Four golfers wait on the tenth tee, handling their driver grips.
“Ron, how’s your wife?” Aaron asks his partner. “Haven’t talked with her in ages.”
Ron’s silence is fraught. “She wants a divorce. Now the kids’re gone.”
Awkward reticence envelops them.
“Fairway’s clear, good to go,” Dave announces. “Whose honour?”
Gary Thomson, in his aging tetchiness, finds diminishing pleasure in social jock talk.
Sixty-two prisoners huddle as Oberscharfuhrer Misner strolls their lines, culling unfit laborers for the death chambers.
Furman entreats his feverish hand: Still work a needle, draw a thread.
Misner scrutinizes Furman’s wound.
Saunters away.
Did mercy nudge him along?
Or a vanity to have his torn shoulder flap stitched securely?
Gary Thomson once (naively) thought that tailoring centred on trimming trousers and attaching buttons.
Aleah Kattan watches new refugee Ruslan lean over her student contest entry of karabij halab, nutty cookies fragrant with hints of orange blossom.
Ruslan nibbles. Smiles.
An Arab proverb fragment (feeding another nourishes two souls) confirms her hope: today’s tasting quickens repair of his heart’s distress.
He reaches for another.
Gary Thomson is himself a descendant of refugees, from the Highland Clearances.
The unicorn occasionally visits Sarah in her garden [under a shining moon]. Whispers: tell me of your dreams. Your fretful moments. Speak truly, so I might soften one burden.
Restore peace to my quarrelling parents? Sarah muses.
Straighten friend Abby’s deformed foot?
Sarah broods, under the stubborn weight of fairness.
Gary Thomson [hesitantly] believes in unicorns.
On Christmas day, O’Dowd’s sleigh bells jingle along the farm laneway toward a hushed Emma Rawlins. Clydesdale Dan snorts a frosty greeting. Emma shuffles forward, grateful to escape her cloistered loneliness. Her arcing club foot brushes angel wings in the snow. Snugged and blanketed, she follows the bells into wonderland.
Gary Thomson still remembers sleigh rides of his youth: a hay wagon pulled by Smoky and Thunder along snowy rural roads.
Midmornings, from her clusters of roses and multi-hued tulips, the flower seller selects a sprig of rosemary. Places it on the brass stumbling stone nearby, framing the inscription: Sophie Kleffmann. Taken 10.21.1942. Murdered at Treblinka.
Each dawn the street cleaner sluices away the flower, leaves radiant flecks like pomegranate seeds.
Gary Thomson writes micros, riffs his Hohner harmonica, and reads historical fiction at home in Ontario.
When I was seven, an astrologer told me I would travel.
Had he forewarned I might tumble down a rabbit hole,
or
confront Polyphemus in his sinister cave,
or
hazard the Mississippi aboard a raft with Huck and Jim
then
I’d have [regrettably] opted to barricade myself in my bedroom.
Gary Thomson has adventured in many countries. And distant galaxies.
On his ninth Christmas, Adam presses inquisitive eyes to his new telescope. Magis’ candles, he marvels, christening fiery stars with childhood’s fancy, forging a closeness against their remoteness.
Aged eighty, he discovers a new star, eternalizes his name. He shuns ensuing fame, only savors his lifelong glimpse into heaven’s mystery.
Gary Thomson is old enough to know better, but he still wishes on falling stars.
Emma works her knife over the jack-o’-lantern’s flesh, tapers the leering, accusatory mouth, widens empty eyes. Her stepmother’s features, just so.
She draws the gleaming blade between unhearing ears.
A centred candle bursts into flame.
“Proof of the destructive power,” Master Carver has forewarned.
Soon father will be hers alone.
Gary Thomson resides in Ontario, where he enjoys country drives through fiery autumn colours and strolling amongst early pioneer cemeteries. None of his published work matches the poignancy of mossy inscriptions on weathered grave markers.
The zebra butterfly clung to the glass pane. His black and white wings drew the attentive fingers of the little boy on the window seat inside. Could he cradle this wonder in his hand?
The butterfly clapped his wings and lifted away. He carried with him all the toddler’s joy.
Gary Thomson lives in Ontario, where in his quiet moments he blows Beatles tunes on his Hohner harmonica.