Possible Stories

“Write a story about the number thirteen. You have a few weeks.”

That’s all I was told by a woman on the other side of the world whom I’ve never met. No theme. No genre. No strict word count. Just... thirteen.

I was intrigued, and terrified. I’ve never written any fiction under deadline or on demand, and now I was going to have to do both if I accepted the challenge. I accepted.

I see Mike Wolfson’s blog post turned into an exercise in utter self-indulgence. I think it’s sad that writers insist on creating such pieces, becoming wholly convinced that everyone will be fascinated with their personal writing process.  I shall follow his lead because I, too, am a writer.

My Possible Stories are invariably tales that begin their gestation as minor annoyances, just under the skin, that I scratch distractedly. Most of them are likely relieved at that point and are eternally forgotten before they ever reach anything close to cognition. Some are a little more persistent and continue to itch sporadically until I actually take note of them. At this point I’ll realize mere scratching is futile and they aren’t going to go away unless I concentrate on the area and dedicate some effort to removing the incessant bother. This proves effective for many of the remaining Possible Stories.

Tragically, some take even more concentration and require a great deal of thought and planning before I can figure out how to rid myself of them, but I eventually prevail – usually. You see, I don’t particularly enjoy writing. I never do it for pleasure or the love of the craft. I love having written but that’s a very different thing. So for me to actually write a story – for a Possible Story to morph into a Real Story - it must be a mother of an itch that spreads to become a full body rash that torments my sleep and renders me useless for any reasonable purpose.

I often concede defeat at three in the morning or so, after several hours of having rearranged my blankets and pillows and pretended all the while that my brain is not infested with a million itchy little bits of fibreglass insulation. I will then scream and jump from the bed and race to my keyboard to start writing. Only then am I capable of understanding what insidious factor made the itch so unbearable that nothing less traumatic than writing could cure me of its torment.

Discovering the root is always a pleasure. It’s like a thin cool coat of Polysporin applied upon a maddening mosquito bite that has been mangled and bloodied by crazed attempts to eradicate it from existence.

That root is nearly always an element of human nature that I’d never before considered and am then compelled to share. It’s often an ironic or tragically amusing observation on mankind's ridiculousness (often my own). Once I’ve found it, concocting a fictitious story around it is the much easier part of the process after all that nonsense I’ve already gone through by that point.

I’ll write, then, like a thing possessed. Responsibilities, nourishment, and grooming be damned till I’ve got a first draft hammered out and fluffed up and nicely pressed. 

No more itch. A Possible Story has beaten my best efforts to scratch it away and emerged victorious despite the odds.

I realize that’s a crazy method of writing. I’m in awe of those people who have self discipline and write so many hours or so many words each morning, inspired or not. I have no idea how to do that.

So – thirteen. That’s what I started talking about. I forced myself to start writing and luckily the itch presented itself soon thereafter. I was worried that it wouldn’t and I’d disappoint the woman on the other side of the world whom I’ve never met. I doubt that a woman scorned concerns herself much with the trivialities of great physical distances.

Twelve other writers, too, are contributors to Project 13, including The Woman herself, Francesca Mansfield, and the aforementioned Mike Wolfson. Triggerstreet Labs is our common stomping ground, and we do our twittering @TheTSL13.

The anthology should be available before too long  It's gonna be pretty awesome. You'll see.

Peaks and Valleys

Many of us, clear on the fact that tomorrow will be a miserable experience due to our actions tonight, are choosing to indulge in alcohol because it contributes to pleasure at the moment. We’re willing to be devoid of happiness later for the benefits of feeling happy now.

Others, will not. They will choose to forgo present happiness to avoid unhappiness later. They will choose to not be happy now, knowing their friends are laughing and enjoying themselves, because the future unhappiness wouldn’t be worth it to them.

One married man will choose to spend an amazing night with a beautiful woman even while being fully cognizant that the later guilt will be torturous for him. Another will go home.

Morals, ids, and addictions aside, we all make decisions constantly on when and how much happiness we will trade for misery. We each have our own general range that we won’t usually surpass, within the grander scale, on which we differ widely from one another.

Some of us would consider a broken leg a reasonable price for experiencing the extraordinary high of skydiving.  Would you? Or is it not worth it?

I constantly hear that YOLO and if you don’t carpe that diem then your existence is being tragically wasted. This philosophy doesn’t seem to have any detractors and I’m not sure why. Why should it just be a ‘given’ that those who have the most exhilarating experiences are living “properly”, while those who forgo them are subjected to our pity and, often, our scorn? “To each his own” is another popular personal philosophy but if you believe that, then you can’t believe it’s a mistake for someone to not wish for exhilaration in their life.

‘Carpe diem’ reaches many us so profoundly I believe, because we live lives of quiet desperation and fear going to the grave with the song still in us. But there are those of us who see our human lives as a shockingly brief and trivial micro-moment and harbour no particular anxieties about not accomplishing and experiencing things that will be soon forgotten in any case. Those who ensure their names survive the longest are likely the ones most horrified by the nature of life. And what does it matter? How is a king we remember a thousand later any better off than a nameless peasant who lived under his rule. One's as dead as the other. Was the negative stress of achieving such 'greatness' worth it for the king? Was the constant anxiety from which he likely suffered worth it? Or would he have been better off doing without it?

That lack of anxiety is the point of this piece.

Avoiding it, often means having less interesting outer experiences than others, but greatly reduced anxiety is worth that to some. So why should some people insist that the high anxiety they endure by working 75 hours every week in stressful jobs to supply the means of exciting adventures and really cool stuff, is something everyone should experience to consider their lives well-lived? Why, instead, is a well-lived life not one that had endured the least negative stress along the way?

Our aggressive approach to living, caused, I imagine, by our disappointment at not being immortal within this skin, is the Original Anxiety and all that stems from it is a sad comedy of perpetual little anxieties that never cease until - yep, death; the death that arrives whether you were anxious or not, whether or not you experienced adventures or had all the trendiest toys.

If this is all there is - if it turns out there's nothing but nothing after death - then basking in how wonderful it feels to be without negative stress just might be the best damn thing in all existence. Yet so many consciously choose to sacrifice that feeling in pursuit of worldly thrills and gains. To say they have 'lived.' How certain are they that they aren't making the error of the ages?

Take a moment to consider the possibility that long-lasting earthly contentedness is an experience not duplicated any where or when in whatever reality is. And then consider that you have a ridiculously short time to experience that treasure. And more often than not, you sacrifice it for something much less precious.

Is it really so “wrong” to limit your peaks in order to limit your valleys?

Consider chilling. Or don't. I'm cool either way.

One Of The Best (Really) Short Stories...

The Solipsist by Fredric March

Walter B. Jehovah, for whose name I make no apology since it really was his name, had been a solipsist all his life. A solipsist, in case you don't happen to know the word, is one who believes that he himself is the only thing that really exists, that other people and the universe in general exist only in his imagination, and that if he quit imagining them, they would cease to exist.

One day, Walter B. Jehovah became a practicing solipsist. Within a week, his wife had run away with another man, he'd lost his job as a shipping clerk and he had broken his leg chasing a black cat to keep it from crossing his path.

He decided, in a hospital, to end it all.

Looking out the window, staring up at the stars, he wished them out of existence, and they weren't there anymore. Then he wished all other people out of existence, and the hospital became strangely quiet, even for a hospital. Next the world, and he found himself suspended in a void. He got rid of his body quite easily and then took the final step of willing himself out of existence.

Nothing happened.

Strange, he thought, can there be a limit to solipsism?

"Yes," a voice said.

"Who are you??" Walter B. Jehovah asked.

"I am the one who created the universe which you have just willed out of existence. And now that you have taken my place"---there was a deep sigh---"I can finally cease my own existence, find oblivion, and let you take over."

"But---how can I cease to exist? That's what I'm trying to do, you know."

"Yes, I know," said the voice. "You must do it the same way I did. Create a universe. Wait until someone in it really believes what you believed and wills it out of existence. Then you can retire and let him take over. Good-bye now."

And the voice was gone. Walter B. Jehovah was alone in the void an there was only one thing he could do. He created the heaven and the earth.

It took him seven days.

Day Five

Ever wonder what goes through the mind of a man who has gone five days without internet?

The Bell van finally came after I sent this. They didn't fix anything but they tamper-proofed the service box so nobody else could help me either then ran away. I wish to hell I was joking.

=

Day Five:

Still no sign of a connection. Increasingly I find myself glaring intently to the horizon until the image of a Bell van conjures there and I can hope against hope that it is real, and that it’s on its way to rescue me. I concentrate determinedly on not blinking for I know that when I do, the mirage will dissipate along with the fanciful notion that I will once again join the online community – become an entity again. A person.

Sometimes these days, as the memories continue to fade, I wonder if I was ever online at all, if there ever actually was such a creation and that I was a participant of it, and this “modem” is nothing more than a green blinking mockery of my tortured mind. Perhaps this is the reality that has always been and the sheer loathsome boredom of this pointless existence has created a fantasy past in my mind, one in which people – many, many people – were just a tweet away. The answer to the eternal question “Who was that guy who was in that film with whatshername, her with the whiny voice?” was discovered in a moment with a mere click. The answer to all of life’s mysteries just that same simple click away.

It wasn’t real. It can’t have been real. The more I consider it, the more I’m convinced that the magic long ago world that I have envisioned and had been convinced was as real as this clean, clean apartment in which I inhabit, the more certain I become of its illusory nature. There probably never was a time when I could click a button and see the Leafs play, another to discover the weather conditions without ever having to glance out a window, yet another to stare approvingly at pictures of Nicole Kidman’s naked boobies. Oh, God, those sweet naked boobies. And why can’t I think of a more recent example of starlet beauty than Nicole Kidman, perhaps one popular in this millennium? That’s how hopeless it has all become.

The past, yesterday, does it matter if it happened in reality or just my mind? Is there even more to reality than just my mind anyway? Perhaps my mind isn’t even real, relegating its memories to an even lesser degree of tangible significance. Who knows, there’s no way of knowing, but these are the haunting questions the lone netless man must contemplate once everything that can be cleaned has been cleaned, when even the drawer with the dead batteries and the Canadian Tire money has been organized, and the dog has a baldy runway down his back from being stroked too severely for too long.

I don’t know if anyone will ever receive this email but, like every day, I shall stuff it into a bottle and with a primal scream hurl it as far as I can into the ebbing tide and I will sit, and I will conjure up more heroic Bell vans rocking gently on the distant horizon, and I will dream. I must continue to dream.

==

And that's just one guy with no net. Can you imagine if it happened to everyone all at once? Actually, you don't have to because Mark Rayner has imagined it for us in The Fridgularity. 

The Second Thirteen

It was mine before you liked me
It was mine before you'd try me, lie to me 
then try to deny that you ever loved me at all

- Slobberbone

Friday, January 1, 2000

Well, the computers didn’t destroy the world last night so life must go on, I guess. In celebration of this second chance graciously given us by our binary overlords, I’ve decided I’m going to keep a journal. It’s not a diary, and it’s not “gay” like my brother, Ray, says. Ray thinks anything that isn’t over the top macho is gay. He’s afraid that not beating on his little brother would be gay, too.  He gets it from Mom’s boyfriend. My sister, Amy, who’s a year older than Ray - she’s the only one in the family who isn’t mean to me. Amy’s pretty awesome.

So, my English teacher, Mr. Dinsmore, says keeping a daily journal is an awesome thing to do. Says he’s kept one since he was a kid in the seventies or eighties and looking back on your thoughts when you’re old is really fun. And Mr. Dinsmore’s wife has the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen so he’s pretty cool and not gay at all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, haha (for future me:  that’s from Seinfeld! It was a tv show in the nineties that we used to like but it’s over now). The point is, whoever gets the hottest girl is obviously the coolest guy, and if you want a good looking girl, too, then you damn well better pay attention to how the cool guys get them.

Anyway, it’s the very first day of a new year, and a new decade. People said it was a new century and millenium, too, but math says otherwise, and I trust math more than people. Still, I figured it was the perfect time to start my journal that I’ll be faithfully maintaining every single day until I grow up and get a sexy wife with big boobs like Mrs. Dinsmore.

Tuesday, September 6, 2000

I guess I’m a little behind on my journal entries. I just started the eighth grade today and we have to keep a journal for English so I remembered I had this one that I’d started and figured I could use it. I don’t know what to write in the stupid thing. My dog died so I guess I could write about that. She was thirteen, same as me, and I had her all my life.  My sister Amy cried. So did I but I cry all the time. Mostly because I get so mad that I’m going to cry. Ray says we need  a new dog right away but no dog could ever replace Daisy.

I have to write 150 words a day, which sure seems like a lot when you have nothing to say, but I guess I’m done for now. Wait, hang on... okay, now I am.

Wednesday, September 7, 2000

My mom and her boyfriend were fighting last night about getting a new dog. My mom says no and Dave says yes, so  we’re getting one. Mom’s mad but Ray’s happy. I don’t know why, it’s not like he cared about Daisy and he won’t care about this one either.

What to write about? We’re going to be learning about Shakespeare in this class. I’m not looking forward to that. I hate the way they talk. It doesn’t even make sense. Why can’t we read books by people who didn’t die a million years ago? People who speak English properly. Like, it is English class! The book is a play and it’s called “As You Like It”. So far, guess what? I don’t like it! I like math way better. Everything has an answer there. None of this “interpreting” stuff. Who knows who’s right? English teachers just make shit up.

Monday, September 12, 2000

Well damn, I missed a few days. Mr. Jordan says as long as I have the right word count by the end of the week he won’t deduct marks, which is cool but I really don’t feel like writing that much.

Anyway, surprise surprise, we got a new dog on the weekend! She’s pretty awesome, actually. She crapped on the dining room floor as soon as we brought her home but she hasn’t done it since. She learns really fast. I wanted to call her Scamper, because she looks like a scamp and my mom liked that, but Ray wanted to call her Blaze because, he says, “Blaze is a bad-ass name.” Dave agreed so her name is Blaze.

Mr. Jordan was going on about that Shakespeare book today and part of it sounded pretty neat. At least, it got me thinking about math. He (Shakespeare) says in the book that Man has seven stages in life, and he goes on to list them. I wrote them down, kind of, and it almost works that you can divide each stage into thirteen years: seven thirteen year stages.

So I realized that since dogs live for about thirteen years (Daisy did anyway), a guy can have seven dogs in his life – one for each of the stages. Cool, huh? I had Daisy for my first thirteen years, when I was mewling and puking and all that, and now I’ve got Blaze for the second thirteen. Unless she gets hits by a bus or something but we can’t consider all the variables like that. When Blaze dies of old age, it’ll be 2013, and I’ll turn twenty-six that year. I’ll be finished my whining schoolboy phase and be checking out my mistress’ eyebrow, whatever the hell that means.

Whoa, that was like two full journal entries! I’ll be caught up in no time.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

And that was the final entry.

I couldn’t remember anything I’d said when I was a kid and started writing this journal, except that you get a dog for each phase of your life. For some reason, that always stuck in the back of my mind, and when a few weeks ago Blaze died, right on schedule at age thirteen, it brought it all back and compelled me to search for this old book, which I finally found in a musty suitcase in my mother’s attic.

I was hoping I’d written something more profound -- some prescient gems about what awaited me down the road, during “the second thirteen”. But whatever. At least good ol’ Blaze featured prominently, as she was there with me throughout the second phase. Well, the bulk of it anyway. The “ignorance is bliss” years.

I’m sure the remaining stages, however many I’m fortunate enough to enjoy - or unfortunate enough to endure - will each have their own summits and valleys, bright avenues and dark alleys, but this second stage is unique in that it’s the only one in which your age doubles from the start until the end: I’m now thirteen plus thirteen. I am two dogs old.

If it wasn’t apparent by the mysterious end of the journal entries, I didn’t really excel in school. I didn’t have the discipline, and anyone who attempted to supply me with some was met with furious resistance. Guys in my family had never gone to school much, and I wasn’t about to be the first and get razzed about it by my brother and uncles and all them. Beer and weed and girls, in any order, were far more alluring, easier to obtain, and a much less conspicuous path for me to take.

Despite having turned my back on most conventions by the age of sixteen, Blaze, who was an energetic and playful three year old by then, had really become my buddy. She always wanted to go everywhere with me, but, back then, I rarely let her. That is, until I learned her value as a “chick magnet”. That’s the term Brian used. He was Amy’s boyfriend and a very popular guy with the girls.

Amy was twenty-one then and didn’t appreciate, or heed, anyone’s advice about who she should be with. Her friends warned her to just shag the guy and move on, consider him a notch in her belt, like those who fell before him, but it didn’t happen that time. She got stuck on Brian, which was awesome for me since his coolness, and therefore his whole network of cool, now encompassed me, however peripherally at first.

Brian taught me a lot about dogs, and about girls. And I listened eagerly. I finally got an education worth receiving. He explained how it was all in the tone of voice, and in the eyes. He showed me how to get Blaze to do all sorts of wicked tricks, to do whatever I said without ever having to raise my voice. Without ever making verbal threats. With just the tone of voice, and with the eyes, total control could be obtained.

He explained how, although they appear to want independence, to run free, unencumbered by rules or restraints of any kind, they really yearned to be controlled. Deep down, they begged to be told where their boundaries are, and there’s nothing that makes them happier than when they find them, and when they’ve managed to please their master. That’s when you throw them a bone, Brian explained, but not every time or they’ll come to expect it. It’s important they never know if their good behaviour will result in a treat or not. You got to keep them in suspense. They just need to know one will be coming eventually, as long as they remain obedient and never stray.

Confidence leads to better technique, Brian assured me, and better technique leads to greater confidence. There were definitely many false starts but I gradually began to see results with Blaze. Brian had been right about so many things. I urged him to become a professional dog trainer but he scoffed at the idea. He said it really had nothing to do with dogs. I puzzled over that for a short while but let it go as Blaze returned with a Frisbee and set it at my feet and I praised her for it. But not too much.

It might’ve been a year later, maybe less, when I was considered a bit of a miracle worker with dogs myself. I’d been careful to follow Brian’s advice every step of the way and the effort paid off. Brian had told me that once I became that good, and I could take Blaze everywhere with me, the chicks would start crawling all over me, as he put it. He said girls just love guys with dogs because it says that they’re nurturing , responsible, and family-oriented. Even if the chicks don’t know they want those things, their hormones know it. I told him I’m not any of those things, but he assured me it didn’t matter. The appearance was all that counted. Image is everything, he said.

He was right, of course, as he usually was. With Blaze along, I had no problem attracting the girls. Girls I’d never met, and would’ve considered out of my league, would come up to me smiling, pet Blaze, and start asking me questions about her, and then about me. The problem was, I had no idea how to respond. I’d stutter and say something stupid, then ramble on trying to explain myself until I’d finally manage to chase them away.

I figured since Brian was so great at teaching me how to train Blaze, then maybe he could start giving me some lessons on how to not scare girls away. He laughed and told me I didn’t need any lessons, that I already knew everything I needed to know. I told him I definitely did not know, because I was terrible at talking to girls.

  “Don’t you get it?” Brian smiled. “Bitches are all the same.”

Listen, I readily admit I’m not proud of how I acted for the next few years, but I did get laid a lot. It was in the confidence and the technique. It was the tone of voice and the eyes. It was making them eager to please. It was throwing them the odd bone.

It was control.

I was twenty when I met Sheila at a party. Wasted as we both were, we managed the mating dance admirably. Smoothly, swaying gently to the improvised music we were producing on the fly, we allowed our melody to write itself. And when it came to the chorus, neither of us missed a beat, despite the hidden skips of our own hearts.

This wasn’t the usual. I suspected immediately there was something more I wanted from Sheila than the typical conquest and abrupt parting. My suspicions played out and I soon found myself recklessly in love with her. She admitted feeling the same for me, but that wasn’t strange at all. There was nothing odd about her behaviour toward me, as they often professed their love for me; only my own behaviour was out of character. And despite my feelings, or, perhaps, because of them, I sought mental superiority hard and fast. It was all I knew, and the girl never had a chance.

I would like to throw a curve in here – to relate how Sheila was immune to my well-practiced techniques, impervious to my gaze but, if anything, she was easier to ensnare than many of them had been. The only difference between her and the rest, besides the fact she was the first girl I ever truly loved, was that Blaze, curiously, had no time for her. Only after I would command her to allow Sheila to pet her, would she oblige, but begrudgingly. I knew this hurt Sheila’s feelings and I worked with Blaze to help her overcome whatever her problem might be. I suspect the major bone of contention was Sheila taking a permanent place in my bed when she moved in with me – the spot that had always belonged to Blaze.

Sometimes I would’ve actually enjoyed having Sheila come out and party with me on weekends, especially after she moved in with me. But if my male family members, and even Brian, had taught me anything, it was that women need to stay at home and avoid risking any unrespectable behaviour, and be there waiting to get me safely to bed when I wander in drunk. And she was. Always. I loved her deeply for that, and she loved to prove her dependability to me.

Brian married Amy in ’08, and Sheila and I did the same the following year when I just turned twenty-two. She’d hinted that she always wanted a fairy tale wedding but that would mean having to put up with her family and all that shit. Why should my wedding be ruined by that bunch? We ended up going to a Justice of the Peace at City Hall and just getting it over with. No hassle, no family, no charade. True love isn’t proved by pomp and ceremony; the proof is in actions.

We moved a few towns away in order to dissuade her parents from visiting so often, and that worked pretty well. Once or twice a month we’d go to Brian and Amy’s for drinks and a barbecue, or they’d come to our place, but the visits became more infrequent over time and the bonds began to fade. Christmas visits remained a must, and a good time was usually had, though I started feeling a little uneasy about some things. I wasn’t really sure why at the time.

It bothered me, for one thing, when Amy and Sheila would joke about how they know Brian and I loved them by how strict we were - how they’d know we didn’t care about them any longer if we didn’t keep them on a short leash. The three of them would laugh about that, and I guess I would, too, but it didn’t feel quite right, not after a while.

I started to feel like the whole short leash scenario... I don’t know, maybe it’s cute imagery for some couples, but it felt wrong somehow – although not wrong enough to make me change my ways. How would I, even if I wanted to? These were the only ways I knew. I loved Sheila to death. Surely that commitment made up for any old fashioned tendencies – especially if she liked me that way.

On the bright side, Blaze was finally starting to warm up to Sheila. The first time Blaze had laid down at her feet, Sheila was nearly in tears. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.  I was happy for her, too.

Sheila asked me one time why I was opting to visit Amy and Brian less frequently. She wondered if I was becoming disillusioned with my favourite big sister, but that wasn’t it. I realized then, though, that I was becoming disillusioned with Brian. He was no longer the cool, older guy that I once idolized. He was still the same as always, but it seemed like I eased past him at some point, in some intangible way, and now he was trying too hard to impress me, and he mostly just came across as lame.

Amy had invited us over for a barbecue two summers ago and, since we hadn’t been there for nearly a year, I decided we’d go. I called to confirm and Amy answered the phone. Her voice was a little muffled and she sounded shaky. I told her we’d be there for the barbecue and started into the obligatory small talk when I thought I heard her starting to sob a little. I asked what was wrong. She was reluctant at first but with a little pressing, she was soon gushing out the whole incident from the night before.

Brian had come home drunk after last call, expecting his dinner. When there was none to be found, he woke Amy up and asked her why she hadn’t made any. She was groggy and told him she thought he’d be too tired to eat so she didn’t want to waste food. He called her a few derogatory names and ordered her to get up and cook some supper.

She thinks she may have expressed annoyance, possibly rolled her eyes, and Brian had become infuriated beyond all reason. Amy said you could tell his pride had been hurt at the bar because he always picked a fight with her when he got home after being outwitted or outboxed by a drunken acquaintance. She knew that was the worst time to give him a reason to get upset, but she’d been too tired to be cautious. He’d grabbed her by the hair and yanked her out of the bed and onto the floor.

Amy surprised herself then, she said, in that the worse he got -- the more he abused her, verbally and physically -- the more angry and stubborn she herself became, and steadfastly refused to comply with his orders. Brian had been astounded at the lack of respect and got on top of her and started choking. She’d tried to fight him off but his rage was far greater than her ability to defend herself. His grip had tightened as his eyes bulged and his face turned purple, and contorted. She was sure she was dying.

As I pictured him with his hands around my sister’s throat, I clenched the phone so hard it left deep impressions in my skin and I vaguely heard the plastic casing crack. As calmly as I could manage, I asked Amy how she got out of it. She didn’t know, but she suspected the moment she felt she was dying, he felt it, too, and that scared him, and sobered him a little. Just enough. He released her, called her a lazy cunt, and went to make himself something to eat. She’d lain there trembling for a good while, she said, before quietly getting herself back in to bed, feigning sleep when he crawled in beside her some time later.

Sheila knew something was very wrong by the way I was speaking with Amy. She began to massage my tightening shoulders and I was grateful. Blaze manoeuvred her muzzle into my free hand until I relented and began stroking her -- for my benefit, not her own.

At first all I could think of doing was rushing down to Brian’s work and smashing his face in, in front of his co-workers, and continue doing so until he was nothing but an unrecognizable mess. I soon realized that wouldn’t be the wisest course of action, even if I could be sure I wouldn’t come out of the incident second best.

I told Amy she needed to leave him. She said she couldn’t. I was expecting that response but it still hit me hard to hear the words. I told her it would happen again, she knew it would, and the next time she might not live through it. She said she understood but she couldn’t leave him. She didn’t know how.

I’d pleaded with her that day, to no avail. I became distraught and didn’t know what to do. I felt completely helpless to save my sister’s life. I called an abused women’s hotline and I was crying when I tried to explain the situation to the lady who answered. I don’t know how often men call those lines but she didn’t seem too surprised, and I took that as a good sign.

It didn’t take long before I was disappointed, though. There was nothing she could do for me. I don’t even know what I had been hoping for when I called. It was just desperation, grasping at straws. The lady told me, as sympathetically as she could, that unless my sister decided to leave on her own, then there was nothing they could do to help. Exasperated, I asked how could someone ever leave their controlling abuser without the abuser’s permission?

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” she said.

That’s the thing.

I was still shaking when I hung up the phone, so enraged, feeling so god damned useless to do anything. It then struck me that there was something I could do, if not for Amy, at least in honour of her, and for Sheila. I resolved at that moment that I would never again lord over her. It would be a whole new ball game, but, from then on, I would do everything in my power to make sure my wife had the strength of mind to leave me if she ever felt she wanted to. If you love something set it free and all that, right? An entire dismantling of the relationship’s structure would have to be undertaken, and rebuilt on equal footing from the ground up. It was daunting, but I was determined and I never wavered.

I wasn’t great at keeping up with half the housework, but I tried. I was better at sharing decisions than I realized I could be, though. I began including her, asking her opinion on all matters that concerned us both, rather than just taking charge and doing what I thought was best. I started complimenting her on her choices, her views, her taste and her accomplishments. Everything from which mutual funds to invest in, to which television show to watch.

I realized her lack of confidence was something I had preyed on, a weakness to be exploited, and used for my own selfish purposes – to feel superior. Brian, the ultimate cool guy that I modeled myself after, now appeared for what he really was: a tiny little insecure man who needed to manipulate women to feel better about himself. And me: his little mirror image.

My plan worked. Sheila’s confidence grew by the week, it seemed. Her voice became stronger, she held her head higher, she advanced at work by leaps and bounds, going from a part-time cashier to a manager in less than a year. It was a remarkable transformation to watch, and she made me so proud to be her husband. And somehow, Blaze became her best friend during that metamorphosis. I was becoming second choice for Blaze’s affections. I can’t say I wasn’t a little jealous but, more than anything, I found it a fascinating change.

Sheila left me in the fall. It was obvious that I didn’t love her any more, she said. The fact that I wouldn’t refuse to let her go out drinking with friends from work made it clear to her that I no longer cared about her. When I didn’t ask where she was, what she was doing, until four in the morning, that was because I must have wanted her to find a boyfriend. So she found one. She found one who was jealous of me, her husband, and who wanted to know if and when she was intimate with me, and ordered her to leave me. He treated her like a dog and she obeyed. She felt secure with him. She felt loved again.

I had come home from work to find her closet cleaned out of her essentials and her favourites. Our dual bank account was cleaned out, too. After all, her boyfriend was in between positions at the moment and they were going to need any advantage they could get.

She took Blaze, too, and that was the final straw. I drove around to the shabby house where she was holed up with her new master and demanded she give me back my dog. Through a ripped screen door, she insisted she didn’t take Blaze – Blaze had jumped in the car and wouldn’t get out. I called bullshit on that and she opened the door wide.

“Call her,” Sheila said. I did, and Blaze came to stand by her side, just inside the threshold. Sheila held her hands in the air to prove she wasn’t holding the dog back. I whistled. Blaze cocked her head in that cute way she had, but didn’t move. I called her, I patted my leg, I whistled again. I raised my shaky voice, and she didn’t budge.

A voice from inside – a man’s voice, calm and in control, called her name and Blaze wagged her tail, turned and disappeared down the hall and out of sight. Sheila closed the door and followed.

*

She called me last Thursday to tell me Blaze had died. The vet had wanted to know her age and Sheila couldn’t remember. Thirteen, I told her, and that’s when that Shakespeare came back to me and sent me searching for this old journal.

The Daisy stage had seemed so carefree but, as difficult as the Blaze years were overall, I wouldn’t give up the lessons learned for anything. I didn’t get a dog to replace Blaze when she and Sheila left me; it didn’t seem right then, but I’m twenty-six now, and ready for phase three. At least, I think I might be, but who knows what hurdles will spring up between now and when I’m thirty-nine?

I’m merely another player and I don’t know if I’ll find that bubble reputation Shakespeare mentioned for the third phase of the big show, but the pound is my first stop tomorrow, and together, me and my pup will go seeking it.

 Cal Chayce ©2013