Me and My Umbrella.

Pale and sickly as a child, I had grown accustomed to carrying my plain, black umbrella no matter where I went. I would even keep my umbrella open indoors, to save my eyes from the windows and artificial lights. My mother took me aside one day and said, "put that thing away, you look like a fucking moron." I, of course, refused this advice. The sun would ruin my sight and my skin, and, moreover, I thought it was fashionable. Certainly no one else I knew was so daring as to carry an umbrella everywhere. One day, it caught a breeze, and I struggled to keep the implement in my hand, worried it might invert and break at any moment, when suddenly the breeze lifted the umbrella into the air, and carried me with it. I was alarmed at first, but as the days went on I began to try it on my own, taking a liking to it. I was the first of all my friends to learn to fly, as far as I knew. From then on, I practiced with my umbrella, soaring to new heights and astonishing the eyes of everyone who looked upon me and my umbrella. One day, I was flying home from school, when it started to rain and thunder. It gave me a fright and I flew as fast as I could, and luckily made it to my destination without being struck by lightning even once. When I opened the door, there was my mother, who said, "your clothes are fucking soaked." I was briefly confused, but finally came to an understanding. This was no ordinary umbrella, in fact it was hardly an umbrella at all; it couldn't even stop the rain. It was some device designed exclusively for flight. I, on the other hand, had no gift for such lofty endeavours; I was, in stark contrast, an ordinary boy who was rather sickly and pale.

The Diver.

I slip down to the deep crevices which devour me, under the ruse of being a geologist investigating the matter; my credentials support me. The air is stifling and poisonous, and I gradually lose my sight. I am forced to use echolocation to find my way; I am screaming at the top of my lungs, and the surface becomes clear in my mind's eye. Someone from the surface calls down to see if I am all right, and I send him a way with a stern warning. For that moment my violent and aggressive nature become apparent, but I utter a fake laugh to ease my confederate, and he does the same, pacifying him until my next display. I happen upon a cave, and wander in. I quickly become lost among its winding passages. Again, I yell out until my ears ring, and everything is clear to me for a second, and then fades away. I trip on my shoelaces and fall against the rocks. I catch the scent of my blood, and feel wetness on the back of my head. Treating the wound will have to wait. I finally lose my voice, and am forced to sit down and wait. It does not come back for hours, and upon every attempt to escape before then I only lose myself more. Finally, I am able to shout my way back through the caves and climb above. I am disoriented from the experience, and the first thing my eyes begin to see is the sun, and it only brings the pain of my wound into my skull. I find my confederate when he yells out, "Jesus Christ; what happened to you?" I laugh it off.

A story about the power of food.

From childhood I have been overweight. This is not a defining characteristic for most people; however, I have been blessed with a gracious appetite. I do not feel satiated; rather, my stomach begins to feel full to bursting long before I could possibly be finished. Indeed, many times I have eaten until I was sick. The prodigious volume and speed of my eating is a thing of pride for me; I do not know a single man that could eat more than me in a single sitting, or two men in two sittings. At one point I considered eating competitions; however, I soon realised that they were not to my taste. Eating is truly a personal, hedonic and holistic experience. It is an integral part of life and yet it is so much more.

Alternate timeline.

In an alternate history, there is a revolutionary movement in my hometown of Toronto dedicated to ousting our corrupt and omnipresent government. I have joined this movement, even though my comrades are made uneasy by how I believe in fighting. I am constantly terrified of accidentally mentioning the one thing that I must not mention, the thing I knew all along, that everyone suspects and fears of me; that the only reason I joined this stupid revolution was to learn how it felt to kill a man.

An uneasy morning.

I woke to the sensation of being suspended in mid-air. Instinctively I struggled for the ground, and when I reached forward it occurred to me that I was upside-down, with my face toward the ground, as I clawed at the dirt and sharp stones in front of me. I tried to find my bearings, as I breathed in the thick, strange air; it was impossibly damp and filled with ash. Finally I became aware that my eyes were still closed, and I could not see. I opened them and it stung for a moment, but then I could see the stones that I had grabbed at, through the hazy air that seemed unnervingly thick and foggy. Thrusting my arms toward the ground, I attempted to right myself and stand, but I only spun in place to look at the sky, surrounded by treetops; the air was much cleaner here, although my breathing was still heavy and laboured. Finally I managed to stand on the ground that was behind me, with some difficulty, and realised that I was in the middle of a shallow river, and I had been lying face-first in its polluted water. I reflexively tried to cough up the fluid in my lungs but seemed to have no breathing trouble besides a certain heaviness. Gazing down, I saw that my abdomen had swollen in an unsightly manner; perhaps that was what kept me afloat. Maybe I was sick. I forced myself to climb the riverbank, and in reaching the top I found a nearby street.

I had no idea where to go now; in fact, not only could I not remember what I was doing in a river, I could not remember anything at all. I wandered through the streets aimlessly and watched as people gave me uneasy looks. I looked down; my hair had become filthy, and my clothes were tattered. Eventually someone approached me. I did not recognise his face, but he looked me in the eyes with an alert gaze, and said, "what are you doing here?" It was only at this moment that I realised that I had drowned.

The Bridge.

I got off of the train, climbed the stairs, passed the turnstiles and left the station. The air was brisk. I walked to the street, looked down both ends, adjusted my hat, and started walking. It was not long until I reached the bridge.

It was a windy day, which might have meant a storm would arrive soon. Light debris was being scattered into the air. I began to walk over the bridge, where the wind began to grow in strength. A sudden gust blew my hat free, which began to tumble across to the other side of the bridge; I was about to run and grab it, but stopped myself. I couldn't reach it before it fell off, and even if I did then it wouldn't help me at all. My hair began to blow in my face. I pushed it out of the way in vain.
I stopped at the middle of the bridge, and looked to the north, over the railing. The valley below was a lush green, even on this cold spring day. Branches blew in the wind, cars drove by and a green river flowed past everything.

I stepped halfway up on the railing, and clenched the top of it with both hands. I peered down. It was tall enough, all right. I breathed deeply, and leaned over the railing. I stared at those green trees. I was not afraid.
Something pushed me.

I gasped and shouted in terror, though I have no idea if I even said anything. The ground rushed forward as my body moved over the railing. I was falling and the ground was speeding toward me. This was it. I panicked and screamed, and grabbed at the air with my hands, as if I could slow my fall and live instead. My hands caught something.
I clenched the railing again. I had barely moved; my feet had become caught in the railing. It was impossible for me to fall like this.

I took repeated breaths as I struggled for air. I was nearly hyperventilating. With some difficulty I eased my self down and reached the ground with my feet. I steadied myself, managed to let go of the railing and turned around.
There was no traffic and no one walking by. I looked down both ends of the bridge; no one was there at all, no strange figure running into the distance. The bridge was empty, except for me.

It must have been a gust of wind, although it didn't feel like one; at least, not in my memory. For how it struck me it felt as if someone had punched me with all of their strength. I looked again, and started to walk back, still gasping for air, still mortified that I had almost died. I walked all of the way back home, and didn't stop once, not to catch my breath, not to look back.

Castle Frank.

There's a double-layered bridge at Castle-Frank, one layer for cars and pedestrians, and another for subway trains. I love to stand and admire the view into the landscape below; from this tiny vantage one can see valleys and rivers and roads and green trees, all below oneself, in a scale that looks like one could reach out and fit it in one's palm.

Now, when I was young, they installed some form of wire architecture all around the bridge, which blocked the view as well as any attempts of pedestrians to go over the bridge. Later I learned that this was the site of numerous suicides. It bothered me to see this abomination of utile art, disrupting my perfect view, but what disturbed me far more was the thought that people jumped to their premature deaths right into this beautiful scenery that I am so fond of. What puzzles me is this; what kind of person could see these images and not realise that they would need to stand there and admire the view for an entire moment after they began to fall?