The Frame

By Dan de Souza

Christmas 2025

Digital swirls brought the frame to life.  “I pre-loaded some pictures on it, Grandma.  Just wait for it to boot up.  I chose a bunch of pictures from your old photo albums.  Lots with Mom and Uncle Charlie and Grandpa Frank.  I know you miss him. See” she pointed with a pressed nail, “see it’s AI”

She left her grandmother sitting in the recliner and went to the table by the residence window to set the frame, propping it on top of an unwrapped present so her grandmother could get a good view of the pictures.  “It’s better than the old one” she said over her shoulder,  “we can load pictures from the Internet. I can send you pictures from anywhere I am so you won’t be as lonely. Just give me a second and I will switch it to AI mode.” Martha reached behind the frame, pressing the button to bring the AI Agent to life. 

Grace could see her younger self in the smooth skin of her granddaughter, seventy years younger.  Seventy years.  She shook her head, pushing the button on her recliner, raising her legs high enough to keep the swelling from continuing its charge upward. 

Grace looked at her granddaughter with a smirk. “Won’t be lonely eh? I liked the old frame”.

 

“I don’t know Grandma, this may be better.  It will turn the pictures into three dimensions or add movement or music or something.  It really doesn’t matter” she readjusted the frame on the unwrapped package. “I will leave it here on the desk and you can watch them scroll past from your recliner.”  Martha returned from the desk  “Do you want me to get you ready for bed before I go?  We don’t need you sleeping in your chair on Christmas Eve.”

“It’s ok honey, I can manage.  You better get going, I’m sure you have plans tonight.”  She looked at Martha again, remembering when she might have had somewhere to go, someone with whom to share the evening. “Merry Christmas Martha and thank you for the frame.  It’s lovely, like you.  Don’t forget your present, it’s over there, under the frame” she pointed with a crooked finger to the unwrapped copy of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.

“Oh Grandma, I love you.”  Martha, having already put on her coat and hat, came behind her Grandmother’s chair, bent down and wrapped her arms around the old woman’s shoulders, resting her chin on the top of her head.  “Merry Christmas.” 

Grace heard the door close behind her, her eyes landing on the present under the frame. “You forgot your…”  with a click she was gone.  “AI frame that animates pictures.”  She blew out through her nose, her eyes going to the frame that continued  its march to life.  “A waste of time.”  she harumphed.  “It’d be better if AI could reanimate me.”  She chuckled at her joke. 

Grace knew that she really should get up, push her walker into the bedroom and get ready for bed.   Her new pjs, a long standing family tradition on Christmas Eve, were ready and waiting for her, laid out on the bed where Martha had left them. “I’ll just rest a little, close my eyes for a bit and then I will get up and get ready for bed.”  She pushed the button on the recliner so she was almost lying flat, then made a final adjustment of the head rest so she could watch the photos on her new frame appear.  Her eyes returned to Dickens, his ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, under wrap, unheeded, supporting the frame.

Martha thought about the Christmas Eves of the past.  The preparation of gifts, of food, of fresh bedding for visitors, of neighbors dropping by.  At the time it seemed like so much work, so tired from the preparation that she barely had time to enjoy Christmas.  A picture of Frank, silver carving knife and fork in hand, standing behind the turkey, filled the frame.  She could feel herself drifting off, her blinking getting longer and longer.  She forced herself to look at the frame.  Another of Frank, facing the camera, her back to the lens. “We are dancing.” she murmurs.  She hears the music and sings along, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas.”  Grace moves her feet to the music, feels Frank’s hand on her back.  

She wills herself to stay awake, opening her eyes to see herself, standing in their old kitchen, the one with the black and white checkered floor, holding Charlie. She holds the baby in her arms, little Charlie’s face nuzzles her cheek.  She reaches up to touch her cheek, feeling the warmth of his baby’s breath on her face. Grace opens her eyes wider as  a new picture emerges.  This one of Frank sitting at the other end of the Christmas table in his white shirt, thin black tie, wire rimmed glasses. It must be 1965.  She looks at her feet, raised in the recliner.  She’s wearing the heels she loved so much, thinking of the Beckers shoes on main street.  She has on her nylons, her pleated black skirt, the white blouse she loves to wear on special occasions. She looks at her hands, her thirty something hands, wrinkle free, thin, long and beautiful.  She must have done her nails this afternoon. She opens and closes her now supple, useful  hands. Her skin, pure, no longer translucent.   “The turkey must be done” she whispers, her eyes closed, the aroma filling the room. The children are in the other room.  Charlie and Marie, giggling, playing with the toys they unwrapped this morning.

Grace sighs, shifting in her chair.  It is the most pleasant dream.  She opens her eyes wider, arching her brows, to prove to herself that she is awake; realizing it is indeed the most pleasant reality. 

Memories begin to  arrive quickly, like passengers disembarking at a busy station.  The family on top of the toboggan hill across the street from the house.  Frank pushes the children to get them started.  The cold wind making her eyes water. Frank lifts Marie onto his shoulders so she can place the star on top of the tree. It must be 1970,  Appledale Road.  Her mother, behind the camera taking the annual family portrait, winks at her.  She feels herself sitting on the floor, smoothing her skirt before Charlie climbs into her lap, her feet crossed behind her, her back straight and strong.  Charlie’s flannel PJs, warm and soft, she bends to kiss the top of his head, his freshly washed hair, still wet. Her fingers interlace around his soft little belly. The fire behind her warms her back.

 

Dinners and toboggans, hugs and kisses, Frank, her mother, the children.  They are speeding past, rushing past as fast as her life has fled. The beauty, the love, the kindness seem to form around her, filling her little suite with memory, with life. She feels like she may lose herself, may never return, wondering if she really wants to return. 

“It’s too much,” she whispers, “Too much.” She reaches for the remote her granddaughter has left beside her on the table. The pictures begin to loop again. Grace, with the precision of a sniper, points the remote directly at the frame until the first picture appears, then presses the pause button.  Her gnarled thumb hovers above the fast forward button.  “What memory?  What to choose?” Slowly she presses down, the frame responding, moving picture by picture, frame by frame, as she presses, trying to decide what to remember, what to relive.  What ghost to inform her present, which one to create her future? 

She hits pause.

Frank, tall, broad shouldered, smelling of the cologne he always wore.  The first dance at the Kiwanis Hall.  The corsage he gave her, the feel of his hand on the small of her back.  The band plays Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.  She feels them gliding to the music, her cheek resting on his chest, loving what she knows is about to arrive.

Promises to Keep, Christmas 2024

 

Promises to Keep

By Dan de Souza 

Christmas 2024

It was a waste of time, as far as I was concerned and told Dad exactly that, “she’s fine, Dad.” Old Lady Aldershot was always fine, she was probably better than we were but he didn’t listen.  By the time I got my boots on and my helmet squeezed over my head, Dad had the big sled warming and was starting my little one.  His was heavy, designed to blaze trails. Mine lighter, nimble, made to follow.

The snow had piled up to over a meter in the last day, so I hop scotched my way in his boot prints, trying to keep the snow from avalanching down the back of my boots as I followed in his tracks.  I watched him straddle the big machine as he shouted back to me “follow my trail.  Don’t go off of it.  The snow is too deep and you’ll end up getting stuck in it. And don’t forget, the woods are lovely, dark and deep and we have miles to go before we sleep.”  He had a smile on his face, his gloved hand raised like some knight about to go into battle.  He opened the throttle, rocketing down our driveway, spraying snow behind him. 

I really had no choice but to follow.  I opened the throttle too fast, angry at having been pulled out of a warm house on the coldest, darkest, longest night of the year.  The thrust of the little machine almost threw me off into the snow. Once I regained control, the only sign of my father was his  flattened trail on Kuusela Road.

The grips on the machine started to warm my gloves, the trees speeding past on either side. We headed off the road, down the trail to the Aldershot place.  She’d lived alone there for a very long time, since my Dad was a kid and why he thought she needed help on this particular night, so close to Christmas was beyond me. The old lady was made of bone and steel, smelling of lavender and wd40 and there was nothing going to carry her away.  My machine dipped, wandering away from his trail.  I yanked it back, muttering to myself, I had to be more careful.

“Why did he keep saying that?  Miles to go before I sleep?”  This was his thing.  He’d latch on to something, something no one else seemed to get and kept repeating it.  I let back on the throttle a bit so that the light on the sled would catch the outline of his track.  It was like the time he kept telling me “there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  He’d repeated that for months before we moved to the camp.  I shook my head at it, rounding the last curve of the trail and opened up the machine to let it run toward the Aldershot place, knowing that the trail from here was clean and straight.

The steps to her place hadn’t been shoveled. I had to rooster my way over the snow, jumping from one of Dad’s steps to the other, until I made it up the three steps to the door.  By the time I pulled the door open, I heard Dad’s voice coming from the front room. “It’s Ok Portia, we figured something must have happened.  We hadn’t seen you for a bit, so we thought we’d take the sleds out for a run and drop by.  You remember Ben?”, he nodded to me at the door as he strode into the kitchen.

The old lady sat on her couch, leaning on its arm.  She looked up at me for a strangely long time and then winked.  “Why yes, it is the East, and he is the son, arise fair son and kill the envious moon.”  She winked again, patting the seat cushion beside her. I looked over at my Dad who was busy at the stove. 

“Sit down with Mrs. Aldershot Ben, while I get her something to eat.”  He was talking into a pot, never looking up as he stirred.  He wasn’t going to rescue me.  

I looked around the Aldershot place. Dad had told me that the Aldershots built it years ago, without power tools, each log hand scribed into the next.  Even to my untrained eye, you could see it was beauty.  Three of the four walls were filled with books.  Books from floor to ceiling.  The fourth wall, the one directly in front of the couch, had an empty fireplace and windows that looked out onto the lake.

I turned to the old lady, “would you like me to light a fire Mrs. Aldershot?”  She raised her eyes to me, then to the fireplace, then back to me.  

“Teach the torches to burn brightly,”  she nodded, her puckered, nearly toothless mouth curled up into a smile. She winked again.  

I lit the fire quickly, blowing on the embers that were there from her last fire, placing a bundle of birch kindling on top of them.  I waited until the kindling totally caught and then placed birch logs, teepee style on top, watching the flames jump and bounce until they ignited the birch bark in an oily smoke.  

“Come live with me, and be my love.”  I turned to face her. Her voice a whisper as she looked at the flame.  I watched her stare into the fire, her head nodding, seeing something, remembering someone in them.  After a time, the flames reflecting in her eyes, she looked back at me, patted the cushion beside her and repeated “come live with me”  The cushion was soft, concave and when I sat on it, it tipped me so that my shoulder, my arm and my torso came into contact with Mrs. Aldershot.  She leaned into me, placing her head on my shoulder.  I didn’t move, hoping for Dad to return from the kitchen, watching the fire.  After a few minutes, she reached over and grabbed my hand, her knuckles swollen and bulging, the top of her hand spidered with veins.  “All of us are better when we’re loved,”  she whispered, gripping my hand with surprising strength, bringing our clenched hands down on my thigh. I stayed perfectly still, straining, hoping to hear him enter the room.

“Portia, I heated up some of the moose meat stew I brought over.  There’s a little bread here with it. Do you remember the last time you ate?”  Dad placed the bowl on a tv tray he’d dragged in from the kitchen in front of her.  

The old woman, still holding my hand, looked up at Dad, nodding at him. “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.”  She dipped the spoon into the broth and ate, gravy dripping down her chin, disappearing beneath her flannel shirt.  She ate quickly, the spoon rattling against the bowl.  Dad handed me a napkin, nodding toward Mrs. Aldershot.  Between spoonfuls, I wiped her chin as best as I could, trying to time the movement between bowl and mouth.  The lady was quick.  She mopped the rest of the gravy up with the slice of bread, stuffing it in her mouth, chewing it while she looked from the fire to me.  I heard her swallow, watched the bread move down her throat, the hairs on her chin covered in gravy I had missed.  I gently wiped her chin.  “Oh where have ye been, my handsome young man?” she turned toward me, her mouth in a wide smile, and the wink again.

“Portia”, my Dad came back into the room from one of the bedrooms. “Portia”, he repeated louder, “I have turned down your bed.  Can I help you get ready for bed?”  The old woman blinked, her eyes filling, she nodded, letting go of my hand, reaching for his. The two of us helped her up, each taking an arm, shuffling to her bedroom.  When we got to the door, Dad motioned to the big room, “Ben, you clean up.  Stoke the fire, close the doors and set the vents so the fire will burn slowly all night.”  

After a time, Dad called for me to come to the bedroom door.  He stood on the far side of the bed, setting the thermostat on the electric baseboard heater.  Mrs. Aldershot lay in bed, wearing a flannel nighty with frilly collar, buttoned to the neck, her arm resting outside of clean, flannel sheets, on top of a Hudson Bay blanket.  “We’re going to head out now, Portia.  You should be fine tonight and we will come by in the morning to check in on you.  

Her back was to him, she was facing me at the door, her eyes closed. “It’s Christmas, you can’t.” she protested.  

“We will be back tomorrow, Portia.”  Dad brushed by me at the door.  I stood, watching Mrs. Aldershot breathe, her eyes closed, her mouth a straight line.  Just before I turned to go, she opened her eyes, catching me.  In a moment, she winked, smiling, she closed her eyes again and whispered, “good night, sweet Prince.”  I turned to leave again but something pulled me back.  I went to her, bent down, brushed back the tangle of grey hair, and kissed her on the forehead.

I closed the door securely behind me, scanning the yard for Dad. He stood just beyond where we had parked the sleds, a sky full of snow flakes around him.  My feet crunched on the ground as I reached him.  He pulled me to him, his jacket crinkling with the cold, frozen flakes, melting on my cheeks. He spoke over my head, into the forest around Mrs. Aldershot’s property, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”  

We stood like that for a long time, the snow falling around us, neither of us wanting to let go.

The Great Adventure Before Him

 

Christmas 2023 

 

Bill knew Walter had many journeys ahead of him but this year's was the first to pose real danger.   

The preparation for the mission began at the disappearance of the last bit of Halloween candy, when Walter took off his Commander's uniform, sought a leave from Star Command and set his sights on what lay before him.  

“This year” Walter stabbing the air with his spoon, Bill catching the drips with a cloth, “this year, I am going to prove to those kids that he is real.” He went back to reading the cereal box as his father rinsed the cloth at the kitchen sink, “that a boyo Walter, go get it” he said over his shoulder.

Walter’s plan was simple.  He just had to sneak downstairs on Christmas Eve and take a picture of St. Nick in the family room.  But like all simple plans, the execution of it was in the detail and this required careful consideration and to consider things carefully, Walter needed to get to his boat. “Dad” he shouted down from the attic bedroom he shared with his three older brothers, “Dad, I need my oars, where did you put my oars?”  Bill came to the top of the creaky stairs and watched his youngest son through the unfinished spindles of the railing,   

“Did you look under the bed?” Bill could see the mini-sticks from where he stood.  Walter stood in the center of his blanket laid on the floor, its edges rolled up and reshaped into the hull of his boat. He looked from his father on the stairs to the ocean rolling around him and then stepped carefully over the side of the boat and swam, with great exaggerated strokes.  He reached where he knew the Marianas Trench lay below and with a quick plug of the nose, dove a thousand fathoms beneath the waters to get the oars from the bottom of the Trench.  He emerged triumphant, holding both of them above his head, waving at his blinking father on the top stair.  “Got them", shaking the dripping water from his hair.  Bill ducked so as to not get wet. 

Walter climbed back into the boat, nodded farewell to his father, pushing with one oar and pulling with the other, turning towards the Cape and with each pull he began the meticulous contemplation of the great adventure before him.

There were threats, traps that needed to be avoided.  Snotty nosed kids in school yards telling you that Santa didn’t really exist.  They were persistent, trying foes.  He gripped the oars tighter. There was already a mountain of evidence.  The toys, the presents, the stockings, all of them, arriving like clockwork each of the previous seven Christmas Eves.  Yet, those kids persisted, attacking him and his closest allies, demanding greater proof.  They were like the rocky shoals he drifted past on the way to the Cape, they were the sharks that circled his small boat.  He rowed further out, buttressing himself against the rising tide, knowing he could not fail. 

To stop the doubt, to quell the uncertainty, Walter needed evidence that was absolute.

His mind turned toward the route he must take. It lay before him like a great map. From the attic to the family room built in a repurposed garage, he would have to negotiate three flights of stairs, each a treacherous mountain pass, and then past his parents’ room, an arid desert he would have to army crawl to navigate it. He would have to be absolutely silent so as to not wake the sentries.   Then through the dining room, a lush plain with long grasses, hiding man-eating lions. Finally to the step, leading to the family room, to the tree, and if he was lucky, to the great man himself. It was the Hillary step, to navigate it was to live in infamy, but if he failed at the step, if he failed, Walter knew there would be no return. He would remain forever frozen on the cusp of the great discovery.  

He prepared with perhaps an over-exuberant enthusiasm.  He wanted to convey the sense of excitement for Christmas Eve but not betray the nervousness he felt at the onset of the mission in t-minus five hours, so each movement felt rehearsed, forced.  He poured the milk. He left out the cookies. Laid the carrots down for the reindeer. His brothers and sister and parents looked on.  He knew he could not take them with him. It was his journey and his alone and knew in his heart that they would understand. He hugged them, stepped away with a salute and then headed to the attic.

He lay in bed for a very, very long time, his phone charging beside him. Finally, after what seemed like months, his brothers’ breathing became rhythmic. He reached for his phone, taking it under his covers. “It’s time to go over the top boyo.  Godspeed to you.”  He gave himself a silent salute and began the journey to the step. 

The first mountain pass was treacherous, creaky.  It took a long time to descend.  The army crawl along the desert proved very difficult, the buttons of his uniform scraping on the wood floor with each movement.  Two more mountain passes lay ahead.  He rested for a moment, gathering himself.  Then with an unmatched stealth, he dropped down, navigating the second pass and the third in absolute silence.  The lush plain now ahead, Walter became afraid of the man-eating lions.  He could feel his heart race, peering across the dining room to where the final step lay. He needed to stop, to calm himself.  After a long moment he slid along the wall, his palms pressed flat against the rock face, watching for one of the mighty lions to make a fatal lunge. 

Then the step.  He lay on his stomach, his cheek turned and resting on the cold rock tile of the step leading to the family room, the tree, the great man. He gathered himself for his final approach; a Rocket Man about to land, but first he needed to rest.  He needed a moment to think of how far he had come, how far he had to go. He needed to be ready to take “one small step.”

Bill found him on the step and scooped him up into his arms. He felt his boy wrap his gangly legs around his waist.  He was so much heavier than last year and longer too, feeling Walter's heels pressing on the back of his thighs, just above his knees. He shuffled past the sleeping lions, wishing them a good night. Then climbed the two mountain passes, breathing harder as he climbed.  Then, across the desert, noting the trail left in the sand by the uniform of the Commander and then up the final pass. 

He tucked his boy in bed, whispered to all "go to sleep" and pulled the remnants of the boat up to the great adventurer's chin. He whispered, “Good job Commander”, kissing him on the forehead.  He stopped at the top of the creaky stair and looked back at his four sleeping boys. He put his hand on the wooden rail and sighed “I fear you'll make it next year.”

A Horrible, Beautiful Place

In the early '90s I guided canoe trips to earn a little extra cash. It was better than the alternative- teaching summer school.  I met Hana and Gerta Frieberg on one of these trips and had the privilege of taking them on a number of trips over the following two or three years.  Gerta Frieberg died recently.  Her obituary  (Globe Obituary for Gerta Frieberg) drew me up short, reminding me of what a truly remarkable person she was.

In my early days of trying to become a writer, I wrote an essay about a trip I took with her and sent it to her on a whim.  Not only did she arrange to have it published in The Canadian Jewish News, she used it during her presentations to raise money for Nueberger Centre. In a preamble in the publication of the piece, Gerta said "It is a testimony to all those aging volunteer survivors who share their painful story..."

I republish it here in honor of Gerta and in the memory of all those who were lost.  May her memory be a blessing.

A Horrible, Beautiful Place-The Canadian Jewish News, 1997

My introduction to the holocaust was typical of most kids growing up in Canada.  It consisted of the one film they showed in history class from grade nine through grade thirteen.  It showed the bodies of the Jews being bulldozed into mass graves.  The image remained with me but the whole thing seemed unreal, like my mind was protecting me from fully understanding the horror.

I guide canoe trips during the summer.  This past summer I guided a trip through Algonquin Park's Barron River Canyon.  The river is remarkable for a couple of reasons.  It winds through one of the deepest canyons in Ontario.  There were two sisters along with us.  One of them sat in the bow of my canoe.  She is about seventy years old and as we pass through the magnificent canyon she began to talk.  Not so much to me, because I am unseen in the back of the canoe, but to these huge granite cliffs that have been scarred by glaciers.  She speaks in a whisper but because of the depth of the canyon, her words echo.

She says in a heavy accent:  "My father would love this place.  He was a naturalist.  I would hike in the mountains with him and my sister and all we would take would be some bread and lemon.  We would squeeze the lemon into a cup that was filled with mountain water and we would eat the bread by the stream.  My father owned a Harley Davidson Motorcycle and every time I see one today I speak to the owner and tell them that my father owned one.  When the Nazis came in '39 they took my father's motorcycle. It was the first thing they took in our village.  They put us in the ghetto six months later and then my sister and I were sent to the camp.  I never saw my father again.  We spent four years after the war in a camp waiting for some country to take us."

I stop paddling and let us drift by the walls of the canyon.  That image of the bodies being bulldozed into the mass grave comes back to me.  Her father, an owner of a motorcycle and a man who would love this place like I do, was in that pile.  That horror is now real to me, part of me.

We slip past the rocks.  Her words echo as we move and there is only one other noise.  It is in the distance and it serves as a drum beat to her lyric.  The Barron River is also remarkable because of its proximity to the artillery range at Petawawa Military Base. This holocaust survivors words enter my ears at the same time as the sounds of an army practicing for war.  Artillery punctuates her tale.  

The canyon has become a horrible, beautiful place. 

Half Light

Christmas Eve found her standing under the arch of Soldiers Tower, waiting for the carillon to ring.  She’d hope to be under the tower with John, waiting for the bells, watching the snow fall.  It was the same hope she held each of the four years he’d been gone.  She watched the late winter dusting through the northern arch of the tower but could not feel the flakes on her hair, on her cheeks, the arches of the tower protecting her, the unseen bells overhead saving her from the elements. The snow hypnotized her, holding her stare with the beauty of their fall.  

She roused herself by stuffing her hands deeper in her pockets, shrugging and turning to the east wall, the “gate”  they called it, the one that held the etched names of the dead from the first world war.  The one to end all wars.  She wanted to go and place her hands on the cold names, run her hands over them, stick her numb fingers in them but the metal bollards, like four sentries, kept her from advancing. “If I wanted to,” she thought “I could easily step around the barrier and reach out for them.”  But she knew it was not the attraction to the names of the dead from the war to end all wars but rather the repulsion, the revulsion of the blank wall ahead of her, the west wall, waiting for the inscriptions of the new war dead.  The wall that could take John’s.

“Are you alright Miss?”  Barbara spun around.  “Are you looking for someone?” The old man stood with his back to the blank wall having entered from the north side of the tower, the frozen football field behind him in the falling snow.  His hands were stuffed inside tweed pockets, his cap wet with melting snow.  His shoulders were pulled up toward his ears. “He mustn’ like the snow,'' she thought. “Are you looking for someone?” he said again.   This time Barabra followed his eyes to the wall behind her, turning slightly toward the names.

“My son is there.”  She turned back to him.  “Third column from the right, sixth row, third down.  Terrance O’Donnell.  We called him Terry.”  She found his name quickly.  “ I come here every Christmas Eve.  My wife can’t stand it but I don’t know, it helps me”

“I’ve never seen you here before.”  Her voice shocked her and she feared that she had brought offence.  “I mean” she concentrated on her tone, “I mean I’ve been coming here for the last four years on this night.  We used to come here on our way home some nights.  Since he shipped out, I haven’t missed a Christmas Eve”  she stopped and then continued, “or a birthday or an anniversary or…”  Her voice trailed off into the archway and then out into the gathering snow.

“I suppose we just missed each other.”  The old man was looking directly at her.  “I’m sorry.  You are missing someone tonight.  It is a difficult thing.  I will leave you to him.”  Before he turned to go, he looked up into the tower, imagining the bells hanging in the carillon above and thought it was like they were waiting for someone too. She could see a spot on his chin that he’d missed shaving.  She followed his gaze up into the tower.  They stood like that long enough to make her neck stiff.    

“I suppose we are too early for them to ring.  I just couldn’t stay in my apartment any longer.” 

“Yes.  We’re both too early.  I left the house quite a while ago.  I wandered through the campus.  Tried to convince myself not to come this year.  It’s strange.  Ever year, I promise myself not to come back.  I should be getting better, I say to myself.  Move on I tell myself but…” he watched her walk behind him.  “But, here I am back again, even earlier than last year.” He turned round to see her framed by the waiting blank wall.  

She nodded, like she had made up her mind.  “I’m sorry for your loss.”  Her voice was firm, not as kind as she hoped.  “It must be very painful.” She was short with him.  She watched him root around in his pocket and pull out a handkerchief.  He wiped his nose.  He put the handkerchief back in his pocket and walked away from her  to the gate, turning back towards her when he reached the bollards at the opposite end of the archway. She looked at him.  She imagined his son’s name perched on his shoulder.  “I will leave you so you can have some time to yourself.  Merry Christmas.  She turned away from him, stepping out into the snow, feeling it melt on her cheeks. 

“When we lost Terry we lived in a half light.  Like the light leading to the solstice.” His voice echoed from the other end of the arch.

She turned back. He had moved back towards her and stood in the center of the archway. He was staring at the unseen, silent bells.  “I couldn’t live like that any more.  I couldn’t live waiting for a return. Waiting for word."  He heard her footsteps on the concrete floor of the tower and knew she was beside him.  “It’s like standing here waiting for the bells to ring but they never will. I imagine you understand what I am talking about.”  He looked at her, the shoulders of her coat covered in snow.  She heard him take a deep breath.  “Heat and light.”  He let the words linger in the archway of the tower.  “Warmth and beauty”.  He held out his hand in the half light of the tower.  She hesitated and then, she reached out and put her hand in his.  

They stood like that for a moment, waiting, hoping the bells would ring.  He felt the warmth of her hand in his, then the pull of her arm, guiding him through the arch, past the blank stone wall.  They walked like that, the snow falling heavily, past the frozen football field waiting for spring, the flickering lights of the city to the north, and after a time, the sound of the bells bringing beauty and warmth and calling the light to return.

Unfurling Flags

In another life time, I stopped a young man in the hall of a school because he had a badge sewn on his backpack that was a depiction of a cross in a circle with a line through it.  Being a Catholic school I figured the young man was taking a stance against Christianity and stopped him to ask him about it.  He pulled out of that back pack an essay defending the symbol, taken from a band called Bad Religion.  He explained to me that he was not against "Christianity" but all religion.  I  admired his attempt at defending such a bad use of symbol but if you are going to protest all religion, you better find a symbol that encapsulates them all. 

This, of course, brings us to Britney Spears.

You may remember Ms. Spears performed at the MTV music awards in 2001 as a 19 year old in a loin cloth, with a yellow snake around her neck.  It may be possible that Ms. Spears did not know she was playing Eve, the temptress, the reason for our expulsion from the garden. We understood even if she did not. It is not an article of faith.  It's just that we, as a Western culture, have come to associate snakes with temptation.

Both our young man and Ms. Spears were run over by symbols.  One fails to see the meaning or significance of them and the other muddles meaning with an inexact use of them. Symbols are powerful things and when you play with them, you're playing with fire (see, I just did).  You don't get to change the meanings of symbols to suit your personal agenda or to sell more records. When it comes to symbols, you don't get to make up your own rules.

Now to our convoys.  

There is a small group of people using our flag as a symbol for their desire for freedom. Their definition of freedom does not match mine, or the majority for that matter but that is alright.  Reasonable people can disagree. The problem is the way they have used our symbol.  This is one of the things that has raised our ire, more ire than I think they counted on. They have used the flag as a cape, as car ornament and in some cases, as a towel to cover themselves as they get out of a hot tub. They've sewn it together with American flags, decorated it with swastikas, trying to warp it into a symbol of their movement. 

Ultimately they are using the flag as a cover to hide imprecise thinking.  The flag, coupled with a shout of "freedom" looks like thought and freedom of speech but (as Northrop Frye would say) it is nothing more than a bark of a dog. We want them to stop. Perhaps yell at them or  give them the finger but at the same time we don't want to dishonor the flag that they are dishonoring. If  we give the finger, are we giving it to veterans? To Terry Fox? To new citizens who have come to embrace it?  In that moment of struggle, that moment of hesitancy, they zoom by, perhaps feeling that they have our support.  

They do not. 

A flag, our flag, is a symbol for all of us.  We place our collective ideas about country in it and it is big enough to hold many and sometimes opposing ideas within it.  But it can't be used as a bath mat or car wrap.  When you do that, you are not making the political statement you think you are making. You are co-opting our symbol to defend an idea you cannot defend with reason.

The good news is that the majority of people know how symbols work and the power they hold. The better news is that a poorly constructed argument, a poorly thought out premise will disappear in a strong breeze, the same breeze that will unfurl a flag. 

Too Early for the Moon, Too Late for the Sun

“It’s a compass Pep.”  Jerry looked down at the boy holding the compass in his pudgy hand, his fingers straight out, the compass in his palm, the red needle moving to and fro, searching for north. The little boy took his eyes off the compass for an instant to look up at the old man standing beside him in the driveway.  

“A compass?”  

“It helps you find your way Pep.”  Jerry thought back to finding the small brass compass in the filing drawer where he kept their wills and Sarah’s last wishes. He tried to remember how old he was when his Dad had given it to him.  It must have been in that drawer for over forty years. 

 

Jerry figured he’d missed the mark again.  Last year’s gift giving, his first without her, had not gone well.    Bamboo wok steamers for the women and clocks for the men was a stroke of genius; efficient, economically sound, an organizational dream.    He used the same wrapping paper and piled them in the trunk of the car.  Even in the dark of a driveway before heading into a house alive with light and music, he could tell by just feeling them, which was the wok and which was the clock.  The rhyme made it even better.  But, he had to admit, watching them open last year’s gift, their responses were muted at best.  

His mind went back to Christmases before, before she became sick.  Sarah would have individual gifts for everyone.  All carefully wrapped, placed in gift bags, organized by households, with hostess gifts included.  Jerry really didn’t understand the concept of a hostess gift.

“A compass?” Pep looked up at him again.  “It’s ok Mr. Jerry, my mom has a gips that tells us where to go.”  The boy continued to watch the needle struggle to overcome his fidgeting nature and settle on north.  

“A gips? I don’t understand you sometimes, Pep.  I really don’t.”  Jerry jammed his hands into his pockets, feeling a balled up kleenex in the right one.

“You know?  The gips that talks to you in the car.” It was Jerry’s turn to stare.  The top of the boy’s head, the part in his hair, revealing white scalp, the dripping nose and the palm of the hand, outstretched swaying giving the compass a nervous twitch.  

“The only thing that talks to me in the car is me.”  He looked down at the boy staring at him.  Sarah never talked in the car, she slept.  Pep turned circles in the driveway, his boots scuffed the dusting of snow on the asphalt. “What are you doing?”  The boy stopped doing circles, finishing facing away from the old man.  He looked over his shoulder at Jerry standing behind him wearing that funny little hat he always wore and those boots that his mom told him were  “galoshes.” The word made him giggle.

“I’m trying to get the arrow lined up with the arrow on the bottom but I can’t do it.  It keeps moving.”

“Stop moving, Pep.”  Jerry walked over to the boy.  “Just stand still and wait for the needle to settle. See?”   Jerry was over Pep’s shoulder.  “See its settling down.  Just wait.  Good.”  Jerry put his hands on Pepper’s shoulders and slowly rotated him, watching the compass in the outstretched hand, it’s red directional arrow, settling in the painted arrow, “the house” on the bottom of the compass.  “There.  See.  Look up.”  The little boy looked up at his house across the cul de sac. “See, that’s north.”  Jerry pointed over the boy's shoulder at the semi-detached house that once held a father too.

“My house is north?”  The little boy’s eyes moved from the arrow on the compass to his house and back again.  Jerry looked over Pep’s head, over the little house with its sagging Christmas lights, letting his eyes move up toward the darkening, lake blue sky.  It was too early for the moon, too late for the sun and the north star had not yet come over the top of the house.  

“That can’t be right Mr. Jerry.  My house can’t be north.” Jerry brought his eyes back to the boy.

“Why not?”

“If my house was north, Santa would live there.  He doesn’t.  I checked.”  The boy wiped the clear drip from his nose with his sleeve, his tongue licking underneath.  Jerry had not considered this problem when he slipped the compass into his pocket for the next time he saw the boy.  “Mr. Jerry?”  Pep turned back toward the old man, snow falling on his little hat, the arrow stuck to its task and  pointed behind him at his house.  “Mr. Jerry?”

Jerry tried to think of an answer.  He looked over the boy’s head toward his little house, the north star just starting to climb above it.  “There’s a difference between north and the North Pole, Pep.  If you followed that arrow and walked for a really long time, you would finally come to the North Pole and Santa. Jerry crouched down to the boy, putting his knee on the asphalt of his driveway, feeling his trousers getting wet. He turned Pep back towards his house, placing the arrow back in its home.

“How long would I have to walk Mr. Jerry?”  Jerry put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and pointed to the star rising above his house.  

“You pretty much have to walk to that star.  You use that as your guide.  The compass and the star.  But you can't go by yourself, OK?”

“Ya.  that’s too far for me Mr. Jerry.  I couldn’t walk that far.”  His tongue went to the new drip under his nose. 

“It would take a long time, Pep.  A lifetime.”

“Thanks for the compass Mr. Jerry, I gotta go now.” The boy was down the end of the driveway.  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Jerry.”  He didn’t look back at the old man.

“OK Pep.  Merry Christmas.”  His hand was raised in a half wave.  He watched the boy walk across the grassy circle that served as the centre of their cul de sac, past their melting snowman.  The little boy had his arm out in front of him, his eyes on the compass, his path moving to and fro as he tried to keep the arrow in the house, pointing north.  When the boy was safely inside, Jerry turned back to his house sitting in the December darkness, the stars slowly emerging from their day blindness above it.  

He thought of a little boy and a compass, of missing fathers and of Sarah and how wonderful a long, quiet walk toward the stars would be.

 

Exhale

By 

Dan de Souza

Christmas 2020

In Wolford, the Protestants are buried north of the highway and the Catholics lie on the South.  Their gravestones face each other across a frozen trans Canada highway, staring bitterness and hatred towards each other long after their bones are ice.  Amira Ahmed imagines her family on the centre line of that highway as she makes her way past those graves, from home to school and back again.  She and her brother and her parents, perfectly placed on a narrow white strip,  defining the fault lines of the northern town.  

It’s not like the highway divides everything in Wolford.  Hockey divides it; you’re either a Wolford Wolves fan or you're a Marystown LumberKings fan.  Geography divides it too.  You're a “townie” or you're a “woods kid”  Her parents usually know which way the wind is blowing when it comes to these divisions.  Her father makes sure the store is stocked with merchandise from both hockey teams.  Makes sure to smile and talk to everyone who comes in.  Makes sure there is a crucifix on the wall and his Koran below the counter.  

Bishop St. Louis is a woods kid, riding the bus to Wolford High School and he is beautiful. If you can use that word to describe a sixteen year old boy with long hair sticking out from under his Stihl baseball cap.  “There’s probably an argument around that too”, Amira thinks.  And who calls a boy Bishop?  That was the question Mrs. Sharpston asked on the first day of grade 11 English. “Who names a boy Bishop in rural Ontario?” she said, staring at him sitting right beside Amira.  She could feel the heat of his embarrassment through his plaid shirt.  Could swear the heat was travelling through the plaid, across the desk, up her arm, her scar serving as a dam, stopping its advance at her throat. 

Amira couldn’t look up that day.  Neither could Bishop.  And that posture carried on for the semester.  Bishop, looking at his shoes whenever Amira managed to furtively glance his way and she turning away anytime there might be a chance of Bishop looking at her.   

When she could get a good look at him, usually across the hall where his locker faced hers, she would pretend like she needed something in the bottom of her locker and then, hunched over, one knee on the ground, the other near her chest, she would turn her head, just so, so she could see him, side-on as he looked for something in his.  She sometimes felt that they were in some sort of tableau, with the rest of Wolford moving around them as they were frozen in that pose. 

When news of the pandemic hit and the school shut down,  Amira walked home, Bishop went on the bus, and they lived together in her imagination, while the world stopped for a while. “It would be nice to be frozen in place beside him”, Amira thought, walking along the highway on that last day. “If we were frozen”, she dreamed “then I couldn’t say something stupid and he could just be there and the world could just keep going by.”  She would not have to worry about where to eat lunch or if her jeans were the right ones or if her mother found the make up in her drawer.  She could just stay there, with him, turned sideways, so he could only see her good side.

When school was called back the third week of December, Amira’s dream thawed.   She climbed the hill behind the store, passed the dead Catholics and Protestants, her anxiety rising with every soggy boot step. With the school fence in sight and the Marystown bus spraying slush onto the sidewalk in front of her, the sweat gathered under her jacket.  When she reached her locker, Bishop was at his.  He is staring into the top shelf, while Amira dials her combination and then kneels on one knee, assuming the pose of the past, side on to Bishop.  Her jeans stained from the slush on the ground.    

They reach Sharpston’s door at the same time.  He stops and let’s her go in first, nodding slightly; she can feel the wet stain on the knee of her jeans, the sweat stains under her arms.  Wonders if he sees them.  She adjusts her mask, hoping  her eyes are calm and shining, thankful that she will not have to turn side-on to him today, the mask doing for the scar what make up never could do. 

In Sharpston’s class the divide between those who had computers to learn on and those who didn’t, fell along the same lines as those who had this year’s styles and those who dressed out of the thrift shop.  Amira, like Bishop, had no device and had to use the google chromebooks provided by the school.  Bishop sits meters apart from her, allowing her an even better side glance of him;  his dirty boots, worn jeans and forearms built thick from work.  Mrs. Sharpston, permanently seated at her desk behind a plexiglass window, can no longer stalk her classroom as she had done only a few weeks ago.  

Amira fiddles with her chromebook, trying to keep up with the lesson.  

“Amira, is there a problem?” 

“Oh, no Miss.  I mean, yes Miss.  I can’t get on the Internet Miss.”  Her eyes move from her screen to Sharpston, who is leaning into her plexiglass window.  

“Refresh your browser Amira and then click on the icon in the lower right corner.”

“Yes Miss.”  Amira, having already done precisely that, hangs her head over the keyboard,  the sweat is now trickling down her back. 

“Did you do it Amira?”

“Yes Miss.  I mean, no Miss.”  Before Amira can look up, Sharpston’s arm comes across the keyboard and her fingers begin to move over the mouse pad.  

“She doesn’t like that Miss.”  Bishop is standing by his desk.  “She doesn’t like that,” he points, as he repeats.    His glance moves from his desk to Ms. Sharpston.  

“I just need to get her on the Internet Bishop.  Thank you.  Please sit down.”

“I know Miss,” Bishop says, taking his seat.  “She’s nervous Miss.  She doesn’t like anyone near her.”  

Amira is still.  Her ears pound as the blood rushes to her face.  She cannot raise her eyes to look at anyone  but she can see Bishop sitting to her left.   She knows her face is blotchy and under her mask, her scar must be deepening red.  She can feel, she thinks she can feel, Bishop glancing at her from across the room but she doesn’t dare look up.  

Instead, she fiddles with the Internet connection and presses the mouse pad rapidly and furiously.  When the “ping” of messenger sounds, Amira jumps back from the keyboard, like it has given her a  shock.  

“It’s OK.” the cursor blinking behind his message.  Amira tucks her lower lip under her front teeth, beneath her mask.  “It’s OK.”  She places her fingers over the keyboard, the cursor demanding she reply.  “Thanks” she writes and glances over towards him but he is looking straight ahead at his screen, chin resting in palm.  

The walk home at this time of year is dark.  Amira trudges along, towards the divided cemetery, heading towards the tramped down path in the snow that leads to the store and home.  In this December light, everything is grey and dark.  The Marystown bus plows by, sounding like a wounded beast.  “Bishop is on that bus.”  

The wind from the lake whips snow up onto the road, polishing the headstones of both the Catholics and the Protestants. She walks past them in the dark, her head down. The solstice has dropped the sun in the lake, “never to be seen again”, she thinks.  

“Saturn and Jupiter are going to kiss.”  Amira jumps into the road at his voice, snow avalanching down her boot.  “On this solstice, Saturn and Juptier will come within a degree of each other, even though they are hundreds of millions of miles apart, they will look like they are kissing.”  Bishop is sitting in a snowbank, his back to the dead Protestants, looking across the highway above the heads of the still dead Catholics, towards Lake Superior.  Amira can see his white teeth, smiling in the dark. “Sit down, I’ll show you.”  

Amira steps over the snow bank, off the trans Canada and sits down in the snow with Bishop.  She feels their arms touch as the snow under her caves a little and levers her toward him.  He points with a mitt that has the fingers cut out, “see, over the lake, you will be able to see them get really close.  Just over there.  It only happens every couple of decades.”  Amira follows his finger out to the horizon.  Bishop turns toward her, “it’s like they are kissing even though they are hundreds of millions of miles apart.”

Much later, she lies in bed listening to the wind creaking the house.  She thinks about planets kissing and remembers the mist from their exhale, traveling out across Superior into space.