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vancityofglass · 1 year

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She was quickly lost in the deafening stillness of the place.

DESOLATION SOUND, Sunshine Coast.

She awoke early, when it was still night, and the sun had not yet risen to burn the fog from the deep valley to the North, across Burrard Inlet. Sleepily getting dressd, she retrieved her camera bag from its hook and crept quietly down the stairs of her apartment building to where she had parked the night before.

Credit: Unsplash https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/local-news/sea-to-sky-highway-closes-in-both-directions-3634059

On empty roads in the silence of the morning, she drove north, across the Lion's Gate bridge and beyond. The sun rose lazily as she drove, passing under the cliffs and around the bends of the Sea-to-Sky towards Whistler. The noise and light of Vancouver faded quickly, and soon she had no company in the world except for the radio of her Subaru. For several hours she wound her way up the coastal highway, through Sechelt, and Powell River, into the fractured, untouched wilds of Desolation Sound. Here, she left the main roads and crunched though gravel. Eventually the gravel ended as well and there was only dirt. She reached her destination where the dirt road ended in a stand of towering Douglas fir.

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/@NomadicAmbience

She stopped and abandoned her Subaru, continuing on foot through the trees. She advanced down a gentle slope towards the ocean, following the gentle bend of a stream. Across a line of bare white driftwood she found a beach, sheltered in the cove formed by two small islands. It was a quiet cove, and she was quickly lost in the deafening stillness of the place.

On a small outcropping of granite, just breaching the surface, lounged a seal. The creature looked relaxed, slick along its belly but dried and encrusted with sea salt along its back. It held its head and tail aloft as it sunned itself in the morning rays.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The seal took no notice of the woman as she stood and watched its morning routine. Enamored, she raised her camera to photograph the animal.

Through the viewfinder of her Nikon she watched as a dark shape materialized underneath the mirror-flat surface of the water. The seal was oblivious to the darkening of its own reflection as the black form moved silently beneath it. The woman lowered the camera from her eye.

The Orca breached the water's surface whisper-quiet, lifting the seal off of its perch in a way that seemed almost gentle. Rivulets of seawater streamed off of its dorsal fin and its jet-black body gleamed in the morning sun like a knife's blade. As the seal was lifted towards the sky, The Orca opened its mouth, revealing its innumerable white teeth. At the apex of its ascent, the seal was unmoving. There was no struggle. It awaited its fate as The Orca ascended to meet it.

The seal was rent in two by the force of The Orca's jaw. It fell in two pieces into the water, disturbing the mirror's surface and turning the cove's clear water a deep red. The Orca had disappeared as silently as it had arrived.

The woman stood silent, and did not move. She had dropped her camera. She felt like she had witnessed something primal, and not for human eyes. An ancient routine between predator and prey that she stumbled upon as some sort of alien observer. The cove was quiet, and she was once again alone. She turned slowly, climbed the slope, and started her journey home, back to the city she understood.

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vancityofglass · 1 year

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He didn't want to travel too far out of downtown. He'd rather stay away from East Hastings.

THE KEEFER BAR, EAST HASTINGS/CHINATOWN

The young professional was feeling carefree that night. It was 7pm and he was leaving the office late. It was summer and the air downtown was warm and humid. He pulled his sleek, caseless iPhone out of his Saint Laurent dress pants pocket and checked his messages.

Allen: Drinks tonight. Keefer Bar with Max. Young Professional: Girls? Allen: Lots of Blondes.

He grinned and navigated to the Uber app. He secured a driver and sat down on the edge of a concrete fountain to wait.

Credit: Cygnus Design Group cygnus.group/our-work/deloitte-vancouver/

The Young Professional was a newly initiated Junior Associate at Deloitte. He worked on the thirteenth floor of the Deloitte Summit Tower, a skyscraper resembling a haphazardly stacked tower of enormous glass rubik's cubes which dominated the Vancouver skyline. He'd taken the job straight out of college and moved to Vancouver, where he knew the skiing was good and there were plenty of opportunities for upward mobility.

His Uber pull up to the curb, and the young professional climbed into the back seat, mumbling a greeting to the driver.

The young professional was concerned about the choice of bars. He didn't want to travel too far out of downtown. He'd rather stay away from East Hastings.

young professional: omw now. Why Keefer bar?

Allen: Good long island iced tea. And the girls are hot.

And so he put his Deloitte fear aside and met his friends at the Keefer. .....

At midnight, the young professional left the bar. He was more than a little drunk now. He had forgotten his reservations about the location of the Bar and was now preoccupied with getting one of the young blondes back to his apartment. Outside the bar, with his arm around the young woman, he waited for a second Uber. It was the corner of Hastings and Columbia. People were milling about on the street nearby. People talking in groups, eating from 7/11 bags and moving in and out of tents on the sidewalk. An old, bearded man in a light blue jacket and sandals turned and asked the young professional for a cigarette.

Credit: The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-western-canada-tent-encampments-in-east-hastings-wont-be-forcibly/

He mumbled a disinterested "don't have any", and avoided eye contact. The old man rose from where he had been sitting, and pointed a skinny finger at the young professional.

"Fuck you, man" the old man said quietly.

Once again, the young professional's sleek, caseless iPhone was removed from his pocket, and so he carefully entered the numbers 9-1-1, without even thinking twice. The old man paced back and forth now, hands clenching and unclenching, running them through his sparse white hair. The young professional raised the phone to his ear.

He called out to the old man.

"Hey man chill out. I already called the cops." He said smugly.

The old man was becoming increasingly distressed. He sat on the curb now, head in his hands, screaming his innocence and his unwillingness to "talk to any police".

The officer was there within five minutes. The police were indifferent to the distress of the old man, and they sternly ordered him to kneel, with his hands on his head. The young professional and his date watched intently from across the street, the passive audience of this spectacle. The officer and the old man were separated by only five feet. Suddenly, the old man made a sort of half-motion towards the officer.

It may have been he was simply trying to remove his sandal, or maybe he stumbled, but it didn’t matter. In an instant, the officer closed the distance and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. He crumpled like a child's doll, his head connecting with the curb.

The young blonde gasped and began tugging on the sleeve of the young professional, pulling him away from the scene, but he simply stood, frozen in place. Then the Uber was there, whisking him back to his own world. He watched out the rearview as paramedics carried the old man's broken body away.

The young professional sat in silence. He felt nothing at first, but slowly the guilt clawed its way out of his stomach. He had caused this. It was his fault for calling the police. However, as the car navigated away from East Hastings and into the comfortable streets of the West End, these feelings faded. He began to forget about the people on the other side of the city, those who he only saw against his will. He was an important man, of course, and soon found his mind returning to his work, and the beautiful girl beside him, and he forgot all about the old man at the corner of Hastings and Columbia.

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vancityofglass · 1 year

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She leaned over the barricade, commanding attention with ultimate authority, and unleashed an unearthly howl.

THE COBALT CABARET, 917 Main St.

I stood in the alley behind the Cobalt, swaying slightly, and craned my neck around the corner of the brick building to check if the bouncer was letting anyone in yet. No fucking shot. Doors weren't until 9:30 and it was only 9:15. I squatted and rocked back onto my heels, wrestling another can of Pacific Pilsenser out of my jacket pocket.

Credit: Sarah Berman https://sarahberms.com/2009/03/20/quiet-riots/

There was no way I was going to pay $6.00 for a beer inside the show. It probably wouldn't stay in my hand for long anyway, based on how I expected the show to go.

Some drunk asshole dressed in the same canvas jacket and band T-shirt combo as me stubled into the alley looking for somewhere to piss.

"Hey man" I asked him, "You got a lighter?".

He shrugged and handed me a blue plastic Bic.

"Thanks!"

"You excited for tonight?" He asked me. "I heard they're opening with new material."

We went back and forth for a while, talking about music and about where we were from. About nothing basically. It was nice anyways, a conversation between two people who came to a show alone. We stood in the alley together for a while and smoked and had a few more beers, then it was 10:30 and the headliners were going on. We staggered and fumbled past the bouncers, through the doors to a dance floor that smelled like stale beer, and into the sea of people.

Standing around the room were awkward hardcore kids, staring at their shoes, staring at the band who was warming up, nervously staring at their phones. Anything to avoid the pre-performance small talk. A vicious hiss of feedback from the PA snapped everyone's attention straight to the stage. People's phones went into their pockets again. People in the centre of the crowd began pushing towards the edges. The crowd drew a collective breath.

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Credit: rico1000 on youtube

The drummer counted off in 4/4 time and the band detonated like a nuclear bomb. The guitars roared into existence like pavement saws, downtuned to an evil pitch. The drummer and the bassist thrashing together on every downbeat, creating a rhythm that shook the floorboards. The vocalist stood still at centre stage, silent, eyes wide. The crowd around me was moving now, roiling like boiling water. People jumping up and down, swaying, throwing their heads back. The crowd was a living organism, pushing and swelling against the stage, against the walls, against itself.

The band suddenly stopped on a dime and the vocalist approached the crowd. She leaned over the barricade, commanding attention with ultimate authority, and unleashed an unearthly howl. The band, which had seemingly collapsed in on itself, exploded like a supernova once again.

Credit: Lambgoat https://lambgoat.com/news/37566/gel-announce-early-2023-tour-with-big-laugh/

I couldn't see. I was ecstatic. I slammed against the walls of the crowd-shaped animal around me, faces passing in a blur. Every face smiling. Everyone of one mind, at the mercy of the band on stage. I felt my feet leave the ground. The whirlwind of fists and faces and screams and shouts had lifted me off the floor.

I was airborne. I was flying free. I let a thousand hands carry me up and over the crowd, and I closed my eyes. The stage lights bled red, blue, green through my eyelids as I drifted, weightless, under them. I flew silently out the door of the Cobalt, across the street, over the blaring neon letters of Pacific Central Station. I floated North, over Kind Edward, and Powell, and Hastings street, so high above the Lion's Gate bridge. Unbelievably high.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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