He rejoiced in the sight of his opening scene, feverishly splashed across the page after months of false starts. The words before him were fresh as wet paint, yet they seemed conjured long ago in a dream finally come true. His previous attempts at becoming a playwright had failed because each laboured sentence lacked authenticity, […]
LOBSTER ICE CREAM A tragicomedy in two acts Act One, Scene One Upstage right, Jude Wintermilk sits hunched over a desk lit by a small lamp in an otherwise dark bedroom. While threading a blank sheet of paper into his thrift store typewriter—a barely functioning antique acquired for its twee appeal—he begins thinking out loud […]
(this is the last excerpt from Horrendum Pudendum before publishing, later this year) The above bit of dialogue was the last thing he remembered saying to Percy before his memory blacked out. He’d asked the question not long after getting back to her place from West Seventy6, which meant a large portion of the night […]
Bash wrote his Blue Strings poem on the morning of Monday, June the twentieth, the day he planned to meet Percy at West Seventy6, inside the newly opened hotel down on the waterfront. If anyone had asked who it was written about, they would’ve gotten a shrug and nothing more because he’d long ago sworn […]
from my bed, this morn a cold kiss blown, making its way to the vein in your neck, and to the hot blood flowing there, where your heart reaches up for your brain, on blue strings played, to the couplet beat of love
Unlike Percy who grew up in a small town west of Grey Grove, Ontario, Bash was a ‘lifer’. The midsized city was home to four major penitentiaries, so long-term residents were called lifers. His parents owned and operated Ashbarrow Drugs, an independent pharmacy in the downtown core, established during the first year of their marriage. […]
Percy Flage was her stage name. Not that she ever stepped foot on an actual stage during her brief career as a therapy clown. Strictly speaking, stages, spotlights, curtains, and everything else used in theatrical productions weren’t part of her performances. Concrete floors, fluorescent lights, beeping medical machines, and extras in the form of nurses […]
Both Percy and Bash were rookies in their fields but Bash, despite his newfound pride, still struggled for confidence. Percy on the other hand, felt like a seasoned pro, or rather she felt born to make sick children laugh at her terrible adulting skills. Prior to becoming a therapy clown, she worked in retail. Forcing […]
That first encounter with Percy happened near the beginning of the theatre’s fall season. Dozens of touring acts had come through town since then, and with each one, Bash improved his technique. He was still a rookie LD (lighting director) but his willingness to take instruction and inspiration from all available sources made him a […]
They met at the pharmacy next to the theatre—her in a colourful ensemble, him in all black. He was a lighting director on dinner break, in search of a new ballpoint pen, and she was a therapy clown, fresh off a shift at the hospital. If he hadn’t been staring at his phone, he would’ve […]
tin hats 