Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 37
February 2, 2018
The Visit
Trevor, seated on the living room sofa reading, looked up from his book when the doorbell sounded. His wide camel-brown eyes sidled the clock on the mantelpiece. Twelve minutes past eleven on Saturday morning and he wasn’t expecting anyone. He kept reading until he heard the thunder of feet barreling down the staircase and shifted his focus to the front hall.
“Oh, how marvellous,” the nasal voice said. “You’re home.”
Trevor closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Oh, dear Lord … not today,...
February 1, 2018
Clean Slate
To January I say this: Good riddance!
I spent twenty-one out of thirty-one days sick, feeling absolutely crappy. No, I was miserable. Coupled with that miserableness was a strange malaise that sent me spiralling out of control. I didn’t understand that it was life speaking to me. And worst of all, I wasn’t listening. I was tone-deaf, trying to plough my way through life as if everything was cool and under control.
When I started to feel better, the anxiousness and restlessness began to ebb. B...
January 27, 2018
Where I Belong
Sundays had long been ordinary and routine, almost melancholic. A day of gimmicky rituals he had long tried to escape. Like church because he didn’t necessarily believe. Or the weekly family dinners, where conversations around the table made him doubt his worth and cement his place as an outsider. The runt. Or ransacking his grandmother’s bedroom, while she was still alive, for the bottles of scotch and gin she tried to hide. This Sunday was anything but ordinary or routine. Certainly not mel...
January 24, 2018
Clean Up Your Own Backyard
That’s a song by singer-songwriter Laura Smith, from her 1994 album B’tween the Earth and My Soul. It might be a song about love and relationships, but its message carries over into life in general. Especially the title of the song, which has stayed with me since discovering Smith’s music back in the 1990s. And it’s resonating with me even more in these early days of 2018. Mostly because I’m feeling stuck and unable to really get moving. I know I have to do something. And the song captures ex...
January 19, 2018
Home
Alex pushes the door open wide and steps into the darkness. He lifts his hand and searches for the wall, shuddering at first contact at its coolness. He gingerly moves his hand up-and-down, side-to-side, until he comes across a light switch. He flips the switch upward and squints at the sudden brightness, blinking magnificently. He turns and closes the door, then kicks off his shoes.
The crisp air sends a shiver down his spine as he makes his way deeper into the house, turning on more lights....
January 13, 2018
Time for a Reset
Catching a cold on New Year’s Day really bummed me out. Mostly because getting sick annoys me. The scratchy throat. The cough that feels like I’m about to, at any moment, bring up one of my lungs. Instead, it’s the clumpy, green mucus I hack up. The nasal congestion and my nose that becomes so raw from blowing it the skin peels off in my hand. The sleepless nights (because as soon as I lay down in bed, the cough that I thought had gone away reappears to keep me up all night). The lack of ener...
January 12, 2018
Velocity
Wednesday, 7:59 am. I wait inside the Queen and Providence bus shelter for Bus 43 (Belmont Hills – Downtown), which ferries me to work. The rain falls against the dark grey skies. A silver-haired woman paces the sidewalk outside the bus shelter, scrunching her hawkish eyebrows as she complains to Bob and Mary and Ethel that the bus is late. She’s there every morning but never gets on the bus. Did I mention that I’m the only one at the bus stop with her? Yesterday, in deep conversation with Ma...
January 5, 2018
When Love Falls
“I know it sounds crazy,” Sam said, his gaze locked on the duck confit he’d barely touched.
“Sounds crazy?” Nancy asked, the contempt rippling through her usually silvery voice. “It is crazy. And stupid.”
“But what am I supposed to do? I mean, I don’t want —”
“Don’t say it,” Nancy broke in. “Don’t you dare say you don’t want to lose him.”
“I don’t…” Sam looked up, tears banking in his round brown eyes. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Give me strength, Lord … give me strength.” Nancy turned to he...
January 3, 2018
Don’t Be Discouraged
Happy New Year!
I woke up on 1 January to the cruelest of jokes. At least I wanted to think it was a joke. The scratchy feeling in the back of my throat, and the pain swallowing. The throbbing between my eyes. The nasal pressure and congestion. This was how 2018 was starting out for me? It had to be a joke, right?
Nope. No joke. My body was, one more time, telling me to slow down and smell the roses, to let myself rest. Did I do that? Of course not. I still got on my flight to Vancouver and c...
December 27, 2017
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Whether it’s at Christmas or at any other time in the year, when I tell people I’m going to Port Colborne, the immediate question that follows is: where’s that? I tell them it’s not far from Niagara Falls and, unless they’re familiar with the area, they nod accordingly. It’s clear, though, by the stunned look still twisted into their faces that they really have no idea where it is. And that’s okay.
If I hadn’t met my partner, I wouldn’t have known where Port Colborne was on a map or that it e...
