Dec

2

Coupland d’état | Part One

Filed Under Life Slice 

Leaf Mike + Doug Starn

Since the holidays can get out of hand, I decided instead of the usual essay-like blog posts, to offer up a little winter fiction. I’ll be posting only once a week for the month of December, just so you readers out there can get to tidying, cooking, baking, shopping, crafting, cavorting and much much more!

I should also have several well-wishing greetings interrupting the story flow, further along mid-month. Look out for it!

In the meantime, best to all for a joyous season, and a very luminous New Year. May the future be bright, and the relationsham? Well, may it be left in the past; boarded up in shoe boxes, in the recesses of closets, never to be opened! Enjoy!

“The rain definitely lets you think more about shit,” Jonathan had responded in an e-mail. Why this came to me as a surprise, I didn’t know. It did rain a lot in Vancouver, but Jonathan knew that when he returned home ten years ago.

It had been a standoff between me and his motorbike. I never stood a chance.

At the time, I thought I was capable of letting him go, but it became obvious as he grew distant, and rumours surfaced about his new life with a new love that I was more invested in the relationship than I had ever openly admitted. At least, to myself.

Was this what it was like for Douglas Coupland? To be living under the grey skies of the West Coast?

Seventeen books, thirty-five shows, two films, two plays and a television series didn’t lie. Douglas Coupland had done a lot of thinking, and lately, so was I.

After all the time passed, it had been necessary to face Jonathan. It had taken me too long to realize that instead of punishing him, my pride had tormented me.

Two surgeries, a therapist, and three years in bed before the anger took over and propelled me into living again. The pain; it had been enough.

And the timing couldn’t have been better. Gord, a mutual acquaintance and close friend, was due back to British Columbia to visit the family for Christmas. The opportunity to escape my own familial holiday was attractive enough to convince me I could supplant one high-stress situation for another.

At the baggage claim, my nerves had gotten the better of me and I could suddenly feel the colour drain from my face. Gord had noticed.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this? You’re not going to be sick are you? Or worse. Act weird and embarrass me?” he softly squeezed my arm.

“Gord! Give me a bit of credit!”

“I’m just saying. I don’t want it to be a thing.”

“I don’t want it to be a thing either.”

But it had been, and I so desperately wanted it to be over.

Was I above my pride, or really was I doomed to always live forever, under its cloud. Following me.

Bicoastal.

More than half the flight remained. Gord fidgeted between watching the airplane movie and using the pull-out tray in front as a head rest. We were flying over North Dakota. Ten years was a long time. I had to wait just a little bit longer.

I was hours away from finding out.

IMAGE | Mike + Doug Starn | Black Pulse 7 (Lambda) | 2000–2007 | 56″x65″ | Lambda Digital C-Print

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