The kitchen’s a mess

Tuesday

1:45 I leave work early, Tuesdays I don’t have daycare and he is in a special after-school tennis program so cannot take her home when school lets out

2:00 I board the Seabus

2:15 I board the bus

2:30 I walk home

2:50 I walk to school

Almost Crimes – Broken Social Scene

Imagining the story behind the song…

Almost Crimes

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I get up to pee. It’s early still, the house is quiet.

I live alone. What changes from night to day. Is it outside noise—cars, birds, neighbours?

I realize I’m still sitting on the toilet for no reason, just lost in sound and silence.

I live alone, where does the sound come from?

I flush. Onomatopoeically speaking, flush is not particularly accurate. It’s too gentle for such a violent sound—rushing water gulping air, desperate for the return of calm.

I’ve broken the seal, sound floods in. Who says “onomatopoeically speaking” anyway?

I hear the furnace rev up, readying to deliver the day’s warmth. Heat is energy and so is sound. It’s more than just fan noise. In the cold there is silence, in the warmth there is sound.

My body is humming.

As if mocking my reverie, the music visualizer on my laptop is pulsing in an electric light show. Even in the silence there is sound expressed in light and shapes and flashes of darkness. I press the mute button and the sources of the vibrant show suddenly flood my ear canals.

… The Yukon keeps me up all night

Complications seize your best…

Drums punctuate guitar riffs, rolling and stopping, pacing the vibrations as if the drumheads themselves were plucking the strings. Voices exchange words and sometimes interrupt. It is a love song. It’s on repeat and I replay the night before.

The ache returns.

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