(Originally published November 12, 2007)

Spadina streetcar, four readers rocking in a row

Asian woman, early 20s, wearing blue and red knitted cap, jean jacket under black vest and jeans rolled high over black biker boots.

Ticknor, Sheila Heti (House of Anansi Press)

Page 65:

Today I can’t get anyone who knows him to agree with any of my criticisms. At the time, this wasn’t my problem. Now pretty much nobody can be brought to see it from my side of things. I don’t expect it. When he has made a mistake, all he can do is move forward. Probably they will not invite me again.

She stands outside the apartment door, plastic bag in hand, knotted tight to hide the raised cork. The bottle is half-drained, a sidebar session in the subway washroom when she realized that he’d be there, talking. Talking about politics. Talking about war. Talking about things that matter to her. Things she promised herself she wouldn’t talk about anymore at parties because she becomes That Girl. The one who talks about politics at parties. The one who reacts to what you say.

(Originally published March 30, 2007)

Caucasian male, early 20s, with bright red stubble, wearing grey hoodie and jean jacket. His back pocket bulges under the weight of his wallet and a chain dangles from his waistband.

Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (Norton)

Page 72:

And if there is one thing more that I must say to you, it is this: Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

He planted the last tree and wiped his hands on the front of his thighs. He cut through the field to where the stream narrows and found the bunch of them laughing, an open cooler filled with beer and cold cuts. She tore at the skin of a large olive with her teeth, rolling it over her fingers before popping it whole into her mouth. Bottles clinked, a quick Cheers to a hard day. She rubbed her lower back, trying to feel grateful for the pain if it meant she was still alive. She tapped tobacco onto a paper and licked the edge, laughing at the tail end of a joke she didn’t hear. Tomorrow she’d start treatment.

(Originally published August 20, 2007)

Outside Factory Theatre, beside the drink ticket tent.

Caucasian male, mid 20s, wearing green V-neck T-shirt, black vest, grey pinstriped pants, and black sneakers.

The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy (HarperFlamingoCanada)

About page 112:

Cracks in the earth plunge like gorges, masses of humpbacked insects range like buffalo. A wall of webbed tree trunks is either a bush or a tangled ball of shubbery. She passes termite mounds as enormous as mountains and then there is bare earth for a spell, each granule of dirt a distinct, shivering pebble. The ground dips and she glides over a honeycomb of mauve boulders at the end of which is a dawn of white sand.

The dream ends.

He glides the loop over each slide, blowing gently, cooling dust from the pads of their awesome, aching feet.

(Originally published January 30th, 2008)

Caucasian woman, 70s, with damp curly hair, wearing a grey sweatshirt bearing the image of a stained glass window. Two umbrellas rest between her knees, one for her, one for her grandson who sits beside her, nose buried in a Game Boy Micro.

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (Vintage)

Page 15:

Perry folded the map. He paid for the root beer and stood up. Sitting, he had seemed a more than normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter — weight lifting was, in fact, his hobby. But some sections of him were not in proportion to others. His tiny feet, encased in short black boots with steel buckles, would have neatly fitted into a delicate lady’s dancing slippers; when he stood up, he was no taller than a twelve-year-old child, and suddenly looked, strutting on stunted legs that seemed grotesquely inadequate to the grown-up bulk they supported, not like a well-built truck driver but like a retired jockey, overblown and muscle-bound.

The boy wasn’t getting into trouble anymore. That was good. And Mum was getting help, keeping straight, coming by each Sunday for dinner and a few shows before heading home. She had his room ready but knew it would take more than a couple of meetings to convince him she’d know when it was time to stop, to cool off and walk away. Yeah, he was in good hands with Grams, those soft hands that first dared to drain the bottle.

(Originally published November 28, 2007)

Spadina streetcar, before first coffee.

Caucasian woman, early 30s, with a short brown razored bob, wearing a long black coat and amber ring.

October Horse, Colleen McCullough (Simon & Schuster)

Page 276:

The next moment he was lifted off his feet, squashed in an embrace that drove the breath from his lungs, the smell of her in his nostrils–ink, paper, stale wool, leather of book buckets. Porcia, Porcia, Porcia!

The ring is her mother’s, plucked when she was ten from the box in the basement, The Laughing Buddha turned toward her, his perpetual grin mistaken for anguish, pain. She never stole again. But she did steal that once, turning the Buddha to face the drying ivy.