4. mississauga Something strange happened to me today. It happened when I was walking home from work. I say "work" but what I really mean is one of my side-gigs, a contract job sketching little girls at a birthday party. Her name was Hilary—or was it, Haley? Doesn't matter. What matters is I was in a foul mood. A culmination of weeks, no, months, feeling unfulfilled. I had been supplementing work for nearly sixteen months now that my contract at The Tribune was terminated. I was their resident cartoonist (a word I've come to hate these past few years), pumping out silly five-strip comics for what remained of the paper's readership. Like the major outlets, the Mississauga Tribune migrated to an online platform that utilized all the latest social media outlets. Work came and went depending on the amount of clicks they garnered in a year. I was lucky to nab my position after graduating from the animation program at Sheridan College, with a solid portfolio that ...

There are some moments in your life that make you question everything that has brought you to a specific moment, and I believe I just experienced one. I’m not sure what I would describe my experience as; like I know what I saw, but I don’t know what would have caused that. What I do know is that I experienced a deep, chilling, primal fear that gripped my spine harder than anything else. What I know is that for the last four hours, ever since it happened, I haven’t been able to stop shaking. I’m more scared than I ever have been in my life; much more terrified than I ever was as a child. The darkness that I once welcomed as a calming reprise at the end of my day now initiated a fight-or-flight response that wouldn’t leave me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and bury myself to hide from the world, but instead I find myself in front of my laptop typing this out while I take pull off of a previously full bottle of tequila. My head is getting a little heavy and numb, so I’ll have to typ...

  3. toronto "Do you like the band?" "Hm?" Her attention is fixed on the CN Tower. Though shade protects them from the incredible summer heat, her chilly detachment comes from a swelling sense of dissatisfaction. "I said do you like the band? They're kinda shitty." She turns back to the stage: a four piece punk band blisters through a particularly aggressive anthem about teenage rebellion. It's all noise to her, anyway. She doesn't like punk. She doesn't even like the main band he's asked her to see. Press her, and she wouldn't even be able to name three of their songs. But it's a night out. An opportunity to see live music and have a few drinks. A chance to maybe mend things between them, she reasons. "Mack?" Owen says. "Did you hear me?" She can't—the music's loud, but she's still lost in a daze. The tower, so like a needle piercing the clear blue sky, is hypnotizing. She wonders what it would b...

  2. stratford The sound came from deep within City Hall. It rumbled across the street, now nearly empty and silent. Katherine Hays stared out upon the near-Gothic design of the town's main building, wondering if she'd made the right choice. Among Main Street, phantom shops stood decaying against the crumbling architecture of a city once proud and prosperous. Art thrived here. So too did business and commerce— businesses like restaurants and breweries that complimented the artists and bohemian souls that frequented the town of Stratford. Now, those shops stood silent—its people, ghosts. Few citizens remained in Stratford after The Fall. It came swiftly and aggressively, wiping out the entire artisan population in a single blow—first the quake, then the plague that swept through its streets, then its unsustainability in keeping those who survived afloat. Much has been said about The Fall. Theories abound. But few facts have been proven. We do know this: on the morning of July 7t...

  The Figure in the Frame A Flash Fiction Series Years ago in grad school I studied Niagara Falls and its starring role in Henry Hathaway's film Niagara (1953). Alongside Marilyn Monroe, the infamous tourist attraction - known then as a honeymoon capital for newlyweds - captured a sense of passion and danger that captivated audiences (and lovers, apparently). Because I wanted to explore an area of film that aligned with some of my other interests (literature, and more specificially, geography and travel), cinema that placed landscapes front and center immediately captured my attention. I've always been drawn to the kinds of movies that utilize their places as more than just a backdrop - there's a distinct difference between the New York City of Taxi Driver (1976) and The Avengers (2012). Where one exists as a simple canvas upon which an alien invasion threatens the entire world, the other is drawn with particular cinematic techniques (music, colour, sound, editing) that ...

              It may not surprise anyone reading this that there hasn't been a lot of posts on this blog recently.  Cory and I have made numerous attempts over the past few years to post on a regular schedule; sometimes we have been successful, while many other times we were not.  We would always try, but life would always take priority and that meant we would have to pause our endeavours.  Most of the time it was work related; prioritizing a busy schedule with time to decompress.  Other times it was due to social obligations with family or friends.  We always did our best to percevere, but it wasn't always successful.               Another hurdle that we needed to overcome was one of our own creation.  Often times he and I would be working on large projects.  Any time we are working on our novels and novellas, we aren't writing smaller pieces for the blog or for any self p...

            ­I reached over for the roll of paper towels, unravelling it once my hand met its coarse surface and tearing off two separate sheets.   I placed them on the counter in front of me, before looking around for the loaf of bread that I bought the day before.   Of course, I looked in the usual bread spot first, but it wasn’t there.   Normally I was a creature of painfully strict habit, but every once in a while, usually if I was in some sort of rush, I would misplace something I normally wouldn’t. I walk over to the fridge, opening it up to find my prize inside; the ingredients I needed were all newly bought and were contained within a grey grocery bag.   I removed it from the fridge, shutting it with a swift hook of my leg behind me.   Back at the counter, I removed the three contents of the bag, placing them above the sheets of paper towel; a fresh loaf of white bread, a jar of light peanut butter and a sma...