Proximity to Stranger

By Breanna Shanahan

Young man on the Montreal Metro, I am squeezed into the already too-full car beside you. You are loud, with cologne so strong we all taste it. Common courtesy has my backpack between my ankles and the humid underground puts to use the sac-a-dos straps sewn inside my puffer jacket. The post we share is in one hand and in the other arm a box of office plants and artifacts. In the absence left by the blocked Wi-Fi on our route, the memory of a few hours ago replaying: “We are shutting down for two weeks, prepare to work from home...”

My too tired brain cannot translate anymore what you say, but I let the excitement in your speech quicken the ride home. When we hit a curve on the track you stepped on my foot. It's fine and I forgive you. You remind me of my brother. We slow to my stop, and it is not yours. I look at my shoe, think “goodbye, forever perhaps” and walk off the train. It is March 15th.

--

Home or home? Despite the half decade here in the one window flat, home is the place that awaits our return. When we are back in the GTA, home is here, in the middle of this street, the middle of this triplex. In the middle of the brick face our lone window is a TV whose program the cats watch religiously, listening to the soundtrack of horns, bus brakes and drunken nightly gatherings on loop.

But tonight, we pack our things, and plan our return home, to that suburban network of ‘little Malta,’ that we will find space in to weather out this viral storm. We say goodbye to this island home, this time it is forever, and I wonder if I will ever forget this postal code.

--

Middle aged woman at the border, how long have you tied your hair like that? So tight your forehead stretches back with every strand. Are you immune to headaches?

But what a headache we must be, and I know why there is suspicion in your eyes as we try to enter New Brunswick in an RV. This is not a vacation - fresh employment offer in hand and scan of the rental letter are almost not enough to convince you - but though we are tired, and your border has stolen another hour, you say we must continue on. No campsite to rest, or would we rather turn back and restart tomorrow? So off we go, more afraid than ever of large roadside beasts now that flashing signs warn us of their deadly threat. Off to a new kind of small town, but I don't know what a small town is like to begin with...

Moss fills every knoll and covers every rock here in Sackville. In this new place the wind whips me, and the car door, open with a fierceness from the ocean, and the moss holds strong, though my fingernail can lift it quite easily.

In the night Kyle and I laid on the spongy green within the four corners of the property, the sublime nightly view reminding us of the 2003 GTA blackout.

In the day we are a buttercup yellow face with glass eyes; house cats that watch the discovery channel of our new neighbourhood.

--

Do you remember that one time on the metro you lent me an earbud and we watched the news together? And then we said goodbye perhaps forever.

You look different here, though you look different everywhere and every time. I see some of your patterns, I recognize your dog, and your route, and on Fridays we pick up gluten-free bread with six feet between us.

--

Common courtesy keeps us apart, so I no longer catch the faint scent of your perfume on the sidewalk, and I no longer see the uniqueness of your teeth when you smile. Are your eyes windows as well?

But outside as I stand on the lawn, and look at the moss that eats the fence, that weaves and spans, the rhizomes of these weak-strong plants beneath me grow on both sides of the property line. Look down and you can see it too. They connect me, Stranger, to you.

By Breanna Shanahan