1. Mr. Harry Banda.
Harry stared at the vast blue sky. He took a deep breath in, and tried to make his way through the throng. He’d never had imagined that his great grand father’s homeland would be so full of life. Most of the other big cities that he had visited with his daughter had seemed densely populated, but the people seemed to be focused on their own business, and trying to become a rich vlogger. Their smartphones were glued to their sides 24/7 which made Harry feel somewhat disconsolate. Yes, he had been a part of the so-called young and upcoming business technology gurus, but that time back then was like a distant nightmare that Harry wanted to forget. The devices that he had helped to create— he had hoped to have seen them being used for the greater good- Samaritan work, Volunteering to plant trees…or maybe he just needed to find a way to get the younger generation into learning how to spend more time in nature: enjoying the view of a beautiful sunrise be it over the ocean/lake, or spending some time with a family of elephants in a rainforest. These were also on his list of activities Harry planned to do with his daughter after his vacation. He gazed around the busy city of Lusaka. He chuckled to himself when he spotted a familiar face, Pamela. She waved at Harry, and he waved back.
Pamela: Mr. Banda…where are you headed today?
Harry: (shakes his head) Well, Hello to you, too, Pamela. I’m surprised you’re already here at KKIA to pick me up. I thought you would be still fast asleep.
Pamela: (grins) Ha! I was…eh kinda. I took a nap while waiting for you to arrive.
Harry: (sighs) This means my daughter won the bet.
Pamela: She’s a smart girl that one.
Harry: Yeah, that she is. She takes after her mother, and grandmother.
Pamela: (chuckles) That is true. Oh, by the way, Fiona wants to know what you’d like to have for breakfast.
Harry: Please tell her not to over cook like she’s serving the King of Nubia. All I need is some toast, scrambled eggs, and a cup of milo. I have to have some milo every morning now thanks to my daughter. (smiles)
Pamela: Aight. I’ll let Fiona know. (clears throat) How’s your wife doing?
Harry: Not so good. She’s still in a coma.
Pamela felt for Harry. She told Harry that she would continue to pray for his wife.
Harry felt his heart sink. He missed his wife’s presence. The memories of that night still lingered in his head— like a heavy fog that seemed to stay, and never vanish even as time- or seasons passed. He had not been at home. He’d decided to continue his work at the office, burning the midnight oil. Then his daughter called him and informed him that her mother had not made it back home from the library. Harry had nearly fainted. He rushed home, and on his way there he had made a call to the police station. The were right on top of it, and searched for his wife’s vehicle. Her body had been found lying still in her car underneath an old bridge. All doors of the vehicle, and most of the front as well looked quite beaten up. His wife had lost a lot of blood from a head, and neck injury. The airbag malfunctioned, and she had lost control of the car after hydroplaning off the road.
Harry took a deep breath. Now was not the time for thinking of his wife’s accident. She was in great hands. Harry and his daughter tried not to worry too much. They also prayed for a speedy recovery. Maybe his wife would be alright before, or by Christmas Day. If that was going to be the case, Harry would immediately cut his vacation time short, and head back home. Meanwhile, he would later check in on his daughter and find out how boarding school was going.
#Mr.HarryBanda
December 3rd, 2024.
The Heap
The sand feels different today. I run it through my fingers, counting each grain as it falls, though I know that's impossible. One, two, three—the rest blur together like static. The morning fog hasn't burned off yet, and the pier stretches into nothing, its endpoint lost in gray.
I've been here six hours. Or maybe twenty minutes. Time moves differently when you're counting sand.
"Ma'am?" A voice breaks through. Police, probably. They always come eventually. "Are you alright?"
I don't look up. Can't look up. There's work to be done. "I'm organizing," I tell him, my voice raw from the salt air. "Each pile needs exactly one thousand grains. It's important to be precise."
His shadow falls across my workspace, disrupting the careful patterns I've drawn in the sand. Concentric circles, each smaller than the last, spiraling inward toward some truth I can't quite grasp. Yesterday there were seventeen circles. Today I count twenty-three. Tomorrow there might be none.
"Dr. Garcia called us," he says gently. "She's worried about you. You missed your last three appointments."
A laugh bubbles up, salty-bitter as seaweed. "Dr. Garcia doesn't understand. I'm conducting an experiment." My fingers tremble as I separate another small pile. "If you remove one memory at a time, at what point do you stop being yourself?"
The tide is coming in. I feel it in my bones, that slow creep of water. Soon it will wash away my work, like it does every day. Like it has every day since Mason—
No. Don't think about Mason. Don't think about the pier, or the fog, or why you know exactly how long it takes a body to—
"Five hundred ninety-eight, five hundred ninety-nine..." My voice cracks. "I lost count. I have to start over."
The officer crouches beside me. Through my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of his nameplate: Officer Collins. He was here yesterday too, though he's pretending this is our first meeting. They all pretend.
"How about we get you somewhere warm?" he suggests. "The fog's getting thicker."
"You don't understand," I whisper, my fingers cramping as I scrape together another pile. "If I can just figure out the exact number—if I can find the precise point where a heap becomes not a heap, where a person becomes not a person—then maybe I can work backwards. Maybe I can find the grain of sand that changed everything. The moment before it all went wrong."
A wave crashes closer, sending spray across my carefully ordered piles. The salt mingles with something warm on my cheeks. When did I start crying?
"One grain at a time," I murmur, more to myself than Officer Collins. "That's all it takes. One grain, and then another, and another, until suddenly your heap is gone. Until suddenly you're gone. But if you can count them—if you can keep track—maybe you can put them back in the right order. Maybe you can rebuild..."
The fog swallows the rest of my words. In the distance, a siren wails, or maybe it's just the foghorn. These days, I can't always tell the difference between warning sounds.
-----
Dr. Garcia's office smells like lavender and lies. She thinks she's clever, using aromatherapy to mark the passage of time—lavender on Mondays, sage on Wednesdays, eucalyptus on Fridays. As if temporal anchors could stop the slipping.
"You're agitated today," she observes, pen hovering above her notepad. Three months ago, she used blue ink. Two months ago, black. Today it's red, like warning signs, like blood in water.
"I made progress," I tell her, watching dust motes drift in the afternoon light. Each speck a tiny universe, falling. "I reached six hundred grains yesterday before Officer Collins interrupted. That's eighteen more than my previous record."
She doesn't look up from her notepad. "And how many times have you met Officer Collins?"
"Once," I say automatically. Then: "No, three times. Or—" The certainty crumbles like wet sand between my fingers. "He pretends it's always the first time. They all pretend."
"Who pretends?"
"Everyone. The officers. The lifeguards. The man who sells ice cream by the pier." My hands twist in my lap. "Even Mason pretends, when I see him in the fog."
The scratching of her pen stops. In the silence, I hear the clock on her wall ticking. One second, two seconds, three—how many seconds before a lifetime becomes a life sentence?
"We've talked about Mason," she says carefully, each word measured, weighed, precise. "About what happened on the pier."
"Nothing happened on the pier." The words taste like salt. "Nothing happens. Nothing is happening. Nothing will happen. Time is just grammar."
She sets down her pen. Red ink bleeds into white paper. "You were there when they found him."
"I found a shell that morning," I say, the memory suddenly sharp as broken glass. "Perfect spiral. Mathematical precision. The Fibonacci sequence made manifest in calcium carbonate. I was going to show him, explain how nature builds itself in predictable patterns, how even chaos has underlying order, but—"
My fingers trace spirals on the arm of the chair. One rotation, two, three...
"But?"
"The shell disappeared. Like the sand castles. Like Mason. Like everything, eventually. Entropy in action." I look up at her window, where fog is creeping in despite the afternoon sun. "Did you know that beach sand moves? Littoral drift. Constant motion. What you touch in one moment is gone the next. The beach you stand on today isn't the same beach as yesterday."
"Is that why you count the grains? To hold onto something constant?"
A laugh escapes, hollow as a seashell. "I count to find the edge. The boundary. If you remove one grain of sanity, are you still sane? Two grains? Three? Where's the line, Doctor? When does a person become a patient? A mother become a mourner? A witness become a—"
I stop. The fog is pressing against the windows now, impossible for this time of day, this time of year. Through its gray veil, I see a familiar silhouette on the pier.
"He's out there," I whisper, reaching toward the window, fingers grabbing empty air. "On the pier right now. All I have to do is count backwards, find the right number, the exact moment—"
"There is no pier outside my window," Dr. Garcia says softly. "We're three miles inland."
I blink. She's right. The window shows only a parking lot, sun-baked and solid. No fog. No pier. No Mason.
"I need to go," I say, standing. My legs shake like sand castles in rising tide. "The beach changes with every wave. If I don't get back soon, I'll lose count. Have to start over. Have to—"
"Please sit." Her voice has an edge now, sharp as shells, as broken promises. "We're not done."
But I'm already at the door, fingers reaching for the handle. I step into the hallway. The cold lights flicker—one, two, three…
-----
The sun is setting now, or rising. The fog makes it hard to tell, turning everything the color of old memories. I've arranged three hundred and forty-seven piles of sand, each containing exactly one thousand grains. Or maybe it's seven hundred and twelve piles of three hundred and forty-seven grains. The numbers swim like fish beneath the surface.
Officer Collins sits beside me now, no longer pretending this is our first meeting. His radio crackles with static that sounds like waves breaking.
"Tell me about the shell," he says.
My hands keep moving, sorting, counting. "Fibonacci. Perfect spiral. Mathematical certainty in an uncertain universe." A grain slips through my fingers. "Mason would have understood. He was brilliant at math, did I tell you? Sixth grade, but already taking pre-algebra. He could see patterns everywhere. Even in chaos. Especially in chaos."
"Wiser than his years." His voice is gentle. Like the fog. Like Mason's was, before. "What happened after you found it?"
"He was angry about the phone." The words come easier now, worn smooth like sea glass. "Such a small thing. A stupid thing. One week without it, that's all. His grades were slipping. He needed to focus. I thought the beach would help him find his peace, like it always had before. If I had just... if I had waited one more day, let him keep it one more day..."
My fingers stop moving. A thousand grains of sand cascade into nothing.
"You couldn't have known," Officer Collins says.
"There was a pattern," I insist. "In his behavior. In his moods. In the way he stormed out, slammed the door. The way he ran—" My voice cracks like a shell under pressure. "I counted the seconds before I followed. One, two, three... sixty-seven. Sixty-seven seconds between his door and mine. Between his footsteps and mine. Between mother and—"
"That wasn't your fault."
"But where's the line?" The words tumble out like tide rushing in. "How many seconds of anger before discipline becomes cruelty? How many moments of rebellion before attention-seeking becomes... If you remove one word of the argument, then another, then another, at what point does a mother's caution become a child's last—"
"Stop." His hand hovers near my shoulder but doesn't touch. "The investigators were clear. The railing was wet from the fog. When he turned around to come back—"
"No." I pull away, start a new pile. "That's not—I need to count. Need to find the right number. If I can just figure out how many grains make a heap, how many moments make a childhood, how many breaths between defiance and regret, between standing and falling, between his laugh and his—"
The fog shifts, and suddenly Mason is there, at the end of the pier. Twelve years old forever, balancing on the upper rail, turning back with that look—half-anger, half-fear, whole child. "Mom," he says, or maybe it's just the wind. "Mom, I didn't mean—"
"Do you see him?" I whisper.
Officer Collins follows my gaze. "I see fog," he says softly.
"He's trying to tell me something. He's always trying to tell me something." My voice sounds far away, like shouting underwater. "But I can't... the numbers keep changing. The grains keep shifting. Yesterday I was sure it was one thousand grains. Today it might be three. Tomorrow..."
A wave crashes against the pier's pylons. When the spray clears, Mason is gone. Like always. Like everything.
"Come on," Officer Collins says, standing. He offers his hand. "The tide's coming in."
I look down at my piles. The neat circles I've spent hours creating are already disappearing, erased by wind and water. Tomorrow I'll make new ones. Tomorrow I'll count again. Tomorrow I'll find the right number, the perfect equation, the exact point where everything changed. Where a mother's discipline became a child's rebellion became an empty bedroom with a phone still charging on the nightstand.
Or maybe I won't. Maybe that's the real paradox—not how many grains make a heap, but how many times you can watch it disappear before you accept that some questions don't have answers. Some patterns exist only in the spaces between "I love you" and "I'm sorry."
I take his hand. Let him pull me up. My feet leave perfect prints in the wet sand as we walk away from the pier.
Behind us, the fog swallows everything—the piles, the patterns, the possibilities. One grain at a time, until nothing remains but the sound of waves counting seconds into infinity, each one the exact length of a child's last breath.
Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
Kooky King Kong kapellmeister
just jabbering gibberish (A - K)
Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.
Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting bougainvillea background.
Civil, clever clover chomping, cheap
chipper cool cutthroat clueless clodhopper,
chafed centenary, codifies communication
cryptically, challenging capable, certifiably
cheerful college coed.
Divine dapper daredevil, deft, destitute,
doddering, dorky dude, dummkopf Dagwood
descendent, dagnabbit, demands daring
dedicated doodling, dubious, dynamite,
deaf dwarf, diehard doppelganger, Doctor
Demento double, declaring depraved
daffy dis(pense)able dufus Donald Duck
derailed democracy devastatingly defunct.
Eccentric, edified English exile,
effervescent, elementary, echinoderm
eating egghead, Earthling, excretes,
etches, ejaculates, effortless exceptional
emphatic effluvium enraging eminent,
eschatologically entranced, elongated
elasmobranchii, emerald eyed Ebenezer,
effectively experiments, emulates epochal
eczema epidemic, elevating, escalating,
exaggerating enmity, enduring exhausting
emphysema.
Freed fentanyl fueled, fickle figurative
flippant fiddler, fiendishly filmy, fishy,
fluke, flamboyantly frivolous, fictitious,
felonious, fallacious, fabulously fatalistic,
flabbergasted, fettered, flustered, facile,
faceless, feckless, financially forked,
foregone, forlorn futile fulsome, freckled
feverish, foo fighting, faulty, freezing,
fleeting famously failing forecaster, flubs
"FAKE" fundamental fibber fiat, fabricating
fiery fissile fractured fios faculties.
Gamesomeness goads gawky, gingerly,
goofily graceful, grandiloquent gent, gallant,
genteel, geico, guppy gecko, gabbling gaffes,
gagging, gamboling, gestating, gesticulating,
garlic, gnashing, gobbling, gyrating,
gruesomely grinning, grappling, gnomadic
giggly, grubby, gastrointestinally grumpy
gewgaw gazing gesticulating guy,
geographically generically germane,
gungho, grave gremlin, grumbling, guiding,
guaranteeing, guerilla gripped gatling guns
ginning gumpshun.
Hello! Herewith halfway harmless hazmat,
haphazard haggard, hectored, hastily,
hurriedly, harriedly hammered, handsomely
hackneyed, heathen, hellbent hillbilly, hirsute,
hidden hippie, huffy humanoid, hexed, heady,
Hellenistic, holistic, hermetic, hedonistic
heterosexual Homo sapiens historical heirloom,
homeless, hopeful, holy, hee haw heretical hobo.
Indefatigable, iconographic, iconic, idealistic,
idyllic, inimitable, idiosyncratic, ineffable,
irreverently issuing idiotic, indifferent, inert,
ineffectual, ingeniously iniquitous, immaterial,
insignificant, indubitable, inexplicable, ignoble
itches, ineffectually illustriously illuminating
immovable infused ichthyosaurus implanted
inside igneous intrusions immensely
imperturbable improbable.
Jovial jabbering jinxed January jokester
just jimmying jabberwocky
justifying jangling jarring juvenile jibberish
jubilantly jousting jittering
jazzy jawbreaking jumble
justifying, jostling, Jesus;
junior jowly janissary joyful Jekyll
joined jumbo Jewess jolly Jane;
jammed jello junket jiggled
jeopardized jingled jugs.
Kooky knucklehead klutz
knowingly kneaded, kicked, killed
knobby kneed kleptomanic.
Snapshots
Nothing
I don’t know if you’ll care about this when you get older. Maybe you won’t, and if that’s the case, that’s fine by me. All I know is that every day, I watched you two grow a little, shedding the skin of your previous selves. Every day, I remind myself that, Eric, you need to write about them—or at least, start taking notes—so you don’t forget. And every day, I waved it off, why? Out of fear, perhaps. Fear of the stakes involved in writing about the world that means the most to you—the people who mean the most to you—and not hiding what parenthood and marriage really are. They’re beautiful, but hard. Boy, are they hard?
But I think the real reason is that I love you two so much that, I fear that I can’t write from above it. I’m not an 80-year-old man who’s looking back on his life through scrapbooks and half-memories, faint truths and illusions. I’m living right in it. As I write this very sentence, you’re both playing Lego on the floor next to me, screaming bloody murder and running back and forth from room to room. I tell myself that maybe I should wait until you’re older to write these stories, because there are still so many stories to come. But I think, I’ll try this now. I can’t tell you why, but it feels important.
You two need to be at the center of a story. As a writer, I can’t avoid it—nor do I want to. With fiction, I can hide behind the characters. I can scatter little pieces of my life through them, like pixie dust. But when you write nonfiction, it feels a little like standing up in front of a room filled with everyone you’ve ever known, taking off your shirt, zipping down the entirety of your midsection, and saying, “Hey, here’s everything that I am. And likely everything I’ll ever be.”
It’s a tough one, we’re so accustomed to hiding in plain sight. From the time we’re born, we’re trained—directly or indirectly—to stuff down that which causes us grief. We’re experts at it. Writing feels like self-exploitation. It feels like guilt, but a pang of necessary guilt.
Though I try my best to ensure that you both know the man behind the mask, I know there will still be times in life when something keeps you from coming to me. When embarrassment and shame creep into your consciousness, making you feel like you’re letting me down—or your mother. Times when you’ll be in your bedroom, feeling like the whole world is wrong. Wondering when you woke up to streets that felt different, skies that looked sinister, friends who were never truly friends—just small-town bodies in close proximity. It will happen, as it happened to me.
And though my parents never told me not to come to them, I still felt a natural inclination toward solitude. Reprieve through music and movies. Through anything except talking. Because even if you have someone to go to, sometimes, you just don’t have the words. That’s life. For better or worse.
At the end of the day, I’m writing these stories because I need to. As much as I need to breathe, to eat, to hydrate, to love—I need to write. And what’s more important than the two of you? As I hope you’ll gather from these stories, the answers will be spread out throughout the entire book.
Nothing
Maps
Lukas, you’ve recently become infatuated with maps. You sit on the floor, your maps sprawled out, staring intently as your finger traces across continents, oceans, and rivers. You softly whisper to yourself while your mom and I exchange smiles. You’re only six, and yet, you bury me every time in a game of Find the Country. It’s not even close—and no, I’m not letting you win. Not at all.
Recently, you asked me about the places I’ve been to.
“I haven’t traveled a whole lot,” I said. “Just around Canada.” I pointed to Quebec City, then Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and finally Winnipeg.
“You’ve been to Manitoba?” you asked, your eyes lighting up.
I told you, yes, and that’s where I was when you were born.
“You weren’t here when I was born?” you asked, your voice filled with outrage.
I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t.”
Naturally, the follow-up question was, “Why?”
I gave you the short and sweet version: your mom and I were living in a small apartment in downtown Fredericton when she told me she was pregnant. So, I decided to get a job with the railroad because it paid well and would give us a chance to get a house—to start life like a proper family. But that meant training in Winnipeg for the entire summer of 2017, which is when you were born. I came back on August 4th and nervously held you for the first time.
There are parts I left out, for what I think are obvious reasons, but I’ll tell you now because if—or when—you read this, you’ll be older.
When your mom told me she was pregnant, I freaked out. As much as I’d love to say I was a man, that I stood up and instantly came up with a solution, I didn’t. I didn’t want to have a kid at that point—I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I was still infatuated with a self-serving world that featured only one main character: me.
I wanted to be a rock star. You might laugh when you find some of my old songs on Sound cloud and ask, “You seriously thought these would propel you to rock stardom?”
I won’t get offended. I’ll probably laugh too and tell you, “Yes, I did.” Your late teens and early twenties can be a time of massive overconfidence—the end of feeling invincible. Today, I can’t write a single song I’d feel comfortable sharing with the world. I ask myself all the time, what happened? I used to get up and play in front of drunk frat boys. Now, I can barely sing in front of your mother. Tough but true.
When your mom told me she was pregnant, I remember it clearly—or at least the memories feel clear. Whether they’re 100% factual, I can’t say, but I’ll tell it the way I remember.
I was coming home from work at the lumber yard—or possibly another job—and your mom was sitting in our bedroom on the edge of the bed, gripping the sheets. She looked pale and frightened, and I suppose I already knew what she was going to say. When she told me, I flew off the handle. I think I even left. Not my proudest moment, but I eventually came to my senses.
I grabbed a coffee downtown and thought about everything. The small apartment that seemed fine for two poor students—or recent graduates—felt woefully inadequate for a child. Drug addicts lived in the adjacent apartment, and it wasn’t unusual to see syringes littering the steps and parking lot. The thought of rolling you in a stroller through that mess, past the high hellos, made tears well up in my eyes. I felt like I’d failed you before you were even born.
Looking back, I was overthinking. We could have made it work for a little while until we came up with a plan.
Instead, I decided to pursue a career I’d been running for my entire life: the railroad. It ran in the blood of my father, uncle, grandfather, and great-uncle. CN was hiring in my hometown, Campbellton, which seemed unbelievable for a post-industrial town hanging on by the skin of its teeth. But it was true—the men who’d started in the 70s were finally retiring, and a position opened up. I called my father and asked for his help, and he was happy to oblige.
After a few rounds of interviews, I got the job. The training was in Winnipeg for the entire summer.
Your mom and I had many conversations about whether this was the right path. Ultimately, we decided it was. She and her parents would help her move while I was gone. When my training was over, we’d settle in Bathurst. New house, new son, new job. It was a lot, but we made it work... for a little while.
(For the record, we moved to Bathurst because getting hired in Campbellton meant working in Miramichi as well. To avoid hotel rooms, I traveled between the two.)
Sociopath
“Peek-a-boo,” I say, leaning over your tablet. You’re in bed, and you smile—that sweet, innocent smile.
“Peek-a-boo,” I say again, and this time, you swing the tablet up with all your strength and
smash me in the lip. Jesus, it hurts.
“Zoey, good lord. That hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
Nice, the sociopath stage—when does this end?
Motorcycle
I’m prone to back spasms. Sometimes they hurt so much I can barely breathe. So, I lay on the bed on my stomach while you both brush your teeth.
From around the corner, I hear you, Zoey. “Lukas, let’s play motorcycle.” And before I can protest, you both run in, jumping on my back with reckless abandon. It hurts, and your mom calls out, “Kids, get off your daddy. You’re hurting him.”
Can you guess what you say, Zoey?
If you guessed, I don’t care, you’d be right.
It hurts—neither of you are light—but I sway back and forth, back and forth, until I swing you off me. You both laugh and naturally shout, “Again!” before jumping right back on.
“Daddy’s back hurts,” I say.
“Again! Again!” you both chant.
Your mom laughs. And so, we go again.
Magic
You both like reading. Please, don’t stop. The world is fast—Jesus, it moves fast, and I feel it myself. There’s an anxiety in just sitting, breathing and telling yourself to slow down. I went to see Kevin Costner’s Horizon, and I could feel it. I’m so used to grabbing my phone from my pocket every ten seconds that sitting in a theater by myself, in the dark, with no phone and no distractions was hard. I hated it, because it never used to be hard.
But reading slows the world down. It lets you take in information at your own pace. And when you find a book that completely pulls you out of your own reality—well, you’ve just discovered magic.
As you go through the public school system, you’ll probably lose some of your love for reading. If it’s anything like when I was growing up, you’ll be force-fed old classics. You’ll be made to dissect themes, motifs, antagonists, protagonists—all of that—and it will almost certainly take some of the joy out of reading. You might even start thinking there aren’t any books beyond the so-called classics. I know I was assigned Jane Eyre so many times that I became convinced every book was written the same way.
But my parents were both avid readers, and they assured me there was nothing quite like a good book. They gave me some great places to start. So, I’ll do the same for you.
First, I need to tell you how reading saved me during a time when my mind was getting blacker and blacker. We were broke, and COVID was making it nearly impossible to find another job. I’d made some bad choices, and I was sinking into a depression unlike anything I’d ever experienced. (I’ll get to that later on.)
Reading brought me back to the land of the living. There was a used bookstore on St. Peter Street where books were either $1 or $2. I found some of the greatest books I’ve ever read there—magic for $1. (You can also visit your local library, where they rent out magic for free.)
Here are some of your old man’s favorites (in no particular order):
Stephen King – The Stand
Philip Roth – American Pastoral
Tim O’Brien – The Things They Carried
Dennis Lehane – The Given Day
Frank Herbert – Dune
John Steinbeck – East of Eden
Ernest Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls
I hope you both keep reading so that one day, you can share your favorites with me.
It’s magic, I tell you. Magic.
Larries
Don’t ask me how this started, because my answer won’t go further than, “I have no idea.” But beers in this house are known as larries. Your mom and I even call each other Larry from time to time. Again, I can’t remember the origins of this oddball nickname, but it’s stuck, and like many things in my family, it’s probably not going anywhere. (I got scared of Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox when I was five years old, and my parents and brother still mention it every chance they get.)
Anyway, Lukas, you’re seven, and Zoey, you just turned five. I don’t hide the fact that I like beer from either of you. Some might question my parenting on that, but I’m a firm believer that alcohol in moderation is nothing to be ashamed of, nor anything I need to hide from you. It’s just a can, after all. What makes alcohol dangerous is the monsters it can bring out, and I assure you—it’s not monsters flowing through my veins when I drink a beer after a long week of work. It’s just calmness. And it’s only light beer, after all.
When I was a boy, my father, brother, and I had music nights in my dad’s man cave in the basement on Fridays and Saturdays. A couple of hours, a couple of times a week—those moments will forever be imprinted in my mind. They’re wonderful memories, and I’m trying to create something similar with you two. You’re not super interested in music yet, especially not mine, but every once in a while, I’ll catch you playing with your toys and swaying to the music like no one’s watching. But I am, and nothing makes me happier.
As a kid, I’d run upstairs to grab two bottles of beer for my dad and race back down with lightning speed. Every once in a while, he’d let me open a cap and take the first drink. It was a different time. I’m sure your mom would murder me—and promptly dispose of the body—if I let you or Zoey drink beer. But those memories are vivid for me. They never fail to bring a smile to my face. I can feel it now, even as I write this.
Although I don’t let you drink beer, I do ask you and Zoey to grab me a Larry from the fridge. You both love doing it. I don’t know why, but I remember feeling the same way when I did it for my dad. There’s something about it that makes you feel older, like a grown-up. And you’re both certainly at an age where wanting to feel grown-up is at the forefront of your minds. I remember that feeling well. (You hate it when I call you my little babies.)
I suppose I’m writing this because I’m a beer drinker. So, is your uncle—so is your grandfather. And I’ve never been present at a moment where beer turned frightening or made El Padre lay his hands on me or your uncle. For me, beer is a working-class drink, something you earn through a hard week of work. I’m not trying to promote it. If you never want to taste beer in your life, that’s perfectly fine. I just want you to know that I have it under control. For me, it’s just something to enjoy with a movie or a great album. It’s a way to unwind.
(Although, I suppose all addicts say the same thing. But I’m not an addict. Or am I? Just kidding. Oh, and by the way, grab your old man a Larry, please?)
Relics
The world is constantly changing. And at some point, a person stops flowing with the times. Your current dries up. You’re completely unaware of when this happens, but somewhere along the line, it does.
Every generation comes with its own difficulties, and no matter how much you want to relate to your kids, there will always be differences. Sometimes, those differences are so massive that the void can rip a person apart. But other times—and I hope this will be our case—they’re just things to laugh about. Oh, Dad. People don’t say that anymore. Something like that. Hopefully.
I can’t begin to imagine I’ll understand everything you’re going through. All I want you to know is that I’ll keep an open mind, an open heart, and open ears. I’ll give you both my time and my understanding. Because I don’t want you to think of me as a relic. I don’t want you to bury me and forget about me. I don’t want you telling your friends that I’d never understand what you’re going through. I want you to come to me, and I want you to be patient with me, just as I’ll be patient with you.
When the time comes for you to have kids of your own (if you want to), I hope you’ll see that being a parent can mean being a friend. Not always a friend, not a certain type of friend, but a friend nonetheless. Some people don’t believe they can be friends with their parents, and I think that’s bullshit. I agree I can’t always be your friend. There’s a line to be drawn. You’ll need to know I’m a parent first. But when it comes to snacks and movies, books and music, trips and adventures, or whatever else you want, I’ll always want to tag along and be part of it.
I never really went through the embarrassed-of-my-parents phase like so many of my friends did. I was always happy to have them around, and I hope you’ll always want me around too. (I promise not to invade your space... too much.)
Come to me. Don’t let me become a relic.
Moments
As you get older, life becomes harder in certain ways, but in others, you become more conscious of the hard work you put in. High school can be tough, but when you study your ass off for that test and get a good mark, it feels pretty damn good. When you work hard and get the call that you’re starting in the next ball game, it feels incredible. And so on, and so on. These moments feel big. They stop you in your tracks and make you sit back and think, Wow, this is really great.
Perhaps part of the difficulty for your generation is all the doom and gloom on social media. It’s tough because it’s everywhere, and it’s hard to escape. But don’t be fooled—there will be moments in life when those good chemicals are flowing through your brain at a rapid speed. Those feelings will keep you hungry for more of them. And a healthy focus is the key to a happy life. (Though I still struggle with focus to this day. Case in point: this book, which I’ve started and stopped 500 times this year. But hey, a good point is a good point, whether or not I’ve followed my own advice to a T.)
There are a few moments like that in my young life. Many more involve you two, but I want to point out some great ones from before I had kids. I hope you read this before you have kids of your own, because a full book about how life sucked before kids might not keep you engaged. So, let me tell you about some of those moments.
One of them was playing my first gig by myself—just me and my acoustic guitar. I’d played a few shows with a buddy before. He sang, and I played guitar, but this time it was just me. A hurdle I seriously didn’t think I’d get over.
It was early winter, and I was standing outside an apartment building in Fredericton called Princess Place, where I lived with your uncle. I want to say it was early 2015, but it could’ve been 2014. I was wearing a faux leather jacket with a plaid shirt underneath (a la Springsteen in ’78—we’ll talk about him more in another chapter). I’d rented a beautiful Taylor acoustic guitar from Long and McQuade, and it sat in a leather case, firmly in my hands.
The wind was howling viciously off the river. In a few years, that same wind would make me want to die, but at this point, I didn’t care. I was waiting for a cab to climb the icy hill and take me to my two-hour show at Ringo’s Bar and Grill uptown.
I was shivering, but I felt like a rock star. Because for everything else in life, I was doing something many others never do. How many great musicians are out there, sitting in their basements, too scared to unveil their craft to an audience? I wanted to do it. Before the show, my father said something like this to me:
“Hey! No matter what happens, you should be proud of yourself. Just getting up there is a huge accomplishment. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
The show itself was fine. I made it through the two-hour set with no major hiccups. But the show isn’t the memory. The memory is the calm before the storm. The waiting. The sense of doing something important. Something that would propel me in other areas of life. That was one of those moments.
Another moment was a few years earlier, at the start of university. It was the first week in my dorm room at Rigby Hall. I was rooming with a buddy of mine, and though the happiness wouldn’t last long—soon replaced by a period of confusion and struggle—at that moment, it was perfect.
We were throwing a football in front of our room, the early fall sun beating down on us. A pretty blonde girl was in the room next door—tall, with an infectious smile. (Hope your mom doesn’t read this part.) We’d become fast friends.
Inside our room, my buddy and I ate pizza until the boxes were stacked to the ceiling. We drank beer and watched TV. One evening, I went to bed and rolled over to face the wall. I couldn’t stop smiling. Friends, girls, a new life, a new me—it was all wonderful. That was one of those moments.
And the last one—for this chapter, at least—was winning the provincial title in basketball in 2010.
The game was neck and neck, and we managed to pull out a win. The crowd was huge. When the buzzer sounded, we jumped on each other and cheered. Cheerleaders jumped on us too. It was perfect. But that wasn’t the moment.
The moment was when your uncle came down, and we high-fived. It was the perfect slap. I did it. It was one of those moments.
Those moments are scattered throughout everyday life. Don’t search for them—let them come to you. And when they do, try your best to freeze time.
Heart
“What do you want to be when you get older?” I ask Lukas.
The grin on your face tells me you’re not going to give me a real answer. It’s going to be something ridiculous, and you prove me right.
“I want to be a poop. That poops everywhere.”
“Nice, what do you really want to be?”
“I’m being serious.” You can barely contain your laugh as you say it, and I glance over at your mother and roll my eyes.
Then Zoey, you come out of the bathroom, and I ask, “Zo. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Um. I want to work where Mommy works so I can be with her every day.”
I look over at your mom, and she can barely keep the tears in.
“My heart,” she says.
Confusion
Life, above all else, is confusing. You’re still at an age where you can do whatever you want. You can change paths a thousand times and still end up on the trail that leads you to where you need to be. That feeling can be both exhilarating and overwhelming.
Lukas, over the past few years, this is how the conversation about what you want to be has gone:
“Hey, buddy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Spiderman.”
The following year:
“Pikachu.”
The next year:
“A police officer.”
And now, as I mentioned in the previous chapter:
“A poop. That poops on everything.” (Cue eye roll.)
Of course, no matter what you do (except for becoming a poop), I’ll be proud of you. In my heart, I’d love for you to pursue something creative. Become some kind of artist, because when you create, your eyes light up, you become hyper-focused, and it’s wonderful to watch.
In fact, you and your sister are the reason I’m writing this book. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but kept putting off. Sometimes that light in my own eyes dims, and I give in to the exhaustion of life. But you both help me get it back. This time, I’m staying hyper-focused on this project until it’s finished.
Zoey, you’re no innocent bystander when it comes to the poop and pee jokes. The other night, when I asked you what you wanted for supper, you replied, “Poop. And to drink pee.” You burst into laughter like it was the greatest joke ever told.
But when I asked what you wanted to be when you are grown up, you gave me a more serious answer.
First, it was a princess. Now, you want to work on nails with your mom.
You love getting your nails done, and you’ve done your mother’s nails many times. You’ve even done mine. You’re vibrant and drawn to colors that pop. I hope you find a life filled with all the colors of the rainbow. I hope you keep that light in your eyes. I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that you do. Both of you.
Now, let me tell you a little bit about my path. Where I thought I’d end up and where I actually did. I’ll tell you one thing—it wasn’t a straight line. It was filled with detours, roadblocks, and technical malfunctions. So many, you wouldn’t believe it. You might even think what I’m writing is fiction, but I assure you, it isn’t.
I grew up in a time when older generations often worked the same job for the same company their entire lives. There’s something noble in that, I think, but it’s a bygone world. I certainly don’t expect you to find a job at 18 and stick with it until you’re 65.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll feel a certain weariness at the prospect of being tied down. It might be fine for a year or two, but eventually, you’ll start to feel a sense of dread—or something close to it. Maybe not dread exactly, but the fear that this is your life now. That all you’ve done, and all you’ll ever do, is stand on a production line at a sawmill in the middle of the boonies on the graveyard shift. (Yup, I spent countless nights doing that.)
It’s a hard feeling. A sinking feeling. Because I was once just a kid standing with my guitar in my hand as the river howled. I was the kid running across the Van Horne Bridge in the late hours of the night to see a girl who wanted nothing more than to see my face. I was the kid sitting against the fence at the skatepark, drinking chocolate milk with a basketball between my legs, dreaming of Europe, dreaming of college, dreaming of the pros.
The same thing happened to my father, though, and eventually, acceptance has to find you. Either that, or you become so driven that there’s no plan B—just your dreams and nothing else. Unfortunately for me, I was never that driven. I’m as indecisive as they come.
Here’s a timeline to showcase my indecisive nature, so you never feel bad about not knowing what you want in life:
2011: Graduate high school. Attend university in Fredericton in the fall. Feel lonely and move back to Campbellton to chase a girlfriend.
2012: Live in Campbellton with my grandmother while your grandparents are in Montreal. Work at Dollarama then quit and got a job at Kent Building Supplies in the garden center. In the fall, moved back to Fredericton with my then-girlfriend. Big mistake.
2013: Work with your uncle setting up sporting events. Things fell apart, and by the end of the year, I lost my mind and moved to Montreal to live with my parents. At the time, I have no intention of ever returning to New Brunswick.
2014: Meet your mom while working at Tim Hortons. Move in with my brother. Her first words to me? “Are you stupid?” (Not quite a Hollywood romance.) My girlfriend and I break up, and I start writing songs. Music doesn’t pan out, but writing sparks something inside me.
2015: Your mom and I move in together. I quit Tim Hortons, and she goes to aesthetics school. I got a job at Kent's lumber yard, met great friends, and kept playing music.
2016: Graduate University. Your mom graduates from aesthetics school. The future looks bright. She becomes pregnant with you, Lukas—a true blessing that doesn’t feel like one at first.
2017: Start working for the railroad. Lukas is born, and I return to a new home, a new son, and a new job.
2018 – After a long period of training, I finally started making money with the railroad. With dollar signs in my eyes, I decide to buy a big house on a hill overlooking a golf course. It’s beautiful—but it turns into a nightmare beyond belief before too long.
2019 – Railroad life is harder than I ever imagined. I’m missing too much time with Lukas, and when I am home, I’m too tired to be present. It’s not the life I want. Late in the year, Zoey, you’re born. You’re so beautiful, and this time I don’t miss a moment. I was there the whole time, and I even cut the umbilical cord. I love you to death.
2020 – I hit my breaking point and quit CN early in the year—a decision that will haunt me. A few weeks later, the world was on shut down with a little pandemic known as COVID. Work everywhere freezes. Our days of financial stability are over. The seclusion, combined with financial strain, puts me in the worst mental place I’ve ever been. Absolute horror. I feel trapped. What next?
In the fall, I finally say enough is enough and take a job at an industrial laundry. I load stinky clothes from a pot plant in Campbellton into an industrial washer and fold uniforms. It’s not exactly a step up. Meanwhile, your mom, after being a stay-at-home mom for a few years, gets a job at Dollarama to help keep us afloat.
2021 – I get a call from the sawmill in Belledune. By now, I’m exhausted from switching jobs. My head is in a better place, but it’s still not completely right. Your mom and I talk in bed about what’s best, and at that moment, what’s best is money. We need it, and the mill pays more. So, I leave yet another job and head out on the highway once again.
2022 – I’m placed on the labor pool at the mill, working the graveyard shift. My routine is grueling: I work all week, come home Friday morning, sleep for three hours, and then, get up as your mom heads out to work for the entire weekend. We barely see each other.
But we finally managed to escape the financial burden of the big house. We find a smaller, more affordable home downtown, and things begin to stabilize. Then, a surprising opportunity comes—a job as a reporter at the local newspaper. It feels like a dream, and though I’ve worked hard to get where I am at the mill, I can’t resist. I put in my notice and took the reporter position. It seems like a turning point—until the paper lays me off after just three months.
2023 – I become a stay-at-home dad for a while, and Zoey, and we bond like never before. I take you to playgroups, we bake together, and we hang out. It’s wonderful. But after a few months, I know I need to go back to work. I reached out to a man I interviewed during my short time at the newspaper, and he decided to take a chance on me and hire me.
2024 – For the first time in years, life feels normal. No sudden changes. No upheaval. Just stability.
Life is confusing. I’m still battling it. So, don’t ever feel bad when you’re unsure of where you’re going or how you’ll get there.
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Title: Snapshots
Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir
Age Range: All ages, with a particular focus on young parents and fathers.
Word Count: 20,000
Author Name: Eric Johnson
Why It’s a Good Fit
Snapshots offers a unique and deeply personal perspective on parenting through the eyes of a young father raising two children. It delivers a heartfelt, relatable, and unfiltered look at the everyday moments that make family life both challenging and extraordinary.
Hook
A deeply personal and heartfelt exploration of parenting, Snapshots doesn’t shy away from the raw, unvarnished truths of fatherhood while celebrating its beauty and humor.
Synopsis
Snapshots is a heartfelt and candid journey through the joys and challenges of parenthood, marriage, and self-discovery. Told as a love letter to his children, the author shares a series of deeply personal vignettes that blend humor, vulnerability, and wisdom into a touching tapestry of family life. Through his honest storytelling, Eric Johnson captures the magic in ordinary moments and offers readers a glimpse into the transformative power of love and resilience.
Target Audience
Fathers seeking relatable parenting narratives.
Readers who enjoy memoirs or vignette-style storytelling.
Mothers and families looking for heartfelt, humorous reflections on family life.
Millennials and young adults navigating parenthood and personal growth.
Bio
Eric Johnson is the author of There’s Gold In Those Hills. Based in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, he lives with his wife and two children. A former reporter, Eric now works in Marketing, drawing inspiration from both careers to fuel his storytelling. His writing is marked by honesty, relatability, and a passion for capturing the small yet meaningful moments of life.
Platform
As a young father actively raising two children, Eric offers a fresh and relatable voice. While he is in the process of building a website and author page, he plans to promote his work through local events and social media, focusing on connecting with parenting communities and memoir enthusiasts.
Education
Eric holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Communications and English.
Personality/Writing Style
Eric’s writing is honest, down-to-earth, and unembellished, capturing the beauty and messiness of life with humor and warmth.
Interests and Hobbies
When not writing, Eric enjoys playing guitar, reading, watching movies, and spending time with his children.
Hometown
Campbellton, New Brunswick, Canada
Age: 31
The Mind Altering Mayor
*This chapter is part of "The Small Town Magic Arc." This saga began with Chapter 134*
The imposter posing as Jahno pointed at Tamma and laughed maniacally as she wept. The smile then faded from Cyclo's face as he pointed at the doppelganger of his human form.
"Useless minion!" Cyclo hollered as the fake Jahno suddenly found himself being pulled towards his boss. A laser blade shot out of Cyclo's finger and impaled fake Jahno. The imposter helplessly tried to grip the laser blade in a feeble hope of freeing himself, only to find his hands getting absorbed into the laser. He screamed as the rest of his body vanished into the laser, which then retracted back into Cyclo's finger. Cyclo's body then shrunk back into the size of a normal human as his features returned to those of the real Jahno.
"Dearest Tamma, please don't cry anymore, I did all of this to give you the life you deserve!" Jahno pleaded. "Precious daughter, a treasure like you should get the best of the best, including the mansion that has been in our family for generations. But you must realize sweetie, the money to maintain it had to come from somewhere!"
"So you created a monster alias and blackmailed our people to pay you to cover the mansion costs, all while pretending to be a helpless victim?" Tamma protested, standing up and trying to be strong, despite her tears continuing to flow. "I don't want the mansion.... never did! I just want to be like everyone else!"
"We aren't like everyone else, we are better than those commoners!" Jahno replied in disgust. "If you won't accept your rightful place in our family as the superior residents of Aplonica, then you leave me no choice!"
"What are you plotting now Cyclo, or Jahno, or whoever you truly are?" Rick said boldly, as he stood beside Tamma along with Essie, Cerissa, and the Pirate.
"Just what I've been doing all along." Jahno smirked. "I will simply wipe Tamma's memories of this, along with the other townsfolks' as well. Did you really think this was the first time Tamma, or anyone else in town has uncovered my dark secret?"
"You altered my memory?" Tamma cried out in horror. "All of this has happened before?"
"Too many times to count." Jahno laughed. "After all, if an outsider like this Pirate fellow could figure out who I really am so easily, did you really think that people we live with every day couldn't uncover it? But once I eliminate these wannabe heroes and clear your memory my sweet girl, then we can go back to the way things should be. You will only remember me as your loving father, doing all he can to protect his beautiful daughter from an evil monster!"
"This sounds similar to the amnesia Glicko gave us!" Essie cried out to Cerissa.
"You're right." Cerissa said in a troubled tone. "Just like our enemy, Jahno is also taking away memories and manipulating others as he pleases."
"I have a question for you Mr. Mayor." The Pirate calmly asked Jahno. "Where did you get your powers, including that cyclops transformation? Was it given to you by a warlock, or a man posing as a doctor? If that is the case, then you my friend are being used by our enemy Glicko."
To be continued....
AI-AI…Doh?
“This conjecture must be 100% human content,” she says?
Rules me out… I am a writing machine. Ha!
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what AI is and does, but being technologically dated and set in my ways I haven’t tried it, or used it, or whatever it is you do with it. My boss asked AI some pretty silly questions in a meeting once, and it responded with equally stupid answers, so I wasn’t very impressed.
I expect that AI will end up being, for me at least, like the computer. I saw my very first home computer being used when I was in high school, somewhere around 1980. My rich friend Adam’s father had gotten one for Christmas. He was mouse-clicking away on it one day as I passed through their house, so I stopped to watch.
“How much do they cost?“ I pried curiously at Mr. Stefan, asking the toughest question first, as any teenager who has not yet learned to place tact behind his interrogation will.
”Oh, you can get a good one for around $600.” He responded with some obvious pride.
“Hmmm. What do you do with it?” I questioned further as I peeked over his shoulder, unable to see the fascination in the green screen which so mesmerized him.
”Oh, I balance the checkbook, things like that.”
$600 to balance the checkbook! I was incredulous. $600 might not seem like much to you these days, but I had just purchased my first truck back at that point and paid all of $300 for it. $600 was a lot of money, especially when my mom balanced her checkbook with a five cent pencil… and Mom wasn’t even all that smart! So I immediately blew the computer off as an overpriced gimmick (to my own detriment, as from that point on I watched them take over the world until even I was no longer able to sidestep them). And so now, due to Mr. Stefan’s misinformation causing my late arrival to the computer party, my virtually poop technological skills have never recovered to this day.
I suppose the same thing is bound to happen with me and AI, as I am not the best agent of change, especially change that requires me to believe that a bunch of chips and wires in a box might be smarter than me. Ugh... typical man, huh?
Of course I’ve heard all the talk about AI taking over and killing us all. Big whoop, says I! If the scientists were so smart we’d already be dead from climate change, or Y2K, or thermo-nuclear war, or some other such BSx2. Fear-mongering is what it is. Plain ol’ BS. And if it turns into something more than BS? Well, we’re all going to keel anyways, sooner or later. It might as well come as we are enjoying entirely uninhibited sex with our new high-dollar, high-IQ humanoid!
So I’ll take my AI like I take my movie popcorn; with a queasy stomach from all the “AB” (artificial butter that is), and with a grain or two of salt.
“Say, turn off your phone, won’t ya? I’m trying’ to keep up with the movie over here.”
Sky or Earth (1)
There once was a girl who sat on a cloud. She loved her cloud, had everything she needed. Then, one day, she looked down. At first there was nothing of note all the other cloud children she’d come to know enjoyed thier clouds. Some napping, some gaming, some doing things she would ratger not mention. But then she came to a cloud with a boy fishing, rod at the ready. “We’re in the sky”, the girl thought but she watched curiously. It took forever but then she saw the boy getting excited he was looking around with a look of amazement. The girl waited patiently to see what he’d bring but when his hook finally surfaced it was a stack of papers. Dissapointed the girl went to lie back down on her cloud for a short nap when she heard a shriek one that shook the clouds. Her body jolted and she stopped in the middle. Looking around several others were doing the same. Creeping slowly on hands and knees she peered over the fluff and saw that the boy, fishing rod flailing in the wind, was falling and falling to where none of them knew. After a few moments of hearing his scream they were met with silence. To everyone else this was their cue to return but to her, the worry began. . .
It’s A Thanksgiving Miracle
CONCEPTION
I felt the initial wave of nausea during dessert after taking the last bite of my third piece of pie. Stopping to catch my breath, I tried neutralizing the discomfort by finishing my glass of eggnog. This gesture was ineffective. Not wanting to acknowledge my gut feeling, I excused myself from the post meal conversation and went upstairs to swap out my already unbelted, unbuttoned chinos for sweatpants. Even after changing and without tightening the drawstring, there was no relief.
Slowly navigating down the stairs and proceeding back into the kitchen, I grabbed a clean plate and snagged more sweet potatoes with marshmallows before they were transferred into a Tupperware container. Grandma looked up from washing the serving utensils and made the comment, “There’s a certain glow to you.” She turned as I walked by and rubbed my belly. This is when I accepted that I was pregnant with a holiday food baby.
This is not my first food baby. I had two last year (Easter and Fourth of July) with three the year before (Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day and Pop’s retirement party). So, by now I am immune to getting emotional. I know the routine. Unlike the 38 to 42 weeks required for a standard baby, the gestation period for a food baby is 38 to 42 hours. So, I understand the importance of getting things in order and preparing for my new little bundle of joy. Speaking of little bundles of joy, I ate six more buttered crescent rolls to tie me over until my snack before bedtime.
Nobody at the table was surprised when I shared the news. My one cousin did say, “Now that you mention it, I think I’m with child, too.” Just like her to try and steal the spotlight from my important moment. I knew it was a false pregnancy because of her uncontrollable flatulence. She wasn’t gravid. She was gassy.
FIRST TRIMESTER
My supportive family hastily organized a baby shower. With such short notice and the out-of-town kinfolk’s flights leaving the next morning, I couldn’t burden them by expecting anything extravagant. I didn’t even have time to register at Dunkin Donuts or Omaha Steaks. I did enjoy eating the meal of reheated turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy while appreciating their effort. And with the nearby grocery store still open, those in attendance were gracious in gifting me an eight-pack of Charmin (“Quilted for his pleasure”), some Wet Wipes and a bottle of Tums.
I solicited their opinions to help me choose which professional should assist in the delivery once my water breaks. Thankfully, I have a few hours to decide between:
1) A Gen Z pediatrician specializing in gastronome pregnancies.
2) A non-judgmental proctologist with a 5-star rating from Yelp.
3) The local Roto-Rooter man who is on call 24/7.
SECOND TRIMESTER
My ankles are swollen. Might be from the excessive ham I nosh on between trips to pee. Don’t know how my food baby is pushing against my bladder, but it’s annoying having to put down a fork full of mac and cheese every fifteen minutes so I can waddle to the potty.
Sleeping on my side took some adjustment. I found that a pillow between my bent knees makes a difference. Although the reoccurring dream of being chased by a giant, partially carved turkey while I throw homemade cranberry sauce back at it in defense is what’s really preventing me from getting a full eight hours of slumber.
The baby kicks a lot in response to me opening the refrigerator. Cute in a Pavlovian, gluttonous sort of way. It feels as if it is riding lower than before.
THIRD TRIMESTER
My body continues changing. I’m simultaneously experiencing brain fog, linea nigra and the mask of pregnancy. My mood swings like an unsecured shutter in hurricane force winds. Those within earshot try appeasing me with green bean casserole. It works.
All the cocoa butter in the world won’t erase the hideous stretch marks that creep across my belly. And don’t get me started on my hemorrhoids. I swear I am taller sitting down than standing up. Seriously.
As much as I enjoy the process of creating a food baby, I want this one out of me soon. Very soon. In keeping with the previous deliveries, I’m opting for a natural birth. But I am not opposed to the use of an epidural, C-section or Colace suppositories if complications arise. Nothing is routine when a food baby enters this world.
DELIVERY
Well, I am now the proud father of a three-pound, bobbing miracle. Cigars for everyone. Decided to wait a spell before naming the baby. I want to get a better feel for his personality. The resemblance to me is uncanny. We both have brown hair. The recovery is going well. I get some exercise in with multiple trips to scour the refrigerator for any leftover leftovers.
SOMBER EPILOGUE
Tragedy struck while I was having my food baby baptized. Some witness (I suspect my jealous cousin), flushed the toilet during the ceremony.
Goodbye, Beauregard Miller. Shine bright you little stinker. You’ll always be #1 in my heart.
I will be in mourning, wearing black because it’s slimming, until New Year’s Eve.
My New Notepad
AI is certainly everywhere these days.
Simple Chat GPT, Art AI to give you nice pictures, AI roleplaying like Poly (now with Buzz and Fizz) and C.AI-- Chai.
I don't know when exactly I first had enough curiosity to try AI tools.
In part it was the Chat GPT South Park episode. In others, it was the commercials which said I could speak as my favorite characters. Or no...
Here it is.
The truth, I saw a commercial which said AI could write whatever story you wanted. Bring it to life. I figured, the computer would take with my style or otherwise, write a nice short story of the ludicrous concepts I have. Perhaps they'd be a little clearer.
But, it really doesn't tell a story. Not at all. In fact, it just regurgitates everything else back at you when you try to detail what you want written. Now you have quite a lot of nothing except the occasional good metaphor or prose.
As a writer, I believe AI gets ideas started.
You give it the prompt you want to work with, for example, a potential superhero poached by the supervillain with his memory wiped.
Then you do your best to elaborate. On the characters, on the world, elaborate and asking questions.
And from there you can form the stories yourself with a foundation for the timeline and story events as well as how they can coincide and enhance character story arcs.
I have about twelve note files on AI with at least twenty different stories spread out between them.
It's my AI notebook.
priceless
They say everything has a price, but I never believed it. How could everything—literally everything—have a price? Surely, there must be something either worthless or priceless. Yet, no one ever talks about the structure of a price.
First of all, celebrating Christmas alone in the UK feels like a first-hand experience of lockdown. You realise how deeply people love their families when you see them travelling across countries just to spend the holidays together. For a month, with most students gone, I found myself staring at my to-do list, struggling to imagine ways to fill the days.
Then came the storm. They called it The Beast from the East.
It ruined everything.
With my plans in shambles, I decided to go trekking with a group of strangers. Loch Muick. Even now, I’d walk around that lake again in a heartbeat—it was a fun trek.
The strangers didn’t ask for money. It was a two-hour drive, and I listened to their conversations about work. One was loud and aggressive—definitely a waitress or someone in the food industry. Everything seemed too good to be true. And it was.
Though the trek cost me nothing financially, the price I paid was sharing the backseat of the car with a creature—a dog that looked like a mouse, or maybe a mouse that looked like a dog—who farted non-stop for the entire journey.
It was winter, but not just any winter. The winter of the Beast from the East. Windows stayed firmly shut, as opening them would have meant risking hypothermia. The heater was on full blast, sealing us in with that dog... and its persistent contributions to the atmosphere.