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marleneoftheopera · 3 years ago

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1400 Followers Audio Gifts!

To thank you all for following me, being so wonderful, and just surviving a pandemic, here are some gifts from me!

I know I originally said I was going to do 10, but I got a good amount of requests and wanted to add in a few extra favorite audios of mine too. So you get 20! Sorry if I did not post your request; there were many!

If any need to be taken down, do let me know!

Here is the link to all of the audios, cast info is below!

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/a3xda9hu7mu3u/Gifts

The Phantom of the Opera

Michael Crawford, Rebecca Caine, Steve Barton October 10, 1987; London Listed as being Michael Crawford and Steve Barton's last before heading to New York to start rehearsals for Broadway. Beautiful soundboard audio. This is the complete version; there has previously been an incomplete one traded out.

Eiji Akutagawa, Kyoko Suzuki, Kanji Ishimaru September 22, 1991; Osaka Always here for Japanese love.

Hans Peter Janssens, Susanne Duwe, Michael Shawn Lewis, An Lauwreins, William Lynn Dixon, Marc Meersman, Arnst van Looy, Stephanie Tscheppe June 2, 2000; Antwerp, Belgium Final show in Belgium. Very nice cast all around.

Hugh Panaro, Adrienne McEwan, John Cudia, Patricia Phillips, Jeff Keller, George Lee Andrews, Marilyn Caskey, Larry Wayne Morbitt, Heather McFadden June 16, 2003; Broadway Hugh in his second Broadway run. Adrienne has become a favorite of mine and I think she never gets the credit she deserves, especially having been in the show for so long.

Hugh Panaro, Susan Owen (u/s), Kyle Barisich February 20, 2012; Broadway A lovely audio. Susan has such a sweet, light quality to her voice.

Hugh Panaro, Samantha Hill, Kyle Barisich, Michele McConnell, Greg Mills (u/s), Tim Jerome, Nathan Patrick Morgan (u/s), Carly Blake Sebouhian (u/s) April 6, 2013; Broadway More Hugh. You can never have enough Hugh.

Peter Joback, Emmi Christensson, Anton Zetterholm, Karolina Andresson, Glenn Kjellberg, Rolf Lydhal, Sindre Postholm, Sanna Martin, Tehilla Blad, David Ingham, Samuel Jarrick, Martin Kagemark, John Martin Bengtsson February 1, 2017; Stockholm I loved this production so much.

Ben Forster, Celinde Schoenmaker, Nadim Naaman, Charlotte Vaughan (u/s, last Carlotta show), Sion Lloyd, Mark Oxtoby, Paul Ettore Tabone, Joanna Strand (u/s, last Madame Giry show), Daisy Hulbert August 31, 2017; London A few days before cast change. One of my favorite audios as of late.

Fred Johanson, Hanna Liina Vosa, John Martin Bengtsson, Hanna Leena Haapamaki, Dardan Bakraqi, David Lundqvist, Anders Wangdhal, Lana Zuzic, Gisela Sjostedt, Lars Hijertner, Marco Stella, Tobja Halsell, Peter Loguin January 26, 2018; Gotheborg From the non-replica production. With John as Raoul this time!

Scott Davies, Kelly Mathieson, Jeremy Taylor, Lara Martins, Sean Lloyd, Mark Oxtoby, Jacinta Mulcahy May 31, 2018; London This is labeled as having Ben Lewis, but if you listen it’s really Scott.

Tomas Ambt Kofod, Sibylle Glosted, Christian Lund, Martin Loft (u/s), Monsieur André, Anna Vaupel (u/s), Rasmus Jupin, Elisabeth Halling, Imogen-Lily Ash, Jesper Paasch, Kim Hammelsvang, Paul Frederiksen, Paul Frederiksen (u/s), Mia Karlsson (u/s) February 13, 2019; Copenhagen Compared to other audios, you can tell that Sibylle has really settled in the role and improved wonderfully. She sounds absolutely divine. An absolutely gorgeous cast.

Jonathan Roxmouth, Meghan Picerno, Matt Leisy September 3, 2019; Tel Aviv One of Meghan's last shows on the World Tour before she joined the Broadway company. Jonathan and Meghan sound particularly stunning on here, they keep getting better which is insane because they are already so good.

Tim Howar, Amy Manford (alt), Jeremy Taylor, Ross Dawes, Alan Vicary, Kimberly Blake, Paul Ettore Tabone, Jacinta Mulcahy, Georgia Ware September 7, 2019; London Amy Manford's last show, the last matinee for the 2018/19 cast. Just to be clear, this audio is different from the other that is NFT. Pretty nice quality too!

Love Never Dies

Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess, Joseph Millson, Liz Robertson, Summer Strallen, Niahm Perry, Adam Pearce, Jami Reid-Quarrell June 2, 2010; London A gift for all my Rierra/LND London fans out there.

Tomas Ambt Kofod, Louise Fribo, Christian Berg, Oscar Diez January 18, 2013; Copenhagen, Denmark This is an overlooked and gorgeous production. Also, after 'Love Never Dies' someone in the audience shouts "wow" and I think that captures it perfectly.

Evita

Emma Kingston (Eva), Ramin Karimloo (Che), Robert Finlayson (Peron), Anton Luiting (Magaldi), Isabella Jane (Mistress) July 4, 2018; Tokyo Emma as Eva and Ramin as Che. Some great casting there.

Anastasia

Annakathrin Naderer (u/s Anya), Thomas Hohler (Dimitry), Thorsten Tinney (Vlad), Mark Roy Luykx (u/s Gleb), Theresa Holter (Young Anastasia), Patricia Nessy (Lily Malevsky-Malevitch), Masha Karrell (Dowager Empress Maria), Katja Hentschel (u/s Tsarina Alexandra), Kirill Zolygin (Tsar Nicholas II/Count Ipolitov), Helena Thordal Christenson (Olga Romanov), Alexandra Yoana-Alexandrovna (u/s Tatiana Romanov/Dunya), Laura Robinson (u/s Maria Romanov/Marfa), Mariana Hidemi (Anastasia, age 17/Paulina) August 10, 2019; Stuttgart I have yet to listen to this one yet, but I always love spreading love for foreign productions of shows.

Les Miserables

Kyle Jean-Baptiste (u/s Valjean), Earl Carpenter (Javert), Erika Henningsen (Fantine), Chris McCarrell (Marius), Samantha Hill (Cosette), Brennyn Lark (Eponine), Max Quinlan (u/s Enjolras), Gavin Lee (Monsieur Thenardier), and Rachel Izen (Madame Thenardier) August 13, 2015; Broadway A really great cast and Kyle deserves to be heard. He was brilliant and it is such a shame he passed so early on in his life.

John Owen-Jones (Jean Valjean), Michael Ball (Javert), Carrie Hope Fletcher (Fantine), Matt Lucas (Thenardier), Katy Secombe (Thenardier), Bradley Jaden (Enjolras), Craig Mather (Marius u/s), Shan Ako (Eponine), Lily Kerhoas (Cosette) Earl Carpenter (Bishop/Bamatabois) October 16, 2019; Staged Concert, Gielguld Theatre Gorgeous.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Sheridan Smith (Narrator), Jason Donovan (Pharaoh), Jac Yarrow (Joseph), Femi Akinfolarin (Brother), Casey Al-Shaqsy (Wife), J.R. Ballantyne (Brother), Thalia Burt (Wife), Richard Carson (Reuben), Michael Cortez (Guard), Vanessa Fisher (Wife), Matt Krzan (Guard), Kelsie-Rae Marshall (Wife), Emily Ann Potter (Wife), Georgina Parkinson (Wife), Michael Pickering (Simeon), Harriet Samuel-Gray (Wife), Carl Spencer (Brother), Joshua Steel (Brother), Jack Wilcox (Brother), Blythe Jandoo (s/w Wife), Hannah Taylor (s/w Wife) July 17, 2019; London Jason coming back to the show as Pharaoh this time!

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hypernet · 5 years ago

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"El hijo", Superman psicopatilla

Género: thriller, terror

Título original: Brightburn

Año: 2019

Director: David Yarovesky

Música: Tim Williams

Intérpretes principales: Jackson A. Dunn, Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Meredith Hagner, Matt Jones, Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, Becky Wahlstrom, Stephen Blackehart, Terence Rosemore, Annie Humphrey, Christian Finlayson, Emmie Hunter, Mike Dunston, Gregory Alan…

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#brightburn #coitus interruptus #el hijo #el hijo de la oscuridad #elizabeth banks #jackson a. dunn #limbo de perdedores #peliculas #superman

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sabanerox · 5 years ago

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¿Habrá segunda parte de Brightburn?

Ya sea que le haya gustado el final de Brightburn, o quizás no le haya gustado mucho, lo cierto es que es muy probable que sí haya segunda parte. Y a continuación les explicamos por qué.

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#brightburn 2 #christian finlayson #estados unidos #presupuesto #segunda parte #taquilla

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film-book · 6 years ago

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#BrightBurn (2019) Movie Trailer 2: A Dark, Disturbing take on the #Superhero Origin Story BrightBurn Trailer 2 Sony Pictures has released the second movie trailer for BrightBurn (2019).

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 3 years ago

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“Work Camps Are Cleared,” Border Cities Star. February 5, 1932. Page 8. ---- No Reason for Kicks; Hon. Wm. Finlayson Writes The Star --- Inquiry Concluded --- Letters From Pastors In North Say Complaints Of Food Are Bunk ---- Searching Investigation into conditions in the Trans-Canada Highway camps of Northern Ontario had led Hon. William Finlayson, Minister of Lands and Forests, to a definite and final conclusion that the men have no cause for complaint. GIVES OPINION IN LETTER The Minister's findings re contained in a communication received from him today by The Border Cities Star. in which, incidentally, Mr. Finlayson takes occasion to commend the paper for Its "impartial treatment” of the different letters received In recent weeks from dissatisfied workers, and from others.

Mr. Finlayson, with a better knowledge of men and conditions in the North country than a majority of the people of Southern Ontario, deals generously with the complainants.

"I looked Into the matter.” he reports. “through our own officers, and could find no reason for complaint, and I think the truth is that some of the young chaps from Southern Ontario who are not used to conditions in Northern Ontario, and to lumber and construction camps, became homesick and dissatisfied. and were rather looking for a reason or an excuse for going back home.”

IMPARTIAL The Minister says further:”There have been a number of letters in The Border Cities Star in reference to these complaints from a few men. One of your reporters also saw me in reference to this matter, and I appreciate the impartial way In which your paper has treated the matter, and apparently published all the letters that came to you. In addition to inquiring through our own officers, we have made enquiries through several other sources, and particularly through clergymen who are in the camps. I enclose herewith a letter received today from Dr. Cochrane, of the United Church, who is secretary of the Camp Christian Service League, and they look after supplying of clergymen for our ramps. He encloses a letter from the Rev. Mr. Munroe, a clergyman of the Baptist Church. MR. COCHRANE Mr. Cochrane, in his letter to Mr. Finlayson. says: ‘I am enclosing an extract from a letter which came a few days ago from Rev. Robert Munroe. one of the representatives of the Camp Christian Service league in the district from Thunder Bay to Kenora. I thought you would be interested in seeing how Mr. Monroe feels about the criticism of the treatment received in the camps by some of the men who have left them. I am sure Mr. Munroe's attitude will be of great gratification to you.’

CLERGYMAN’S VIEW Extracts from Mr. Munroe’s communication follow: ‘I am exceedingly sorry to think that any red-blooded man would go back east and squeal or register any complaint with regard to the treatment they have received here in the camps ‘First of all, there is no reason for any man to leave the camps because he has completed 90 days service that only entitles him to a special cheap rate for return transportation, two cents per mile. A letter has been posted up or read to the men in every camp from Mr. Lyons, chief engineer, making It clear that no man needs to leave the employment of the department because of the fact that he has completed 90 days work.

‘Secondly, they could have secured a transfer to another camp by applying for the same.

‘PURE BUNK’ ‘Thirdly, for any man to complain about the grub is pure bunk. B.U.N.K. I have eaten exactly the same food in every camp along the line, and I honestly think there is no reasonable ground for complaint. There are differences in cooks, of course, but any complaint from a superintendent regarding improper food soon brings Paddy O'Brien to the scene, the traveling chef for Crawley and McCracken, the caterers, and when necessary, Paddy quickly changes the entire kitchen staff and sees that things are put on a proper basis.

‘Finally, brethren, these men ought to have had not a little grub stake in hand had they been careful. You can figure It up for yourself. Out of 90 days. say. they had 78 working days. allowing for Sundays off and deducting board. There has been no lost time on account of bad weather conditions. Also allowing for spending $23 for clothing and say $25 for railway fare, each man should have around $60 to $73. I know you will pardon the Homiletical form of reply. but I think this is a fair statement of the case."

#letter to the editor #relief camps #road camps #road camp #unemployment relief #unemployed #relief camp #workfare #trans-canada highway #forced labour #work camps #government investigation #whitewash #unemployment #great depression in canada #north bay #northern ontario #unemployed protest

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andyfliz · 4 years ago

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A Dark Place

When a young boy turns up dead in a sleepy Pennsylvania town, a local sanitation truck driver, Donald, plays detective, embarking on a precarious and obsessive investigation to prove the boy was murdered.

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communication-for-makers · 5 years ago

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Week 7: Talking ink

Studio session:

Exercise 1.

Exploration and discussion. Join break-out groups. Open the link below and have a read and look at each one of the 8 artefacts shown on the gallery of this web-page. Take your time to look closely at one or two and examine them carefully, studiously. Hone in on your practices of looking. What do you see? Consider the materials of the artefacts. Make notes to aid your discussion in this class.

Link: Te Tiriti o Waitangi sheets

damaged paper (due to travel?)

some signatures have crosses behind them

some have signes behind them (tribal signs?)

Exercise 2.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/06-02-2020/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-the-comic-book-2/

Respond to the following questions 10 min

What did He Whakaputanga-The Declaration of Independence provide for Māori?

The declaration was signed in 1835 by 35 Maori leaders and four British Residents. This declaration states the sovereignty that existed in 1835 and was designed to promote and protect the rights of Māori. It document provided a portal for the Treaty of Waitangi negotiations

When we consider both Te Tiriti and The Treaty, what are the different understandings held by peoples about what these two artefacts stand for? Name more than one.

Te Tiriti speaks of the chiefs maintaining their authority over their all that they hold precious, including the Māori language. The chiefs allow the Queen to have a nominal and delegated authority so that she can control her people.

Given that at the time of the signing, the dominant language was Te Reo Māori and the majority of the discussions would have been conducted orally, the Māori text of Te Tiriti reflects the intentions of the chiefs

the treaty in English tells us that the chiefs ceded their sovereignty to the crown while retaining full, exclusive and undisturbed possession over their lands, estates, forests and fisheries.

Exercise 3.

In break-out groups, look at the ‘signatories’ at this link: https://teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/36341/women-signatories-to-the-treaty-of-waitangi. These were all women of mana. People involved in the signing of the Treaty were from colonising and various Indigenous cultures (iwi, hapu).

Question: Do the marks on Te Tiriti hold the same mana, authority and meaning across all cultures involved? Discuss this in your break-out group and highlight key points to share in class.

signed in marks because they could not write English or because they represented their whole tribe

There were two versions of the Treaty – one in English and one in Māori. They are not exact translations of each other.

The English version states the British intentions were to protect Māori interests from the encroaching British settlement, provide for British settlement and establish a government to maintain peace and order.

The Māori text suggests that the Queen's main promises to Māori were to provide a government while securing tribal rangatiratanga (chiefly autonomy or authority over their area) and Māori land ownership for as long as they wished to retain it.

Exercise 4

Provocations: As makers, can we assume to be working in a negotiated cultural space? Is this notion the same for everyone?

NO, there should always be a negotiation process

important role that cultural differences play in international negotiation

Culture influences how people think, communicate and behave. It also affects the kinds of transactions they make and the way they negotiate them.

which is why we always need the negotiation process:

Preparation and Planning.

Definition of Ground Rules.

Clarification and Justification.

Bargaining and Problem Solving.

Closure and Implementation.

Independent Study:

Read the following lecture and note critical points in your journal, highlighting ramifications since 1840 for Aotearoa, New Zealand.

April 1840, two months after the initial signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Māori have required the British Crown to adhere to the promises it signed up to in that Treaty

treaty of peace and friendship sets out the agreed relationship between rangatira of the hapū and Queen Victoria of England

confirms that the constitutional framework and system of laws that had been observed in this country for many centuries = which is our mana (to have high authority, presence or prestige), tino rangatiratanga (absolute sovereignty) and our Tikanga (customs and traditional values)and remain in place and be protected

Queen of England role would be to take responsibility for the lawless behaviour of her British subjects and to govern them following Te Tiriti o Waitangi

rangatira (people of great practical wisdom which held authority on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that of other tribes) reminded the agent of the Crown about their obligations = response: he would uphold those promise

May 1840: he makes the announcement that claimed that rangatira throughout the north island had ceded their sovereignty to the Queen of England by signing the Treaty = referring to a document written in English that had little or nothing in common with Te Tiriti =claimed to be a treaty of cession of sovereignty

rangatira had never seen that document; he stuck to the one he knew and signed

the Crown ignores Treaty and to violate it = Māori requiring that a constitution be drawn up for the country that includes Te Tiriti o Waitangi

National Iwi Chairs Forum in 2010 established a working party whose brief is to draft a constitution based not only on Te Tiriti o Waitangi of 1840 but also on Tikanga and on He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni of 1835 while having regard to, amongst other matters, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People of 2007

British Attitudes in 1492 was based on the belief of most of the White States in Europe that they had the right to dispossess most of the non-White Indigenous Peoples of the world = Colonisation was driven by racism= British trying to get away with relying on a fraudulent document =many of this written country's histories has not picked up on this fundamentally important fact

result: Māori were/are marginalised, deprived and oppressed minority in NZ, stripped out of their lands and natural resources, denied their sovereignty, language, and true, reduced to servitude and subjected to racism and discrimination

government officials, teachers, and judges can tell them who they are, whether or not they are Māori, what their history is and how they are to live their lives = internalised racism = where members of an oppressed ethnic group, such as Māori, internalise the racism of their oppressor

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples = Faced with this reality and the fact that Māori have never ceded sovereignty, National Iwi Chairs Forum followed on from decisions of previous national Māori gatherings = necessary steps to bring about constitutional transformation

backing of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

New Zealand government refused to support it for many years but finally signed up to it under international pressure in 2010

provides amoral directive from the international community = six articles setting out the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, including Māori

provides a blueprint for the implementation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and is a clear set of instructions for the removal of the shackles of Colonisation that have imprisoned Māori for over 150 years

Implementing UNDRIP: currently exercising only minimal forms of mana and rangatiratanga, e.g., treaty claims and our kaitiaki responsibilities

After 24 years settlement for part of their claims: signed Agreement based on principle they wrote on a 700-page deed of settlement to make sure it correctly reflected what Ngāti Kahu (founding ancestress, one of the six Muriwhenua iwi of the far north of the North Island) had agreed to

Minister of Treaty Settlements, Chris Finlayson agreed to Ngāti Kahu writing their deed/his officials in the Office of Treaty Settlements were incensed

dismissed the deed

taken developers, councils and government departments to court to force them to adhere to their laws

Treaty Settlements = some remnants of land, stripped of our economic base, struggle with dire poverty and deprivation and all its associated problems, forced to live elsewhere

The public is told that "settlements" acknowledge past wrongs and millions of dollars are paid to Māori

Crown-determined policy which aims to extinguish all historic Māori claims against the Crown legally

Deeds of Settlement available on the Office of Treaty Settlements website

Waitangi Tribunal's legislation was changed in 2008 = can no longer accept any historical claims, "settlement" legally extinguishes every claim ever lodged against the Crown not only by those negotiating the settlement but also by any others who have claims in the geographic region involved whether they have been addressed or not = Waitangi Tribunal and the courts are legally barred from hearing any of those claims ever again

Waitangi Tribunal is currently clogged with claims against Deeds of Settlement = iwi throughout the country are split asunder over this extremely divisive, disruptive and destructive process

Result: the government's aim of extinguishing all claims by 2014 appears to have been abandoned.

the Crown, through the Office of Treaty Settlements, has coerced and bullied more than fifty claimant groups into so-called "settlements" although only 31 of them have been legislated

WHO ARE THERE SO FEW MĀORI WOMEN SIGNATORIES?

women signed by drawing a version of their moko, or facial tattoo

Thirteen Māori women have so far been identified as signing the Treaty.

In Britain at that time,women did not vote or have any say in important issues

three women signed at Waitangi

the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi marks the point at which Māori women began to be written out of history

showed that many Māori women held chiefly positions

the influence of Christianity in making it difficult for settlers to conceive of women holding autonomous leadership roles

documented cases where the Crown refused to allow female chiefs to sign

settler scholars who transmuted the oral language into a written one re framed myths and legends, so that female identities were subservient to the male

same "historians" assumed that chiefs were all men and wrote them into the histories as such

pronouns and many names were gender-neutral long before the concept became a source of anxiety for conservative columnists

Maori women leaders disappeared

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE TREATY FOR YOUR OWN IWI/ROHE(WHERE YOU GREW UP)

Treaty of Versailles

ended world war one

between Germany and the Allied Powers (were the coalition that opposed the Central Powers of Germany, Austria–Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria

signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles

Consequences:

War Guilt Clause, which explicitly and directly blamed Germany for the outbreak of hostilities

The Treaty forced Germany to disarm, to make territorial concessions, and to pay reparations to the Allied powers of $5 billion.

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kootenaygoon · 7 years ago

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So,

I painted this back in November, in the midst of my transition from the Nelson Star. I’d been attending Power By You, a CrossFit gym downtown, for nearly two years.

The trainers there had come to my rescue when my relationship ended, and Katya in particular was incredible at holding me accountable to my eating and training goals.

When I moved the last of my stuff out of Nelson a few weeks ago, I stopped by PBY around 4 a.m. and I left this painting outside for my friends Ali Popoff and Leo Grypma (cutest couple in Nelson, tee hee).

Preamble over. Next up, I’m publishing the text of my story “Enough of seeing” below. It’s one of the stories in Whatever you’re on, I want some (taking inspiration from Denis Johnson’s short fiction collection Jesus’ Son) and it’s told from the POV of Paisley Troutman, my gypsy folk powerhouse of a main character. She’s just fled from her island refuge on Quatsino, leaving her girlfriend Amber Bennett behind.

I would love feedback to [email protected]. Thanks for reading.

The Kootenay Goon

Enough of seeing

Will Johnson

AFTER I LEFT, a busload of singing Christians fed me potato chips. There was the talkative insurance agent wheel-tapping along to Shania Twain. Then a spacious SUV piloted by a handsome African man wearing a Bluetooth headset. And finally the family from Saanich, who picked me up along the Malahat Highway and dropped me off in Goldstream Park.

I crouched shitting, semi-conscious in the evening’s shadows, amidst dangling sword ferns and moss-blanketed tree trunks that ascended dripping into the canopy. At the public washroom I’d rushed pathetically, ass clenched, only to find the door bolted. What was the point, even, of bringing rolls of toilet paper when I couldn’t even keep them dry? Mushed maggot clumps stuck to my digits, and I pitched the whole mess into the foliage. My thoughts scampered directionless through the corridors of my mind. One of the Christian kids had spent hours attempting to convert me, proselytizing with parroted anecdotes and memorized Bible verses, body slung playfully over the bus bench, making a spectacle of his suburban innocence. I knew he was probably safely indoors now, supervised, while I shivered under the universe’s nakedly disapproving glare.

“Don’t you want your life to have meaning?” he asked.

The kid’s bill-tipped hat seemed custom designed to rest in the crease of his hair. He read to me from Ecclesiastes: “The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was hitting on me or not. His confidence had a creepy edge to it, like he’d spent his whole life being told how right and special he is.

“Basically, we believe life doesn’t have true meaning unless you have Christ in your life. These kids get one week a summer to get a taste of what’s in store for them if they commit their hearts to Him.”

You’re always going to exist, I thought. Even after you develop critical thinking skills and ditch this medieval religion, there will just be another sixteen-year-old hankering to take your place.

And another one after that.

While cross-legged in the insurance agent’s Mazda Miata, I shared a dainty joint she’d retrieved from her bra. Her hazard lights flashing on the shoulder, she asked me to stand sentinel while she squatted to piss in the scrub grass, hiking her skirt over milky fat hips. Her car was paper-stacked, with crumpled fast food wrappers and discarded drink receptacles piled in my footspace like the lining of a gerbil’s cage. She promised to take me as far as Nanaimo, where she was meeting a man she’d met on an online dating website.

Beneath billowing orange-pink sky explosions we left the highway with a gentle lean and coasted to a stop at Nanaimo’s first intersection. Immediately upon stopping the insurance agent’s manner changed and she began to divulge intense, personal details about her relationship with this man. “I’ve given myself over before, right away, because it feels right. That’s the type of person I am. I’m really accepting, and if I’m going to be in a relationship then I’m going to give it my all, you know? And I know sometimes that means I get taken advantage of. I understand the dangers, but I do it anyways. Does that mean I’m self-destructive, do you think? Is there something wrong with me? I’m trying to recognize my negative thought patterns.” Eventually she dropped me off at a bus stop by the high school, and drove away.

The sky was overtaken with purple, the pinks darkening to blood red, and then ocean-like the blackness rose. The driver of the SUV, a girl’s soccer coach on the way to a conference, was listening to people argue about gender equality on the radio. I was still semi-stoned and couldn’t follow the debate, so I leaned my forehead against the glass and fell asleep with condensation dripping down my face. When I woke up we were idling in the parking lot of a Duncan motel, and the man waited wordlessly for me to climb out.

“Take care of yourself now,” he said.

The next morning, around 7 a.m., the family from Saanich picked me up in a minivan while I marched along the shoulder, spearing the concrete with a Gandalf-like walking stick. There were two blond parents and a pair of well-behaved kids, preteens probably, a boy and a girl. The Malahat Highway wound up through rock clefts, the sloped curves and humped apexes giving drivers ample opportunity to collide with oncoming traffic. The family was eating McDonald’s breakfast and talking about a television show I’d never heard of, so I quickly became bored and fell back to sleep. Forty minutes later they clambered out into the Goldstream parking lot, fist-knotting their hiking boots and pulling on matching Lululemon wind-jackets, preparing to hike up Mount Finlayson.

“You sure you don’t feel like some exercise?” the father asked, because he felt like he had to. He was stretching his calves. “We’d be happy for the company.”

“I’m supposed to be in Victoria by this evening,” I lied.

Morning bird calls erupted all around, and I watched the four of them laugh-jog into the woods, slapping each other’s arms and gesturing effusively at their surroundings. I detoured off the trail, scrambling over a few embankments until I was just out of sight of the parking lot. Then I went back to sleep under a shaggy Douglas Fir, with tail-like hanks of white-green moss dangling overhead and a spongy bed of it underneath me.

All that happenstance to bring me to this moment, mid-evening and mid-shit, when I jump at the scream of metal on metal.

“What the hell is your fucking problem? Look at my truck!”

The two vehicles had met, hood-to-hood, at the narrow exit leading back up to the highway. I was twenty feet away. Late evening now, the entire area was deserted. Glass shards twinkled in the glare while both engines continued to rumble. Two jean-skirted girls flip flopped out of the truck while the driver hoisted himself out after them. He had crashed into a small hatchback sedan, driven by a nervous college kid wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Even from the woods I could see his animal panic, his head ducking deer-like from one side to the other. Finally he opened the door.

The truck driver, I could tell, was a muscled hick kid perpetually ready to scrap. He was wearing a skin-tight black beater tucked into well-worn Carhartts. Each of his pock-marked work boots looked like it weighed twenty pounds.

“What was that about?” he asked.

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention. It was my fault,” said the kid. At least he’d figured out that much. “Listen, I’ll get my insurance.”

“You scared the girls.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Listen, I really am sorry.”

I stood thirty feet away in the dark, with my bag, waiting for the next thing to happen. Mist tendrils wisped through the tree trunks as the fight commenced. Bodies hurled, slapped, thumped. The logistics were banal, mundane in their simplicity—knuckles meeting shoulder blade, hip bone, neck—and the kid’s response ranged from feeble to nonexistent. He whimpered, pain-dancing in the headlights. The girls made a spectacle of attempting to intervene, shrieking like hyperactive kids and grabbing at their friend, until one of them staggered back from a elbow to the eye socket. The kid’s pavement impact sounded wet.

The truck crunched out of the parking lot, dragging the kid’s bumper, and turned right on to the highway. The kid was doubled over with both arms outstretched towards his feet, balanced up on one hip, like he’d been reaching for his toes and toppled over. He coughed and spasmed, jerking like a flattened windowsill insect.

Traffic droned through the trees. I jogged through the woods towards the highway, waving at the yellow eyes hurtling down the mountainside.

A taxi U-turned into the park’s entrance. I yanked open the passenger door and told him, “Some guy got the shit kicked out of him down there. Pretty bad.”

“Someone you know, hon?” he asked, glancing down the dark lane way. The glow from the kids’ headlights could be seen, but little more.

“No, just some guy. Unconscious, I think. You got a phone?”

He pulled his parking brake with a grunt, twisted his keys to turn off the engine. “Cell coverage is spotty out here, but let’s give it a shot.”

The cabbie’s tone was nonchalant, unworried. He motioned with a flash of his wrist for me to sink into the passenger seat, which I did gratefully. His composure was comforting. He was a thin, hard-looking man wearing a denim vest over a T-shirt that read Kiss My Bass. The flailing green fish erupted from his chest, already hooked. He held a flip phone to his ear while he smoked, the cigarette see-sawing as he spoke.

“What kind of injuries does he have?” the cabbie asked, phone chin-wedged to his shoulder. “They want to know how bad he’s hurt. Is he talking?”

“I didn’t really look.”

“Why don’t you run down there and check?”

The kid was gurgle-moaning as I approached, one of his feet dragging noisily back and forth on the ground. I stopped a few feet away, stomach-sick with empathy pain, staring afraid at the thick clots of crimson slicked into his hair and pooling on the pavement. I crouched down by his face and reached out to squeeze his hand, which was about all I could manage in that moment. I wondered if he could feel my skin, whether my presence here during this moment would register in any meaningful way. He was pretty, skin soft like an infant’s, with an expensive-looking and elaborately shaved white-blond haircut. His gasps came with mint whiffs, and it made me sad to see how much work he’d put into his newly destroyed face—a ragged flap scraped off his eyebrow, a purpled lump rising in his hairline, his lips crusted and foamy. Eventually I whispered something to him that you once told me: “remember this is just a moment, and all moments end.”

Maybe I imagined the cheek-twitch of recognition. Maybe not.

Eventually two police cruisers pulled down into the parking lot, while another parked on the shoulder behind the taxi. Rain drifted at us sideways from the forest as cop radios rambled at the car’s empty interiors. I sat on a massive stump for nearly fifteen minutes before anyone thought to address me. I gave my account to an attractive woman with a tight black ponytail. While we talked two paramedics kneeled beside the kid and shone flashlights in his eyes. He remained unconscious, having rolled at some point on to his back luxuriously, but they readjusted him and pulled an oxygen mask down over his face. That’s when he began to vomit, pinkish stomach contents filling his mask until he choked and spat, involuntarily whimpering.

I thought once I’d told my story I could head back into the woods unnoticed, but the cops wanted me to come to the Victoria Police Department. They’d already stopped a truck, only a few clicks down the highway, and they wanted me to ID the assailant. I sat in an air conditioned room an hour later, my soggy bag under my feet, as the cops waited for the others to arrive.

“Hopefully this won’t take too long,” one of them said.

“They’re thinking brain damage at this point, with a head wound like that. Without you we’ve got no leads. You’re the reason this guy will do time.”

“Good job.”

I asked to use the washroom, and one of them led me down a hallway and opened the door with a key. After I finished, as I swung the door open, I was met eye-to-eye with the truck driver as he swished through the automatic doors at the end of the hallway. I meant nothing to him, of course, and as leftover urine spotted my underwear I watched as his female companions were led from the cold blackness of the parking lot into the station behind him. The first was Cleopatra-proud, chin jutting with dignity, though she was barefoot and bleeding. The second wasn’t so cooperative, and was bouncing back and forth between two flustered fat cops, who held their hands back as if in fear of a wild animal. She was young—sixteen or seventeen—and her flesh was hyper-alive with feral, drunk rage. Throwing her weight into one officer she propelled herself into a flying roundhouse that nearly caught the other one in the throat. She hit the ground hard, howled ape-like as she kicked her feet uselessly at the sky. It was a violent, bombastic, pointlessly beautiful spectacle and neither of her friends were there to witness it. Only me. As one officer pinned her face to the ground with his knee, she wrenched her face into position and clenched her teeth into the meat of his shin. I was transfixed. I’ve spent my whole life trying to summon up that sort of emotion. I’ve never been able to fight back.

The kid survived, I found out later. The cops made me promise to show up in court a few weeks later, then drove me back to the edge of the highway. White-gold, the sun incinerated the horizon as it cast its deep black morning shadows. Across the ways the trees congratulated me, groan-rocking, their limbs outstretched in preparation for the coming applause. And you said I was useless.

The Kootenay Goon

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