The Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19. Jocelyn Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ all over the statue and find the usual sinister nothingness the square is known for. What finds me is the saddest security guard in the world. ‘Looks like we’re getting more snow,’ he says. I sprinkle my cup of Dad as I go. Talk about poignant. I check all the old places. Nothing.

      For your own TH:

      1. Put Clue 1 on Facebook or hand it to people if everyone’s starting together. Let’s say Place 1 is the Ghandi statue outside the downtown library. Clue 1 could say: Rhymes with candy.

      2. At the Ghandi statue, you’ll hide Clue 2. And so on.

      3. If you know how many people are playing, you can leave little prizes. Good places in Edmonton are pamphlet racks at city hall, plants in MacLab theatre and the sculpture in front of the Winspear.

      Two

      In September I had an epiphany. Others called it a breakdown because I was fourteen and had recently cut my own hair. Everybody had an opinion. I got caught in a bad energy field (Rita); I was lazy (Joan); predictably nihilistic (Paige); anemic (Grandma Giles); possibly lesbian (Santini, school counsellor); underchallenged (Ms. Riddell, biology teacher); bloody brilliant (Leonard). I knew it was an epiphany because I knew what epiphanies were. The week before, I had happened to be in English 10 when Trenchey talked about epiphanies and he was quasi-interesting for the first and only time. That kind of coincidence has to mean something.

      On epiphany day, things started as per usual. I was walking through Churchill Square, empty concrete heart of Edmonton. I had passed the sign that says ‘Wheeled sporting activities are not allowed.’ Wheeled sports are the only thing the square is good for, but that’s Edmonton for you, and I’m used to it.

      Who knows why that day was so radically unspecial, but I was totally tabula rasa. Possibly Churchill Square oozed brain-damaging toxins and all my get-thee-to-school neurons had been eaten away so I could ephiphanize. Or, forget the carcinogens – maybe ugliness is enough for brain damage. Wouldn’t that explain practically everything?

      I watched people walk by and so many of them looked like they wanted to sit down and stop everything. You could see them make the decision to keep moving. After a while I told myself, whatever, Dree, you’re just PMsing. I watched the guys looking for butts outside the doors of Edmonton Centre. Oh, go home, drink more coffee, I told myself. Then I saw the security guards watching the guys looking for butts. I went OMG, it’s Edmonton on Wednesday morning, get a grip. Then a man older than Grandma Giles yelled, ‘Learn to drive, you moron,’ from his truck, the woman he yelled at gave him the finger, he leaned on the horn and so did a bunch of other people.

      We are so so done.

      I thought of Joan in her cubicle and the hundreds – thousands? – of other people trapped in cubi-farms all around me. I felt the pull to jump back in, magnetic and strong. I didn’t move. I couldn’t not see what I saw. We’re talking full-on, factual data – like waiting for the bus when it’s thirty below and knowing it’s cold. I knew humans were finished.

      It wasn’t about school being all traumatic. It’s just that when nothing matters, ninety-minute blocks of obsolete information are ridiculous. Like getting measles when you’re dying of cancer. A secondary disease.

      I ate a lot of chocolate that evening, which led to regret, invention and decision. Feeling bad for the tired masses, I invented the band of hope, a hair band containing messages of hope to give to those in need of encouragement. I tried to blog it for my weekly craft, but because of a tragic home situation – dial-up – I gave up after an hour and concentrated on a life plan. Clearly, I could no longer not notice that my city is not only the epicentre of capitalist car-freaking-death culture but death itself, so, except for killing myself in spirit or body, there was one thing and one thing only to do: thrust myself into the heart of this evil. The Mall. I had to work in West Edmonton Mall.

      The next day, I almost scored at Second Cup, thinking unlimited free coffee, yes. But Manager Rachel said I had to buy a Second Cup T-shirt for $27 and couldn’t use the espresso machine until I proved myself because the espresso machine was a privilege, not a right. When Roberta at Winners talked to me, I did not laugh at anything. It worked and I was unpacking Christmas ornaments with Tamsin before noon. Winners was perfect.

      You can tell yourself nothing matters blah blah, but when most people keep going to school et cetera there’s this little bit of am-I-crazy-or-are-they. Maybe, you think, I have to tell myself nothing matters because I’m a loser. Winners clears everything up. When you’re unpacking big Christmas balls the size of your head and covered by some heinously strange feathers you can’t imagine a bird for, made by exploited workers in China, you know something is dreadfully, unspeakably wrong and then when you see people shopping and buying the big feathered balls in September for $16.99, well, civilization is sucking on fumes, isn’t it? So you look at the shopper and think a quiet I’m so sorry but good for us. You’re nuts for buying it, I was nuts for unpacking it, we’re all nuts, but we have each other. Tamsin asked me if I was Christian which was maybe an insult given her tone, but who cares – I was a caring person to a public in need.

      Every morning I’d use the phone in the back to impersonate Joan and call the school, and I’d get home in time to erase the automatic where’s-your-kid message the school sent every day. For two weeks it was great. Then someone called Joan at work and she went all life-crisis. Thus ended my usefulness as a human. Leonard came to the house and sat across from Joan, me in the middle, Paige upstairs pretending to practice her handbells but actually only dinging psychotically whenever I said anything.

      Parents wear you down with their worry and their guilt and their expectations. You look at your mother and you think, god, you turned your body inside out to produce me and you look at your father and, hell, he’s crying. Whatever, you try to convince them that crack, prostitution and living on the street in general do not interest you at all. But that’s where they go, they’ve seen the headlines and the movies. So, fine.

      ‘Okay okay,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’ll go back.’ Joan hit the table one more time to say this was about not throwing away my future, then went to bed.

      ‘Thanks a lot, Dad,’ I said.

      ‘Dree, you know how I hate to keep secrets.’

      ‘As in, hello, life is pointless?’

      ‘I’ve been putting away a little something for you every month.’

      ‘Yeah, right.’

      ‘For a couple of years now, surprise for the big fifteen. Listen, Dreebee, you’ve got to finish Grade 10. After that it’s the free-choice highway.’

      I’m not an idiot. Not in the Leonard sense, anyway. He’d say what he wished was true instead of what was. I’d nailed him many times, told him not to make something look good just because he couldn’t stand the crappiness of it.

      There was none of that and also, I gave him an out. ‘Really, Dad, you’re not just thinking about it? ‘

      ‘Two promises, Dree,’ he said. ‘One, don’t tell Paige or your mom; two, once you go, you call me every week.’

      ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But Dad, it’s totally okay if this is an idea.’

      ‘Every month. Not a lot, but something.’

      His voice was too quiet, his eyes too steady for a lie. At that moment, the special account existed.

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