Zetetic

Take the hard-left turn just short of nowhere.  There is no radio out here, just voiceless static. The rattle of urban life will have already been far behind you. I doubt you will miss it much. If you drive too slow, even on this winding road, a...

Before Marie, I don’t know what ma grand-mère was like. I know she was a seamstress at a department store in Trois-Rivières, a half-hour commute she travelled by bus, boat, and foot. I know the first time mon grand-père asked her to dance she...

Salome, you are his sister, they said to me, the sweat dripping from their brows as they carried him away, you must help us prepare the body to be laid in the tomb. And so I washed the blood from his hands and feet until the water in my bowl was the...

In the same year Marie was born, there was a blackout. The wedding photographer was so drunk he forgot to put film in his camera. It’s a little sad—not as terrible as what happened to the wedding photographer from my parent’s marriage...

2010, Little Tokyo The map he unravels is quaint; its bright colors and messy lines belong to a 2nd grader’s wall, and Naoki instantly misses the slick, clear lines of his metro map (the only guide he had ever needed back home). Yet, Little...

“Choisissez une carte.” My hands tremble as they spread out the deck of Bee cards, their checkered backs similar to the pattern of an ugly crocheted sweater. I used to think the same design was beautiful. Expecting our visit, ma grand...

“_ake room,” says m_ heart. I know it aches, suffocating behind barriers of con_rete and stone. It barely beats. Chopped up and spat out by life’s cruel jest, it’s no longer _ealthy, it _s no longer whole. My heart knows it...

Before my mother, there was Marie. There is a photograph of her being carried in a wooden box by the same man who would cradle my mother a year later. He is wearing a stiff suit, or he is being careful, staying still for the camera. Behind him, the...