Just Us Cafe Patio — Wolfville, NS

Caucasian female, early 20s, wearing square rimmed glasses.

Not Wanted on the Voyage, Timothy Findley (Penguin)

Page 35:

Hannah Noyes was a total mystery. Nothing of love or friendliness or joy had ever passed her lips or moved her expression. Moving against her skirts, Mottyl had never felt anything there of pleasure or warmth. Never the descending hand and never the stooping call for a bowl of cream or plate of entrails. Nothing.

The ad in the Chicago Reader had read, “FREE KITTENS. You come get.”

I climbed up three flights of rickety wooden stairs to get to the place. A woman answered the door, curlers in her hair, polyester pants clinging to her thighs. She led me to her closet of a kitchen, the scent of tomatoes cooking on the stove so strong it made me feel dizzy and sick. Goulash in August, in the city, in a brown brick oven of an apartment without air conditioning. She pulled aside the faded calico curtain that skirted around the bottom of her sink, revealing a large cardboard box full of mewling kittens.

I crouched down and made my pick. All black, the only one.

“That one?” she asked. “You sure?”

I cradled the kitten in my hands, and held him out in front of me so we could take a good long look at each other.

She scowled at me and shook her head. “You don’t want. He’s wild, that one. No good for a nice girl like you.”

The kitten let out a quivery cry.

Thirteen years he was – strategically affectionate with me, always willing to tolerate my cheer and my enthusiasm for closeness.

Ami McKay

PS Thanks, Julie – for taking me along for the ride!!!

Sidewalk patio of the Just Us Cafe — Wolfville, Nova Scotia

Caucasian male, late 20s, with brush cut, sunglasses perched on top of head, and wearing black fleecie.

You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe, Christopher Potter (Knopf Canada)

Page 59:

It’s Not About You

Not at first did the gods reveal all things to mortals, but in time, by inquiry, they made better discoveries. -Xenophanes

Our understanding of how the contents of the large-scale universe are arranged – as a hierarchy of stars in motion – is the result of hundreds of years of scientific investigation. Whatever the scientific method has become, it was not always as it is now. It has evolved over time, in tandem with our understanding of the universe, and doubtless will continue to evolve as our understanding of the universe deepens. Science and the universe are inseparable.

My first birthday was five days after the moon landing, but my mother always liked to brag that I took my first “giant leap” before Neil Armstrong. My father, in his excitement over the Apollo 11 mission, took photographs of our bulby television set. Sadly, the pictures all failed, the screen turned to a murky green in the blinding Sylvania flash. It was cause for deep disappointment. You have to understand, he was a Navy man. He was a flight mech. in the Korean war, keeping the planes going, testing them by day, but never flying by night, never completing a mission because he was colour blind. He was nineteen.

Ami McKay

Empire Theatres, New Minas, NS (theatre number 4, Star Trek: The Future Begins.)

Caucasian Male, mid 50’s, black track pants, grey sweatshirt, camo. baseball cap, handlebar moustache.

Colonization: Down to Earth, Harry Turtledove (Del Ray)

Pg. 70

She sighed again. He prudently kept driving. She knew how much he loved going into space; he knew better than to rhapsodize about it. He even enjoyed weightlessness, which put him in a distinct minority. And coming back after being away gave him several honeymoons a year. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, he thought, cheerfully butchering Shakespeare – an American spaceman had taught him the pun, which didn’t work in German.

Single White Male.    Mid50’s.    Gainfully Employed.

Enjoys botany walks, filk music and contra dancing.

Turtledove, the Roberts – Jordan and Sawyer, Azimov.

Seeks Deanna Troi to his William Riker.

Shall we boldly go?

He will place the ad. on the internet tonight…

- Ami McKay

Scots Bay, NS

Freckle-faced Boy. Eight-years-old. Sitting in pile of pillows. Blue T-shirt with Totoro’s smiling face.

Firewing, Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins)

Page: 7

They just didn’t see the point of him.

Boring, Griffin thought. That’s what he was to them. And they were right. There was nothing special about him. He wasn’t a particularly good flyer or hunter. He hardly ever joined in their games. And why should he? They only ever seemed to want to do ridiculously dangerous things.

The wagon has no rails around the edge, no rim, just a flat wooden bed on four ready wheels, led by a bent metal handle. His friends, twin boys, two years older, push and pull him up to break-neck speed for the “Big Curve.” Bike helmet strapped on his head, knuckles white over the sides, he flies along, grinning. His mother is on the porch, hands on her hips, thrilled and frightened all at once. He shouts out to her as he speeds by, her face a blur, “Danger is just another word for excitement!”

Ami McKay

Acadia University swimming pool gallery — Wolfville, NS

Caucasian Male, early 30s, with long brown hair in ponytail and five-o’clock shadow, wearing glasses, blue T-shirt, and grey track pants.

The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer (Wingspread Publishers)

Page 85:

Everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain: a sudden sense of loneliness, or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine.

His daughter is waving to him now — a giggling, confident, miniature Esther Williams in green. She twirls in place, dragging her fingers on the surface of the pool. “Daddy!” she shouts. “I dunked my head four times in a row!” He waves back and smiles, feeling pride, feeling love, feeling envy. To swim under water had always been his dream.

Ami McKay

Just Us Cafe — Wolfville, NS

Caucasian male, mid 20s, with blonde dreads, wearing jeans, long-sleeved button up shirt with T-shirt peeking out underneath: blue on blue on blue. His TIMEX wristwatch is circa 1972.

Consilience, Edward O. Wilson (Vintage)

Pg. 71:

I think we will know if we come close to the goal of our predecessors, even if unattainable. Its glow will be caught in the elegance and beauty and power of our shared ideas and, in the best spirit of philosophical pragmatism, the wisdom of our conduct.

His grampy had died more than three years ago. Just this morning he’d noticed it — that same physical habit of shaking his watch down on his wrist, turning it until the face of it was where it was supposed to be. How long had he been doing it? How long did he have before he started turning open tins of sardines while grousing at Rex Murphy’s voice on the radio? How long before he was smacking Old Spice onto his razor burned neck?

- Ami McKay

Empire Theatres lobby — New Minas, NS

Black woman, young 30s, hair pulled tight into bun, wearing dark grey short-sleeved blouse shot through with silver threads, comfortable worn jeans, and no-nonsense shoes.

Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press)

Pg. 377:

I looked at Granny, and she nodded at me, and I knew then that at some point the joy I was feeling would pass and that that, too, was part of the circle: the fact that my life was neither tidy nor static, and that even after this trip, hard choices would always remain.

This new Uhura had better be right. She’d seen the actress in an interview on the Space channel-the young, pretty girl was explaining that she’d never watched any of the original episodes of Star Trek. Didn’t she know that Nichelle Nichols was Uhura? When Nichols had thought of quitting the show, Dr. King had told her to keep on with it. Nichols had been reading the book, Black Uhuru at the casting call. Mr. Roddenberry had noticed. Nichols got the part and her character was given a new name. In Swahili, uhuru means “freedom.”

- Ami McKay

9:00 a.m. Al’s Deli — Canning, Nova Scotia

Caucasian male, mid 30s, short dirty blonde hair, ripped jeans, and T-shirt with the number “42.”

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (Vintage)

Page 351:

“You look fabulous.”

“Ah, you’re lying, you liar.”

“You look like thirty-five hundred dollars to me, Shpilman,” the landsman said, not unkindly. “How about we leave it at that?”

Sometimes he wished he could be sitting at Dunn’s or some other crowded 2:00 a.m. deli in the city of his youth, listening to half a dozen conversations from as many different parts of the world. To walk through the door of this place and have it be a portal to the other — that would be ideal. When he was finished, he’d leave, his belly full of smoked meat and black cherry soda. Then he’d walk out the door, back to the rural bliss of home.

Ami McKay

Empire Theatres parking lot — New Minas, Nova Scotia

Caucasian male, early 40s, with shaggy brown hair, slouching in driver’s seat of car parked under a light.

Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman (Vintage)

Page 7:

This is so you know, I haven’t lost any of what I am, my intrinsic menace, just because they took away my devices, my tricks, and my utility belt. I’m still brilliant, the apalling, the diabolical Doctor Impossible, damn it. And yes, I am invincible.

His son is fifteen-years-old and out with a girl. Old enough to date but not to drive. That’s fine, he thinks. Somehow he knows more than I did at that age. “Let me know if you have any questions.” “OK, Dad. I will.” “Good.” (Three seconds of awkward silence.) “Any question, anytime, OK?” “OK.”

Ami McKay

Just Us Cafe — Wolfville, Nova Scotia

Caucasian female, mid 20s, with long blonde hair, blue plaid shirt, jeans, and large pink handbag.

Before and After Getting Your Puppy, Dr. Ian Dunbar (New World Library)

Page 2:

Your puppy needs to be prepared for the clamor of everyday domestic living — the noise of the vacuum cleaner, pots and pans dropping in the kitchen, football games screaming on the television, children crying, and adults arguing.

She smiles to herself, remembering it was his idea to get a dog. They have narrowed it down to a lab mix or something with border collie — energetic but not yappy. They are going to look at the shelter today. His mother is coming to visit next week. They should have the puppy by then. She will make it clear it was his idea to get the dog.

Ami McKay