Personal Narrative-Home

You never actually said your name out loud to anyone, and I'm not entirely sure how I managed to find it out in the first place. I'm sure it was through the whisper chains you hear every so often in this cafe. You have a soft voice you know, it's barely audible when you say things, it's not quite what I'd call gruff or gritty, it just has this sort of toughness. It's as though you've steadily built up a defence mechanism in your voice so people don't ask you things you'd rather not answer.

Out the window and down the fire escape, twenty floors was nothing at this point, and considering police would have to get here and go all the way up to the top, I was in the clear. As I slide down the ladder to the ground, I heard the sirens pulling up in the front, perfect timing, I walked out the alley, taking off my hoodie and slowly joining the crowd forming behind the cop cars. “The best place to hide is in plain sight,” something grandpa told me that I'll never forget, though considering I was a college student with a backpack in New York, blending in was a given. Making my way to the side of the crowd, trying to catch a word of what the officers were saying. “Suspect, average height, weight, witness says all they saw was a shadow going out the window.

Daniel's bemused expression said more than words. His eyes swept across the room, and his brows furrowed slightly. The dark gray walls were painted bright yellow. Baby animal decals replaced the Amsterdam posters.

As Glenn sipped on the champagne he had grabbed to help wash down the handful of uppers he had just taken, he quietly mingled with everyone in the hall, doing his best not to bring attention to himself. Everything was going good too… that was until he spotted Mr. Bojangles slinking his little furry way through the room. “Son of a bitch,” Glenn whispered to himself in utter disbelief. “I’d recognize that wretched fur ball anywhere.” And, Glenn should have recognized the cat; he had stared all day, every day at the stupid feline’s pictures splattered all over Peggy’s desk for the past dozen or so years.

My head was spinning, the kind of spinning you'd get after you've had a little too much to drink. Someone yelled from across the room, the little voice awoke at the back of my mind and said ever so casually “Don't worry, it's probably another nobody.” I shrugged my shoulders and carried on walking, inching my way closer and closer to the door weaving my way through the jungle of people, I was determined to do one thing and one thing only. Get outside.

Head spinning and sleep deprived, my black and white-striped Adidas drag across the taupe cement floor, begging to come to a stop in front of the lockers in the backroom. The cold steals away my sense of feeling, yet my nose still manages to alert to how cold it is by allowing nasal fluids to dominate. I sniff. Today is going to be long.

The rest of the ride was smooth and silent, at least on the outside; inside of me I felt like a soda bottle someone had shaken up long enough till it was about to explode. All the resentment I had felt for Patty had came up again on the one hour drive. I couldn’t believe her! She should’ve told me it was a dine and dash. Here I was, driving around, sticking my neck out so she can have her night of fun, and she doesn’t even bother to tell me what we’re doing.

I wouldn’t mind visiting Ireland. I wish I were in Scotland, floating on Loch Ness, fishing for eels. But from I’ve heard these places aren’t fairing much better than the old Disunited States. Things seems to be dilapidating rapidly.

I wipe my sleeve along the muck covered window. Watching the people rush around trying to get to places, for some odd reason it soothes me. Shema, Cardo, Scien, Lud, and Tarsel fill the street. They walk shoulder to shoulder. The Tarsels keep to themselves and hang their heads as they walk along the crowded sidewalk.

The West side of New York is busy at this time of day, specifically Virginie Scott park,

In the second grade I experienced my first nose bleed. It was quite traumatizing; I can distinctly recall the sudden sensation of warm blood wetting my lips and trickling down my throat. All of this was made worse by the fact that I met such a fate not by my own carelessness, but at the hands of another; a little boy named Alex, who pushed me down in a game of tag. Of course, I cried, and once Alex realized the harm he’d caused, he cried too; although I’m sure a fraction of him did feel sorry for the harm he’d inflicted, I think an even bigger fraction was terrified at the idea of being reprimanded. And though his utterances of “I’m sorry” were likely not without some sincerity, in that moment, I was so furious that I didn’t care. I promptly

The faint evening shadows cast by the glow of the midnight moon slowly drift across the dying lawn that is the backyard. In the quiet of night, the forest is lively with the chirps of the bugs and the whirling of the wind as it wraps around and through the trees. Airplanes dot the time as they roar overhead. I sit alone on the bottom step of the old deck. Legs crossed and hands folded I sit and listen.

My mind fogs up as I try to recall my doctor’s reassuring words. Memories begin to blur and blend in with each other as I try to reach out in this fog of darkness, attempting to grasp what is authentic and what is not. I need to reorganize and record my thoughts somewhere objective, somewhere I know is secure and wouldn’t be altered in any shape or form. I pick up a pencil that is placed in front of me and gradually begin to scrawl out my thoughts on a scrap piece of paper. As I progressively document every bit of detail of my memories, I begin to notice a faint murmur behind the frigid, white wall adjacent to me. I shrug it off and blindly assume that it is just my neighbours conversing with each other. Time

The small leaking sink in the corner is hypnotic. Drip, drip, drip echoing through the cold concrete room keeping my mind settled like soothing background music. The striped shadows on the floor are confusing my eyes. I began to awaken my mind as I realised where I am. I feel the cooled air in my skin as I hear the faint sound of footsteps getting louder and louder. Eventually stopping right outside the once quiet room. I hear the sound of keys as the man looks through them and the click as he unlocks the door letting the door roll open with the eerie sound of rusty hinges.

It’s been four months since Delilah left for New York. She wanted something new, since we were together for 5 years, I must’ve been too used to align with her new tastes. Saskatoon might not be the most interesting place in the world, but it’s where I grew up, where we grew up together. I heard my mom call me from the kitchen, that’s enough dwelling for one morning. She handed me a coffee on the way out the door as I ran to catch the bus.