SORAJA
The engine stutters again as Soraja pulls onto Plantation Ave.
“You can do it, babe! Don’t do this to me now.” They coo to the old piece-of-shit car as it stalls. They turn the car back on and pull up to the house. The enormous tree they used to climb has finally started lifting the driveway pavement. The grass is spotty, giving way to the opportunists. Soraja had hoped that if, for some unimaginable reason, they’d found themself in that house again, it would be unrecognizable – devoid of all nostalgia and feeling. As they linger in the doorway, those dreams are quickly squashed.
They were breaking their vow to never return but Soraja couldn’t say no to strina – not today. It was only to grab the crystal serving dishes after all. In and out. So much for the teenage angst they’d been nursing for the last 15 years. “Crystal at the Legion,” they grumble. He would have liked the Legion, their mom had said, it’s very Canadian. The Legion had been the family compromise for their father’s wake. A promise to sit through the damn Orthodox funeral drudgery in exchange for not going back to that house. But here they are, engulfed by the dark, old-fashioned walls. Mourning is a complicated activity.
“In and out, just like we agreed.” Soraja whispers to the hallway. The dizzying wallpaper pattern sways in non-committal response. The dishes are exactly where they’d been a decade ago. “In and out.” From the end of the hallway, they notice that their old bedroom door had been re-painted. But the 50’s glass doorknob still glitters in the dim light. Setting the dishes on an armchair, Soraja forces their feet to move down the hall. They hesitate for a moment, their sweaty palm tracing the edges and angles of the glass.
When they open the door, the smallness of the room overwhelms them. Some of their things are still scattered around but, really, it looks like a storage closet. They step over the boxes slowly, as if afraid to disturb their slumber. Soraja walks to the window. It’s unlocked and slides it open easily. They rest their folded arms on the frame with a practiced motion. The frame is a pale yellow, worn to the wood in the spots where they had tapped and scratched. The sun is setting and they know that they’ll be late if they don’t leave soon. There are no stars here, anyway – not like on her deda’s balcony. There, you could see entire mythologies. This is just a suburb.
Before they came here, deda would trace the lines between the stars with his finger and weave the stars’ stories for them. Soraja was born under Taurus and was named after its bright star cluster, Pleiades – a jewel, deda would insist. They had worried that they’d never be able to see Pleiades on their birthday again but as their parents made travel arrangements, those concerns fell on deaf ears. Stars don’t fall from the sky, dušo. Still, just in case, they spent most of their nights tracing out the constellations as much as they could – as much as the bright lights would permit.
To the right of the window hangs a mirror that Soraja’s father had hung for them. The frame is all wild, untamed colours that they’d painted up and down the edges. They take the mirror off the wall and walk towards the hall. When they reach the threshold, they hesitate for a moment before putting the mirror down behind the door. Scooping up the crystal, they step into their sandals and fumble for the key in their pocket. With a final scan of the front hall, Soraja steps outside and gently closes the door. The hinge creaks only slightly. The bolt rattles their wrist.
—
LEANNE
Leanne topples onto the bed and tugs off her socks. She inspects the bottoms carefully, anticipation building as she turns them over, looking for – for fuck’s sake – more holes. She tosses them into the pile of socks, all to be darned. If maman saw them, she’d be horrified. Leanne could feel her mom’s meringue-like accent ringing through her skull: Do you need money? We can afford socks! But this wasn’t about money anymore. This was about the environment, our Earthly home… or something. Sighing, Leanne reaches into the drawer and grabs thick wool socks she’d taken from her brother.
Even though she’s been there a handful of months, the apartment is filled with trinkets, paintings, and more ambient lighting than a motel trying to hide something. Leanne’s always been surrounded by stuff – overflowing with projects, ideas, and just-in-cases. No amount of weeding, sorting, or renting U-Hauls seems to help. She pulls on a sweater – Jesus – also her brother’s.
An eager trumpet and an even more eager bark from a neighbouring apartment break her mindlessness and she roams into the kitchen, tripping over a stray book on the ground. The table –prime real estate – is covered in papers, cups, and crimped tubes of oil paints that’ve made themselves quite at home. Leanne rummages through the piles, fishes out half a joint she’d forgotten about, and walks outside. The air is glacial, so cold that it’s impossible to distinguish between the smoke and the frozen breath as they shiver together towards the street. She leans against the porch railing, swaying her hips forward until she rests fully against the wooden bars. The amber streetlights dull the edges of the roofs, snowbanks, and old beater cars that litter the street. The air – on some Holy Mission – begins to find crevices in her coat and soon she’s freezing again. Some days she misses Toronto more than others. Right now, she just misses spring.
Her hand shakes as she brings the joint to her mouth again. At one time she’d have given her right arm to be able to live out this small rebellion. The trumpet sounds again, this time with a distinct melody. The notes teeter in the air, amateur tightrope walkers moving along the staff. Leanne tries to make out the song as she leans forward to catch a glimpse of the mystery musician. The creaking railing gives away her position and she gives up the espionage. She stands silhouetted against the window, taunted with images of refuge inside. Winter always makes things a race between what you want to do and how much you’ve paid for a warm coat. Leanne’s never won. With a last cursory drag, she pushes through the door. The first step inside is always intense as skin thaws desperately – a punishment for wanting more than she can afford.
As she shrugs off the layers, she looks back to the street. From inside the apartment the scene is cozy and inviting, without any hint of the bitter cold. On the opposite sidewalk, an old lady walks into the frame, dragging three large dogs. Leanne scrambles across the sofa to find her phone and snap a picture. This could be a painting.
She walks past her half-finished drawings, only half-hoping for that revelation that weed is supposed to send surging through her. It doesn’t come. Instead of drawing, she weaves back through the piles of books that hadn’t made her latest cut. First up, to the right are those lucky enough to find good homes. Rounding the corner, the donate piles loom. Finally, she passes the discards, pointedly looking away to avoid taking pity.
Leanne sits on the bed with the sock infirmary on her left and a pile of embroidery thread on her right. She thinks I should YouTube this but is interrupted by a memory: that one scene of Linda Loman mending her silk stockings. She wonders if Death of a Salesman made the cut and picks up the thread.
—
GERALD AND MARK
“You’re ignoring me.”
“No, I’m not.” Mark answers reflexively as Gerald takes a seat, a few steps from him. “I honestly had no idea you were back already.”
“Yes, you did.” Gerald rolls his eyes. “You’re full of shit, you know.” The sun bounces off a window across the street and right into Gerald’s eyes. He’d only been gone four months this time. Mark never took it well but he’d never been so childish as to ignore the calls for a week.
Gerald takes the bottle of wine from Mark’s hand. It isn’t the stuff they used to drink. This bottle was all gold embossed stickers and regions – the markings of a newly-discovered taste for reds. Gerald hears Mark picking at the peeling paint on the steps. The chipped paint reveals an archeological site of taste and fashion – each colour, a sedimentary layer of some microscopic canyon. The first time Gerald had walked up the steps, they’d been a mustard yellow. Then there was the summer Mark’s dad decided that a nautical blue was the way to go. Now they were a responsible brown.
“Your steps are boring.”
“They’re not mine.”
Mark takes the last swig and hides the empty bottle between the railings. The clink catches Gerald’s attention and he laughs, expecting to see the young, beardless Markey from six years ago. Gerald holds out his hand and pulls Mark up and then down from the stoop. He steers Mark down the streets they used to haunt together. They glide past old neighbours and old deps. Gerald jumps onto a railing. It had been made slick by years of snow, neglect, and sneakers – no more of that fresh paint tackiness. Gerald manages one cautious step before he topples onto the sidewalk. Mark jumps back with a surprised chuckle and watches Gerald groaning on the ground. He sighs and his body relaxes. Mark gazes down the street to get his bearings – houses meld together until a speck of yellow catches his eye.
“Come on, Ger…” Mark whispers, mostly to himself. They are standing in front of Théo gross yellow door. The living room curtains shut in a hurry and Théo vanishes behind them, like a rabbit afraid to expose itself to the wolves.
“See, he’s not goin’ to wanna see me. I don’t know why you keep trying.”
Gerald sinks onto the bottom step. It has gotten dark all of the sudden, in that distinct fall kind of way. He gazes at the last few flowers battling early frosts in the planter across the street. Mark paces back and forth for a few minutes, before he relents and joins Gerald on the step. “See, if you’d bought cheaper wine, we could’ve had another bottle,” Gerald teases.
It’s been a long time since he’s sat on these steps with Mark, waiting.
Gerald picks and chooses some pebbles from the sidewalk and tosses them into the gutter, one after another. One point if it bounces off the grate. Two points if goes in. Five points if there’s a definitive splash. Mark rests his elbows on the steps above him and murmurs the running score.
“Two. Five. One. One. Zero –”
“No, one.”
“Zero. One.”
A sudden flash exposes them before they hear the door swing open. “One,” Théo says not to them, but to the street.
“Jesus, Théo. You couldn’t cut the flair for dramatics this one time?” Gerald mutters, taking weight off his bruised leg.
Théo glances at Mark, who stands behind Gerald, pointedly picking at his sleeves. It’s been eight years since they’d last seen each other. Mark wonders if Théo would recognize him without Gerald as a context clue.
“We were in the neighbourhood…” Gerald offers.
Théo shakes his head. He takes a pebble from Gerald’s hand and tosses it in the gutter. The pebble clatters lightly but its sound is lost as a group of kids bike by, yelling at each other in their particular language. No one bothers to tally the score. Mark raises his hand in an awkward wave and walks away from the steps. Gerald hangs back for a moment. The temperature is dropping and his breath is starting to show.
“Your door’s a god-awful colour, Théo,” Gerald jokes mildly, lightly jabbing Théo’s shoulder.
He puts the rest of the pebbles in his pocket, zips his zipper, and follows Mark down the street.
—
Jeli Stanković is a visual artist and writer exploring folklore, displacement, queerness, gender identity, and the body as it exists in social contexts and in relationship with the earth. In work and life, they’re a maximalist, focusing on ideas of scarcity and abundance in art. You can find them in these depths: @seeking.soil or seekingsoil.xyz.