#“safe and warm” <== based off once upon a december and has songs that fit that energy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dreamiesdotcom · 4 years ago

Text

slow | n.jm, l.hc

summary: Jaemin likes some things slow — slowly walking from your houses to school, slowly drinking warm drinks, slowly putting puzzle pieces together, slowly dancing to Jisung's upbeat playlist, slowly baring yourselves of masks, slowly learning to trust — but slowly falling in love, he's not very sure.

word count: 2563

a/n: this is based off this post of mine (as per @flirtyhyuck 's request) and im here to say that im sorry this wasnt supposed to see the light of day

"Can you please tell Jeno to tell his best friend to stop staring at mine?" Jaemin almost growls, pulling your chair over nearer to him. You whine a little at being closer to the scent of his coffee, scrunching your nose up and pulling away. He gasps at the rejection but you smile at him and reach for his hands instead. He rolls his eyes and faces Renjun, "Please."

"Na, you know I don't talk to people. I'm allergic." Renjun grumbles. "Talk to Jisung instead, he's been hanging out with the music kid for a project."

"He's older than you, and he has a name," Jisung grimaces over a cup of hot chocolate. "His name is Mark. Mark Lee."

"See?" Renjun shrugs as if to prove a point. "He even knows his 'name'."

"But this is so unfair!" comes the inevitable whine from the younger. "Chenle is friends with Hyuck-hyung!"

"Chenle is friends with everyone. Whatever, one of you needs to do it." Jaemin sighs, turning his chair to face you. He raises a brow, "What're you thinking?"

Your hand still loosely wraps around his, and he slowly entwines them together.

Warm. It's warm like a cup of whatever the hell it is Na Jaemin is drinking. What were you thinking, though? A while ago, there was a lot — random numbers, other subjects, an article you read yesterday, the way Jisung's eyes shined at the mention of Mark. Right now, there's only one; Don't catch feelings.

Those thoughts are regular and they were haunting. These days, they're not as incessant as the past few months, but they still come and they are unbelievably strong — don't catch feelings. Something tells you that it's too late and you already did. Something tells you that you are stupid.

But, what if things worked, right? He's soft and kind and he's lovely. You fit in a lot of things and you disagree in some but that's just perfectly balanced, isn't it? He won't hurt you — oh, how he won't do that. He never will. Na Jaemin, this magical boy — what if?

"Damn, Lee Donghyuck is really in love with you," someone chimes loudly, and you don't even need to see who's rushing to your table before Jisung groans in disdain and makes space for this odd friend. Chenle makes a vague motion, asking people to look away. "He talked my ear off about how pretty you looked while painting at Art's class. He's whipped."

What if, huh? You turn away from the idea with a smile. Don't be silly...

"No, he's not, Chenle." You reply to the boy but keep your eyes at Jaemin, smiling still. "I wasn't thinking about anything. That was me spacing out."

Jaemin rolls his eyes again, seemingly moodier than usual. His soft giggle later makes you laugh, though. Oh, how weak this boy was. How weak he became when someone smiled at him. Or maybe, only when a specific someone does it.

"What do you mean 'No he's not, Chenle'?" The brat refuses to get the hint and live him down. He makes a quick show of turning around to the other side to check Lee Donghyuck and his friends' table, then pointing at them, "He's staring at you."

"He's not!" You hiss, glaring at the people who are either eavesdropping or watching or worse, both.

"Is, though." Jisung shrugs. "I bet he writes you love songs."

"Does not!" you glare at the duo, begs Jaemin through your eyes to tell them to stop. Unfortunately, Jaemin is already gushing at the two. You stomp your feet to get their attention, "We don't even know each other!"

And that was a lie. Renjun's eyes read those words, he must've known. He probably knew about the accidental bumping into each other at the playground, or the awkward laughs you two share at the convenience store; maybe he saw him helping you with Mathematics at the library, or he stumbled upon most of your accidental meetings; those were by coincidence, right? They had to be. Renjun's eyes also read another set of words: Don't break his heart.

But how can you not? You weren't in love with him. You were in love with somebody else, and you wished that the sunshine boy didn't adore you like that. Why does Renjun care about Hyuck? They haven't even spoken to each other. You sigh, and at that very moment, you hear the door open and close. Donghyuck and his friends left. The room mourns the lack of the warmth of their muffled laughter.

"You know what, I'll just go see Lee Donghyuck." You huff your cheeks, palms slamming on either side of the table. Jaemin startles, tries to speak, but you're already cutting him off with a much more determined gaze.

"I have his number from when Chenle got it for me. I'll go home, change clothes, ask him to meet up and I'll prove you guys wrong." you stand up, tearing away from his stare. "It'll drive me crazy if I don't."

"But we—" he bites back a sigh, but you notice the way his hands attempted to reach up and pull you back down to your chair. It seemed like a quiet plead to hang around. He smiles, "Do you need a ride?"

That day you told him no, and you pinched his cheeks instead of your usual kind of goodbye; that one where you pout and tug at his sleeves, wishing for fifteen more minutes without words but only your eyes, knowing you'd meet each other tomorrow but not quite wanting to even part.

If Jaemin knew that it will be the moment where everything begins to change, he knows he would have held you tight and never let you go.

You officially got together with Donghyuck on the 24th of December. Jaemin isn't interested in knowing how it happened, but he briefly remembers the next few days after that: everyone talking about Donghyuck's sweet voice, Mark and Jeno playing the guitar, and a kiss under a mistletoe. Renjun and Jisung gave him as many sweets as they could manage to find, though they quickly realized that he isn't gonna give up on his little role of a boy not broken. Chenle was the one who talked him down, smacked his head, hugged him tight, and told him to snap out of it.

It was sure as hell disrespectful and he got an earful after that, but it did help Jaemin. At that moment, there was a silent agreement between the three that it was all that mattered: Jaemin accepted the pain and knew that he wasn't alone in all of this.

Heartbreak felt bitter and it wasn't kind, but Jaemin knew that much. Chenle's been saying those things to him for a while now — especially if it's because of someone you're close to. Even more if you haven't confessed yet, hyung. Damn it. It hurts so much — he said so many times Jaemin couldn't bother count. He never learned this, though, and he never even thought that he'd be in this situation: right now, he should be making a homework. Right now, he just realized that a heartbreak is even more extremely cruel if you never even realized that you had feelings until the moment you're hurting.

He looks down on his open notebook, glares at the unanswered question before ultimately giving up. Beside him, Renjun lost himself in a book and Chenle fell asleep. He searches for Jisung only to find him with a very familiar-looking boy — Mark Lee — shyly talking behind a bookshelf. Jaemin grits his teeth and wonders what the hell it is that this group has that he keeps losing his friends to them.

Sometimes, Jaemin falls into the ways of an escapist, as Renjun said once. He and his big words were normal. What's not normal is his daydream — it wasn't the two of you and your friends in Neverland, and it wasn't his imagination of how future plans would unfold — because sometimes he tends to do that, imagine how things would go. Right now, he's not thinking of that sleepover at Chenle's. He's not drinking up the image of a long, aimless drive (that will certainly happen. Jisung won't allow it not to happen), stargazing and exchanging theories on extraterrestrial life (that will definitely happen once again, because of Jisung as well, but now with the help of Renjun). His daydreams center on rain clouds today.

In his mind, you're both in some comforting cottage in the woods and there's a thunderstorm. The scent of petrichor and deep wood mixes with a calm and cozy atmosphere. You're tucked safely in his arms and he has you all to himself; right now, in his mind, he can be as selfish as possible. You're talking and laughing over sweet little nothings, and Jaemin has to catch himself a little so that even if he continues to fall, it wouldn't be as fast. He likes some things slow. He likes soaking up certain moments just as much as he likes the other events' turbulence. With you, he loved everything slow.

Slowly walking from your houses to school. Slowly drinking warm drinks. Slowly putting puzzle pieces together. Slowly dancing to Jisung's upbeat playlist. Slowly baring yourselves of masks. Slowly learning to trust.

Slowly falling in love, he's not very sure. More often than not, he would ask himself in his mind: 'Would it all be different if I fell in love faster?'

Maybe there were some things that needed to be rushed. Some things that needed to be instantaneous. He laughs inside his mind and asks again, 'Can this heartbreak be quicker, then?'

The false memory is ruined.

Jaemin comes back down to reality at the scent of roses. His shoulders ache a little from leaning at the lockers, so he stands properly and meets your confused expression. Roses. Chocolates. Letters. You. You look awfully flustered and the pink hue in your cheeks becomes bolder and bolder each phrase your eyes read. Jaemin smirks and takes a peek.

I don't know what went through my head or whatever hopeless romantic spirit decided to posses me today, but I love you. And I miss you. Let's have a date?

Cheesy. His grin grows wider but he promises himself that it's the last. He won't look at you so lovingly again. He won't feel like this anymore. Donghyuck is bratty and headstrong but he was kind and he cherished you, ready to give you the world — Jaemin finds that he can do that, too. Except that it's Donghyuck whom you intensely love. He promises himself that he'll get over you but only because he knew that he's bad at promises.

"Against Hyuck?" he drawls as if to make a joke. His laugh sounded way too wounded for it to be funny, though, and he leans to the lockers again because his knees buckle at your gaze, the one that slowly makes him melt all the damn time. "There was never really a chance for me, huh?"

He thinks you'd run away and go as far as possible from him from then on. He thinks you should — he implied that he liked you. He implied that he wanted a chance. He implied that he hoped for it. When you didn't do anything but tear your eyes away from the lovely note, he assumed you've taken it as a joke, that you were dense — that you were dense again. Instead, you tilted your head to him, "This is where it gets painful."

He aches to ask what it is that you meant, but he found that he couldn't speak. He's tongue-tied and he couldn't move, couldn't find the right words to say. It's as if his ability to make a sound was stolen from him. He's unaware of the world because all he can see is tender gazes and all that he can listen to is a gentle voice, then the words he never thought he'd hear — you were staring at him and then you sighed.

"You did, once."

A series of unexpected events have already unfolded, but this probably was one of the top three. He doesn't know where he gets the strength, but he stands straight again. He tears all the what if's and what could've been's and what will never be away for this moment, and he doesn't dwell on the fact that you loved him. That there was a chance. That he completely missed that chance because he was so afraid, so scared of falling in love and ruining all that you both have slowly built together. He doesn't understand how he even got to crack up at that realization, but he does — "And that was a perfect exchange. Jisung would love that."

You wink at him in quick humor, but you laugh at him with unrest, "Why Jisung?"

"He's into this kind of thing these days." He shrugs. "Speaking of, isn't it weird how Jisung all so suddenly likes sappy movies? Is he going through something?"

"He hasn't said anything. Maybe he's not yet ready to share with the class, Jaemin." You reply, smirking, "Are you playing detective, or are you nosy?"

"I'm concerned." He lights flicks your forehead. You giggle as he does that, eyes fluttering shut, and his heart stings again. When you open them, he's staring at you.

The look in your eyes screamed of honesty and pure truth. Jaemin understands, he always does. And he knows too, he knows that you're aware as well. He knows that you saw the same sincerity in his eyes and you knew that every single bit of that intense moment was true. At that, he swings an arm at your shoulders and led the two of you to the exit, opening a talk about your other friends and plans of meeting at 12 pm at the usual for lunch, then he cracks a joke, and you genuinely chuckle.

"I used to daydream about us," used to be said to prompt a laugh. On a normal day, that was the joke that makes you fall over and not the multiple bizarre versions of "Why did the chicken cross the road?". On a normal day, you two would talk hours and hours about daydreaming about each other, some sappy and some downright comedy. On a normal day, that's the topic you both center around as you walk your way to your other friends.

Today wasn't a normal day, though, because today you shine under the sun brighter than others, and you look very stunning in yellow. Today wasn't a normal day because you didn't take the normal route, instead, you made a turn to bid someone a quick farewell. Today, "Do you think there's another world where we're together?" doesn't feel like a question elicited from Renjun's multiverse theories and "If you knew, would you try?" isn't just a verse from Jisung's surprising secret stash of self-written poetry. Today, "You were a dream that shined brightly above me and just like the fate of a gazer and a star, you are so far from my reach" isn't just something he read out of the book Chenle reads.

Today, Jaemin watches you fall in Donghyuck's arms like it was all you were meant to do, and his heart breaks.

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rjmorrisonuniverse-blog · 5 years ago

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Three Days To Animal

He has to make it to the lake. He has to make it a dozen city blocks to the lake. Go southbound afoot. Easier said than done. A phrase beats his cranial drum - "three days to animal"... one look at his entrance door would hint at this dark truth. Two sturdy chain locks. The eerie phrase was coined to describe what would happen to humanity once deprived of potable water for 72 hours and beyond. Let us take it farther; no water, very little food, all hydro knocked out across the world grid for seven days and counting, banking systems fully crashed, money useless, humanity disconnected but for small pockets of family and friendship who have banded together... if three days to animal became a full week, what then?

He has to escape the immediate madness of his high-rise apartment building, now a potential and literal death trap. Through the Sheetrock and that fire-rated metal-clad entrance door, the wails of doom paint a hallway, thirty floors stacked. Smoke detectors taking turns on the cry, too, as various neighbors attempt to heat their space with small controlled fires. His sixty year old ears have heard the beauty of children in laughter, a loon calling out across morning's misty lake, his departed wife in the throes of lovemaking, rest her fortunate soul not to be alive for this particular winter solstice. Now his ears are starved for contact with his son and daughter, out there somewhere in the meltdown of society and hundreds of miles across a great lake. He has to make it to the lake.

Several friends and neighbors have knocked upon his door since the predicted but unthinkable came to pass. NASA had confirmed in 2011 that the following year was sure to be one of high solar flare activity. These, at first calm in tone statements, had fit like a puzzle piece into the amped up fear mongering about Mayan calendar end times with that alarmingly specific final date of December 21, 2012. As the new year rolled past another highly anticipated midnight of Gregorian definition, along with it came the increasing awareness that many of the signposts were actually happening. Europe had been blitzed with a lethal winter far out of the ordinary. The polar ice masses were melting and falling away even faster than the most strident warnings predicted. Terrifying tornadic super storms had been tearing up the weather hardened parts of North America in new vicious ways. Mother Earth seemed to grow a belly of lethal intentions as earthquakes and tsunamis had begun to meet the wrathful sky, to join the atonal encompassing doom song. This was just the natural anomaly warning knell. What of society?

Lost amid the tweets and Facebook status updates, the trolling and scrolling, porn surfing and hacking, humanity had been equally stormy. Tyrants being overthrown by pissed off citizenry in the streets; that should have been a good thing. One by one they began to topple as the vast interconnected cyber-vascular world-heart thumped to a new rhythm, but far too many weren't noticing. Too many were contented in their daily routines. It was a me-first mirror gazing that supported the great undoing. As 2011's warnings grew strident under the weight of gravitas from increasingly in-the-know voices, it was a mere pittance of humanity that took note and began to prepare. Of those preparing, most were painted as whack jobs in the mass media; either trying to profit from the looming uncertainty or spun out on baseless what-ifs. Here, however, in the white knuckle now, he has been caught with pants down and apathy up. No larder. No stock of drinking water. In a life filled with control measures and guiding bodies of governance, so quickly and thoroughly did the matrix threads come loose.

This story's protagonist, the ever pragmatic sixty year old Glen Loach, had entered 2012 with a niggling concern that grew throughout a prematurely warm Spring and swampy lethal heatwave Summer. His home is Toronto, an alpha city, an economic engine, a multicultural how-to model, and a place not high up on the list of world consciousness where alleged alpha cities are listed, analyzed, rated. Now then, as everything he can hear coming through slightly opened windows is a horror wash of human suffering and property damage, Glen knows he must get to the lake. He is parched, dizzy, ravenous, desperate, cold. The electric baseboard heater that used to overdo itself unless he fiddled with the thermostat, now a useless wall attachment. It had taken two days for his one bedroom apartment to cool down into the discomfort zone. By day three he was wearing layers; t-shirt, sweater, winter jacket. Beneath his casual slacks, he wore white long johns and doubled up wool socks.

When he ran out of water and had drunk the toilet tank and bowl dry, Glen began to spend more time staring out at the city through a large picture window in the living room, which his mind-voice had begun to call a "dying room"... by day five he was witnessing acts of raw violence on Sherbourne street as once polite Canadians devolved into pure survival instinct. Evidently law enforcement had all but vanished. "Katrina, my ass" Glen croaked into the window pane as he watched three men beat down and unmercifully head-kick a fellow citizen. They stomped him to death and took his backpack. Not a cop in sight. They were all with their families now. "Jobs" were no longer jobs. Glen cursed himself for having no batteries in the drawer; an old AM/FM portable radio would sit mute during the endless hour crawl of not knowing. Up and down the building's halls during day one of null electricity, not a person owned a portable battery powered radio; such was the dependance upon wall sockets and the holy internet. There are a lot of seniors in this housing complex, and few of them were going to venture forth into the suddenly lit urban fuse with its sirens and disjointed honking horns en masse.

This day, the one that compels him to defeat primal fear so that he can intend to strike out toward the waterfront, has him a nervous wreck. He paces the apartment and tries to ignore shouts from the hallway, various fists pounding on doors, the cries of names once familiar and meaningful but now emptied. Without the overpowering shadow of 2012's forecasted calamity, would a week-long global blackout carry this apocalyptic taint? Would he have been watching night times aglow with the various burning buildings and cars that he could see from his tenth floor perch? The body of a stomped-dead man would not have lain ignored in the street, would it? Utter shock had crippled the self anointed kings of a world filled with life, once the loudly proclaimed became fact. Glen was cut off and had no way to know what was taking place in other locations. Based on the endless terror of what he could see and hear in a once safe city, after just a week, it wasn't a stretch to imagine the scale of undoing on a global stage.

There would be a collapse of "government", of course. So-called leaders would be hunkered down in their apocalypse bunkers, as varied and effective as each nation's preparation and the fiscal attentiveness to it. Chiefs of Staff, military might, emergency laws; how to know what was happening? It shocked Glen to the guts just how quickly his entire perceived world collapsed inwardly, leaving only a shaky starving thirsting widower to stare with raccoon eyes through the protective glass of a window. There were no dispensers of information, now. No talking heads on the flat screen to tell him what to wear tomorrow, how to find food, which locations might provide emergency shelter... no people came knocking with helpful words. Sirens wailed and went silent after three long days. Satellites in orbit had been deep fried. Humanity's rigid reliance upon its technology created a perfect brutal confluence. Glen has never been a man of religious faith, and therefore his isolation is absolute during the last hours of this unraveling coil. Early on when huddling in the pitch dark hallway with a few neighbors and their candle dancing shadows, the consensus was to stay put. Sooner than later this would be fixed. Someone would show up. Building management didn't live there but surely it was just a matter of time before help and information arrived... wrong. A lot of people left, took their chances on the crazy fear filled streets. Some returned to say it again - "stay where you are, it is insanity out there."

He is down to a couple of tins of kidney beans, some soda crackers, croutons, sweet mix pickles with the juice already drained... the trending of winters in his city has been one of diminished snowfall, and here in the disastrous embraces of December 2012 his balcony is dry as a bone. No melting flakes for drinking water, sir. Bad luck for you that the power grid was destroyed when you were just about to go grocery shopping, sir. Glen has considered attempting to capture a pigeon, for the protein, but they are now not landing where they did for a decade in their usual taunting shitting way. He is dying and feels mocked in the act. So, to the lake. Or death. How will he fare? What form of animalistic madness waits out there in those city blocks that separate him from open drinkable water?

Oh, to be the strapping man of his younger years. Of the open violence now gripping his metropolis and indeed the world entire, how much of it was based on survival? How much stemmed from the blown open fabric of law, control, deterrence? There lived the actual terror ; that Glen's belief in his fellow man as a generally decent creature could be so wrong. That, given the opportunity and enough catalyzing fear, blood would so easily flow, buildings would burn, a species rife with its collective incompleteness of spirit would so devour itself. Indeed, the proof had been in the rancid pudding all through the summer months of 2012, when cities around the planet reported extreme spikes in criminal behavior. It had been Glen's consistently vocalized opinion and fear that the Mayan foretold apocalypse was to be an emotion fuelled prophecy born from the minority. The loud minority. The criminal, primeval, fearful, the predatory, despicable minority. Aside from they, also the people of weaknesses. They who would binge on their drug of choice to cope with escalating worry. An irony not lost on this man who relies upon the sweetened sting of whisky. That potent energy available to each human mind, once collected amplified and siphoned, tick tock tick tock.

To risk death in order to clutch at continued life, or to stay in these walls until it no longer matters? It has to be the choice of life. He has children and grandchildren, siblings and their children, friendships, love, so many reasons not to perish in this apartment. It is possible, isn't it?, that out there in the streets he might find pockets of sanity. There may be groups of people holed up in supermarkets, public buildings, doing their best to formulate a plan. Glen shivers and decides that he must leave at first morning light. He pulls a small wooden stool closer to the living room window and watches the still surreal sight of a Milky Way twinkling its belt across downtown Toronto's firmament.

Before attempting "sleep", he visits his face in the bathroom mirror. How many movies feature a bravura acting mirror scene? Mickey Rourke in "Barfly" comes to mind as Glen sets a candle on a dish down upon the vanity top. The amber contortion of his face, old beyond those sixty years, seems to set him up for a release of the tears that have remained mostly dammed. If he thinks about rejoining his potently missed wife, his beloved Pauline who succumbed to cancer after a long battle, then it is within that seething cauldron of inexpressible all-at-once where the dam may fail. Not a day goes by without the empty chamber in his chest reminding him that only his family keeps him here. He has watched the world change. He has been a "peacekeeper" for his country, stationed in a landscape of dirt and the dirt poor, where concealed bombs and sniper attacks took their awful toll. Glen suffers multiple forms of stress, not the least of which being a sense of ultra dislocation. Retired from the forces, retired against his will from an easy loving marriage, and now retired from a world that made at least some form of sense when he was younger.

He looks at his unremarkable face in the flame lit mirror. A shock of white wiry hair emulates the letter 'u' in a horizontal band just above his ears, down to the neck, bald and smooth on top from the ripe old age of 40. His eyebrows are unruly caterpillars, also white. The nose is Walter Matthau's but crisscrossed by the capillaries of a cope drinker, though it must be said that Glen is a gentle drinker. A private one, too. His glasses of Southern Comfort are just that; comfort. His start time, usually a mid-afternoon depending on the mood of a day's heart, issues forth a slow slide into numbness. It is then that his exhausted eyes may deal with CNN, CBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, BBC, and all the other alphabet pimps. Now in the half dark, sick and sober, Glen examines his prodigious walrus mustache which hasn't kept pace with the whitening of other hair, then he feels the latest stab of "I sure could use a drink"... his mind strays to the collective madness that must be gripping a world of addicts now deprived of their fixes. "We were addicted to hydro, too" he speaks to the deadened light fixture above a mirror he can no longer handle.

Glen moves his pear shaped body to the toilet and marvels that he can still produce urine, though it is a mere trickle. The building has grown increasingly quiet and he considers that others, like him, have decided to take their chances outdoors. It was becoming evident that the lights, heat, and water were not coming back on. His Christmas had been most emphatically cancelled. His last evening in this his shelter of quiet grieving and coping, December 28 of a fated 2012. As she shuffles by candlelight to his mess of a bed, Glen worries about leaving the apartment building at a time when his family members might be arriving to find him. He will write a note in the morning, tape it to the door, pray that everyone is alive and stays where they are. He feels old and used up beyond his years, and therefore feels more the expendable one.

In bed, the room so dark with no bleed of city light, Glen's mind does what it has been doing for days... it becomes a worm. It tunnels its way through the same thought patterns, all of them unfinished and colliding overlapping interrupting. What do we do with a blameless catastrophe? Being angry with cancer cells is like being angry with a sun going through natural cycles of flare activity. Like being pissed off at the planet for the way it wiped out two million more Japanese citizens during the summer of the final year. An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown, a domino horror story so inanimate and indifferent as the fragile species daring to play custodian to Earth suffers every consequence. She was so at peace when she died. He held her hand and she went "into" the flowers of the oil painting across from that final bed. For two years he had witnessed the inward vacuuming of her physical beauty, replaced equally with something just as lovely. Pauline's eyes and their fire, never changed. Fear took hold at times but she retained the same strength that had guided them through parenting and the challenges of being married to a military man who spent too much time away from home. That was the key word; "home". Her body withered, her face became a wrinkled mask of itself, but home never left her eyes. "I . Am. Going into the flowers..." her last utterance.

When Pauline's body released her true self, Glen "died" too. He was replaced by a body double and a similar but altered soul. Unlike so many, too many, he was loved and supported by both blood and non-blood family. It meant the world, but the world was horribly different. Routine having played such a role in his life, this was Glen's post Pauline definition of living : the numbed ritualistic movements of a day whose name no longer mattered. The liquor store. The sad hours spent reading, preparing, accepting the feeling that he would not be much longer for this world even though his health had always been excellent despite a two decade need for alcohol. That it would come to pass in such a long-predicted preposterous way...

I will rise with the first light. Take my chances, see what happens, get to water, take it a step and a block at a time.

It becomes his deepest sleep in a week. Wearing a coat and beneath every available blanket, not even his snoring will intrude. His last thoughts revolve around the bizarre feeling of liberation that arrives with calamity beyond control.

Glen Loach awakens gradually. The weight of life is there waiting for him, sitting squarely on his chest, and yet now a clarity permeates his upset world. His thickly muscled legs swing free of the bed and he hoists his pear shaped torso to a standing position by gripping a nearby window sill. He may not look it, but Glen is a powerful man even at sixty ripened years. That stout midsection and his general demeanor carries a history of surprise. Those who sized him up, made visual assumptions, then challenged him...

His tongue is a raspy stick. To the balcony he shuffles where he opens a can of kidney beans for breakfast, breathing through his mouth as he chews. The sun will be rising up through a dense curtain of shapeless cloud cover. He hears very little out there, and the hallway seems muted as well. Sitting on the edge of a sofa cushion, slowly scooping beans from a can, grateful for the juice even as it causes him to retch, Glen senses that he will be meeting up with his beloved Pauline soon. He may be thirsty and exhausted beyond describing, but there has been a greater thirst spanning the long years without his partner.

He spoons the last portion of disgusting kidney beans into his mouth and aches for a hot shower. It is remarkable how many years have passed since the loss of his wife, and also how far from his military tidiness and preparedness he has fallen. The flashlight contains three half dead D cell batteries. There are no others in the apartment and he must use the torch judiciously; ten years ago Glen would have kept extras on hand. Pauline would have made doubly sure of it, though he can count on the fingers of one mitt how many of these long lasting power outages... ah, but this one is different. His plan for the day is to reach the lake unscathed, fill a large plastic jug with water, and hopefully find other citizens who haven't regressed to a primal state of being. If he can fill a canvas shopping bag with food items, anywhere it can safely happen, that will be enormous. The word "safely" brings his thoughts around to the Browning.

Glen unlocks a hallway storage closet door, then a small metal safe within. He removes another tin box, unlocks it, and retrieves his old service pistol along with a single 13-round magazine. Preparedness; what he wouldn't give now for a second ammo clip. At the dining room table he arms his weapon, inspects it as he has done countless times. Popular with military personnel the world over since its introduction in 1935, this is a Browning Hi-Power. A single-action 9mm handgun that holds 13 rounds and is lethal up to 50 metres. Heavy of trigger, "single-action" means that the hammer must be manually cocked prior to firing. In combat situations, or with Glen's example as a peacekeeper stationed in a hostile environment, it was typical to keep the hammer cocked and the safety catch on.

This Browning has never been fired in the field. He was an expert shot on practice ranges, but had been fortunate not to require the weapon during active duty despite heavy casualties to Canadian forces in Afghanistan before and leading up to his retirement. Glen holds the ever familiar grip and stares down at the gun barrel. That dull metal has been on the inside of his mouth, exactly once. After a particularly pitiful night of drinking, dreading that empty bed, reeling anew from his children lecturing him across the telephone miles that he must leave Toronto and join them in upstate New York, that there were no reasons to stay... Glen had considered the unthinkable. Even flushed with whisky and its perverse dark logic, he knew that suicide must be a cardinal sin. Without those ever valid reasons to continue living and coping, his children and grandchildren, it would still amount to a craven disregard for the miracle-gift of life... should he bust a cap on himself...

He tucks the pistol into his jacket's inside pocket, zips it shut, sighs a lifetime's worth. How will he think of that trigger in a few more days? When does the offing of oneself become justifiable? Over a million souls per year exercise that most drastic option, most of them male. As balanced as Glen likes to think himself to be, in a world so alienating to his age bracket, he could easily opt out if not for the loves in his life. If it hurts, why stay? The kidney beans churn in his belly and for a few minutes it feels like he might need to vomit. It has been days since his last bowel movement, and that was taken into a dry toilet bowl. The bathroom's door remains closed for obvious and necessary reasons. The toothpaste and toothbrush have been in the kitchen; Glen squeezes some Crest into his mouth, uses what little saliva he can manage to brush his teeth. Disgusting. He spits into the sink and feels the pistol rubbing on his ribs. There are estimates of up to 900 million firearms in active rotation on planet Earth, 270 million of them in the United States. When all the other guns are factored in... the amassment of an arsenal... staggering numbers come to mind. Now here is Glen Loach; an expert shot with a licensed weapon, about to rely upon his Browning 9mm for personal safety.

He tucks his flashlight into a right front coat pocket. He reaches into cupboard space beneath the sink for a plastic jug that may hold nearly a gallon of water. This, he places into a large canvas shopping bag that should afford him extra room in case he finds food items during his walk. In the entrance hall he picks up a set of keys that give him pause. Locks, keys, alarm codes, laws, law enforcement, judicial systems, prison systems, military systems. The safeguard of a species against its own kind, because the species is at odds with itself. It wants to live as though removed from the natural cycle of survival. Predators and prey. Glen slowly unchains his door, keeping it quiet, and steps into a dark pungent hallway. Urine, excrement, fire smoke, dust, terror.

The hallway is windowless and almost pitch black. Glen flicks the flashlight to life and after quietly locking his door, moves quickly to a stairwell exit several dozen yards away. Passing apartments and thickly layered odors, he can hear weeping from a unit near the darkened elevator lobby. This is someone new to the building. For an intense second he wants to stop, knock, enquire. Can't. No time. At the stairwell exit he can hear a menacing moan of wind on the other side; it seems to mimic the emotional feel of a society collapsed in fear. Glen pushes the heavy door open, plays his flashlight along the grey concrete steps, then begins the ten floors of descent. Kitchen garbage bags have been discarded in several of the doorways where the staircase does its dogleg turn, and the air is ripe. In the primal stem of his brain, Glen is relieved not to find another person on the way down. He knows, or used to know, quite a few residents of the building who may not resemble their true selves now.

A pale leaden morning light greets him at street level, as does a bitterly cold Arctic wind that pushes at the canvas bag strung over his shoulder. Before moving forward and out through the south doorway, Glen scans everything that he can take in. Only the winds are alive, it seems. His eyes next move across a parking lot to the poor soul who was stomped out of this world for the contents of a backpack, or maybe just for the evil of the act without law constraints to impede it... an unthinkable horror. Glen walks slowly, cautiously away from the building and toward the fallen person on Sherbourne street. He is blown away by the amount of smashed windshield glass everywhere, struck by the idiocy. With the power out so emphatically and all the dire apocalypse predictions seemingly unfolded, what possible use was there for car stereos or any other item that a smash and grab thief would normally target?

The air is tainted with the harsh scent of fires that have burned unchecked. He treads carefully through little cubes of glass, across the parking lot to the fallen citizen in his sad repose. Glen is no stranger to corpses, having witnessed many a tragedy in Afghanistan, and his sense of right and wrong will not be impinged upon by any world ending free-for-all. By the time he reaches the body, his eyes are stinging with tears that rise easily. Coagulated blood coats the poor man's face. A sidewalk has never looked harsher. Glen scans the north and south vista of the street, seeing nobody else; an expanse of vandalized newspaper boxes, broken street level windows in virtually every apartment building, a thin plume of smoke issuing upward from somewhere in nearby Allan Gardens park. He bends at the knees to gently grip the fallen one's jacket, tugs firmly to pull his body into a resting place against a brick wall that acts as the parking lot perimeter. Cold temperatures have forestalled the inevitable decomposition. Glen pushes the man against the bricks, crying freely and shaking his head. Blue eyes. Vibrant even in death. Died with a wince on his face. Fuck.

"I'm so sorry, brother" he says to the corpse, and wonders again if he will be able to emotionally survive this walk to get water and hopefully find others who haven't completely lost it. There is a convenience store around the bend on Carlton street; Glen's first destination although he pre-knows what will await him there. It takes five minutes to cover the distance, his eyes watching that smoke plume from the park which seems to come from within the beautiful domed central greenhouse there. As predicted, his neighborhood variety store has been absolutely ransacked. The window glass is all over not only an adjacent sidewalk but fans out across the empty width of Carlton street. A front door has been torn out of its frame and lays like another kind of corpse in its threshold. Glen can see through the gaping window casings that the store shelves and glass doored refrigeration displays have been entirely emptied. A sign of what will be, no doubt, but he decides with resignation to make his way through the park's diagonal path to have a look at a large supermarket on Gould street. If he can obtain water and any food items without having to traverse the defiled city blocks between he and lake Ontario, that is the vastly preferred option.

Not bloody likely, though. He crosses an eerily traffic free street and passes by the smoking greenhouse dome. All of the window panes are blackened with soot. A large outdoor area that leads into the central dome has been strewn with the tropical contents within; cacti and wide banana leaf fronds, torn up exotic flowers, more shattered panes of glass. It makes him sick, the sheer wanton stupidity. There were months of this manner of vandalism in riots throughout the world during the lethal heat waves of 2012's summer. Precisely what had been worried about in advance, the unravel of a society's self control, the opportunistic inexplicable destruction of a peoples' own home turf, the scary anti-mentality of mobs... it had all manifested to a greater degree than feared, and as usual the majority of good law abiding citizenry had done almost nothing to stop it.

Glen wipes at his eyes and continues through the park. Benches have long been rooted in cement here, this being a somewhat edgy downtown place with split personality atmosphere, and they remain in their locations but now free of people. There are very high concentrations of rooming houses and homeless shelters in this part of town; he knows that the denizens are now at large without supervision, medication, food or water. This park has long been a day pass hangout and he finds it extra peculiar that this particular morning is presenting him with the entire public space, free of other human presence. Glen quickens his gait along the diagonal central pathway, feeling the ominous yet reassuring weight of his Browning pistol. Feeling emptier than he has at any point during the awful week long untethering of his city as seen and heard through walls and windows. Gerrard street is a vandalized mess of an intersection, also void of life. A Harvey's fast food joint has been destroyed utterly. Windows gone, menu panels scattered into the street, the interior apparently set fire to and left to burn. Glen is shocked at a realization that perhaps the entire inner city has been thus grimly assaulted; that hope has no place in this walk of his. On the southwest corner of the intersection, in front of another smashed to pieces glass door that fronted a shabby 24-hour convenience mart, he notices a broad puddle of blood. It seems rather recent, still a luridly bright arterial red, and is telling a tale of someone attacked and probably stabbed. Someone who fell, left for dead, then somehow arose to stagger away in a horrendous trail of sprayed droplets that meander south on Jarvis street.

Down to St.Michael's hospital, probably, in a desperate futile final act. Such mind-blowing madness in a once safe big city. Nice polite Canadians. He decides to cross west on Gerrard street's north side, then down Mutual street to Gould where a gutted supermarket no doubt awaits his stunned eyes. Though he is normally reluctant to make judgments or cast aspersions, Glen Loach cannot help but speculate as to the horror show in some American cities that come to mind... he heads south on a barren Mutual street with its row of parked and vandalized cars, and prays for the safety of his family folk in Watertown New York.

It doesn't take very long for Glen to reach Gould street and the block wide facade of a surrealist supermarket. An entire sidewalk of shattered glass panes. Every window, tall and narrow but for the main doorway, has been boarded up with big sheets of plywood. It reminds him somewhat of storm preparations down south in the hurricane zones. A large bright red aerosol warning has been spray printed across what used to be the entrance : "Anyone attempting to enter will be HARMED". Glen stands for a moment and surmises that employees are holed up in there, living off the merchandise, though it could just as easily be a horror movie on the other side of that plywood... "clean up aisle eight" taken to new heights of low.

He pivots his gaze to take in a view of Yonge street, two blocks west and an apparent disaster zone. A row of smoke blackened storefronts and not a soul in sight... wait, there. A lone bike rider. Slowly pedalling north with his head down... Glen does not want to be seen and steps in closer to the boarded up entrance doorway. Cyclist rolls out of sight. The garish threat "will be HARMED" is emblazoned directly in front of him, and Glen kicks the plywood hard. His guts churn in hunger but mostly he craves a never-ending drink of cold clean water. "Let me IN" he shouts at the wood sheet, "I have coupons!" He spits and suddenly laughs in an ugly coarse staccato that doesn't resemble who he thinks himself to be; a clinging echo of Afghanistan and the constant fucking terror on patrols...

Oh, these civilians who know nothing of that particular peculiar knife edge of fear. The kind of blood deep fear that carbonates a soldier, police officer, prison guard, surgeon... anyone who goes to work with life and death more palpably present than is "usual". Glen Loach is certainly no robotized jarhead. He is a feeler. His youthful entrance into the armed forces came about due to a lack of connection between his wants and what was realistically available to him for a vocation. His father had been a military man, served with valor and distinction, espoused the noble virtues of a life dedicated to the idea of "country" and "peace". Glen had been a lot less interested in the human aspect, being inherently nihilistic-meets-optimistic (a paradox deluxe), and wanted to "see the world"... how many lifetimes ago was that? Here he stands now in a self-imploded city on a panicked planet with no electrical system, and how does it assist him to have witnessed death up close? To have "seen the world"? The world is now measured in urban blocks that lead to water, hopefully to a food source, but to what purpose?

He gets his boots moving away from the boarded up supermarket, southbound on a narrower street named Mutual, with a plan to travel one block west for Church street and its denser potential to provide life sustaining supplies via retail outlets and restaurants. The temperature seems to dip drastically even as what was a steady wind diminishes to a mocking whisper. Glen hoists the bag strap higher across his shoulder and begins to realize the futility of remaining in Toronto when his gut is saying "all is hopeless here". Back to his apartment in the building of woe, and then what? All the signs had been escalating throughout the summer of this year. A very low homicide average of 60 or less per annum in a city region of nearly six million, rode the fear rails and anything-goes what the fuckism into a record setting 230 killings. That had been a tiny spike compared to "Stateside's" usual killing fields. It was as if the collective All Mind of an already teetering species couldn't survive the negative anticipation of apocalypse. Then the year beginning with precisely what NASA gently (at first) warned of : higher than normal solar flare activity, although it was all part of a "natural cycle"... the initial coronal mass discharges had only slightly messed with satellite systems, interfered minimally with cell phones, and provided people in lower latitudes with some pretty aurora borealis displays.

By June the sun had become rowdier. The talking heads in the know spoke in more direct tones. The world stuttered. A tension hitherto kept under the cloak of control began to amp and ramp. That slimmest of constraints put into place to hold individuals within the confines of "law" and what is "right"; it began to slip, too. Crime waves spread like a hybrid but inevitable cancer, beginning with the predictable places where people have less, through the mass media where responsibility and discretion is a mythic smokescreen, then up through the pecking order into that rarified air where the controllers and "haves" exist. Bilderberg group's 2012 meeting was a particularly secretive one. World policy making was under threat from a nemesis of no conscious imperative. The profiteering and continued manipulation of billions of tiny little components, all walking around with their heads full of wants and dreams and embedded ideas about personal freedom, could not proceed if a life giving star was going to snuff out life.

Glen has to stop for a moment, halfway to Shuter street. His stomach is processing the kidney beans with acidic pain, flexing gas, and he feels quite suddenly ill and hopeless. In his mind so fixed upon turmoil and the fallacy of attempting to survive, he is both cursed by and grateful for those children and grandchildren on lake Ontario's far shore. They will keep him striving. Glen isn't very adept at lying to himself. He knows that the darkness of these thoughts would hold no territory for long, if his Pauline... he squelches the train and begins walking again. At Shuter he turns right, then crosses a normally hectic Dundas street. Nobody else in sight, thankfully, but the morning light is young. Every storefront, it seems, has been relieved of its window glass. He passes used electronics shops that have no stock remaining. The irony tastes better than kidney beans. At a southeast corner where Church street intersects, Glen steps over a small mound of glass shards and sees a bright red sofa in the middle of four empty lanes. The back of it faces him from a few hundred feet distant. He wants to cackle again. At the sheer madness of this shit. The artistic dark manifestation of chaos. The so fragile structure of organized mass-living upon these ancient Ontario acres that for tens of thousands of years provided "home" to various indigenous tribes.

Glen leaves this glass littered sidewalk and begins toward the red sofa, strolling on the white middle line of Church street which is aptly named for these many fine old buildings erected for worship. Here between Dundas and Shuter, every building facade has been marred, some of them firebug charred. It makes him sad beyond healing, to see how widespread and idiotic was the destruction. Somewhere down in the aural mix of diminishing winds and his footfalls, Glen hears a low human moan that floats up from the sofa. When he arrives to see an elderly man curled in a fetal position, face to the backrest cushion, it isn't surprising to also note a blood soaked jacket beneath the self-hugging quivering arms. The poor wretch is rake thin, an evident street person who looks vaguely familiar, and he moans again through chattering teeth, eyelids clamped shut against what must be horrible agony. There are multiple stab openings in the coat fabric. Red cushions, three of them wide, are redundantly colored by what looks to be most of the victim's blood. Glen asks "can you hear me?"

Another low and plaintive moan. Glen sets down the bag and gently grips a bony shoulder. "Can you hear me, sir?" Winds pick up volume as if to mock the question, block the answer, and they are colder toothier winds. The victim's eyelids flutter, open briefly, then wince shut tighter than before, but he mutters into the cushion - "kept, kept, kept stabbing me"... Glen asks "who did this to you?" and his query is overlapped by "he kept on stabbing, no reason". Death is near if the copious blood loss is any indication. Glen firmly but slowly uses his grip on the man's shoulder to turn him onto his back, trying to ignore the sharp intake of breath and a rattling "paaahhhh"... dozens of knife holes from lower belly to collarbone where the unzipped jacket falls open. "What the hell is keeping you alive?" Glen asks, and just then his eyes fall involuntarily across the tall steeple of St. Michael's cathedral. Its ornate needle juts up at the grey moving clouds and a first snowflake hits him on his cheek. Cold and he wants to think, beautiful, but cannot.

"Pleeeeease" moans the red sofa victim. Glen turns his attention back to the now open pale blue eyes, filled with the evidence of a pain beyond tolerance. He moves the man's arms apart, one falling down limp to brush knuckles with asphalt, and sees just how badly this tragic victim has been attacked. Lifts a bright red t-shirt with a heavy exhale, hears the new whisper of "don't leave me like this"... the snow begins to come down then, but in unusual clumps of compound flakes that are very large and clinging together as they drop. That wind is suddenly no more. The would-be magical flakes, were this any other scenario, drift down in a silent magnificent mockery to kiss the dying man's upturned face. Where is God, now? As Glen's tears flowed on the cold curb of Sherbourne street not long ago, this time he wants to collapse into weeping but not one drop of crying comes forth. He does his best to lock eyes with the other pale blues, though he can only guess at what is happening behind them.

That cushion beneath the victim's feet is less blood soaked. Glen pulls at a far corner to tug it free, rotates the square so that both his hands hold bloodless corners. The big ludicrous fairy tale snowflakes drift on down, packed together but separated with more space than usual snowfalls, each one a uniquely breathtaking fractal component of an improbably magnificent world out in the inky nowhere. Many would dare suggest that God is in the works, but Glen isn't having it. He watches them land and instantly begin to melt on an old man's face, hoping that however briefly there is a cessation of pain. "I'm sorry that this has happened to you" Glen tells him. "Close your eyes." The wrinkled eyelids flutter and then obey before two strong hands place a cushion down firmly, pressing hard with palms flat. Instinctive struggle ensues but the man is so depleted that his flailing limbs fall still within a half minute's heartbreak. Glen holds the cushion in place for a long surreal span, watching compound white flakes of incredible detail landing with a soundless cling to the red cloth fabric. He thinks to look up, around, lets go of the cushion. Nary a soul in sight. Is God watching? Has Glen Loach done a merciful deed? Does God save up his apologies for that hoped for meeting at the pearly gates? Divine apologies for the necessity of this compulsory learning experience as a mortal being who remembers Immortal Being? Remembers or thirsts for it.

This thought next reminds him of something else entirely. Glen tilts his face to the morning's pale characterless sky and opens a parched mouth to let the snow enter. For a forever he stands there next to the preposterous red sofa with its corpse; his tongue out, face up, letting Life, or "God", or the sheer indifference of happenstance, put something back into his rapidly emptying reserves. "To the lake, then" he says. His voice has never sounded stranger or more disembodied, but his tongue is cold tingling happy. Glen picks up the bag to re-sling it over a shoulder, peers at the tall steeple with its oversized cross, and mumbles "amen."

After using a red sofa cushion to snuff out the suffering of a stabbing victim, it would stand to reason that the weight of a heart will increase. Glen Loach makes his way on Church street and decides to turn left and then east at Shuter. He can't handle the potential for more bizarre and tragic, which a main street like Church may certainly provide in this post-apocalypse unravel. Acrid smoke taints the air, all the more jarring for the gently falling gigantic snowflakes with their not unpleasant way of hushing sound. Glen's feet feel ten pounds heavier. His stomach ties tighter knots. Cold snow kisses hit his face and linger in the thick whitened whiskers above his mouth. Walking east and planning to use Britain lane for access back to lower Sherbourne, he becomes aware of the brewing rage that is helping to knot his guts. It wouldn't take much, not much at all, for Glen to fire a couple of rounds into the skull of whoever stabbed that poor man.

How can the right/wrong divide be such a variable? For one person, an impregnable wall. For another, one with something awry in his heart, an easy step into the primal and selfish. These takers can justify their methods and leave a stain on their world. Where is the mighty hand to smite them? Why does "good" speak in hushed tones compared to "evil", the ugliest shout? Glen walks and wants to drown out the ugly shout with a song. A bullet's song. He has felt this way before, after losing good people to improvised explosive devices buried in the godforsaken sands where civilians are have-nots and far too many young men have an excess of time and anger on their hands... Glen Loach has a deep unhealed wound in his fabric. He can summon the sting of observational madness, as a memory reliving itself in a broken Toronto morning, and it is here precisely what he felt when watching the sun rise in Afghanistan. With the taste of coffee still strong in his mouth when a young father from Alberta was blown apart by a makeshift weapon cowardly buried in a road at the head of their dawn patrol. One minute spent in quiet awe of a brutally beautiful horizon under early light, Venus and stars still a'twinkle. A subsequent minute watching the futility of medics attempting to stave off the grim reaper.

A question, "what the fuck are we doing here?", resonated then and resonates now. Glen angles through a large empty parking lot toward Queen street, barely "present". It is a miracle at all that people give of themselves, want to become close to others, to love them and be loved in return, because goodbyes are never predictable and can be the deepest wounds of all. Goodbyes can kill. What if a young wife and mother accompanied her husband to the station, dreading her intuition but giving off supportive energy for the man she loves as he heads across an ocean to do his job? What if she knows, inexplicably knows, that he won't be coming home alive? How long will she suffer for that quiet strength and the words not spoken? The cold "what the fuck are we doing here?" Glen reaches Britain lane but his thoughts are distinctly elsewhere, chasing each other, colliding, competing with how poorly his body feels. More storefronts along Queen street have been violated and destroyed. Black smoke still billows up to meet the pretty snowflakes. What a madness, this world. What an impossible paradox. It seems to come down to the life of a moment. One breath, one eye blink, one perception filtered to the best abilities of one person who wants to believe in individuality and yet takes solace in not being alone. What a madness. Always with the teaching taunt of beauty. He sighs the sigh of a mind without words.

A corner shop that has long sold oriental carpets, with a "going out of business sale" sign in the door for ten years, meets the exhausted eyes of Glen Loach. Front window; shards. Sidewalk; a sloppy mound of assorted rugs, some of them burned. At first he doesn't see the rolled up one, nor the small bare ankle and foot protruding from an end. His reflexes lurch, spark, readjust...mannequin. He places a heel on the carpet and pushes hard enough for it to unroll a little. The single leg becomes exposed and at the upper portion he sees that the "thigh" is coated in what appears to be dried blood. Someone, some it pretending to be human, has apparently used the appendage as a weapon. Can it sink any lower this morning? Loach lifts his face to accept more snow on tongue moments. The lake is less than forty five minutes away but it may as well be Antarctica.

He tears himself away from that sad sidewalk, walks a partial block south and then turns left at Britain street, which is mostly a little known warehouse lane from the Victorian era. Real estate speculators have been attempting to "revitalize" (translation : harvest money from) its narrow expanse via loft lifestyle pimping, but buyers are leery of the urban roughness of what exists all around. It is a section of downtown long reserved for the homeless shelters, addiction treatment centres, dollar stores and rock bottom price drinking holes. Glen walks one more short block then turns right on Sherbourne. Nobody in sight. The two blocks leading to Adelaide street are made up of gleaming new towers and high end storefronts, now smashed to 2012 smithereens. Glass is everywhere. Near Richmond street, one of Glen's favorite shops where period lighting is sold, has been thoroughly ransacked. He stops to look sadly through a wide open front window. Everything inside has been either stolen or destroyed. He thinks of the nice lady who owns the place, of her wealth but equal passion for beautiful antique lighting, and it all feels so hopeless now. Ornate gas lamps that were handcrafted with a love for detail and beauty, that lasted well over a century, reduced to the symbolic rubble of a species.

"Heyyy" comes a male voice from across Sherbourne, making Glen's blood jump. He spins to face three youngish men in oversized parkas, one of which has a price tag dangling from its sleeve. Bangers from nearby Moss Park, he guesses. They stand shoulder to shoulder in front of what used to be a Tim Hortons coffee shop, now a smashed open remnant of arson. Glen's eyes scan the unfriendly appraising faces, then stop on the middle one, much taller than his cohorts and audaciously visible in a right hand... a long wide blade. (it couldn't be, could it?) "We're looking for smokes" says the middle face with a chin nod at what must appear to be easy pickings across the street. "Got cigarettes on you?" He breaks their standstill with a step and they all three fall into place, crossing an empty intersection where one way traffic usually hurtles by between the light changes.

Fear isn't a part of Glen's mathematics. He holds his ground and calmly watches them approach, dividing thirteen Browning rounds by three potential thugs, knowing he will not hesitate if this comes to that. He says to the middle guy when the group are in the centre of Richmond street - "Sorry, I don't smoke." On the right, a shorter man with his hair in corn rows says "don't matter, maybe you got something else for us". No sense playing with these three, Glen unzips his jacket and reaches into a side pocket to grip the pistol. The three stop at his movement, perhaps ten feet away, their street sense at odds with how this older white dude looks. Glen looks from the eyes of all three down to the big chef's knife. Snowflakes drift down peacefully to land and melt on the identical dark blue parkas. Everything feels absurdly surreal, but within this feeling there is a deep opening of bliss; nothing matters the way it once did, but a corpse of someone stabbed repeatedly, red blood soaking a red sofa; that matters.

"You boys seen any red sofas lately?" he asks the hard eyes of the tall man holding a knife. Their foreheads furrow, two pair of eyes on each end glance toward the middle pair, and tall guy says "wha fuck, you talkin' about?" Glen knows this isn't the stabber, these aren't the monsters, but he steps one foot back toward the window casement behind him and shows a hand filled with a firearm that he is well trained to use. He isn't some street puke pumped with an empty bravado and a willingness to disregard the preciousness of life in order to gain "respect" with his fucked up tribe. The sight of Glen's unwavering hand, holding a tool of quick death delivery, should be enough. He slowly flicks the safety off, fighting to contain a surge of rage that he recognizes as directionless. "Don't say a single word more, none of you" he instructs, then aims his attention at mister blade. "You, drop that knife right there." For a second he is met with defiance, but it is a front. "You not be using that, bitch, feel me?" Glen lowers the barrel and fires a round into the asphalt directly in front of all three. Before its report has finished rebounding from the glass faced canyon of Sherbourne street, they are in a record breaking sprint mode heading in three separate directions.

He watches them flee, parkas billowing wildly as they vanish into big wet compound snowflakes, then looks at the little crater where the bullet impacted. "They're fucking lucky" he whispers, replacing the safety catch, slowly returning his weapon to its pocket. The knife is a brand new one; a Henckel Five Star probably stolen from the restaurant supplier down on King street. Glen walks over, picks the blade up, turns to throw it in a high wide arc so that it lands on the roof of a desecrated antique lighting store. "They're so lucky" he repeats, with sudden thoughts of his father. Dad would have put a round into that forehead, dead middle. The man walked around embodying a clarity of wrong and right that wasn't always "right", but the younger Glen envied it. Dad had served in the "great wars", and like the famous general Patton, he believed himself a continually reincarnated warrior from eras and battlefields through time; personally chosen to be a soldier even if he didn't mean it to say "chosen by God". Glen senior (and yes there are some observations to be made about those who name their progeny with the same letters) was not a religion buyer. He had seen too much atrocity and insanity to accept a loving Creator capable of non interference when the children are tearing each other asunder. No, Glen senior believed in right and wrong, and in himself.

Southbound on Sherbourne street through the slow drop of fat snow, those banshee winds long gone now, Glen Loach peers around at thousands of windows above him and sees no faces there. Streets normally filled with parked vehicles are almost devoid; a mass exodus from downtown must have occurred during the initial rioting and stupidity. He can't help but wonder about the state of humanity all around this world, today, this morning, with the power not coming back on and chaos supreme. All of the technological conveniences failing or taken away permanently. The potential for malfunction and mania, perhaps even a nuclear warhead being launched for any number of "reasons", all of it feeling like a bottomless pit. Again he boils it down to family. He must find and be with his children and their children, even if what he finds there is no longer alive. Of the countless times where Glen suffered the emptiness of no longer having Pauline with him, at least in the mortal empirical way, this peculiar morning is bringing the keenest aches. He readjusts his shoulder load and picks up tempo, no longer thinking about food or water, but the lake. Just the lake.

The incident with three would-be predators has left Glen depleted on the brink of coping. Anvils for feet. A gaping yaw of a gut. He plunks down one foot in front of the other, inward gone. How did we go from rich Ontario soil and forest flooring to this morass of cement mixer vomit? Heel. Thud. Heave a breath. Feel that peculiar draining of a plan. Away it goes. Where is the wormhole entry, so he can pull himself back just far enough for a restart? Where is all the BEauty that he chased, embraced, retraced? Heel thudding his emptying willpower south to water, he can't summon beauty's memory. It is easy to believe that ALL of the lifetime workings of his alleged "self as mind" have been a smokescreen inside the tool kit of Nature and its preprogrammed "reproduce" instructions. In other words, his best lifetime's work was his children, and so on. Like the colony ant. Like the stubborn little shrimp who live in the deepest hottest ocean vents, resisting impossible odds in order to do what Life says must be done. These are the reductionist thoughts that tighten their repetition loop in Glen's skull as he treads beyond wearily, no longer attuned to what surrounds him.

In the morning light of the mourning light, Loach does what people do very well : he regrets. The maddening thing about it? It is a bland exhausted all encompassing regret without specifics. There are few feelings more troubling than the ones that refuse and resist definition. "Maybe that is where we fail" he speaks to his shuffling feet. In his head the disembodied All-Voice finishes off this observation : we waste too much of our energy in the pursuit of definition. "Just do the fucking job" had been a personal mantra to get him through his soldiering duties. No detail delving and absolutely no seeking the logic behind strategies, orders, political motives. It was a sure detour into madness. At Adelaide and Sherbourne streets, Glen stops for a quick westward surveying : a belch of black cloud rises up from the distant cluster of bank/money/sky towers. Scratch a citizen, find an anarchist. Well, people, you've got supreme anarchy now. From the sun on down.

Glen's crusted eyeballs take in the smoke pillar as it spirals up over emptied streets, and he thinks of all the billions spent on chasing a Higgs particle. "The God particle"... his head turns back to Sherbourne and a now visible lake, followed by his renewed exhausted gait. He can remember being with his wife and kids, camping on a narrow peninsula, enjoying the crackle and sight of a bonfire trance. His mind at the time had been idling, happily empty of focus. Life was a hug in those simple moments. That, was "God". To feel as deeply intrinsic and connected as any towering Oak. To finally and truly relax. For two more blocks, now sloping more noticeably as lake Ontario nears, Glen fixates on the remembered feelings that medicate him best. He is walking out of his life. This is what it is now. He is replacing the physical pain of a body with a sustaining and welcoming revelation. He pictures his years up until this pivotal morning as a relay race. The baton has been handed off to his children. They are strong runners. There is no finish line. Even if the entire societal structure of Earth becomes irrevocably wiped away, it was a natural event and therefore a happenstance beyond question.

After a harrowing beginning to this trek, Glen is subsequently granted a people-less remainder. Yes, there are more smashed storefronts and overturned vehicles along the way. Yes, the air is tainted with the stench of burned wood and wire. But no, there are no more confrontations with the dark side. Perhaps his mind with all of its powerful influencing potential has actually wrought change upon the surroundings. The finding of peace inside his breaking down body is writing the story's final paragraphs. He walks beneath the corroding belly of a Gardiner Expressway no longer in need of tearing down because everything has changed. He comes out the other side of its wide shadow at the top of an expanse of acreage no longer in need of billions of dollars in development for the Pan Am Games of 2015, because that year has been cancelled. He sucks his lungs full of cold air where the snow no longer drifts down, and heads across the barren lanes of Queens Quay toward Cherry Street and Toronto's old port lands.

It is normally a twenty minute walk from the top of Cherry street to the beach named after it. Glen Loach covers this expanse without awareness of its details, for his mind is locked upon a campfire, a pup tent with his kids reading comic books by lantern light, a silent but intensely passionate session of lovemaking with Pauline not long after that light is doused, the parental tent nearby and miles away. The regret vagueness has vanished now. There is a wonderful sensation of treading upon meant ground. Meant. Like reading and acting a favorite script, but really choosing it this time around. He crosses the rusted skeleton of an old iron drawbridge without even seeing it, his right hand sliding along the cold handrail. There, at last and suddenly, is Cherry Beach in its lonely grace. He looks into the thick copse of trees to the east, where picnic tables and fire pits have long given city folk a getaway feeling. Not a soul in sight. This is where Glen turns to walk, angling himself over the partially frozen sand beds so that he can stroll beside the grey gentle chop of lake water.

He has his back to the city skyline, and it seems fitting. Down here it smells fresh and distant. Ancient and unpolluted by the touch of humanity. He walks with the soles of his footwear in water, a soft ice cold slosh. The bulk within his jacket summons a touch of fingers to the pistol grip. So familiar. It no longer reassures or sends any one feeling. Just another invention of a species lost to insanity. Lost in its own reflection. Has there ever been, in the uncountable stars with all of their solar systems, a creature with more spiritual potential unrealized? It feels like a dark query, but no... Glen thinks now that every catastrophic natural event is a part of the growth. It is no different than the roots of trees or upturned faces of flowers, seeking Life and nothing more or less. Glen walks along a gentle arc of shoreline and then looks up to see an empty boat. It is about eight feet long, red wood planks blistered and peeling, with two oars a dangle and also a small Evinrude motor affixed, its blades buried in wet sand.

Clearly, it was left there just for him. This is how it feels. Without any hesitation he lifts and pushes at its stern to free the blades, then steps over and into the empty rib cage. No items of interest other than the oars in their loops. With a big exhale, Glen lowers himself into position, takes up the oars, and begins to slowly row away from the shore. The heft of them feels just right in his hands. Weariness and hunger melt away, but the reminder of a vicious thirst returns as he moves a dozen yards out into the water. He stops rowing, releases the handles. He manoeuvres to retrieve the jug. Gives it a generous dip into the icy coldness. For long throat exploding seconds does he swallow back the lake. Little bursts of pleasure-pain pierce at his temples. "Aaaaaa" he says. "Aaaaa", and renews drinking deeply. Three days to animal? If this is animalistic pleasure, he welcomes it fully. No defining or explaining. Just need and its quenching moment.

Sated for now, Glen dips the jug again until it is half filled. He tightens the cap and tosses it onto the old wooden planks near his feet. He feels a dizzying rush of vigor, even if it makes a promise it can't keep for long, and decides to try the old motor. It takes a dozen good pulls before sputtering reluctantly to life with a belch of gas stink. His nostrils fill and flare with more nostalgia. Cottage country, marine fuel, suntan lotion, burgers on a charcoal grill, ice cold beer. "Aaaaaa" for the third time, and he takes up the oars into the boat in favor of a less demanding propulsion. He cannot recall a time when lake Ontario was this void of other boats or people. Surreality abounds as he guides the Evinrude and its payload out of the Cherry Beach area, west and then north around the perimeter of a Leslie street landfill peninsula literally gone to the birds. It is much colder out on the water as he slips away into its deeper regions, and then as he motors away his eyes find Toronto's skyline for one last time. Smoke pillars spiral up from several locations. All is dead and deathly still. The sky is an uncaring cloak of grey now, with no precipitation. The city seems to shape shift as he places distance between the boat stern and those ever familiar buildings. He will have approximately thirty miles to traverse before finding New York state beneath the bow of his unexpected gift of a boat.

After a time. After an after of time. Indeterminable and lulled by the noisy cadence of outboard motor, wave slap on wood, and a not gentle inertia across the lake's face, Glen wakes up to fading afternoon light. The motor is silent, without a fragrance of fuel, and only chopping waves with toothy white caps make sound against the hull. His eyes are slow to focus and he has been slumped sideways, judging by the pain across his ribs. He doesn't remember falling asleep, thinking of anything en route to it, or waking and sitting up straight to be startled by completely alien surroundings, all water no horizon. He swivels his head around to seek something out there that will place him. He can't find Toronto but it is snowing again, this time a quicker angular tempo with much smaller flakes. More like pellets, really. Something about this three hundred and sixty degree vista seems very appropriate to End Times. A man alone in an old boat, probably in the middle of lake Ontario with nightfall and winter temperatures closing in. He moves around on the bench, shivers a little, and decides that he is going to be sick. It isn't a choice, really, but an acceptance of what his stomach is announcing. With a lurching motion he bends himself over the side and yacks weakly. Bile and bubbles.

Whilst bent there his eyes catch a swooping hand painted script, rather upside down but the word unmistakable in its sky blue color.

He could ask a person, if he had another with him, "have you ever acted immediately on an impulse so strong and sure that you dare not falter to question it?" If that other person were indeed with him, Glen's next action would surely interrupt any answer being offered. He lifts himself, spits once into the wave chop, and retrieves the Browning from his jacket. With no hesitation whatsoever does he fire the twelve round remnant of its clip into the boat bottom around his feet. A dozen flat reports that clap out across the great bowl of lake. Glen bites his bottom lip in a sudden fit of almost glee, and tosses the firearm overboard with a gentle lob. Minus a heaving sigh to summarize all the sighs of his storied lifetime, Glen Loach sits himself down between bench rows into the curvature of hull where ice cold water begins to replace open air. He leans to one side, against the sore ribs, pleasantly indifferent and free of any particular thought. Guided, he supposes, and finally at the conclusion of this particular chapter. His heavy eyelids win out, and he no longer cares to watch the snow pellet and wind show. He merely wonders how long it will take for "Pauline" to sink.

#fiction apocalyptic

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