird. It feels right that this story—which is about land, hunger, and hubris—found its place there.

The premise of Grasshoppers is simple: A farmer decides to eradicate the grasshoppers that are devouring his fields and driving him crazy. He believes he’s in control. In ownership. In the old hierarchy of man over nature.

But there is a point at which hunger organizes.

What follows is not the whole story, only a small excerpt. The complete piece lives with the magazine. If this fragment unsettles you (as I hope it does), I encourage you to seek it out there. (Links to participating retailers are on the magazine’s website.)

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Grasshoppers

It had been a dry year—one of many. The fields were baking under the sun, cooked to a crisp before their roots could find the slightest hint of hydration. I didn’t mow once. Between the heat and the grasshoppers, there was no point. The front lawn and back pasture never grew more than half an inch that summer.

The grasshoppers were thriving amongst the dead. Armies of them sprang from the burnt grass when I lumbered across the yard, skittering out from underfoot like spring hares. The relentless chirping. It was enough to drive a man mad.

As the heat continued and rain became a naive dream, I could tell the hoppers were getting hungry. Something about the way they’d stare at me in the morning sent shivers down my spine. At first, I brushed off their unblinking looks as nonsense. But after a few weeks, I noticed more of the jumping bastards. It was as if they were gathering in numbers. More and more came each morning. Waiting. Watching.

I hated them. I had to do something about it. They were decimating what little had grown in the fields, and I needed the grass to feed the cattle. So, fed up, I ran into the local Co-op and bought myself a couple of jugs of bug killer. The lady at the front counter reassured me that this juice would do the trick. I tipped my hat and told her, “Thanks for the vote of confidence”. I was about to find out for myself the hubris of man.

That afternoon, with the sun clawing at my back, I set to work spraying the lawn with a fine misting of insecticide. The stuff stank like death in a bottle, which at the time, had been reassuring. When I went to bed that night, my pillow felt softer than ever, as if the worries weighing me down were lifted with a light spray of chemical killer. There was no chirping that night. I dreamt of thunderstorms.

When I awoke that morning, there was an eerie silence, as if the farm was holding its breath in anticipation. There was no buzzing, no chirping; even the cattle were silent as they chewed their cud. I moved to the window, drawn by the need to inspect the heavy silence and the aftermath of my short-lived victory.

The grass was a sallow brown from the heat and lay unmoving. Yet, in the center of the yard, a curious sight stopped me cold in my slippers. There, amid the devastation of drought, lay the grasshoppers. Their dead bodies weren’t scattered in a haphazard disarray as I originally expected. No—they were alive and gathered in a perfect circle, as if plotting their next move.

Their bodies, once humming with movement and noise, were now still. The sight was unsettling. I could see them, see their countless numbers, their morbid congregation, their little black eyes glinting under the already too hot sun. There was hunger in those dark looks.

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This poem is an early piece of mine that’s been bouncing around in my journal. Enjoy!

A peach in hand,
soft to the touch—
I raise it in prayer,
so we may kiss 
each other’s flesh.

My teeth in your skin,
juices dancing
across my tongue,
dribbling down my hands—
sticky and sweet.

I’ll smell like you
for the rest of my day—

A treat in the sun,
or a snack
in fridge light—

I hold your body
in reverie,
a holy relic
fuzzy to the touch.

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Whilst many people find themselves in crowded pews on a Sunday morning, I much prefer the company of strangers in a place far more holy—at least, more sacred to me: the coffee shop.

My Sunday communion is shared with neighbours, baristas, and the odd dog in their latest fashions. Their soft brown fur and puppy-dog eyes bestow upon me a blessing that only a stranger’s dog could muster. I settle into my usual seat, introduce myself politely, compliment the dog’s good looks, and—while I’m at it—say hello to the cute creature’s owner.

That’s how etiquette works around here. Dogs come first; all my neighbours know it.

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Here, at my local coffee shop in the dead of winter, I reacquaint myself with the public. Every winter and spring, I let myself become a hibernating thing—a feral shell of my former self that rarely leaves the house or interacts with anyone beyond my coworkers and partner. But I know I need to be around people. I know I need to build up my social battery, so I can enjoy the soon coming long summer excursions beyond my apartment door without ending up socially exhausted—or worse, burnt out.

A part of me resents this need to be reminded of others. To be reassured that people exist. That I’m not a figment of my own imagination. It’s a terrible feeling, knowing I need others—that I am not alone in existence—and still yearning to feel something greater than myself. It's a hollow sensation, one that nibbles on the edge of existentialism. I’m convinced it’s a carryover from my rural roots.

That’s where the local café comes into play.

Between these wooden seats, across from the counters where punk-rock baristas pump beans and steam, I find what feels like a sort of petite god.

For me, community is akin to god. The sounds of strangers speaking excitedly, tapping away at laptops, scribbling in notebooks, sipping their hot mugs—these are forms of transcendence, albeit small ones. Each of us here is a part of something; as our voices blend, we move beyond our bodies. We tune in, not out.

As I sit, sharing the noise of the crowd, typing away at whatever project currently holds my obsession, I feel the pressures of life slip away. I stir my coffee, watching cream swirl into the darkness. I let myself blend into the crowd. I sip my drink. I taste the bitterness of conversion—and know I have been saved, at least for another week, another Sunday.

Every Sunday, I am reminded that I exist beyond my own imaginings, beyond what Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media platform suggests. I am reminded I have a body, and that body has needs. I’m still learning how to read those cryptic messages, but I’ve come a long way. I know now that the mundane can be the sublime, just as it can also be horrifying—sometimes both, at the same time.

To me, that is the nature of god. Of divinity. The human experience, am I right?

But back to the café.

Winter here forces us strangers closer together, squeezing into every last seat to escape the cold for just a moment of coffee-scented heat and grace. We bump knees under tables, make formal introductions to dogs, and apologize for lingering until closing—the staff too kind to interrupt our conversations.

The liturgy here is one of anarchy. There’s no man at the pulpit telling us how to think or feel. Instead, there’s an ocean of conversation happening all at once. Friends and neighbours bunched around tight tables, telling short stories of our lives, giving nicknames to the unknown faces across the room, writing a few catchy phrases as the sounds crest and fall.

My church has no bells, but I’d bet it has better espresso.

tell me something

Thanks so much for reading my work! I really appreciate you stopping by.

What do the church janitors whisper when they clean the confession booths?

Do they ever find strangers’ forgotten items? A tube of Chapstick slipped from a pocket. A wad of tissue crumpled and warm. A carving of two lovers’ initials. The wood stained from hundreds of hands and asses. Something sticky in the corner.

They must say something, even if it’s just muttered under their breath—about their low wages, or long hours, the sore feet and cracked hands, the budget cuts on good cleaning products, or that pesky trash can.

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Surely, when the church is dark, and the parish has gone home for the evening, the priest says his good nights as he always does, the evening staff tipping their heads in silence. He is slipping God away with him, out for a beer at their favourite haunt. You know, the one the sisters like to complain about.

But do the janitors say anything about this quiet task?

Do they wonder at how it feels to be at the helm of God’s empty house? The key in their hands.

Is there power in a bottle of Windex?

The janitors start with washing the doors, the high-touch points, and the fingerprinted glass. Then they move on to dusting, sweeping, and wiping, making notes of where future repairs will be required. Then it's time for a quick polish to make the wood shine under the candlelight and dance with the stained glass. They end with a final review, their careful eyes checking every corner in case of a missed spot or forgotten mark.

Do their wrists ache from the effort? Do they hum a small tune?

Pride swells with the smell of cleaner. The odour wafts like incense, cleansing the church of its sins.

I think there’s more holiness in the bearer who swings the mop than in He who speaks the Word. At least that man of the cloth actually uses the cloth. The actions of their liturgy are visible every night—rumours abound of a great miracle, resulting in a great number of conversions. The priest is one of the jealous kind.

There’s a lot of dirty work happening out there in the world. The garbage cans are always emptied by dawn, ashtrays cleaned, and sidewalks swept. We hardly notice it, preferring to think of other topics—a willful ignorance.

But here I am asking the question. Curious to know the answer:

What do the church janitors whisper when they clean the confession booths?

Is it a prayer?

Do you enjoy the company?

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Buy me a coffee

That evening, just as the sun began to set, Evelyn had the police pay her a visit. She was wrapped in a bathrobe; they had caught her moments after stepping from the shower. After months of men going missing, the police had finally caught the scent of Evelyn’s involvement. At the same time, Mister’s head was in the process of breaking through the ceilin…

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When the snow was thick and plush, we would don our snowsuits, boots and gloves to venture outdoors to the great winter abyss of our farm. Well, it wasn’t actually our farm—it was my mom’s now ex-boyfriend’s farm, but those are just bitter semantics. Our small childhood bodies would shake with the excitement of building snow forts and snowmen. We didn’t…

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As Evelyn began tearing down the wall that separated her bedroom from Mister’s—so he could have more space—she stopped and wondered if things had spiralled out of control. She had long forgotten Brad and her early victims, and now here she was with a second-hand sledgehammer knocking drywall down.

Mister’s hot, carrion breath huffed through the holes in …

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Here’s a short anti-war poem I’ve had kicking around in my notes app. I’m not sure if I’d consider it finished, but it’s a start. I hope you enjoy it.

I wish it weren’t so relevant.

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Tonight,
across the ocean,
in a country
I will never see,
angels are falling.

Their bodies 
exploding across the sky,
illuminating the night;
a barrage of destruction
traili…

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The next morning, Evelyn avoided the spare room, unprepared to face the mess waiting for her and the hours of cleaning she would need to do. Instead, she sat in her small living room and flipped on the news, mindlessly waiting for reality to sink back in.

When a news anchor announced that the search for a missing teenage boy in Kitfield was to be called …

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Evelyn drove to Jack's that Saturday night, covered in cat hair and dressed in a short black skirt, heels, and a low-cut top. Finding parking was more challenging than she had expected. The out-of-towners had flooded the lot with their dualies and diagonal parking jobs, forcing Evelyn to round the block a couple of times before finding a hidden spot in …

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The next day, Mister’s appetite was almost non-existent, and the same went for the next, and the next after that. One single scrawny teenage boy satisfied Mister for nearly a whole week. It was Evelyn's first break since he was a wee kitten, and she had a hard time adjusting to the changes.

For Evelyn, not being needed by Mister was a lot like not being …

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Every town has folks who are a little bit odd, and regardless of their eccentricities, neighbours can’t help but talk about them. It was this type of persistent chatter that had captured the attention of a few of the neighbourhood boys in Evelyn’s cul-de-sac, one of them being the sticky-fingered Tommy Mattheson.

By all standards, Tommy was a fine kid, b…

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Evelyn sat with her right shoulder braced against the spare room door, which shook as thunderous paws banged against it. She felt nothing but frustration towards the demanding creature. She had worked hard to care for the poor thing, going so far as to give him a name and make him feel welcome in her home. But now, as she felt his massive body slam against the door and his cries of frustration, Evelyn wished she had never taken that scrappy kitten home.

The wood creaked in pain as it strained against the newly installed deadbolts. Evelyn pressed harder, her frustration fading as the adrenaline in her veins kicked up. The angry scream she had been choking on landed with a heavy thud in her stomach when the door suddenly stopped shuddering.

She pressed her ear to the wood, listening as the old mattress’s springs groaned against the animal’s solid weight. On the other side of the door was the newest addition to her furry family of cats: Mister.

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Evelyn could hear Mister’s every move in the spare room; she knew his padded steps and how he huffed when he didn’t get his way. She let out a strangled breath and wiped a trembling hand across her forehead. Her cheeks were flushed, and the hair on the back of her neck was damp from the effort.

Mister had thrown another one of his tantrums when Evelyn was late coming home, but she had a good excuse—a raccoon.

On the way home from clearing out the discount beef bin at the grocery store, Evelyn had spotted a raccoon smeared across the edge of the highway. Mister’s appetite had been growing, and kibble wasn’t cutting it. She couldn’t risk him making a meal out of her other fur-babies: Muffin, Missy, and Max. Anyways, in this economy, free cat food was free cat food.

Evelyn took a tepid step away from the door and paused for a moment. Waiting to see if Mister would start his antics all over again. When he didn’t throw his mass against the door, Evelyn dashed into the kitchen to prepare his dinner.

The raccoon must have been a hit-and-run victim. As Evelyn hopped out of her car with supplies in tow, she pictured a jacked-up Ford truck slamming into the creature as it tried to dart across the road. Upon meeting its maker via chrome bumper, the raccoon’s brains had been splayed out on the asphalt like poorly made jam on burnt toast.

Luckily, a week prior, she had been spying on one of her neighbours as he cleaned up after his mangy mutt of a dog. With that, Evelyn had discovered the perfect tool for the situation she now found herself in. She disliked wasting any part of such a fresh find, especially Mister’s favourites. So with a blue plastic pooper scooper she found on sale at the local Walmart, Evelyn scraped every inch of that raccoon off the road and headed home.

Now, the raccoon sat mangled in her stainless steel kitchen sink. Its brains were on the counter in a Tupperware container, soaking in a mix of beaten eggs and heavy cream.

Preparing Mister’s dinner was as simple as preparing any fresh game. First, Evelyn would skin, drain and wash the raccoon, carefully checking the meat for any embedded roadside debris. Then came the gutting and removal of impure organs. She was pretty sure that Mister’s stomach could handle almost anything, but he was still her baby, and she wanted to ensure he only got the best parts.

Once the raccoon had been rendered pure, Evelyn would break the body apart into smaller, bite-sized portions and combine it with chunks of the bargain bin meat she had picked up earlier. Then all Evelyn had left to do was the final touches. She would transfer the meat medley into Mister’s large dinner bowl, toss the eggs, cream and brains into the blender, and then drizzle the creamy mixture on top like gravy.

tell me your thoughts

Evelyn hadn’t had much of an appetite or time to feed herself lately. So when she did cook, it was just for Mister and her other cats, which she didn’t mind. It made her happy to be caring for him alongside the rest of her little furry family. And aside from caring for her mother when she was dying, Evelyn hadn’t had many chances to cook for anyone except her cats.

Anyways, Mister hadn’t started out so large or demanding. Like all kittens, he grew and grew. Evelyn found him as a tiny, scrappy kitten outside the Walmart parking lot. When she first brought him home, Mister could fit in one hand. It had been a few months since then, but now, she had come to wonder what it was she had rescued.

Walking back to the spare room with Mister’s food dish, Evelyn considered how she had gotten here and how much further this would go. His appetite was not slowing down, nor were his growth spurts, and she feared that soon she wouldn’t be able to keep this routine up. Already, she was feeling the physical and mental strain of being a mother of four.

But like any good mother, Evelyn was determined to persevere. She couldn’t abandon Mister at the Kitfield shelter now. They wouldn’t take him. He’d end up euthanized like all the other strays she had blindly brought there for rehoming.

Balancing the bowl of roadkill and cheap meat in one hand, Evelyn knocked on the spare bedroom’s door, announcing her arrival with dinner. With measured movements, she reached down to unlock the deadbolts, pausing between each one to listen for Mister snuffling at the door.

Sliding the last deadbolt open, Evelyn cracked the door wide enough to peer into the room. The spare room was a mess. Mister had dumped over his water dish and kicked kitty litter across the room. But for once, he had remained on the worn mattress, curled up like a colossal loaf of bread, waiting as Evelyn looked in.

With a sigh of relief, Evelyn let the door swing open. She stepped inside and placed Mister’s food dish down in its usual spot. He stretched his sizable form and arched his back before stepping from the sagging bed. His mouth hung wide open as he yawned, exposing rows of dagger teeth, while the smell of carrion filled the room. Evelyn gagged a bit, but didn’t let it show on her face.

Mister sat in front of the food dish to eat, while Evelyn stroked his head and scratched his ears, eliciting deep purrs from the massive animal. As he chewed away at the flesh in his bowl, Evelyn’s other regular-sized cats waltzed into the spare bedroom one by one to nibble at the scraps Mister dropped. Once he finished eating, they got to work cleaning his muzzle. This was the routine; if Evelyn didn’t stick to it, she wasn’t sure what would happen.

But tonight, when Evelyn was asleep, everything would change.

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Buy me a coffee

Here’s a poem I wrote when I was just beginning to explore poetry and getting published. Its really indicative of the period of time I was writing it. I was experimenting a lot with very classical and expressive language.

Enjoy :)

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It’s cold today, the first for this August—a sign that in a few short weeks, fall will be upon us. Here, in Alberta, there’s a specific chill that tells you summer will soon be leaving. A shift in the lighting to something a bit sharper, a cooling off overnight that urges you to add another blanket to your bed, a change in the air to something more bris…

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