Dear Alice,

When he comes he closes his eyes tightly, opening his mouth as if to drink. But coming down he is tight lipped. He wipes his eyes, saying only that he almost cried that time. She watches a super 8 silhouette, her own, on the sea-floor. Pulls forward towards mercury with open hands. Fingers spread through what is liquid and unfamiliar: she finds his O. His simple release. She watches that continuous round, that teleost mouth, that smoke signal extending. And it is a denial. While she remains still, the architect, drawing chalk lines into new spaces. Refacing the cityscape. Her insurrection is a place of longing, a mode of wanting. No O could be the concrete tunnel of her desire, the limits of her eyes, a singularity or solitude of feeling. Below, she knows, this is, what could be, a place without politic. And her laughter knows no echo, and her heart beats only in excess, and her smile remains still, in wonderland.

buick

...4

We decided to follow each other on the highway for a while after the EZ stop. I told him I was just “driving around” and he accepted this with a bit of a smile and made jokes about feeling a little “cross-country-bohemian” himself. He said he was taking the scenic route to Alberta to return his father’s car. I said I just wanted to have something to tell people when they asked about why I left.
I thought about how I would smile at Olga when I returned, and how I would say (so sweetly) - "Oh thank-you darling for taking care things while I was away. What fascinating travels! What wild adventures! How wonderful I feel now. " But thinking about this was exhausting.
Paul seemed to understand, this is why he did not pressure me with questions. He was comfortable with me tagging along for a while. Every seventy miles he would stick his arm outside of the window of his father’s old Buick and wave it up and down like a bird. I liked that he had painted the car grass green, and that his button up shirt flapped in the wind, and that this was the reason he chose flying as our signal to pull over. From the dusty interstate shoulders, we set off on twenty-minute walks into the hills. We ate warm cheese sandwiches and snacked on his leftover candy. I gave him one of my CD’s to listen to while he drove and he, in turn, traded me his favourite audio books so I wouldn't feel alone.

...3

I wondered what he was doing in North Dakota, a skinny kid from English Montreal. But truthfully, I didn’t know what I was doing there myself. I didn't tell Paul this, but it was all because I had a moment of courage one afternoon. And In that moment I wanted to reclaim old pictures - the ones I had captured as a young girl. I had hated when my father bellowed as us from the front of the Winnebago. “LOOK KIDS.” (period.) “LOOK out the window”, and we were to ohhh and ahhhww. But we were to take the same pictures. We were to release command of our tiny eyes and create for him the family portrait he always wanted.
What I wanted was that sky. What I wanted was to be left alone.
So I left the city. I left my apartment in Toronto vacant. I left instructions for Olga to look after my cat. But in transit I had found no lost solitude, no beatnik manifesto. And there were still the same voices. But. Stop. LOOK. Just look around goddammit! My mind kept score of each dotted line, each heartbeat - another yellowed dream, another second timed. I realised that I did not love my isolation and I felt lost in my own movement framed westward.
When I met Paul, I am just happy to run into a Canadian. He seemed like the kind of person I liked, the kind of person I was supposed to meet at a gas station, the kind of person I could tell stories about. And later on, I could feel comfortable that it was all so anecdotal.

...2

The petrol station had rust on the large metal sign that signaled its location to drivers on the highway from several miles away. The store sold day old newspapers, but was free of dusty trinkets and non-functioning clocks, thankfully so because I find these types of things absolutely terrifying. It also had a hotdog oven, with red lights all lit, but only one lonely “all-beef” (also terrifying). Paul had talked the cashier into giving it to him for half price. “It’s been in that case for two days I bet,” he said, “I’ll give you seventy-five for it” slapping his three-quarters on the counter. The cashier nodded and slipped it into a bun, handing it to Paul with two packages of mustard. This is when I followed him.
Outside the EZ-stop I introduced myself while he finished the remainder of the hotdog in two large bites. I excused myself to take a piss behind the parking lot, explaining that I had been driving all day long, and couldn’t stand the smell of one more steamy urine-soaked toilet.
When I returned, I found Paul attacking the candy machine with a screwdriver. “I know I shouldn’t be doing this,” he admitted. “That guy was really nice,.. but I mean, haven’t you always wanted to?”. I had to agree.
While snacking we enjoyed the warm pavement and the steady beat of the sun. It was summer and a hum of insects was enveloping us from the surrounding fields. The sky was cloudless, so blue. Wildflowers pushed up from the roadside gravel. And we two friendly strangers were fast assuming good company.
I admitted to being a little guilty about our delicious crime, but Paul was intent on creating little buffet meals for local colonies of parking lot ants. I decided not to worry. He was creating chocolate swirls and Marshmallow Mountains, like a theme park. “Watch this” I offered, dragging my finger across the line of troops. The ants stopped, puzzled, trying to find their way back to the scent trail. After half a minute the line had been reconnected and Paul’s Big Turk Brunch was making it’s way to the curb again. Paul pushed his nose closer, examining. After a moment he spoke, his eyes still fixed, “Its like they all have the same mind, the same program for the whole bunch but they work out the whole thing in separate bodies”. We talked a bit about science fiction. We mourned the drones. Sci-Fi was more Paul’s specialty than mine, for all I can stomach is the occasional X-file, but he said he had considered Star Trek very carefully in his youth.

Story Start. 1...

When I first met Paul we was trying to pry the bottom door off of a vending machine. His lanky arms and legs assumed positions I was envious of, his ballcap was knocked sideways. Sweat dripped down his delicate temples.
He worked with a screwdriver. I noticed where one of his fingers had sustained a small cut. It was ever so slowly dripping blood into the palm of his cupped hand. I admired his focus, his conspicuous lack of planning, the way his delicate ankles revealed themselves under his rolled jean cuffs.
“Give me two minutes and we’ll be sittin’ pretty”, he growled while in combat with the large PVC door. A vinyl snap sent him backwards onto the asphalt; he was still clutching the black plastic. The victory excited him. Within a minute Paul was wielding an armload of sweaty confectionary, and taking pains to congratulate himself for his superior cleverness and ability.
He rested his back against the hot plexiglass case of the candy machine. His arms cradling his booty like a newborn baby. I settled my worn pockets on the pavement next to him and we split a warm chocolate bar down the middle.