There’s been a fog lingering over my neighbourhood the past few days like a bad houseguest, the kind who’s still loitering on the couch when you wake, who says he’ll go out in the afternoon and try to find a job and maybe he does but he’s really just biding his time until he comes rolling back in with the evening, confounding your best arguments with doublespeak and a fridge full of beer and Hey Man Can I Get Your WiFi Password?
I remember the fog in Victoria, mere weeks before my inevitable fiery implosion, where myself and a friend wandered the mist-laden soccer fields and haunted parks in search of the all-night Tim Hortons because we were broke and my poor dinner of perogies and perogies really weren’t the kind of fare one should solely subsist off, let alone offer to company. The streetlights were willowisps and the rare passing car was a rider in the night bearing ill tidings, leaves bowed and crumpled underfoot and you couldn’t lay a hand anywhere that wasn’t heavy with the dew. Far, far away, you could still hear a gull yowling out for it’s companions, and closer still were the dull scratchings of raccoons clawing at the edges of the bins like serial killers scraping against the car doors with meat hooks.
October dissolves. Rehearsals progress despite setbacks. A venue is emerging as a strong candidate for Deadmonton’s first home. Despite the time demanded, I can’t help but multitask even though I lack the brainpower for it. Part of me still feels like I’ve failed to deliver on a larger work so I’m working on a new play now, a full-length mashup of Vancouver grime and Greco Roman Mythology, a play that sparked from a single bitter text I sent to the same friend who had wandered through the fog with me in Victoria.
“There isn’t enough liquor in this city to drink her off my mind.”
…but what if there was?
polloparringtonpresents 