Tag: Short Story

Categories
Arts and Culture

Short Story: Deadline

Graphic by Semira Kosciuk

 Mackenzie is a fourth-year journalism student at Concordia University and copy editor at The Concordian. 

ELLA

Tick tock. Goosebumps pepper my flesh. Heat creeps up my ears. Chills travel down my spine. I can’t help but think my body is failing this unending race against the monster. My throat constricts. I can barely breathe, barely see through my anxiety. Tick tock.

The deadline looms over me. I run, run, run my fingers over the keyboard, blindly reaching into the depths of my mind for ideas that might satiate the beast. It’s become a mechanical system: I get up, do as much work as I can, and crumble from fatigue once the deadline has been fed. It lurks in the dark corners of my room when I decide to take a day off. It whispers in my ear when I’m finally doing something for me. It drains the fun from everything I do. 

Tick tock. It’s dinner time. The deadline is starving—I can feel it staring expectantly, encircling me, smoking me out of my passion. The house creaks under its weight. My bones strain under its pressure. 

My muscles are sore from the fight, but I need to get writing before it eats me alive. I can feel it waiting for me to nod off, ready to pounce the second I lower my guard. Even my laptop is heavy-breathing in empathy. Feed the deadline—that’s all I have to do. The clock is tick, tick, tocking so loud while my fingers are tap, tap, tapping viciously.

The shadows snuff out the setting sun, my desk lamp barely holding the fort. The deadline sneaks toward me as I frantically type. I don’t have much time left. My fingers slide on the trackpad, shaking like it’s the epitome of winter. The deadline’s cold breath down my neck makes me shiver. I freeze. Squeeze my eyes shut. I can feel its anticipation.

Tap.

“Submit.”

My muscles relax all at once as the deadline slinks away, happily fed.

ADALINE

I flinch at Ella’s visceral reaction. Her disgust and mistrust makes me want to slink back into the shadows. The clock ticks insistently, and she winces at every passing minute. I try to get closer to help ease the tension in her shoulders, but the hair rises on the back of her neck like hostile spears aimed right at me.

I sigh. I hate what people have turned me into. I hate how they disfigured my name over time. Adaline. I miss hearing people call me that, but now they curse at the “freaking Deadline.” They write down my birthdate in their calendars and cross out the days. I used to think they were excited to meet me, but I know now that was naive—they’re dreading the day.

Ella’s fingers dance across her keyboard. They miss a beat here and there, but still give it their all. She’s such a talented writer. I can’t wait to read what she wrote. I peek over her shoulder, but she shifts in her seat and anxiously looks around. 

My heart skips a beat. She can feel me. Waves of joy crash over me, washing away the self-doubt and self-hatred. I step closer, craving her friendship. I should introduce myself. “Adaline,” I whisper in her ear. 

She shivers violently. Squeezing her eyes shut, she presses “Submit” and a cannonball is shot right to my stomach. I stumble backwards, my eyes tearing up. I watch her melt in her chair as I melt into the wall. 

Ella met her Deadline, and now she wants nothing more to do with it.

Categories
Student Life

A reckless journey to freedom

They are young, and they escaped with nothing to lose and everything to gain

We were only 14 years old, living in a group home in the deserted mining town of Gardnerville, Nevada.

My mother left Nelson because he has always been a drunk. She left when I was only two years old. Whenever I asked about her, Nelson never gave me a straight answer. He was either too drunk to recall or too hurt to admit that he had no idea where she was. Nelson promised he would stop drinking after she left. But he never even tried. My mother didn’t bother to take me with her. She left me with his drunken madness.

I remember the unbearable feeling of coming home after school to our one-bedroom apartment on Melrose Avenue. Opening the door and smelling a strong stench reeking of piss and cheap beer with Nelson lying on the mattress. He would often piss himself in his sleep because he was too drunk or unconscious to make his way to the bathroom. He snored to the sound of indistinct chatter coming from the television, the soundtrack of my afternoons.

My room had a blue blanket on the floor with a picture of my mother hung up on the wall. She had gorgeous long brown curly hair with big hazel eyes. She left behind a necklace that hung over the picture. It was a gold chain with a dolphin pendant. I kept it in case she ever came back for it.

One night, when I was only eight, I woke up to the sound of heavy knocks on the door. A social worker and the police took me away from Nelson and arrested him. I haven’t seen him since. I packed the picture, the necklace and a blanket in a plastic bag and left. They brought me to a place called a group home. It felt like constantly living at school. I was always with a bunch of different kids, and I had to share everything with them. The people taking care of us would come and go. Some were nice. Others were miserable and wanted us to be miserable too. It’s weird growing up with strangers that you’re supposed to consider family.

Joey got there a year later, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I found out that his mother was a crack addict and his father was serving time for dealing drugs. All Joey wanted was to find his younger brother, Jesse. Social workers separated them and sent his brother to another group home. Jesse was all he would talk about. “I have to protect my baby brother. I have to be there for him. I’m all he’s got,” Joey would shout out whenever he got upset with someone. He tried running away several times, but the police would always track him down. They even took his shoes so he wouldn’t run away again.

This time though, we ran away together.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I called out to Joey. “The cops are searching for us. It’s a small fucking town, we need to jet.” After months of planning and waiting for Joey to get his old shoes back, we finally escaped the group home one afternoon. I had agreed to help Joey find his baby brother.

“Fuck the cops and fuck this system. Have a beer,” Joey said as he passed me the Rolling Stone he had just stolen from a 7/11.

Joey and I headed straight to the Gardnerville bus station.

Our plan was to head to Portland. Word was that the social service people took his little brother Jesse there. I didn’t care where we went. I had nowhere to go, nothing to lose and everything to gain. I was free and lonely as hell. Freedom and loneliness combined make way for a fascinating yet destructive adventure.

All I wanted was to get the hell out of this town and never look back. The only belongings I took were the picture of my mother and her gold necklace. I hoped to find her and prove I was nothing like Nelson and that I was worthy of her love.

While waiting for the Greyhound bus, I realized how sad bus stations can be. When lost and broken souls like mine want to escape, the first place they run to is the nearest bus terminal. Before we left, I grabbed a quarter and headed towards a payphone. I took a note out of my pocket. I could hear my heart jumping out of my chest. I had a phone call to make.

[To be continued…]

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Categories
Student Life

A night in the life of a Barfly

A creative storytelling series by Concordia students

My interest in Barfly started this past summer when I was first discovering new bars in Montreal by myself. At a bar called Grumpy’s, I had a funny conversation with two strangers, who were brother and sister, about the definition of a barfly. Barfly (noun): a person who spends too much time drinking in bars. The brother recommended that I visit Barfly at least once, hailing it as the best dive bar in the city.

I hadn’t planned on going to Barfly this Saturday night. Originally, I was headed off to my friend Sarina’s house, but it turns out I had mixed up the dates of her birthday party, so I made new plans. Earlier that week, I had seen a Facebook event for two bands who would be playing that night. Excited to hear some good live music, I decided to check out Barfly for a spontaneous rock-and-roll adventure.

I got on a bus in front of St-Laurent metro and as I got off, I  immediately spotted the bar right across the street. Not sure what to expect, I opened the door and went to sit in the middle of the bar. To my surprise, my Facebook friend Steve, who was playing drums that night, was sitting right beside me. He didn’t recognize me until I pulled out a pen from my purse and started drawing a picture of Pennywise the clown. After awhile, I noticed that there was another person engaged in creative work.

Across from me, there was a bearded man writing and drawing in a sketchbook. Even though we never spoke a word to each other the entire night, seeing this like-minded individual made me feel less weird. I was happy to be sitting next to Steve since he always has interesting stories to share and he appreciates my talent as a visual artist. We talked about our addiction to tattoos and where he got the fork-shaped piece of jewelry that he was wearing.

The funniest part of the night was when my English teacher, who taught me short fiction two years ago, showed up. He commented that he knew the author of the poetry book I was reading. It never ceases to surprise me how small social circles are in Montreal. When the second band of the night started playing, a quirky and drunk old man got up on stage and started dancing. When he got too carried away, his lady friend grabbed him off the stage and forced him to sit down. There was a moment when time seemed to slow down. I stopped watching the stage and looked around at the crowd of people who were nodding their heads along with the rhythm of the music.

I felt like a fly on the wall, quietly observing the strange mix of people around me. Even though I was probably the youngest person at the bar, I felt a sense of belonging to this group of strangers who wouldn’t judge me. Everyone gathered there that night was longing for an  alcoholic escape from the stresses of everyday life like me. At midnight, I decided to start heading home. I walked out into the night and spotted the drunk old man outside with his pants down peeing into the wind. A couple laughed at his exposed privates as they passed by.

Spontaneous adventures like this night are important because they remind me that I can still have fun by myself. I seek comfort in going to bars alone to renew my sense of independence. Going to Barfly was a fun night filled with good music and quirky individuals.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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