
Canadian Fiction: Theo Waits
Unless you are talking about things I can plant in my stories like the wooden bridge that went sideways during winter storms or the sound of night hockey or the sharp rocks you placed in the corners of your tent so you wouldn’t fly away, I am not listening. I am making people up instead. I use my father’s blue eyes to feel a flash of him and for my mother it’s flowers, just a hint, and then somebody like Theo lands on the page and we’re off. He blew in over night. I saw the lights whir around my bedroom, just a second of a blueredbluered and then only whitefor a long time which was perfect because I had maybe four pages to go and my flashlight was barely a ghost. I heard car doors and voices, there was a final whir of colour, and if I thought about