The Home IssueVolume 11 Issue 1 Summer 2011

CONTENTSVOLUME 11 ISSUE 1 SUMMER 2011

ESSAYS EDITORIALS

Home(s)MAEVE STRATHY

Exploring HeartCRISTINA ALMUDEVAR LITERATURE

PROSE

ART

Beholder XIVNUNO TEIXEIRA EMMANUEL XERX JAVIER

Front CoverJON JOHNSON

Back CoverJON JOHNSON

Inside Front IAN SPENCE

Inside Back KATE TURNER

24

Your House Is Not Our HomeTIMAJ GARAD

15

Pulling Back Oz’s CurtainDEVON BUTLER

12

This City’s Boring Without YouLUIGI DIGENNARO

21

Home is Where the Goose IsMAX SHARIKOV

4

6

8

ChannelEMILY BEDNARZ

10

A True Crime StoryBARTHOLOMEW BRESLAU

Let’s Go HomeMATTHEW MOUSSEAU

5

15

ClaustrophiliaJORDANA MCLEOD

17

Belle ReveDAVID SHIRLEY

22

To Go HomeSARAH MACDONALD

Rolling SuburbsALEXA FORTIER

9

18

De!ning Empty SpacesLINDA GIVETASH

7

Service DystopiaEMILY HOLMES

20

When I think of home, I think of a place where there’s love over!owing.“

DOROTHY IN THE WIZ (1975)

2

EDITORIALEditor-in-Chief Morgan Alanmorgan.alan@blueprintmagazine.ca

Production Manager Lakyn Bartonlakyn.barton@blueprintmagazine.ca

Contributing Editor Devon Butlerdevon.butler@blueprintmagazine.ca

Promotions Manager Lydia Ogwanglydia.ogwang@blueprintmagazine.ca

Community Manager Timaj Garadtimaj.garad@blueprintmagazine.ca

Radio Manager Katie Parkeskatie.parkes@blueprintmagazine.ca

Brantford Manager VacantApplication at wlusp.com/volunteer

Interns Vacant

CONTRIBUTORSCristina Almudevar, Emily Bednarz, Bartholomew Breslau, Luigi DiGennaro, Linda Givetash, Alexa Fortier, Emily Holmes, Emmanuel Xerx Javier, Sarah Macdonald, Jordana McLeod, Matthew Mousseau, Max Sharikov, David Shirley, Maeve Strathy, Ian Spence, Wade !ompson, Nuno Teixeira, Kate Turner

ADMINISTRATIONPresident, Publisher & Chair Erin EppExecutive Director Bryn OssingtonAdvertising Manager Angela TaylorVice Chair Judith BruntonTreasurer !omas PaddockDirector Mike LakusiakDirector Jon PryceCorporate Secretary Morgan AlanDistribution Manager Vacant

CONTACTBlueprint Magazine 75 University Ave WWaterloo ON N2L 3C5p 519.884.0710 x3564f 519.883.0873blueprintmagazine.caAdvertise angela@wlusp.comblueprintmagazine.ca/advertiseContribute submissions@blueprintmagazine.cablueprintmagazine.ca/contribute

COLOPHONBlueprint is the official student magazine of the Wilfrid Laurier University community.

Founded in 2002, Blueprint is an editorially independent maga-zine published by Wilfrid Laurier University Student Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. WLUSP is governed by its board of directors.

Content appearing in Blueprint bears the copyright expressly of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.

Blueprint reserves the right to re-publish submissions in print or online.

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Blueprint is created using Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.5 using Adobe Creative Suite 4.

!e circulation for a normal issue of Blueprint is 3000. Subscrip-tion rates are $20.00 per year for addresses in Canada.

NEXT ISSUEOn the theme of “Borders”Submissions due September 9On stands September 21

THE HOME ISSUE

It seems oddly fitting that our issue on the theme of “Home” will be mailed to all incoming students attending Laurier in the fall. As these readers leave the place they have known for most of their lives and embark on a new journey, their concept of this topic is certain to change.

For these new readers, who have never before picked up an issue of Blueprint, welcome. Blueprint Magazine is an artistic endeavour produced by the students and alumni of Wilfrid Laurier University, and members of the broader Kitchener-Waterloo community. Each month, we present a theme and accept freelance art, photography, poetry, prose, and cultural criticism on the topic. !is content is edited, and then compiled into a magazine by a student-run edito-rial team.

More so than past issues I have edited, I found a general unifying theme across most submis-sions that were contributed to this issue. !e works of our writers and artists seem to suggest that home is not strictly a physical place, but a space de#ned by the presence of loved ones and a sense of belonging. As you settle in this university, the opportunities to build this new space for yourself are boundless. Welcome home.

Morgan AlanEditor-in-Chief

COVERArt by JON JOHNSON

When designing for my own screenprinting projects I enjoy simplifying forms; I o$en try to create an image that conveys the es-sence of the original. I started creating these little houses with the idea of only doing a group of four, but when I got to four, I just kept going. I re-ally appreciate di%erent house styles, and enjoyed thinking about the signi#cance that each house has to the people who have called them home. !ree of them carry signi#cance for me, I hope one connects with something for you.

4

Here in Waterloo, our two universities are not only home to !ocks of students, but !ocks of geese as well. As a student, I have learned to live with the student population and the goose population, though both are prone to disgruntled outbursts when they fear their territory is being threatened.

About the disgruntled students, little is being done; about the disgruntled geese, I was recently informed by a university insider (anonymous for the sake of their job) that steps were being taken to reduce the goose population. In early spring, university workers sprayed the geese eggs with vegetable oil, the desired e"ect being that the embryo would su"ocate and would not hatch in late spring. #is is, apparently, common practice in population control – though I don’t see how it’s any better than trapping and killing beavers, an indiscretion that brought the University of Waterloo some unwanted at-tention in 2006.

I didn’t want to believe what I heard. But come summer as I walked through the campus, I saw that geese were parent-

ing one or two goslings, compared to nine or ten in previous years.

Allow me to put this into perspective: While attending the university and living in residence, a woman becomes preg-nant by another student. She decides not to take o" the fol-lowing term, and returns with octuplets. One morning, the mother awakes to $nd that seven of her eight children have been murdered.

She proceeds to call the police. #e police arrive with cam-pus security to inform her that student services has received too many complaints about the children, and they were lawful in their decision to kill them.

Perhaps the geese would receive better treatment if they paid tuition. Speaking from the perspective of someone who has dealt with OSAP, the paper work, and angry calls from the collection agency – during which they uttered threats that far exceeded the threat of smothering and killing my o"spring – I sincerely doubt it.

Home Is Where the Goose IsMAX SHARIKOV

MAX SHARIKOV

5

We were two thirds of the way home when anargument broke out between my mother and father. !e ar-gument was regarding something about directions, I couldn’t follow what exactly.

!ey had argued like this before, but the tipping point was when my mother swore. !is was rare among parents, espe-cially my father. He always wanted to maintain some illusion of “moral superiority” by never using profanity: not when they were shouting at each other, not when another driver cut him o".

“Gosh darn idiot! Learn how to drive, will ya?”It was my mother’s swearing that compelled my father to

pull over. He looked upset, but of course I knew it was a show. In fact, her swearing made him look better. He had not let his anger get the best of him. But his driving had been called into question and he wanted to prove himself.

“Do you want to drive? Do you think you’re a better driver than me?”

“Yes, I can say without reserve that I’m a better driver.”!ey made our presence known when they told us to vote.

!ere were #ve of us in the back, #ve passengers, expected to decide the outcome of the argument and the drive. None of us had a driver’s licence. Our vote was the closest we came to driving.

I was already in support of my mother. She was direct, spoke plainly, and never contradicted herself. My father, on the other hand, was extravagant; he loved to drive and care-lessly wasted gas on unnecessary detours. I knew my mother cared more about the passengers: our comfort and safety. With my father I felt like I was along for the ride, never mind what I had to contribute.

“No one likes a back seat driver,” he would say.While my mother made her promise to get us home safe

and in as short a time as possible, my father interrupted with reminders of my mother’s shortcomings: he told us that she had contributed more scratches to the car than he had; that she was not aggressive enough behind the wheel and the drive would be longer, not shorter.

When my mother spoke of my father’s characteristic wastefulness, bringing the car to the wash two times in the past week, my father chided that he had had the car washed the second time because she had driven it through mud and dirtied it.

I knew better. I knew my father’s vanity had been the true reason for the second wash. If there had been any mud, he had used it as an excuse.

My father promised to stop at any rest stop that o"ered fast food and sugar laced treats, which he would surely buy for his supporters. !is excited my younger brother who, un-til then, had appeared indi"erent toward the debate.

My younger sister supported my father. If I asked her why, she wouldn’t say that it was for the fast food. No. It was be-cause my father was a con#dent driver, had been driving lon-ger, was more competent and better able to continue driving.

I tried to rally the support of my remaining brother and sister. !ey were older than me, had seen more arguments like this one and already knew the outcome, saw no point in getting involved. I should have known they wouldn’t vote. Too strong was the grip of apathy.

What disturbed me more than the indi"erence of my older brother and sister was the willingness of my younger brother to believe my father’s empty promises: if he stopped

at any road side attraction it would be to serve his own inter-ests. I wanted to warn him of the impending disappointment, but his excitement had been encouraged by my younger sister.

Two votes for my father. One vote for my mother. Two votes abstained.“I have my majority,” my father said.“Alright, Stephen. You win. Let’s go home.”In his pride, my father merged too quickly into the rush of

tra$c and was forced into the wrong lane, where our car was demolished by a head on collision with a truck.

Let’s Go HomeMATTHEW MOUSSEAU

While my mother made her promise to get us home safe and in as

short a time as possible, my father interrupted with reminders of my

mother’s shortcomings: he told us that she had contributed more scratches to the car than he had; that she was not

aggressive enough behind the wheel and the drive would be longer, not shorter.

I am homeless.Not in the literal sense, I do live in a house. I feel home-

less because I lack a hometown. I have no city to return to and proudly claim as my own. I have lived in a few cities, but I don’t have any roots or deep-seated memories calling me back. You can exist in a place without leaving any part of yourself behind. I don’t look out my window and think about how much this place means to me, or go to the local Tim Horton’s and think of the great memories I’ve had there. My friends have mentioned that I make my city sound like a horrible little hick town, population of 1000, when really that’s just me complaining.

I’ve felt “homeless” for quite some time now. I moved to my current city, a loose term for my present location, in grade eight and have always felt out of place. I hated the town with a passion, and the people in it almost as much. Young and

spiteful, I would cry for hours, plotting escape and swearing to never look back when I le!. In my self-absorbed, thirteen-year-old head, this was my personal apocalypse. I had to sur-vive the zombies that in"ltrated my new school.

By grade twelve, one could say I was settled. I was famil-iar with my surroundings and made some great friends, but I knew that once I le!, I was gone forever. Living there showed me I don’t like small cities, and the suburbs bore me. #is was a pit stop on a greater journey.

I still have good friends in my old city. I feel nostalgic when I visit my former neighbourhood. But I cannot claim the place as my hometown; we both have changed too much to relate to each other. #e park behind my house was great for exploring when I was in grade school, but at the age of nineteen, I would like my Friday nights to be a bit more inter-esting. #e older I got, the more disconnected I felt. It was like meeting a childhood friend one day a!er completely losing contact with them – you remember the great times you have

had, but how do you relate to them now? Reminiscing about horrible elementary school teachers can only bring you so far in a conversation.

Waterloo is not, nor will it ever be, my hometown. I abso-lutely love the city, but once I graduate I can never live there again. #e thought of co-existing with my university self when I am thirty is strange. I don’t want to go to the same bars and hang-out spots for ten years. #e idea of my children go-ing to the same bars as I did as a freshman is terrifying. I don’t want to raise my children on the streets that I grew up in.

#e closest place I found to "tting the imaginary require-ments of my home is Spain, where I visited for a month last summer. I remember feeling enchanted by the old architec-ture; like I could spend years walking around these old streets and still discover new things. Sitting outside of my family’s home, watching my cousins play, I knew I would one day

be back, I was not done with Spain. #e month ended too quickly, there was still so much hidden away that I had not discovered.

I think and co-exist in the past, present and future. My past forbids me from living in a place that has seen a younger me. I don’t want to walk around and see my past mistakes written on park benches and walls like gra$ti. I want a fresh canvas, a place for new beginnings and experiences.

We have all heard the cliché quotes about home being where your heart is and the myriad of variations upon that, but I can’t relate. My heart is out exploring; it’s wandering around trying to "nd that one place. It will be that one place that will make me look out my window and feel like I have reached my destination. My city will not inspire me nor will I feel enraptured by its nooks and hidden spots. I will walk along the streets and my heart will match the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. I will know that this is mine, this is me, this is home.

6

!e thought of co-existing with my university self when I am thirty is strange. I don’t want to go to the same bars and hang-out spots for ten years. !e idea of my children going to the same bars as I did as a freshman is terrifying.

Exploring HeartCRISTINA ALMUDEVAR

7

Home is not a place with walls, windows or doors.It’s not an apartment or a house, nor does it have two rooms or six. None of those things matter – they de!ne empty spaces.

When I moved to Waterloo over four years ago, I was em-barrassingly excited to get away from Toronto and live in a new city. It quickly became all that I hoped it would be, as I developed friendships (some rather brief), found jobs (some were also rather brief), and inevitably began calling it home.

Yet despite Waterloo being my newfound home, I still said ‘home’ when referring to my mom’s couch in her new apartment that I never lived in and only infrequently visited. I’ve found myself calling my o"ce home a#er long days (and nights), and the odd power nap thanks to my lifestyle of sleep deprivation. I’ve even called my favourite Waterloo bar Ethel’s

Lounge home, particularly during their to-die-for taco week. A#er four years, the west coast will be the next place I will

pronounce as home. It’s not because I have found reasons to hate Waterloo, or have grown tired of my friends. I’ve come to realize is that my $uid concept of home stems from the fact that home isn’t so much about geography as it is about people. My mom’s couch - regardless of where it is in Toronto - will always be home, and so will my friends in Waterloo, whether they stay or move across the globe.

My Waterloo adventure has been a worthy one, but there is only about a year or two le# before the adventure reaches its expiry date. Where ever I next end up housing my shoes, books and pillow, it’s the new friends, like the current and old, that I look forward to !nding a home in.

De!ning Empty SpacesLINDA GIVETASH

Recycled at 1am IAN SPENCE

8

I remember hanging out at my parents’ house inToronto one weekend while in university. Sunday came around and I mentioned to my Mom that I was heading home. Heading “home” meant back to my student house in Waterloo, but wasn’t I at home already? !ankfully my Mom didn’t go all maudlin, nostalgic for the days of yore when her house was my home. Instead, in her eyes, this was a wonder-ful development; it meant that I was so comfortable in Water-loo that it felt like home, and it really did.

It wasn’t something unique about Waterloo, per se (though I love the city) it was more about having forged a new life for myself somewhere else. I’d made new friends, got-ten a job that I really enjoyed, and knew my way around the

place. When you spend the "rst 18 or so years of your life in the same place, even when you have a good level of inde-pendence, moving to a new city separate from your parents is an amazing experience. When you’re in the right place – and Waterloo was the right place for me – then it’s even better, and it can truly feel like home.

But my parents’ house was still home, too. I’d go home to Toronto for the weekend and then back to Waterloo on Sunday. I don’t know if some universal law dictates that any

person can only have one home, but I de"nitely de"ed that law while living in Waterloo. When I graduated last year, I moved to Port Hope for a job, and that’s where I continue to live now. I love my job, and I don’t mind this quiet little town, but I still like to escape to my parents’ house in Toronto on the weekends.

I feel at home here in Port Hope. My apartment is cozy and has everything I need, and I’m starting to get to know the town a lot better. I don’t have my girlfriend, close friends, or family here, but I still feel at home. At the same time, my parents’ house still feels like home.

I wonder to myself when I’ll only feel at home in one place, like I did for the "rst 18 years of my life. I suppose when I have a family of my own, our house will be my home, but maybe not exclusively. !e corny-but-true saying ‘home is where the heart is’ seems to be "tting, so I guess my heart is in a lot of di#erent places. My heart was once in Waterloo where all my closest friends were and where some of my most formative experiences took place. My heart is now in Port Hope where I’m working at an amazing institution and being challenged with great work on a daily basis. And my heart will always be in Toronto – with my family, where I grew up, at my old stomping grounds, and where many of my closest friends re-main.

I don’t know exactly how I’d de"ne “home” in words; it’s just something I feel in di#erent places. I’m starting to realize that it has less to do with the place itself, and much more to do with the people in it.

Home(s)MAEVE STRATHY

Ideals DEVON BUTLER

I wonder to myself when I’ll only feel at home in one place.

9

Rolling SuburbsALEX FORTIER

There are nights when I think I won’t wake to see the morning. !e days leading up to these nights are not aw-ful, not terrible in any particularity. !ey are the days where my ribs begin to separate and let the air in until I cannot breathe; not when the sky takes residence in the center of my chest and there is no room for me to stay. It passes, usually, no more than "ve or ten seconds a#er it occurs, and it becomes hard to remember why it completely devastates me.

!ere is an entire existence living behind me that I cannot get back to. I think it is this idea of our family and where we used to live that perverts everything, and makes me forget I was ever sixteen. We lived in unchartable spaces back then, when the streets would sing us to sleep. We would awake and forget that the sadness of a solitary street light made us dream in hazy yellow. I cannot remember how many of us there were; they "ght for space in my head. On the days when the grass smells freshly cut from the window in my apartment, they win. I cannot count them, but I count the ribs that splin-ter and open up.

When you are "#een, you don’t realize you can never go back. It is not a matter of time travel, but of feeling that there is an indefatigable, endless amount of days that do not wear numbers and months or indicate that soon, everything will change. !ere is a hole in my chest that was once "lled by the completeness of a family who had an inexhaustible amount of time ahead of them. When we are "#een and seventeen, and a father is in the backyard cutting the grass, and a sister is out with her boyfriend but promises to be back later, and

a mother watches television and smokes cigarettes; they are inextricably bound. !ey will never be as much as a family as they are in that exact moment. Each of them living, em-bodying time and not knowing it, not realizing it is ticking, waiting to detonate into smaller moments that cannot bring them back to this time in whole pieces, while the rest can only be fragments.

I "nd myself waiting for them. I wonder where they are, if they’re okay, if they ever realize the way I do; that I can’t ever get back to them. !ey can live only in an endless cacophony of memories. !ey all make noise, distract me.

It is an existence wholly unremarkable, one "lled with an in"nite amount of pine trees and rolling suburbs. !ere is a hill covered with cement that I used to know, and a line of dead, toppled trees we used to climb. I haven’t "gured out how to reconcile it with the fact that I can no longer remember the names of streets or the surrounding towns. It belonged to me at some point. It was unextraordinary but it was mine, and I have no idea if it ever really happened. I have no real way of proving it, except a moment inside my chest that promises we are all but for one instance utterly unremarkable, fragile and precious to no one but our own dying photographic deca-dence.

It makes it hard to prepare for class, and be proactive when there are endless moments of time living inside of you. All of them competing, trying to take precedence over my ability to add to the pile. It makes it hard to sleep at night and put on makeup. It makes me forget.

Home by the Sea DEVON BUTLER

10

Your House is Not Our HomeTIMAJ GARAD

Airways like barricades; your notes are dead to me.A deaf ear to the nonsense bred to restrict the conscious ...just to dilute our progress. !is is a twisted war, with censored signs of con"ictIn the land of the free made by slaves, no reparation paid No education to disclose the tactics Censorship is your tool, where ignorance is your practice And you build dream houses, with glass ceilings Look up and the sky’s the limit so you can only imagine, Look around and your held captive in your oppressor’s mansion In a space that dictates your freedom of motion Until you realize dreams cannot be con#ned And freedom cannot be measured in liberties denied Because it (freedom) exists as a state of mind So until we frame ourselves with love crimes of the revolutionary kind How can we feel at home?

11

Elora IAN SPENCE

Pulling Back Oz’s CurtainDEVON BUTLER

It was nothing short of magic when Dorothy, with just the click of her ruby slippers, returned home from Oz. Over half a century later, we may not have the technology for teleportation, but with one click of a button we can send emails, pictures and even talk to our loved ones at home face-to-face via Skype.

Maybe, if Dorothy were able to Blackberry Message Auntie Em a picture of the Emerald City or tweet about the Wicked Witch, her desire for home would have been slightly dimin-ished. A!er all, wasn’t that the moral of her story, that home isn’t a physical place, but an emotional one? I can’t say for cer-tain how modern technology would have impacted the past, but one thing is for certain – !e Wizard of Oz would have been much less inspiring if Dorothy had whipped out a GPS to locate the nearest airport and caught the "rst plane out.

On my "rst vacation to Europe, I su#ered extreme home-sickness and longed, every night, to be sleeping in my own bed. Within a few days, I realized how easy it was to feel com-

fortable in a new location. Surrounded by the comforts of my family, I could turn each hotel room into my own space with familiar belongings. I realized that a home is nothing more than a building; it takes the memories and personal experi-ences to transform four cold walls into a space of nostalgia and comfort.

One of the great things about travelling is that eventually, you return to your own bed and are reunited with your real home. My home is where I felt most the most comfortable in the world, cuddled on my couch on a Saturday a!ernoon. So naturally, I found it quite challenging when at 14 years old I was forced to move away from my childhood home and relo-cate to another city.

I was stuck in an unfamiliar space everyday without the promise of one day sleeping in my old room again. I coped by browsing through photographs of my old home, and tried to keep in touch with my friends using MSN Messenger. It didn’t take long to realize that the photographs were one dimension-

!ere’s No Place Like It/Kansas WADE THOMPSON

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al; even with a picture of my backyard in hand, I still couldn’t run around it with my neighbourhood friends or pick berries from the garden. I couldn’t smell the musty scent of the attic or accidently step on the creaky stair when I snuck downstairs at night. !e photographs were just fragments of a memory; if anything, they served as a cruel reminder of a time we can never go back to.

Like how I created a quaint nest in the many hotel rooms I’d visited, I was eventually able to turn those strange new walls into recognizable ones. I started to learn the smells and sounds that came with the house, and tried my best to visual-ize how my room would look and feel down the road. While I adjusted to the space, I could never quite become accustomed to the loss of my childhood friends. It never seemed to mat-ter how many hours were spent hashing out gossip on MSN, the conversation always had to end with an abrupt ‘g2g.’ Over the next few months, the conversations became less profound and much shorter. As these were pre-social networking days, keeping in touch with somebody took a far greater e"ort than a wall post every six months.

Even with the steady technological advances that were oc-curring, people seemed to blindly accept that emails and oc-casional chatting could su#ce as replacement for face-to-face interaction. !e promise of having my friends come to visit me in my new home was forgotten. I suppose they thought, ‘why visit when I could email.’ Even later, with the opportu-nity of Facebook, catching up consisted of a ‘we should do something sometime’ half-sincere message.

!e ironies of modern day technology are inescapable. I choose to believe that internet companies began their en-deavours with the best of intentions, to bring people closer together. Facebook was a way to stay in touch and connect. Skype created a way to see our friends and family face-to-face when we are half way around the world. !ese are very ex-traordinary inventions and accomplishments, and if you iso-late them from society, they seem like the absolute ideal.

Sadly, these technologies, invented to bring people closer together, end up driving them further apart. If I can write emails, Skype and text every day, there is never really a need to see someone in person. Similarly, it becomes easier to re-place a physical person with their online persona. Eventually, a$er communicating using only these media for a signi%cant amount of time, it becomes much more manageable to rarely see somebody, and the desire to see them gradually fades.

Even a$er the despair I felt in moving away from my child-hood home, over time, the blue walls of my bedroom melted into the purple walls of my new one, creating a hazy nostalgia for a place I struggle to remember. !is is the unfortunate divide between technological intention and implications. If I communicate with my sister through text and Facebook chat when she is in the very next room, how will we connect when we live in separate houses, cities or countries?

Vast changes in basic technology made travelling to Eu-rope for the second time a more convenient experience. I could take a computer with me, which meant I could keep in touch with everybody at home. It meant I could upload pictures as I went about my adventures, sharing them with

friends and family. It even meant I could listen to the music I wanted with an iPod.

Despite the possibilities these devices provided, I longed to experience travel the way I did on my %rst endeavour. Strolling along the Seine is less romantic with a Blackberry in hand. I felt like I was living my days according to my email, thinking of all the people I needed to respond to and prom-ised to communicate with. I was living for my camera, for all the pictures I said I’d take and all the while being consciously aware these could be seen by anybody on my networking sites. Even an ocean away, technology was guiding me with its invisible hand, in&uencing my decisions and behaviour.

Even though I was thousands of miles away from home; I was only an eight hour plane ride away. Even though I’d like to believe I was %nally somewhere untouchable, I was still reachable; I was still subject to the culture and technology of my own continent. !e Simpsons was on television, a Star-bucks was around every corner and there is nothing quite so depressing as purchasing a souvenir from the streets of Paris

and seeing it months later in a Home Sense. I’d pulled back the curtain and seen that behind the great and powerful Oz; there was nothing more than a man and a machine, control-ling my thoughts, actions and ideas.

!e world seems like a smaller place, controlled by a hand-ful of people, websites and technologies. I can buy a Kit Kat in every country and share my stories on Facebook no matter where I reside or where I travel to. It’s opened up possibili-ties to keep in touch with the people I love, but these devices aren’t restricted to travel and distance. !ey impact the ways I interact with the people in my very own city, and home.

I wonder if I would live life di"erently had these technolo-gies been unavailable to me as they were to Dorothy. Would I see friends more o$en, and would travel be a much grander experience? Globalization wouldn’t control half the world and relationships and cultures could &ourish. I would be less inse-cure about how I’m being perceived and feel more inclined to keep friendships intact.

And somehow, regardless of what I long for, these are only the dreams I have; dreams for a world without technology consuming my every moment. I have the brains to learn and communicate without these devices; I have a heart, and love for my family. It would seem all I’m missing is a little courage to power down my laptop, leave my cell phone at home and learn to live life on my terms; knowing that though memories of vacations, family and even my childhood may fade, they can never be disconnected.

If I communicate with my sister through text and Facebook chat when she is in the very next room, how will we connect when we

live in separate houses, cities or countries?

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Keys IAN SPENCE

15

Welcome home, they said when he returned to the hometown where he had attended elementary and high school.

He returned for the occasion of his high school com-mencement. A graduation and diploma ceremony, no longer a hat and gown a!air one envisions with ‘pomp and circum-stance’ in movies and television. He returned expecting to be reunited with former friends not yet forgotten. Instead, he was greeted by a bill: $50 outstanding for commencement service fees.

Welcome home, they said when he returned to his high school. "e secretaries greeted him with the warmth of a tax collector, hands extended. "ey tell him: You can come to the commencement ceremony, but you won’t be leaving with a diploma. You can attend the university classes you have en-rolled in, but they won’t recognize you as a student unless you show them a diploma. You can leave with a diploma, but it’s going to cost you #$y dollars.

He protested: I spent everything on university and accom-modations. My savings, my parents’ savings. I may need to take a loan if I can’t keep my scholarship. I have to eat at the soup kitchen on weekends because I can’t a!ord groceries; and you’re telling me that I’m not a student, that I don’t have a diploma, that I lose everything unless I pay #$y dollars?

"ey tell him: Welcome home!

A True Crime StoryBARTHOLOMEW BRESLAU

Soon this won’t be your homeYou’ll come back to appreciate the waythe light falls on the leavesthe quiet scent of this placewood %oors and so$ humFamily is somewhere, unheardStanding alone in the house you grew up inLeaving in September

ChannelEMILY BEDNARZ

16

KATE TURNER

17

Here there is sand and waves, imagined ecosystemsecosystems of life. A hundred thousand life forms packed into a square foot of water, her life, their life, washing back and forth across his calves, knees, thighs, hips, deeper – but there was really only bricks, not bark, and noise – the tap of glasses together, tossing back alcohol like promises.

One day.!e water is bitterly cold, but more feeling in this numb-

ness than anywhere else. He can feel his heartbeat pulse down and out and imagine it moving into the water with tiny ripples to prove his reality. But they both really knew, both cradled a lie between their palms like a stone and felt the heavy weight of it.

!e sea doesn’t want him. It heaves against him, trying to spit him up, and spits him out, back onto the shore where he belongs.

Waking up from an endless dream within a dream, push-ing her, brick scraping her back, lips scraping her skin – wak-ing, waking and yearning to be the spinner of his own fantasy, to resist the fallacy into which she pulls him. To create an absence of choice where he would have no control over his betrayal. No guilt, no feeling, just the pure moments that he can’t reach in his reality. To be free of regret that is parasitic to each good feeling, the paradox of the dualistic balance of fairness.

Fairness that doesn’t exist, he knows this, but in the dream… trees, then rocks, sand, then water, crashing, rising, cooling, and feeding his dream. He can create and destroy it all.

!e ocean is her breath all around him, her thoughts that move like osmosis through his skin. He pulls in her mind with an endless desire of feeling and knowing. Not wanting – wanting is for reality.

In the dream there are only moments, and being.!e brick rough, the ocean, rough, pushing deeper and

deeper under his skin. Her arms crash into him, grazing his skin, "ngers pushing like a wave through his ribs. !e sea rushing up past his neck and closing in, a welcomed claus-trophilia, pushing past his nose and eyes, choking down his throat, pounding in his ears a kind of commitment he’s not ready for, but yet...

As he tries to #ee the sea, each collapse of a wave and ex-plosion of boiling froth claim him. His collapse on the shore like a second birth, all fours, sand pressed into his cheek bones and mouth, rough on his tongue. With each foot fall and each tear fall, he crawls then walks from the ocean; taking drops of her with him on his skin. His tears, her body, seeping into the ground where they fall. Shards of green stab through the sand, and push up, into little mountains. !e ground shakes to mimic his thoughts like his own personal earthquake, and

when they stop, his mind will be still.Young at "rst, then aging faster and faster, a forest grows

up around him, under him, thick tree roots ripping the sand with the sounds of a terri"c symphony and tripping his feet. Grasses, #owers, shrubs, trees- oak, ash, pine, spruce, "r, se-quoia, redwood, all together and writhing and straining high-er, proof of how much life she has.

He cries out, the sound entirely swallowed by the dense, dark wetness of the forest as his feet split and without con-sideration to his agony, small roots, still like veins, burrow

into the earth. Each step tears them free with small snapping sounds and a shower of earth, but they grow back, faster each time.

!e moonlight that is shining through the limbs of trees, weaker and weaker as the forest overtakes the shore, trees towering two hundred feet above the water as living monu-ments to her experiences.

Never more sharp a reality than in the pain, than in this dream with the soil beneath his feet, teeming with life. !ese feet like lead too exhausted to li$, she takes them for her own, veins threaded with roots and bark crawling up his legs like a shiver, like breath. Slivers of wood split his shoulders. Like Shiva, branches crack ribs, and up, up, up, his new center of gravity, straining for the sky- and he wonders, brie#y, how to photosynthesize.

His breath, shallow, her name, sounding more like the sea churning, like wind.

And suddenly there is no sound, no pulse but the forest, no feeling but hers. His mouth, tongue, twisted into a knot, leaves dripping from arms- no, branches.

But even as he’s given up his soul, his eyelids scrape his eyes as bark, the brick scrapes through her back and the back of her hands, and his knuckles in tiny tears, he wonders if this is close enough.

ClaustrophiliaJORDANA MCLEOD

!e sea rushing up past his neck and closing in, a welcomed claustrophilia,

pushing past his nose and eyes, choking down his throat, pounding in

his ears a kind of commitment he’s not ready for.

18

I have homes. I have had homes; houses, in fact,that have been detached or semi-detached. I will soon have an apartment. I have places to go to and from; something to call my own at the end of the day as I crawl into my bed and pull the sheets up to my chin. I know where the cut-lery sits in the draw and which cabinet door I should go to in search of my favourite co!ee mug. I have physical places. But I have homes elsewhere. Sometimes the most familiar places do not neatly sit upon cement foundation and have archways or a threshold to cross. My other home is in memories and in the hearts of seven other people.

"e feeling one gets from being around a familiar per-son can be just as comforting as placing a key in a lock, turning it open, and walking out of the past day and into your home. I suppose this emotional home of mine does have a foundation. It was based upon cement, but also has shoddy workmanship and corporate responsibility. It smelled of books, co!ee and a faint odor of obligation. But then, once upon a summer, the house grew bigger.

We made many additions. What started out as two sis-ters soon became a handful of colourful characters: quiet, loud, crass, sweet, thoughtful and entertaining. Our play-ground was the city streets at night, running from one end of the city to the other, in search of adventures and places to call our own. "e back corner of the theatre be-came our TV room; the creaky, marked up table at the working man’s restaurant was our dinner table; the hotels we jumped to and from were our beds; and, in the bright early morning’s light, the parking lot was our front yard.

So this is where my home started. "e neat thing about

these kinds of homes is that they are nomadic. One by one we all le# the physical place that we had grown accustomed to. Some le# by choice, others by force, and yet our home still continued to shi# and grow. Soon a#er that the distanc-es started to develop. Like those other places of our house, renovations happened. Our TV room became sleeker and our dining room/kitchen became more family oriented. "ese changes were odd, unfamiliar and sometimes unnecessary. But then we were changing too. We aged, we became couples, we went to school, we got jobs and we grew-up. Our home started to creak and feel like it needed a change; a redecora-tion of sorts. "rough the $ghts, the distances, the silent treat-ments, the things le# unsaid, the exploration of other people and places, this home still stands. We come back to this place.

Our home sometimes needs a new paint job or something to jolt us back into the kind of excited place we were before, but those changes are minimal. "e big changes make the home better. Perhaps I am just nostalgic and homesick already, be-fore my own personal change makes a transformation to this home. But this place is just as important as any other physical space you go to. If you see a nick in the wall, your memory will trigger the event that caused it. When I look upon your faces, I see a myriad of moments, people and places that lull me back into a familiar spot. A hug feels like I am being wrapped in the same warm blanket lying so languidly upon my bed.

My apartment will be an extension of our home. It is but one additional place for M, A, M, S, L, C and N to be in. "e foundation isn’t always the end point or con-versely the beginning. It just exists for something to rest upon. Our foundation is no longer cold cement blocks.

To Go HomeSARAH MACDONALD

19

Direction DEVON BUTLER

20

Service DystopiaEMILY HOLMES

It’s hard to believe that a restaurant could beconsidered home to anyone, especially this restaurant. !e beige coloured brick and oak trimmed walls create a seem-ingly warm atmosphere. Pictures and newspaper clippings of certain accomplishments and a family’s legacy found in glass display cases evoke an element of compassion. But what many people who walk through these doors don’t realize is that a monster lurks within the walls.

!is monster is a product of age, loss, and grief. It is a product of many years of hard work, turned ugly by the in-coming prospect of death. I believe that once, this creature was good. Like Frankenstein’s monster, it had benevolent po-tential; the newspaper clippings "lled with stories of contri-butions to various charitable organizations prove so.

As the years push on, the divide between the monster’s sense of rationality and its innate cruelty becomes increas-ingly obvious. Rumors have #own through the building of the potential reasons, none of which have proved to be true. !e monster’s motivations remain a mystery.

On one of its destructive rants, aimed at tearing down in-

dividuals and demeaning anyone it could, I heard it call this place “home”. I was confused at "rst, but a$er further specula-tion I understood why. I realized that its entire life is scattered throughout the building; not just in the pictures and news-paper clippings, but in the scu%ed hardwood and the crum-bling brick. It is found in the scribbled notes posted in the service areas and kitchen. It is found in the carefully chosen paintings that were originally hung in the café by the monster itself many years ago. At this mention of “home” I saw an al-most human element in the monster; the way her eyes lit up and glazed over when she spoke of the building. It pulled my heartstrings as she looked somewhat hurt and defeated.

However, this moment did not last, as the monster quickly snapped back into the action of attack.

I still harbor a certain amount of contempt for this crea-ture; I still cringe in fear when I hear it scream my name, and I continue to sneak by its lair to avoid confrontation. But that element of humanity I saw in its eyes will forever haunt me, as I know somewhere in its depths there lies the ability to love something enough to call it home.

21

This City’s Boring Without YouLUIGI DIGENNARO

!ese streets aren’t meant for me.!ough once I thought they were a few blocks and signs and tra"c con#nes simply meant to be - But just a few.

Because every turf and hood, every tiny venuelately, seems to have been planned for us two.And I could imagine that all the night drives are worth the bet!at your $owered body against your apartment’s lighted double doors makes the most gorgeous silhouette.

And darling, let me tell you, these nights I’m mucking through those kitchen sinks,!e possibilities keep on sinking when I’m trying to guess what one woman thinks.And all the others ask me-

And I’m asking myself, “Why?” I’m only one man, a%er all -But, you’re so many reasons to try.If anything, I guess, I’m just waiting to see during those late nights (on your sti& couch),If there’s anyone out there just waiting to stay up for me? And a%er each goodbye, when you engage the elevator door, I’m thinking there (without you) like every night before:Anata ga inai to!"#$%$&' kono tokai wa tsumaranai.'''''()*会+,-.%$/'

Hunger Destroyed, Cooking at Home IAN SPENCE

22

From thin cracks under the door she crawls, she keeps me awake at night. I’m shaken by something arbitrary - the breeze’s breath on thin window panes or a low voice muf-!ed turned a wail from way, way down the corridor. And now I’m stuck awake, entrenched in early Sunday dawn, braced by late Saturday night.

"e room is only partially lit, just enough so that odd shapes can be seen and faintly made out through inference, but little enough that no real details are ever known. I think I hear a television playing, electric beeps and whistling tunes bordering formal, news reporter tones. I haven’t a television of my own; it must be the neighbour’s. And the air condition-ing runs, the fans whir and something’s abuzz, waiting for me on standby.

As I try my best to fall back through the sheets, and catch myself in the life at Belle Reve, I’m kept awake by the light; from the cracks under my door she crawls. Draped in the sheets, I try to catch the current of comatose, to be tossed

back into the waves of an uncertain, unknown con#dant to whom death itself loans much resemblance. I picture sheep and focus my breathing to the sharpness of a pin, adjust the air and burrow myself deeper into the furrows of linen sheets, then, so suddenly, change my mind and kick the quilts o$ again.

I think about opening the window or getting up to take a quick piss but I know it isn’t wise. I rule such thoughts quickly out, realizing what they might imply. So I go back to #dgeting between the sheets, trying to #nd the right spot, or a comfy groove in the limp mattress topper. But still, despite the pal-pable night, I’m kept away by that thin thread of light.

Ten months it’s been since I’ve moved in, and yet the frig-idness of dusty uninhabitance still hangs from every corner; like sore memento cobwebs.

I hear two shrill voices thrown down the hall and #nd my ear plugs have fallen out, one strewn across my meager pillow, the other wedged into the muscles of an aching back. Just as

Belle Reve DAVID SHIRLEY

23

I re!t them in my ears with a gentle shove to seal them tight, the two outside are caught chuckling in each other’s ears. Bent close to one another, their legs leave thin shadows along my bedroom "oor. I’ve tossed and turned all night, thrown myself from le# to right and side to side, front to back, but my bed’s still cold. I pull the sheets back over myself and grip them tightly at my chest, legs !ring like relay runners under the eyelids of my bed. Just trying to keep warm I work up a little sweat, my back’s sticking to the bed sheet forces the quilt o$ once again.

In the sparse light I see my body strung out in front of me; covered only by thin cotton briefs and patches of curly brown hair like a forest groomed selectively. Sweat’s beaded in the nooks and cracks and corners of my body’s every room. My limbs are thick tree trunks in the winter time, whose bark grows brittle, whose acorns and leaves all dead and carried away by an unforgiving Autumn wind.

%ough she grants some solemn sight, there’s really not

enough to make out any muscle tone, any de!nition or real shape. I try to admire the base for a minute, but give up in the absence of true scrutiny. Looking around the room I see that she, too, has not yet graced us with the real ability to admire – in dreary awe - the contents of my room. I look to my desk, forgetting the need to sleep a moment, and see no camarade-rie but shrouded shapes, poltergeists and faceless silhouettes. I reach for my pen and pad, but the blackness scribbled down every page makes me hesitate, fearful that I might be littering some page of poems; I write a line, try to remember what it was I had dreamed as the thought slips away, the ink hardly visible on the unlit page.

So I try once more to fall back asleep. Pierce the lids shut, hold the tongue and breath e$ortlessly. Still though, in the corner of my eye, stinging through the blinds, that long or-ange line "oats in an otherwise deep and endless blackened sea.

Ten months it’s been since I’ve moved in, and yet the

frigidness of dusty uninhabitance still hangs

from every corner; like sore memento cobwebs.

Boo KATE TURNER

24