MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 33
TIME IS A FUNNY OLD TANGLE
by Sabina Perez
TODAY IS MY seventy-first birthday. Some would call me old, but I’m fit and healthy and choose to
spend my time with young and young-at-heart people. My hair is grey but cut in a fashionable bob,
and my brown eyes and my conscience are clear. I enjoy my life, and all the more so since my
divorce twenty years ago; I hike, cross-country ski, and have two amazing daughters and three best
friends. I take care of my mental and physical health, partly for fun but also because I want to stay in
my lovely little house until I die. And that is turning out to be much sooner than I had expected.
I’d been having a wonderful birthday until about an hour ago. I started the day with a breakfast
video chat with my older daughter, Jenny, and my two grandchildren in Toronto. I made them all
laugh with some silly jokes, and then Lucas, four, and Ella, two, showed me their latest artwork and
sang me a few songs. Afterwards, I had a lovely, long bath. My oldest friend, Trish, hosted a lunch
party at her place and since we’re enjoying an unusually warm spring in Calgary, we were all able to
sit outside in the sunshine. I came home at three in the afternoon to change and go for my daily
power walk. I’m supposed to have supper at my younger daughter’s house in a couple of hours.
Emily lives just down the street.
I should be halfway through my riverside circuit by now, except that I’m lying on the floor, unable
to move. It all happened so quickly—I was sitting on the bottom step in my front hall putting on my
running shoes and when I stood up, something snapped inside of my brain: bright orange and red
bursts with green twirly lines hijacked my vision, and all sense of feeling and direction disappeared.
I must have lost consciousness because I came to lying on the stone floor in my front hall. My brain
circuits are misfiring, and communication centres are melting down. It’s kind of like when you’re in a
stadium and the bright lights are shut down section by section and each thunking noise brings you
closer and closer to the darkness.
I panicked at first but quickly came to the surprising and frustrating realisation that this is my
time to die. I must have had a stroke or an aneurysm. I know what the critical timeline for
treatment is, and by the time my daughter raises the alarm and gets help, it will be too late. My
poor Emily. I pray that she won’t blame herself for not coming to check on me earlier. There’s no
way she could have known. I think I’ve also hit my head very hard, because I can see blood on the
floor in front of me which, since I’m alone, must be mine.
There’s nothing to be done. So, wanting to coast into the great beyond on a high, I decided to
think about happy times with my children and from my own childhood. But it made me too sad, and
I started to panic again. I want to meet my end with some semblance of grace, so I calmed myself
down with some deep breathing. On the plus side, the knock on the head seems to have shaken
something loose, something that’s giving me comfort right now. I haven’t thought about this in thirty
years, but the memory is clear and sharply in focus. Unlike my vision, which is starting to blur.
###
Early 1990s Calgary: I was riding the escalator up to the mezzanine level of my downtown office
tower, on the way to the food court to buy lunch. It must have been a Friday because in those days I
allowed myself a fast-food meal one Friday a month as a reward for weeks of healthy, homemade
lunches. The lobby’s large water feature was gushing loudly. I was wondering how long the line-up
was at my favourite burger place when I looked up and into the kind, grey eyes of a stranger riding
down the escalator. He was younger than I was, maybe thirty-ish, tall, and had wavy, sandy-coloured
hair. He was wearing a navy suit with a white button-down dress shirt and a grey tie. A weird electric
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