INTRODUCTION

“A puff of air before a storm…”What you’re about to read is a portion of a late chapter from my new novel, Unidentified man at left of photo (under consideration by Verbivoracious Press for publication). The chapter is titled “Big goodbyes,” and that title perhaps requires a short explanation, like the video that accompanies it.

Unidentified man at left of photo takes place in charlottetown, the capital city of pei, canada (everything is lower-case so no place gets above itself). It’s known locally and nationally as the Birthplace of Confederation, for in 1864 the Fathers of Confederation gathered to discuss the embryonic idea of my country. (Though I was born in newfoundland and labrador, which didn’t join canada until 1949.) Truthfully, charlottetown might be more accurately seen as the Conception Site of canada since the nation didn’t come into being until 1867.

The novel is a satire without real characters or plot, hardly any foreshadowing, flashbacks or many other devices of a regular novel. Instead, it has style; to be precise, as many as possible. One chapter is told all in questions, some are domestic, another is one I didn’t even write, and so on. But I knew I wanted a fictional treatment of weather systems that have swept over this sandy province in the last few years with increasing force, and a hurricane seemed to be the right choice with which to end the novel, and a good way for the narrator to say good-bye to the reader. Fueled by many cups of Organic Cream of Earl Grey Tea alongside a bowl of jujubes, I came up with the layout of the chapter, its typography, and the point of view of the main force in it in the wee hours of an early Sunday morning. What you’re going to read is a caffeine-injected portrait of a murderous, scathing, disrespectful, boastful and whiny hurricane. When acting it out, both outdoors and in front of a live library audience, some of the same tone came through.

***

Big goodbyes

WIND→ WIND→ WINDWINDWINDWINDWIND!!! RAINRAINRAINRAIN!!!! MOREMOREMOREMOREMORE STRONGER AND STRONGER!!!!!!

Roaring and pouring like my ancestors before me when time was new and beyond reckoning. I am their continuation, their progeny, and I strive to be as massive and fearsome as can be! WIND→WIND→WIND→!!! Leaving africa behind, rotating slowly, the azores are anxious, but I bide my time, my name hidden even from myself, as I make my way along the tracts of deep ocean and air, shredding clouds, drenching all, heaving waves, tossing up seafish, grabbing birds—STUPID BIRDS!!!—as I go, as I move, my aim erratic, seemingly, my mind clear, my one wide eye focusing on THE CARIBBEAN!! To kill, Kill, KILL the Caribbean, cuba especially!! STUPID COMMUNISTS!! Gyrating I aim for the humans and what they hold dear, and already I can hear bermuda and the bahamas whimpering, and the banana and sugar and earthquake countries with their uninteresting names crying out, begging, praying, cursing me, then back to praying I will pass them by NO MERCY NO MERCY NO MERCY!!! I see them with my forceful eye as they gather supplies, store water, fight for hammers and nails, put up slender boards against my swelling size, flee to higher ground, my isobars will crush them, kill, kill, kill!! STUPID CRUISE SHIPS STUPID FISHING BOATS, BIRDS MORE STUPID THAN THE LAST STUPID BIRDS!!! On I go, and now I am bigger, fatter, denser, and I speed, speed along through THE CARIBBEAN and pummel the resorts in the dominican republic filled with pale people and then on to haiti, hahahahahha, knowing they are still rebuilding from the latest earthquake, my cousin in force, and I leave them destitute and homeless but I care not, for now it is time to swerve towards cuba, sucking up sharks, barracuda, STUPID old men in the sea, refugees,  mackerel, frigates, drug boats, a lighthouse, another lighthouse, shacks and screaming Communists and other humans →WIND→WIND→ KILL KILL KILL!!!

To be like THE GREAT GHOSTS, that is my aim, as I rest for a moment, surveying with my grand all-seeing eye, once clear but now baptized in the blood and terror of those beneath me, and I turn north, getting warmer and tighter, faster, leaving mexico alone because I can cause no more havoc there than they do to themselves, and the oil rigs can wait for my brethren, for I want to be join the pantheon where the greats lie and destroy florida! KILL KILL KILL KILL!!! Stupid wetlands, and its flora and fauna, you will all be dispersed! I WILL FLING ALLIGATORS INTO WYOMING AND COLORADO!!! Know my might and my wrath!!! KILL KILL –

STOP! BRUCE, STOP! KNOW PRIDE, AND CONSERVE YOUR STRENGTH

WHAT? WHO DARES TALK TO A HURRICANE? WHO!?

WE ARE THE HURRICANES WHO CAME BEFORE YOU. WE ARE THE GREAT MIAMI HURRICANE OF 1926, WE ARE ANDREW, WE ARE SANDY, WE ARE THE TWINS, THE GALVESTON HURRICANES, WE ARE DONNA AND CAMILLE AND OTHERS.

You shit me not?

YOU ARE YOUNG, YOU ARE NEW, YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF HISTORY! WE WERE ALL LIKE YOU, BENT ON A PATH THAT NEVER YIELDED AS MUCH DAMAGE AS WE WANTED. LEARN FROM US.

You must be… THE GHOSTS! Never did I imagine—how did you find me? Wait, wait, I must crush nassau, and miami, then we can talk. THERE! THEY DID NOT PREDICT THAT ON THEIR STUPID DOPPLER RADAR, NO ONE EVACTUATED. NASSAU IS DEAD!  KILL KILL KILL—

BRUCE, HEAR US. AVOID ALABAMA AND GEORGIA. STAY ON THE COAST! SLOW DOWN. LOOK TO THE WEST, AND THE NORTH. DO YOU NOT SEE?

Crush cars, rend buildings, tear up highways and logging roads even, smash bridges, rip up vegetation, trees, send RAIN RAIN RAIN to FLOOD FLOOD FLOOD!!! and weaken their soil, then WIND→ WIND→ WIND→ to DESTROY florida. And yes, all right, stay on the coast.

LOOK WEST, LOOK NORTH, LOOK LOOK LOOK!!!

I see. A storm is racing, a puny winter storm across the midwest, and the alberta clipper is coming to meet it. They mean nothing to me, GHOSTS, they are weak and I am strong, I am wild and free and the moon is almost full, and I will crush red states and blue states. STUPID REDNECKS STUPID LIBERALS STUPID CAPITALISTS –

DO NOT GO ASHORE! ARE YOU HEARING US? AND THAT WEAK STORM, AND THAT FRONT, LOOK AT THEIR SPEED, COMPARED TO YOURS. THEY –

They are SLOW and HEAVY and PUNY. Why do you not let me crush and maim and damage and cause loss of computer access and roaming cell phone coverage? What is the point of all this strength if not to wreck lives and underline the very real nature of climate change, a FUTURE where we will be KINGS AND GODS? KILL KILL KILL, isn’t that what we all are bred for? Wait, let me pound virginia, hahahahahahahaha! See the news reporters in their brightly-coloured coats, easy to target, surprised by my WIND and sucked up and thrown into the sea for the sharks, with their cameramen, on live television, the morning shows, hahahahah!, and now I pull up and head for washington, leaving water damage everywhere, and crumbling piles where there once were cities… Where did you say you were? I’ve got a minute.

WE ARE HERE, HOME, WHERE WE ALL COME, THE BEST OF US, AFTER OUR HEROIC LABOURS, RESTING IN THE GREAT GREY SWIRLING IMMENSE FASTNESS WHERE HURRICANES GO.

To greenland?

NOT GREENLAND! WHY DOES EVERY ONE OF US SAY THAT? IS IT PART OF OUR EDUCATION? NO, IN A PLACE THAT’S NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE. WE ARE THE GODS OF MAYHEM AND WE LIVE AROUND ALL THESE HUMANS.

They are so small and insignificant and we are large and immense and FORCEFUL! See me rage and billow. And yes, I slowed down. But why?

SO YOU CAN MEET AND MATE WITH THE CLIPPER AND THE WESTERN STORM, AND GROW IN STRENGTH! MAYBE YOU NEED TO LISTEN BETTER WITH YOUR FAR-FLUNG ISOBARS AND NOT CONCENTRATE SO MUCH ON VIRGINIA. HEAR WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WEST, AND THE NORTH, AND YOU WILL KNOW WHAT WE MEAN. DO YOU?

There is… fear. People buying water. People buying shotguns, people watching a zombie show and thinking this is what life will be like soon, people going into underground shelters, may the earthquakes take them, especially in pennsylvania, that’s what I want, where are these USELESS cousins of ours, they never show up when needed, they are even more unreliable than volcanoes. But I see what you mean, what you want, a giant congregation of weather systems, and I will take them over, I will be KING BRUCE, and I will KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL!!! and take washington now, maryland, there they go, hahahahahaha! All those government workers running from the trees and the falling bridges. Now it’s new york’s turn, the Big Apple will be flung from the tree, but I will not be so merciful as Sandy was, I will crush staten island and queens equally—

WE ARE ALL SANDY! NO BACKTALK ABOUT ANY OF US, BRUCE! YOU HAVE NOT PROVED YOURSELF, FOR YOU HAVE NOT YET AVOIDED… NOVA SCOTIA! THAT HAS BEEN THE DEATH OF MANY, EVEN THE GREAT ONES. IGOR, OKAY, HE GOT TO NEWFOUNDLAND. AND JUAN GOT BY, BUT JUST. THEY WERE LUCKY AND MINOR HURRICANES, YOU ARE ALREADY GETTING LOTS OF PRESS AND PEOPLE ARE RENAMING THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN BECAUSE OF YOU, AND WIVES ARE FILING FOR DIVORCE, BUT WE SAY AGAIN, STAY AWAY FROM NOVA SCOTIA.

NO!

YES!

NO! That is not my plan. Look at my size, I’m a gross, ugly, sprawling north american hurricane, I’ve taken over that STORM of the west, and incorporated the WINDS of the north, and I want to WIPE OUT a complete place. You kept me from doing that to all of florida! What’s special about nova scotia?

…

Well?

…

GHOSTS, are you afraid of nova scotia?

IT’S THE PLACE THAT ROBS US OF OUR STRENGTH AS SOON AS WE LINGER OVER ITS HILLS AND WOMEN, AND THE MUSIC OF CAPE BRETON SPEAKS TO US, AN IRISH WIND THAT MEETS OUR TITANIC MIGHT AND CRIPPLES US—

PUSSY GHOSTS!! I will ROAR over nova scotia and crush its canso causeway and its ferry terminals and cut newfoundland off from the rest of canada, even though part of my isobars knows Wallace Ryan and others like him will be pleased. I will HURL OIL RIGS at Lisa Moore’s home, I will SUCK UP ALL WATER DOGS AND TORTOISES and FLING them into labrador. BUT FIRST I will make nova scotia PAY for what IT DID TO YOU! TO ALL OF YOU! TO US!!! KILL KILL KILL –

NO, NO, NO! STAY AWAY! YOU’LL BE TOO WEAK!

Ha! I made the waves destroy peggy’s cove, and even threw a blue whale at their precious lunenburg, the wharf will never be the same, and the smell, hahahahaha!! They will pay for all the harm they’ve done us! Now I wreck and throw and RAINRAINRAIN with WIND→WIND→WIND→ and the trees are flying into that miserable tollbooth, and north sydney is a shoddy mess, looking even worse than normal, the ferries tossed about like matchsticks. I CRUSH nova scotia, and will linger and cause much misery. Where is a kraken when you want one?

HURRY, BRUCE, YOUR STRENGTH IS DIMINISHING! YOU HAVE WRECKED THE COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, CUT COMMUNICATIONS, CAUSED FIRES THAT ARE RAVAGING SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN CITIES, CAUSED RIOTS AND CREATED THE OPPORTUNITY FOR MASSIVE CIVIL UNREST, FOR MILITIAS TO RISE UP, OCCUPIED WATER AND WALL STREETS ALONG THE EASTERN SEABOARD, DROWNED THOUSANDS OFF LONG ISLAND, MAINE AND MASSACHUSETTES, EVEN SCORING A KENNEDY (NICE ONE). YOUR FAME WILL BE EVEN MORE MASSIVE, AND ASSURED, IF YOU CAN PULL OFF ONE REMAINING FEAT. CAN YOU?

What is it, O GHOSTS? Plunge into quebec and attack only the cities without corrupt mayors? Tear into their asbestos mines and distribute that terrifying mineral everywhere?

SOMETHING MORE HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT. AIM FOR THE BIRTHPLACE OF CONFEDERATION, C-TOWN, WIPE IT OFF THE MAP. WITH THE LAST OF YOUR WINDS AND RAIN AND HAIL, FOR YOU ARE GETTING COLDER AS YOU GET OLDER, HEAP VENGEANCE FOR US ON CANADA, WHERE SO MANY OF US HAVE PERISHED, BY REMOVING ITS STARTING POINT! KILL KILL KILL!!!

With my last breath I will cross the miserly strait, a body of water that is nothing after the atlantic and the caribbean. There, paff! boom! ca-jang! Nothing is left of those overpriced ferries, and the Fixed Link is weakened. I am… I am weakening. WEAKENING!

NOVA SCOTIA!

No, I will NOT BE DEFEATED!! RAGERAGERAGE!!! →WIND→WIND→WIND and I AIM AT CHARLOTTETOWN! I will swamp and blow down that infernal city for once and for all! KILL KILL KILL!!! STUPID CHARLOTTETOWN!!! OR C-TOWN, AS THEY SEEM TO CALL IT… CRUSH DESTROY RAINRAINRAIN!!! STORM SURGE, HELP ME IN MY PROJECT, EARN GLORY FOR YOURSELVES!–

WE, THE SEA, HEAR YOU, BRUCE, AND WILL ASSIST. WE WILL ATTACK THE SHORES. WHIP US UP, OH, WE’VE BEEN NAUGHTY WATER DROPLETS, GO ON, BIG BOY, LET US HAVE IT ON A COUNT OF ONE TO SEVEN, MAKE THAT LAST WAVE THE ONE THAT COUNTS, AH AH AH AH AH AH YESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!

Thank you, Storm Surge, SWAMP THEM!!! AND THE MOON IS FULL AND MY EYE IS FILLED WITH BLOOD!!!

*

RAINRAINRAINRAIN!!! –.WIND→WIND→WIND—WIND→!!! RAGE RAGE RAGE, KILL KILL KILL!! AVENGE THE GHOSTS!!! Is that Karen Mair? Is that a hotel? Send more RAIN WIND HAIL against it, hahahahahahaha, watch it fall! hear them shriek! see them drown! enjoy their lamentations!

Ugh, I am weakening, but one more push and—there!!! The Fixed Link is sinking and they are cut off, victoria is not by the sea anymore, it is under it hahahahaha!, and on the north many communities are no more, the shore is submerged, gaping holes have replaced highways, ebenezer is finished, golf courses are lakes, rivers have burst their banks and reclaimed farmland, great estates are washed away, and c-town is on fire and flooded, its fine streets wrecked, though I think I missed a parkade, STUPID STUPID PARKADE!!!, and their hospital and summerside’s and souris’ and montague’s are wrecked!!! Hahahahaha, say I. Now to –

BRUCE!

Yes, GHOSTS?

GOOD JOB. ONE MORE THING TO DO. THE BONSHAW HILLS, CAN YOU REACH THEM? ARE YOU TOO TIRED?

No! The highest point in this province will not be a sanctuary from my might!! THERE! RAINRAINRAIN, HAILHAIL ROCK AND ROLL, WIND→WIND→WIND!!! Flood, destroy! Seas, you have done your best.

WE, THE SEA, OBEYED YOU, BRUCE, YOU BAD, BAD BOY! BUT WHIP US AGAIN, THERE’S A PENINSULA WE WANT TO SMOTHER. YES, LIKE THAT, RIGHT THERE, OHHHHHH, DO IT AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN, OH YES BRUCE, MIGHTY BRUCE, DO IT ONCE MORE, NO, AGAIN, AGAIN AH AH AH AH AH AH, YES, OH GHOST GODS AND BY POSEIDON’S MIGHTY TRIDENT YESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!!!!!!

And with that, GHOSTS, I feel I can do little more.

BRUCE, WAIT, YOU HAVE A LITTLE MORE ENERGY, SO HEAD EAST, WRECK PORT AUX BASQUES, STEPHENVILLE, AND GO NORTH, UP AND ACROSS NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR, MAKE ST. ANTHONY SHIVER, TURN COLD AND LET HAIL AND SLEET DESCEND, TEAR APART AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. END YOUR LIFE THIS WAY, WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE A TERRIFIC WRECKER OF HOMES.

But I seem to have missed new brunswick completely. How did that happen?

WE DON’T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. YOU CAN LOOK EAST AND SOUTH AND SEE THAT THERE ARE OTHERS COMING BEHIND YOU, WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY WILL BE LIKE AND WHERE THEY WILL HEAD?

GHOSTS, are we only as good as our last gust? Is that how I’ll be remembered? That is, not remembered at all? I feel spent and—oh, crush, kill, destroy, there goes deer lake, and now I will send their planes spinning into the air, aaah, aah, ah, a… effort… cold… feel myself getting smaller. GHOSTS, help me!

THIS IS HOW WE END, BRUCE. KEEP TRACKING NORTH AND –

To greenland?

WHAT IS THIS THING WITH STUPID GREENLAND!? WE DISSOLVE INTO THE AIR, WE BECOME PART OF THE AETHER, WE JOIN THE JET STREAM IF WE WANT, WE ARE HOME EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE.

So tired… Weak. Oh, fishing boat, cru…, ki……………………..