Angemort (Hors collection) (French Edition)
Eric Genillier Assistant dop: Thomas Collard Assistant director: Eric Prouteau Location manager: Laurent Pineau Special effect: Les Raconteurs Sfx supervisor: Maurice Di Battista Color Grading: Original music and mixing: Folamour and Ina Producer: Antoine de Gaudemar Head of production: Damien Maura Production assistant: Dyvia Babecof Color grading: Jean Ousmane Digital Mixing: Ses grandes largeurs d'esprit.
On se moque des pauvres, des suicidaires, des transsexuels, des femmes battues. Aujourd'hui, on supporterait moins l'irrespect ravageur de ce film. Traitons-nous mieux les pauvres pour autant? This film introduces the IRIS , a high speed train that travels at over kilometers per hour inspecting and testing tracks, signals, overhead power supply and telecommunications technologies, using a raft of sensors and cameras in its 20 measurement systems.
Masses of data are processed, analyzed and checked in real time by operators on the train. Where necessary, alerts are sent out to maintenance teams to intervene immediately or at a later date You can also discover this: Arnaud Lambert Music and sound design: Some pictures from the films "Sncf Infra: Nathalie "Chiffon" Desandre Edit: Jacques Terrien Color Grading: Daniel Ablin and 15Aout Productions. Francis Lane Line producer: Olivier Charpin Edit and Color Grading: You can discover the first one here: Marc Amyot , Jessy Deshais , Emmanuel Joubert , Thierry Godard , Simon Gilet , noir et blanc , espace , black and white , ange , mort , road movie , terry gilliam , tramway and picpocket.
Are you the publisher? Claim or contact us about this channel. Embed this content in your HTML. Channel Catalog Subsection Catalog. Articles on this Page showing articles 1 to 20 of Videos uploaded by Daniel Ablin on Vimeo. Contact us about this article. Jacques Terrien Corporate film. One day of shooting in 35mm. Obviously old, but I still like it! Luc Lavaut For the famous Fifa World Cup Trophy Tour by Coca Cola presentation of the trophy in 33 countries , I had to do a portrait of a teen in his city, talking about soccer and the specificities of this sport in his country.
Opening Title "Cannes Films Festival ". Laetitia Poisonnier The girl: Lyse Ruchat The 1st man: Mathieu Barbet The 2nd man: Laurent Pineau Sound by Aoc Screened in cinema. Daniel Ablin , des-mesures and Thomas Verovski Tags: Jean Chesnau Propulsion Technical crew: Jean Ousmane Digital Original music and mixing: Ben Planimonteur The woman: It was unfamiliar, and seemed occupied.
He found his phone number online. It was still active. He called and a gravelly voice answered. He was still deciding who he wanted to be. The next morning, Karl contacted Raoul. They had lunch near the hospital. Most of the deli patrons were medical staff. Waking up, not having a home or friends. I keep expecting to see someone I know.
From across the diner, a pair of green eyes opened wide. She eats at that place with the bean sprouts and organic carrots. She called and swears it was Karl. After that worked, Spider rented his trailer and decided to ride it out. He assumed payments and lived as Karl for the next two years. No one seemed to notice. Spider told Gena to keep a lookout at the restaurant. The boys started keeping their eyes peeled at the familiar haunts.
Spider maxed a couple more credit cards in case Karl did come back. Gena texted Spider two days later. He and Boots parked at the Elks Lodge and walked through the wooded area behind the restaurant parking. From there, they had a concealed view of the patio dining. Sure enough, they saw Karl. He wore an Irish flat cap. They exited the restaurant and walked together towards the hospital.
At the back entrance, Raoul leaned over and kissed him. Spider and Boots tore back through the woods, and did an involuntary in the parking lot, clipping a sedan. They did not stop. Boots kept the Beamer in his sights while Spider wove through the dense traffic. They watched him turn into the Palomino Motel, and park.
He entered number six. Both men were still breathing heavily from pursuit. Four men rushed in to see Raoul making love to Karl. Brad vomited immediately on the shag. Boots and Schultz just stared, as if frozen. Spider simply greeted Karl as he would anyone in this situation. Karl stared at his former friends with fear and anger.
There was no recognition. How dare these men invade his home? Who were these fucking redneck drunks? The first bat came down. Every few minutes, the country silence would be broken by a siren. The lights would strobe past and disappear around the bend. He knew where they were going. He listened to the chatter over a short-wave scanner. Law enforcement was baffled by a scene at the Palomino. Two men had been bludgeoned to death. The maid found the bodies. Both bodies were missing penises; the white victim was also missing his fingers, facial features, teeth and a patch of skin from each bicep.
Only the black man had been identified. The Steelers are playing! Time for some football.
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The cops would figure it out eventually. But until then, it was time for another beer. He smiled again, genuinely happy. Kind of a double-win with one being a colored boy. But his grades plummeted after Christmas break, and now he was in danger of being held back. He was being forced to attend summer session, and no amount of petitioning had managed to secure him leave. His mother was livid. He could talk anyone into anything. Both the backup and the third string were unavailable.
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No one seemed willing to commit. Lainey felt her chance at Europe dissolving. She called her sister, Mindy, to cry. Or just skate by to the next grade? No one expects anything from him. Jesus, Mindy, he always destroys my chances at everything. Remember in high school, when I was going to study in Paris? He fucked that up, too. I hate that little asshole.
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He did this on purpose. Adopted or not, you are the best sister anyone could have asked for. It was true, of course. Honestly, she was elated to find out that her mother could not bear anymore children. An awkward silence brought Mindy out of her introspective state.
She promised her sister that the boy would be more mature and responsible having been in her charge. And then they were gone.
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Mindy drove back to the house. John, not surprisingly, had opted out of bidding his parents farewell. He knew how angry Lainey was about summer school. No one really cared what he did. No one ever cared. Mindy looked in on John that evening. He was newly eighteen, handsome and somewhat mathematically-challenged, but overall, a smart kid. He was that rare breed that was personable, but introverted. He had always chosen to be a loner, but these days, seemed more depressed than independent. He just sat at the computer and played World of Warcraft for hours on end.
She remembered John as an outside kid —always running, screaming and team- oriented. Now, he seemed a bit introspective for an upcoming senior. The first weeks went smoothly. John enjoyed the change of pace, although his aunt seemed a stickler for rules. Each evening, homework was followed by supper, washing and bed. Television or other activities could be done immediately after school, but only before the nightly regimen began.
She doubted the effectiveness of his quick showers, and wanted him clean for bed. Baths made certain he did not skimp on this task. The house seemed different with Mindy there. Instead of the heavy feel of disappointment and stress, there was a lightness. She kept everything immaculate, and was often flitting around in gym shorts, sports bra and a crooked grin. Each day seemed a bit more relaxed. He studied hard, and spent less time online with the guys.
Sometimes, he even smiled. His grades improved, and he seemed happier. Baths were still mandatory, but the addition of some evening television was added. One evening, an awkward moment passed between them. He was still at the computer, but slumped down in the chair. It was as if he were laying on it instead of sitting. She leaned in to see if he was alright, when the video clip finished buffering. John was listening through the earbuds. His right hand was rapidly pumping his penis to orgasm, when he saw movement at the door.
Mindy had already gone, but John was certain she caught him masturbating. The next morning at breakfast, everything seemed normal. Mindy was the same chipper host and disciplinarian. And honestly, his time with Aunt Mindy had seemed to make it worse. She looked younger than she was, and although she had suffered through two failed marriages, her twenty-nine years had been kind. She hid her post-traumatic stress disorder by staying active. Her hobbies were jogging, kayaking and tennis. These activities, along with a daily regimen of deep-knee squats and calf raises, provided her with a near-perfect body.
She rarely smiled, but had full lips formed into a sultry pout. The brunette locks, emerald eyes and tanned skin only added to her allure. Most men found her attractive, unless they were in search of a formless, skinny girl. Mindy sported powerful thighs, chiseled calves and a backside that would have made a Dutch odalisque envious. It was several minutes before he noticed music playing.
He continued lathering, when the door opened and Mindy entered in a white hotel robe. Kumamoto Hotel Castle with embroidered in gold over her left breast. The vocals of Sinatra crooned as she lit three candles and positioned them around the room. She clicked off the light, sat on the toilet seat and lit up a cigarette. After two deep drags she dropped it into the toilet, disrobed and entered the tub behind John. He stiffened for a moment as she embraced him lightly from behind and began to lather his thighs and chest.
Slowly, she moved down his stomach to the genitals. His back was still to her, but he could feel her moving against him. Her pulsing and writhing became rougher —less rhythmic. John reached behind him and began exploring her thighs, her skin, her hidden recesses. He never glanced behind him; everything was learned through tactile stimuli. He felt immediately what pleased her, what raced her heart.
The act felt natural; it all felt so right. With a stifled squeal she shuttered and collapsed against the back of the tub. After several seconds, she stood up. She robed herself, lit a second cigarette, and exited the bathroom without a backwards glance. John sat in the now-tepid water for another ten minutes. He was again, erect. The affair had changed the routine. John returned from school the next day to find Mindy dressed in nothing more than a tool belt. He made love to her over the back of the couch. Afterwards, they ate fish sticks and watched Ben Hur. Before school, they sixty-nined in the faculty parking lot, giggling as they pleasured each other.
Daytime was the for playful mischief, but once the shadows lengthened, true desire emerged. Evenings were for exploration. Mindy had John perform acts that were denied her by former partners. They had intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex; they role-played, mutually masturbated and watched porn together.
Skin was coated in pudding, oils and candle wax. Mindy even had John pour Pop Rocks candies into her rectum. There were no limits, no bounds between them. In fact, her only rule was that after going down on her, John suck a Butterscotch before kissing her again. She kept a bowl of the orange candies beside the bed, and even kept several stashed around the house for impromptu affairs. He sought out Mindy when he was twenty-seven, after years of failed relationships and therapy.
She was in her late-forties, broken down and miserable. Her skin was paler now, leathery and lined. The left corner of her mouth and dominant fingers were stained yellow from years of nicotine. She looked sickly to him, somehow, but John saw her from the parking lot, and was staring through painted scrawl on diner glass. His movement drew her eyes to his. She saw him there, and whispered something inaudibly. He never caught the words. After a few more seconds standing in the thickening mist, he left.
Two weeks later, his mother announced that Mindy killed herself. She was diagnosed with Stage-2 lung masses. She had authored a short letter to the family that explained her illness, her thoughts, and her resolution to swallow a shotgun. I never liked that girl.
She began with an apology, and stated that he should harbor no guilt from her death. At this, Lainey cut her eyes at him, questioningly. Mindy left him a single cardboard box with his name across the side. Two hours later, John was lying on the couch with his feet thrown on an ottoman. In essence, she had confessed that she loved him that summer —and loved him still.
He smiled as he glanced at the cardboard box. He closed his eyes and replayed those memories in his mind. He loved her, he knew. She was his first. John slowly unwrapped a piece of candy and slipped it into his mouth. For the length of his cigarette, he sucked on the butterscotch.
As it dissolved and faded into the recesses of his mouth and mind —he smiled. His sadness left him. It was time to begin again. The lucky few Amble toward it patiently, trusting that Many tasks are unfinishable, and Many burdens beg to be laid down, left For others, who also may, if they wish, Pass them on with the merest shrug and smile. If not, we have as choices grieving or singing. Each is medicinal if accepted. Cash is the best aphrodisiac, Miss. Je ne le connais pas vraiment moi ce gars. Le renflouement de la dette. Et la dette est importante, croyez-moi!
Avec celle des autres, avec ce qui nous lie aux autres, avec une certaine sagesse syndicaliste…la dette sinon rien! Et, croyez-moi, je sais de quoi je parle. Il fallait se mettre en chemin. Il fallait remplir ce verre. A cette heure de la nuit les rues se ressemblaient toutes. Le sang qui coulait sur mon front et sur mon visage obstruait ma vue. Nicola I've been thinking again of that geezer Who had no kids of his own And the annual PTA gala the time that he Brought a casserole His hair was grayish and splotchy His beard of a taupish tone You said he was crazy to come since he had No kids of his own He stood by the punch and served it Straight-faced from the crystal bowl But almost smiled whenever a kid took a Scoop of the casserole Years later at Dad's funeral He showed up again alone And took Mom's hands between his palms Still he had no kids of his own Then afterwards at the house he had Two deviled eggs and a roll And between the green beans and the salad I saw that he'd Brought a casserole Next day to return the dish Mom called him on the phone Then sent us to take it over since he had No kids of his own We left the thing on his doorstep Refusing to ring the bell You remember?
As though what we once were. I know you own no photograph of me, nor have I looked upon your Facebook page in years—which, I admit, was sweet as sin. Feet by James B. Nicola When I was still a slime-eyed tadpole crawling on the dirt I saw a lot of feet. Sometimes a sudden light would hurt My eyes. Between the shadows I would spy upon the wall An angel, sometimes singing—and heard giants, I recall. Their goohs and gahs were gibberish, but sounded rather sweet. But mostly I would crawl around and see a lot of feet.
I'm seeing lots of feet again and shadows on the wall And hearing sounds that beckon in an eerie foreign tongue: They sing like angels like they used to do when I was young. And would it be too forward of me to confess to you that there are some nights I worry I might become like them? I hit my pillow hours on end for no good reason. So I need a friend, or will need one, eventually. Do you think you could be a friend to me? My voice, you see, is gone. Till next time, then, good-bye. Is it really fun to fly? Nicola The splotchier the rind the greater is the hope the meat within is sweet.
To find the ripest cantaloupe a surface blotch belies the sweetness we pursue. With watermelon this applies as well, and honey dew. With either I can tell, should its skin spring back somehow if I squeeze and give a smell, that it is ready now. See my extended arm?
Attached to it, a hand? A touch would not do any harm; a grab would be just grand. Steinfeld A pitifully slow day you know, the kind where even God is bored such slowness inspires quick if not misguided thoughts of unwieldy questions not of falling trees in unpopulated forests nor countless frenetic monkeys banging away at countless keyboards but of final things such as what will be the final prayer ever uttered when the sun finally gives up and the narrative of existence fizzles out at long last.
What will God hear afterward? Steinfeld out of nowhere, they arrive, complex as elaborate jokes geometric as shaped lies sometimes as slaps other times a gunshot awakening still other times a sting by an insect perfecting the art of surprise and pain most often as confused thieves in the night giving and taking kindly and unkindly memories of this and that faded remembrances of a kiss of things done and not done of lists quarter completed of love becoming loveless of turning down near beauty and being pushed aside by meagre little deities by clattering old machinery by sleight-of-hand by a final notice written in an indecipherable hand this is a life lived not nearly as fully as sketches and diagrams would indicate a sad film seen three times alone an old record thrown to the ground and broken as the wrong song began Steinfeld There at the front of the stage a frightened magician begins to perform one more anxious trick the night has been long and disappointing the tricks and trickery getting more convoluted than an inveterate swindler reminiscing over a lifetime of seeking the beauty of deception.
Everyone in the audience goes home with a new memory and something to talk about for at least a day or two. Steinfeld God uses special effects and excessive pyrotechnics, a mute speaks, sweet-voiced, upon regaining speech and a sense of humour. Everyone in the room is awed left trembling and sweat drenched. Prestidigitation will become commonplace, a former stutterer slips into eloquence, greeted by applause like legendary thunder even a hint of legendary lightning and divination.
Three in the room grip camcorders ready to capture the unfathomable then the three swell to thirty to three hundred to three thousand soon an excited sea of camcorders attempting to outwit the incomprehensible. Will all this be on the morning, evening, or night-time news? I wonder, silent in my confusion. This is a lousy movie with sloppy dialogue, a blind cynic grumbles, retching out metaphor, then screams in mid-sentence, I can see, and looks at the delicate feet of the most beautiful sinner in the room.
This room, spacious beyond measurement, populated like a history of forgotten parades, I inadvertently entered, haphazard condemnation, sat at the very back, seeing all the deformities and infirmities and worn-out dreams. One by one slowly and consecutively things are resolved, errors undone, wounds healed even belligerency is soothed. It is miraculous, the youngest in the room says, It is glorious, the oldest in the room says, long-memoried scars turning smooth.
When she had the woodstove burning, the cold basement, cluttered with soiled laundry, bras, panties, halter tops, yoga pants, short skirts, and athletic apparel hanging from the clothesline, and a growing collection of paperbacks, pocketbooks, and hardcover books on the shelves that once held jam and jellies jars and preserves, she felt comfortable. The house was her sole asset, and living downstairs she learned firsthand how rundown and small the basement of the dwelling was.
After she received a layoff notice as a residential care worker at a group home, where she worked for eighteen years, she spent more time at home and first noticed how promiscuous her partner was. As she searched the local job openings on the Internet through her desktop computer, she could not avoid overhearing, as Jenn got intimate with her boyfriends and girlfriends upstairs.
Anna and Nick had lived in the house with her parents, but neither sibling ever overheard their parents making love in the house. She could not live with Nick, though, simply because his wife would not allow her. Anna was untidy, kept late hours, and the two women never got along, his wife complained, but Nick thought the true reason lay elsewhere. Anna set up an improvised office in the basement, after she accused Jenn of hacking into her e-mail and vandalizing her bicycle.
She reproached Jenn for leaving a video of a threesome she had with former high school classmates, from her smartphone on the computer they shared. In a fit of rage, Jenn shoved and plowed appliances and furniture from the living room into the kitchen. Jenn destroyed living room furniture, as she moved the television, computer monitor, and desktop tower into the kitchen, and punched a hole in the drywall.
Downstairs, Anna confronted the reality she could be a slob. She stared at the evidence cluttered around the desk. Mosquitoes buzzed around the dried crust from the reheated pizza, pastry leftovers and composting apple cores and blackening banana peels. Fruit flies hovered and flew around the hardened sauce from the canned chili she heated in the microwave oven. She also preferred to check and send e-mail from the workstations in the computer room at the public library. At first, the administrators thought someone stole her identity, since the clerk who processed her application thought her too old to apply as a university student.
Then an admissions officer realized, yes, they accepted mature students, growing in number as laid off factory workers, tradespersons, and stay-at-home parents and their offspring returned to college to upgrade their qualifications. Then, a front desk clerk, with an aged, gravelly voice, who smoked a few packages of cigarettes a day, reassured her that, even though she was a woman and they did not suspect she was a sex offender, she was too old to apply to live in the student residence.
So much for the provincial human rights code, Anna replied and slammed the telephone. When the residence manager, worried a student might mention human rights, called back, Anna simply decided it was not worth the time, trouble, and merely hung up the telephone. Finally, Anna decided she needed to tidy up house, as if she was moving out. After deciding to discard junky appliances from downstairs, she called Nick to borrow his four-wheel drive pickup truck and ask for help disposing of the broken down laundry dryer and the vintage refrigerator.
Nick heard more than enough of the trouble, arguments, and fights in which she was entangled in with her ex- girlfriend, so he procrastinated.
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When he reluctantly agreed to help and lend her his truck after several more delays and excuses, he showed up at the house, but Jenn confronted him at the door as they tried to carry the dryer upstairs and through the porch. Anna was relieved she managed to persuade him to help, but Jenn actually pushed and yelled at Nick, who realized he needed to keep his cool. When he saw the argument Jenn instigated with Anna he stepped outside the house and waited in the pickup truck until the confrontation cooled down.
They loaded the broken front load dryer into the back of the truck, with a crash. While he fiddled with the button for the FM radio, tuning into the Beaverbrook radio station that played pop hits from yesteryear, and drove down the highway, Anna noticed through the rear view mirror and back window a police cruiser tailgating them, and she recognized Constable Dias. They mused, joked, and chuckled over the nickname, Car Wash, Dias after a deaf mute, David, who grew up on the nearby Ojibwa reserve, recognized him having sex with Jenn in the back seat of his crew cab pickup truck in the coin-operated car wash.
With a beer tucked between his clenched legs, Nick took evasive action and drove down the maze of roads until he lost the police car, which returned to the highway and parked at the turnoff, waiting. The siblings hauled the dented, broken white appliance dryer down the highway and to the private landfill down the highway outside the abandoned unorganized township where Nick dumped the ashes from his woodstove. As they dumped the dryer from the back of the truck, the door popped open and frilly, lacy lingerie spilled out.
You sure you want to chuck it?
I doubt it would fit her. He handed her a beer as he dropped down the tailgate of his pickup gate parked at the edge of the country road beside the small garbage dump. I thought I, we, cleared this up. He remembers talking with Dad on the telephone one Sunday afternoon, soon after you told him. They were both shocked and stunned. Then the very next day you called and informed him Dad died, on the couch where he took a nap, right after he had that heart-to-heart with him on the telephone.
Uncle Rick grew up Portuguese in the Azores. He went to church Sundays and every morning during Lent. He was raised a strict Catholic and went to religious school. Where will you stay? Then Anna worried about the beers they drank, since she suspected Jennifer had sent her police friend after them. So Nick decided to take the logging road around the long way, along a circuitous, bumpy route back into town to avoid a police vehicle.
Since he simply no longer had patience to wait, he told her to wait again until next week to try again with the aged refrigerator, which needed to be emptied and moved. He was surprised, but her assumptions were correct: She kept turning her head and told him positively the police officer was the same man with whom Jenn had an intermittent affair. She figured Jenn called, urging him to harass them. The following week when Nick tried to haul out the refrigerator with Anna, Jenn stood at the door upstairs and confronted her.
Nick decided to wait in the truck outside, while she guarded the refrigerator, leaning upright against the porch doorframe.
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Jenn started to argue and quarrel with her, but Anna tried to explain. The teachers at the high school where he was a caretaker gave him the fridge from their staffroom because he loved gardening and could easily stock freezers and fridge compartments with vegetables. When Jenn saw Nick clenching his smartphone to video the pair as they squabbled, she lunged towards him, but she drew back, as he clenched his fists ominously.
Instead, she held out her open hands to block the view and stepped back inside the house. Anna called Nick for help, and they carried the refrigerator down the yard sidewalk and lowered and eased it into the box of the truck. When they turned, the officer parked his cruiser behind the truck, blocking an exit through the driveway.
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Then he glared at Anna ominously before, gripping his utility belt and walkie-talkie, he strode over and chatted with Nic. He walked over to the idling police cruiser and Anna sensed the animus and hostility he exuded as he drove away. Later that afternoon, towards the early evening, Anna saw the police cruiser parked partway on the lawn and stepped outside the house and approached Dias in his car.
The oil from your tires will kill the grass and nobody invited you or called. Are you trying to harass me? He drove to the doughnut shop where he ordered coffee from the drive through window. I know she has plenty of friends. Just understand your girlfriend is going through a difficult time. On the curb of the residential neighbourhood, on a route she walked every afternoon and morning for groceries or mail at the post office, he unlocked the handcuffs and released her. She strode the block home in her slippers, rubbing the welts the handcuffs left on her wrists.
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Jenn asked what her intentions were in tidying up the house and cleaning up the basement, and she replied she intended to make the house more hospitable. Scheduled to start studies in the education program in a few weeks, Anna packed a single suitcase, her handbag, and a backpack. She walked to the heritage train station on Railyardside Street of her hometown of Beaverbrook. Anna waited for the transcontinental passenger train in the refurbished waiting room, renovated by a municipality dreaming of prosperity, reliving the glory days of railroad travel.
When Anna realized Jenn followed her to the train station, driving the compact car she kicked and crashed countless time out of sheer recklessness and drunkenness, Anna did not want to speak with her. Anna stood beside the empty police cruiser in the parking lot, where Constable Dias gossiped with a cab driver, smoking cigarettes, drinking takeout coffee. After Anna boarded the train and settled into his seat in the coach section, she spotted from her window seat Jenn, sobbing, looking distraught, slouching on a bench.
In fact, when she saw her crying uncontrollably on the train platform she pulled down the train curtain and shuffled to the food counter for a coffee and a bag of potato chips, salty snacks to take the bad taste, the bitter, metallic flavour from her dry mouth and chapped lips. Anna arrived safely in Toronto. Weeks after she settled into her education studies at York University, she walked into the twenty-four hour study area of Scott Library, where she had her nightly routine at textbooks and academic journals and the library computer, without any sense of anticipation or foreboding.
So Anna was shocked when she found Jennifer sitting at a hardwood study table, alongside students with their textbooks, reading a bus and subway system map, looking bewildered, lost, forlorn, as if she was waiting for her. And she treated her former lover as a scourge to avoid, maybe even a serial rapist or killer, but she managed to stay calm to a limited extent.
She disappeared in the reference section, with her laptop, index cards, lecture notes, and thumb drive, in her handbag. She defensively clutched her textbooks against her breasts, which she had taken to wearing in a pushup bra, since she felt lonely and needed to attract flattering attention.
Then, when she saw Jenn pacing, Anna decided to disappear in the stacks. After Anna spotted through the shelves of books Jenn strolling the length of the stacks, she locked herself in the wheelchair accessible washroom. Anna called her brother on her brand new cellphone, which she could barely afford and which had only a few minutes of airtime. Nick confessed Jenn called, begging him to tell her where she might find my sister. Knowing Anna could be as regular as an atomic clock, Jenn had no difficulty locating her, tracking her down on campus. A few days later, looking forward to a cappuccino while she studied for an educational psychology multiple-choice test, having completed an exam at noon, Anna went into her favourite coffee shop.
She saw Jenn, who returned from a trip to nearby Yorkdale shopping mall with a shopping bag stuffed with new designer clothes, drinking coffee. When Anna saw Jenn pour something from a brown paper bag into her coffee, she realized she visited the Yorkdale mall liquor store and interpreted this as a warning to stay away. Then, in early February, Uncle Rick warned her about an urgent call from Nick. The family home she inherited, the house on Railyardside Street, where she grew up happily, with her parents and a brother, the house where she had fond childhood memories, had burned to a shell in its corner lot, in the neighbourhood of the Moose Hall and the Masonic Lodge.
The volunteer fire department fought the blaze that raged through the house, which Anna abandoned to Jenn to attend the faculty of education at York University. When the fire started David, the deaf-mute Ojibwa, who lived down the street, walked his dog down the back alley. Sensing someone inside, he kicked the door open. He managed to carry her body out before the whole building went up in flames, but, even though Jenn appeared alive to a firefighter, wearing an oxygen tank and masks, she perished in the house from smoke inhalation.
The fire marshal thought the fire was suspicious but leaned towards a cigarette igniting the mattress or bedroom carpet. Still, he realized Anna, at forty, no longer cherished material possessions or property, when many of her peers were prospering financially. I never saw anybody smoke crack and wondered what the big hullaballoo was about crack, but, with her bong and vaporizer, she taught me: I did grow up with her and we attended high school together.
I tried to warn you to stay away, but you chose to learn the hard way. She seemed to have a stranglehold over you. The town probably wants somebody to clean up the mess before issuing warnings and fines. I assume the funeral home is taking care of her? So, I better say good-bye.
Forget about your friends, family, and hometown. From the pay telephone in a building at the edge of campus, Anna looked around the darkness and stillness and the lights reflected in the pool of the commons on suburban campus of the university, which featured concrete monoliths interrupted by rolling green lawns and roadways and trails. She walked through the still, tranquil night, quiet and peaceful for the city suburbia and campus, along the pathway, across the campus to the twenty-four hour bus stop.
She met only a The racoon tensed, ready to bolt, but Anna veered course, walking on the lawn of the arboretum around him, so he could finish the meals of leftover pieces of breaded processed chicken meals from his fidgety, tiny paws in peace. Then, when Anna arrived at the abandoned bus stop at Finch Avenue, she marveled at a bat fluttering crazily about the streetlights. She realized she was safe; she escaped the wild woman she had loved and survived. Still a Beaverbrook municipal police officer, he mumbled over the cellphone, he was in the city for a conference on provincial code offenses and by-law enforcement.
I mean, should I be asking for your identification? I actually grew up in a neighbourhood around Ossington and College Street. She marveled over the numbers printed on the cheque: So Jenn had paid for insurance, and somehow Anna became the beneficiary, which made sense since it was her house. As she examined the check in amazement, she thought she could use the proceeds for graduate school studies, even though she was scheduled to start a paid practicum, teaching grade six students at a public elementary school in Cabbagetown.
Then he handed her a small cardboard box, which she tore open, with the return address of a Beaverbrook funeral home. He apologized, wiped a tear from his eye, and firmly shook her limp hand. He dashed out of the Starbucks to catch the westbound King streetcar waiting at the intersection outside. Although he finally appeared a genuinely warm person, even a gentleman, Anna only remembered an intimidating