Fiction

THE GOD BOX SAT ON THE COUNTER in Burkhardt’s mother’s kitchen, where everything was dark faux-marble lined with white streaks like fat in a steak. Painted pale gold, the box, which was sandwiched between the wall and a trio of LED candles with dust rimming their cupped bulbs, was the kind of thing in which…

STRIPPING TO MY UNDERWEAR while standing at the foot of a hospital bed belonging to an elderly woman is both embarrassing and nerve wracking – worse than trying on clothes in the store aisle when the change rooms are full. The thin sheets hang tight to the husk of her body. She appears to have…

IN THIBEAULT FALLS, the Chinese community is small – less than one hundred including newborns – and the circle of women even smaller. These mainly middle-aged wives get together, usually about once a month, to socialize and gossip about everything and nothing: their children, their husbands, their steadfast routines and their constant adjustments to gum…

HALF AN HOUR. That’s how long Sammy had been seated in the waiting room of Dr. Schiller’s West Side office. Her chair puffed dust as she shifted her weight. The sign on the door reminded No cell phone use. Bored as she was, she didn’t dare touch the periodicals. She could only imagine what a…

EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT “boat people” in 1979. Video clips of rickety vessels chugging toward Malaysia and the Philippines dominated the evening news. Cameras focused on rows of unwanted Vietnamese refugees standing elbow to elbow on deck, awaiting admission to overcrowded, unsanitary migrant camps. The footage played most often was a grim shot of an infant’s…

TWENTY YEARS I’d been friends with Bec, but it was Lois and how she’d changed that finally got me to go to Toronto. I’d meant to go see Bec, but life got busy and I kept forgetting to actually set up a visit. My hands were cold as I stepped through the door from airport…

PAUL WATCHED LUCKY curl up in the open suitcase. She was missing most of her tail. Lost it in a kitchen accident. She knocked a pot off the counter and it landed on her, despite her name. Lucky was now curling up on top of a folded blazer and Paul knew it would not go…

I HEARD LYYDIA’S LAUGHTER long before I saw her face. The morning I boarded the Arcturus, I was struck by the bubbling sound that rose fearlessly above the din of the crowd. I also have to say that it annoyed me to no end. After all the preparations, the tumult of emotions, and the strain…

I’M LATE TO MY SISTER’S SUICIDE AGAIN. I’ve gotten to the facility at the tail end of visiting hours, which means a shift change for the caregivers, which is why I’ve been standing out here for ten minutes waiting for someone to let me in. I ring the doorbell a third time. I adjust the…

“Meeting Gudrun Peel” is an excerpt from The Education of Aubrey McKee, a novel to be published in 2024 by Biblioasis. The second in a multi-part series, the book details Aubrey’s arrival in Toronto as a young adult. remnants what is this country of young men from kingston london edmonton? all their dreams & friends…