This Other Time (Part 2 of at least 2)

It was four a.m. and your stomach was cramping from eating a bag of pita and a container of hummus. Well, it was cramping because in the tiny editing suite where you and Alice were editing your video, you were trying desperately not to release any of the gas troubling your lower intestine. “I’m going to step out for a minute,” you told her as she sought a seamless transition between a shot of a bathroom door closing and a close up of a beautiful troublemaker leaning in to kiss your main character against the sink. “Excuse me.”

You went outside. It was balmy and windless. The street was empty. Almost empty. There was someone standing under a streetlight smoking and reading a book. You thought maybe you recognized them so you were staring when they lifted their head, took a drag and turned towards you. Their nose was the first thing you recognized. You’d never been attracted to a nose before, but this person, this gorgeous boy or girl—you honestly didn’t know—this handsome androgyne had a sexy nose. The bridge bulged subtly just below their deep-set eyes and announced the presence of a bone, or cartilage that had bone-like distinction, that defined the shape of the nose as it descended to a narrow, gentle upturn. There was something equine about it, something muscular.

But wait, they were nodding at you.

You nodded back, worried, though, that at this distance your nod could be interpreted any number of ways, interpreted as cold even. You lifted your left hand and held it there while you nodded towards it as if to say, This is what I meant when I nodded a second ago, Hello.

The person with the gorgeous nose smiled, laughingly, but didn’t laugh. Harmony was their name, you thought. You tried to remember back to the Politics and Sexuality course you’d both taken in the spring semester last year. Harmony.

You were smiling now, too.

Harmony dropped the smoking cigarette to the sidewalk and stomped it out with a slender leather boot.

As Harmony walked towards you, you became aware of the bad smell hanging around your person, part flatulence, part sweaty sleeplessness. You wished for a gust of wind to whistle across the campus from Yonge Street and disperse your aura of bad air.

“Hi,” Harmony said.

“Hi,” you said.

Harmony held arms wide, welcoming you in for a hug. You grimaced a bit. “Never mind,” Harmony said.

“It’s not that.” You took a step back. “I’m just a bit gross. I’ve been up all night editing.”

“I’m here editing, too.”

“Oh, really? Are you in film or television?”

“Theatre. But I’m a dancer, too. Do you know Carson?”

“No.”

“Carson Martin?”

You shook your head.

“Carson made a video of me dancing.”

“Cool.”

“I’m pretty excited about it.”

You smiled. “I’d love to see it.”

“Okay,” Harmony smiled.

Then you both said, “What—?” at the same time.

“Sorry,” you said.

“No, I’ve been talking a lot.”

“I just was going to ask what you were reading.”

The book was deep in the pocket of Harmony’s long, broad-collared coat. Harmony handed you the book. There was a picture of a pitcher following through after a pitch, one leg planted, the other pointing to the gap to the third base side of the set short stop, his eyes towards the batter whose bat seemed about to make contact with the tiny white ball streaking towards him. Overwhelmingly, though, the photograph on the cover of The Summer Game by Roger Angell, showed the dry, mown grass and carefully groomed dirt and all the open space of a ball diamond. “He’s like, the poet-laureate of baseball.”

“Literally?”

“I don’t think literally. Does baseball have a poet-laureate?”

“That would be surprising.”

“Yeah.” Harmony laughed. “My point is, it’s beautiful writing. Really.”

“Cool,” you handed the book back.

“I was going to ask what you are editing.”

“A project for my production class.”

“What’s it about?”

The précis, the pitch version was something you were working on. It was a struggle, though. Your stories, the way you told them, tended to be about minutiae and moments, not big, sweeping changes in the lives of your characters, so, I mean, how? How sum it up in a few words? “My main character falls for this troublemaker, who is played by this tall woman with muddy eyes, and the two of them make trouble together.” You smiled, proud of your description.

“Sounds like a lot of fun. Mind if I peak my head in and take a look?”

You weren’t sure what Alice would think about that, but you couldn’t resist Harmony’s eager face. “Sure. Maybe closer to seven?” Seven was when they would kick you out of the editing suite.

“Alright.”

“And maybe I can come see yours?”

“I’d love that.”

The first thing you noticed when you returned to the tiny room where Alice was patiently assembling your video was that the staleness that had emanated from your body outside permeated the air here. Alice had a long list of questions for you. In your excitement about Harmony, you were able to ignore her irritation. Honestly, you even started feeling a little bad about abandoning her and not apologizing for it but by the time you were thinking that way it was too late to say sorry because Alice would be all like, Sorry for what? She seemed to have been lifted up a bit by your positive energy, though, so there was that.

Alice was fine-cutting the bike scene, where the troublemaker and the main character double to the ravine to carve their initials into trees and make out under the moon. The footage was grainy and making you feel a little shitty for not listening to your camera operator or for not changing your script, but it was what it was now, so you told yourself that maybe the story was beautiful enough to excuse the shoddy shooting and the fact that you chose poetic logic over the limitations that camera and budget placed on your project. 

You told Alice you’d be back and she asked if you could please be quicker this time.

You found Harmony and Carson in a room off the hall opposite the hall you and Alice were working down. On the screen was an image of Harmony suspended in mid-air above a field of tall grass you guessed was wheat. Muscles bulged here and there despite the tensor bandage binding Harmony’s torso. You were reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s story, “Harrison Bergeron.” “Hi,” Harmony said. You introduced yourself to Carson.

At Harmony’s urging, Carson showed you what they had cut so far, “Even though there’s no music yet and some of the cuts need fine tuning.”

“Where’d you shoot this?” You watched the screen carefully, waiting for the leap or bend that would press Harmony’s baggy pants against whatever was inside them.

“My family’s farm,” Carson said.

“In Saskatchewan,” Harmony said. “We stayed with Carson’s family for a week. It was so lovely.” Harmony smiled at Carson and your heart was set on breaking a little until you saw the way Carson turned back to the screen.

Harmony came back with you to your editing suite and watched what you and Alice had done. You felt gratified when Harmony laughed at the scene of the troublemaker arriving at the main character’s family’s home for dinner, especially when she hopped off her bike and let it glide into the carefully maintained garden beside the front walk.

“What a great actor that woman is,” Harmony said. “She’s— Oh, she’s just so perfect. And I love the story.”

You said, Thanks.

Harmony asked you to go to breakfast and you hesitated for just a second because you never stayed up this late and you were exhausted, but Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, you would love to. “You know what,” Harmony said, “I think you should go home and get some sleep, but,” Harmony looked around for you didn’t know what, “let me give you my number.”

Alice, long suffering and patient and so generous to you always, tore a sheet out of her notebook and, without turning from her work editing your video, she held up that sheet of paper and a BIC ballpoint and you watched as Harmony wrote out the area code and seven digits and said, “I might be meeting some friends later, but I might not, too, so I don’t know, I mean you could join us or maybe the two of us could go eat somewhere or go sit in a park, I don’t know.”

“Sure,” you said. Then you nodded and repeated yourself a few times before you said, “Okay, I’ll call you.”

You thanked Alice as the two of you parted ways out front of the Television and Radio Arts building. She told you to get some rest before your big date. You sputtered out what might have been an attempted laugh.

It was hard to get to sleep, of course, with the excitement piled on top of the over-exhaustion. The last you remembered looking at the clock it was after nine.

When the phone rang, it was just after two. Your best friend was going tobogganing with Pat. You were confused. How long did you sleep? Giant flakes of snow were piling up in front of your basement window. “No,” you said. “Thanks.” When your best friend asked if something was wrong you explained that you’d been editing through the night. You didn’t say anything about Harmony, but you were so distracted that you didn’t hear what hill your best friend and Pat were going to. 

You scrubbed the tub, then had a bath. You tried to read. You made your bed and tidied your room. You picked small but visible chunks of what?—socks, snacks, dead hair—off the carpet, because the vacuum had broken a few weeks ago and you and your roommates couldn’t agree on who should take it to the repair place.

You called Harmony. It was 4:02 p.m. “I thought you’d forgotten about me,” Harmony said. “That thing with my other friends fell through.” The two of you agreed to meet at Buddha’s on Dundas between Spadina and Bathurst.

When you arrived, Harmony waved to you from a chair by the window. Harmony hugged you and smiled and listened to you talk about the stress your latest video was causing you. Harmony ordered for you both—spring rolls, imitation duck, Singapore-style noodles, mixed-vegetables with cashew nuts and steamed rice. You talked more about your video before discussing baseball, dancing, T-shirts, blue jeans, snow, hometowns, the suburbs, favourite bands and ice-skating on frozen ponds. It was way too much food, a surprising amount of food, and you over ate even though told yourself you wouldn’t. You and Harmony agreed that the server should pack up what you hadn’t eaten, but when she arrived with the food packed up in Styrofoam and a white plastic bag, you discovered that neither of you actually wanted it.

The two of you stood outside the restaurant awkwardly. “Have anywhere you need to be?” Harmony asked.

“Nope.”

“Want to walk with me? I love this weather.”

“Yeah.”

In Kensington, there was a cluster of street punks with two beautiful brindle-coated dogs. They thanked you when you offered them the leftovers and Harmony even went into a Jamaican food place and got napkins and plastic forks for them. You and Harmony sat on a bench in the Market parkette, and an older guy in really bad shape offered to sell you pot. Your feet were cold and wet in your Chuck Taylors. You went into Last Temptation just to be somewhere warm. Neither of you wanted a drink. You each ordered tea and got one plate of French fries between you, just so the waiter wouldn’t think you were cheap. Eventually you ate the French fries anyway. Conversation turned to roommates and apartments and after you’d each finished your tea Harmony invited you home.

 Snow drifted lazy past the streetcar’s windows and the city seemed to have had its volume turned down. As the Dundas car rattled over Bay Street, Harmony reached out and held your hand. You looked out the window and involuntarily inhaled through your nostrils, your chest ballooning with happy air.

The apartment was up a narrow flight of stairs in a tall row house just past Filmore’s. Harmony’s roommate, Max, had a thin, scruffy beard and beautiful, feminine features. He took his guitar, ashtray, cigarettes and John Ralston Saul book to his bedroom after Harmony introduced you.

Harmony got you a glass of water and you sat facing each other on the futon with your legs crossed. You looked up at the clock. It was one a.m. Max was playing guitar somewhere in the apartment. Harmony reached out and held your right hand, opening it and closing it, tickling the palm and gently pressing your fingers. Once you were kissing, Harmony moved forward and you lay back, stretched out and cozy in the futon’s fold, Harmony playing with your belt.

You reached for Harmony’s top button, but Harmony gripped your wrist and moved your hand away before working on your buckle again.

Harmony reached down your pants and got you off. The familiarity, the certainty of Harmony’s hands, made you suspect that maybe whatever was between Harmony’s legs was the same thing you had. Have.

You reached for Harmony’s waist again, but Harmony said, “It’s okay.”

You were thinking about reciprocity more than curiosity when you persisted.

“I said, No.”

Max emerged from wherever he’d been, holding his guitar by the neck.

“I didn’t mean . . . ”

Harmony sat up and looked away. “You can sleep here, on the couch, if you need to.”

“Uh. I’ll go home, maybe.”

Max was nodding like you’d made the right choice. He turned and disappeared again.

You cleaned yourself up in the bathroom. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you got yourself back together right there in the living room, the whole time Harmony watching you without looking at you. You drank the last of your water. “Okay,” Harmony said.

“Maybe I’ll call you?”

“I’m sorry.”

The snow outside was melting, even though it felt like the air had gotten colder. On the streetcar, you sat by the heater, but your feet wouldn’t warm up. A black man with cotton-candy-pink hair got on at Yonge and sang silently, beautifully to himself all the way to Dufferin. The fact that you couldn’t make out the lyrics powerfully drove home your loneliness and regret.

When you took your pants off to crawl into bed, you still smelled of sex.

Even under the comforter, your feet were freezing cold.

Toronto, November 2015

Emoji sequence: Rhya Tamasauskas, co-founder of Monster Factory, writer and artist.

Story: Lee Sheppard

Note: This is part two of at least two stories. The first part is "This One Time". 

Welcome

At the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Moose Jaw, Lucy had planned to get a pair of shorts, but she couldn’t resist the fox mask she found sitting on top of a bin of costumes. The woman at the cash, a dead ringer for her Nona, asked, “Will that be all today?”

“I think so,” she said.

Lucy had packed just a week’s worth of underwear and T-shirts, plus two sweaters, her bathing suit and wet suit. She was wearing her one pair of jeans.

She drove down the 37 and crossed the border at Climax. The customs officer stared at the surfboard strapped to the roof of her 1983 Civic. “Heading to California?”

“Yes sir.” Lucy smiled.

The wind picked up and the flapping Stars and Stripes drowned out the customs officer’s voice.

“Pardon me?”

“Length of stay?”

“Uh, two weeks.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Just two weeks,” she said, nodding.

“Traveling alone?”

“Yes sir.”

“A pretty girl like you?”

“You know,” she said. She knew how conversations like this could end.

He handed her back her passport. “Drive safely,” he said. His smile was kind. Completely.

By Great Falls, the heat was making Lucy’s thighs burn beneath her black jeans. She got off the highway and drove east on Central Avenue. There was a big, St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. She went in and looked at shorts and skirts and dresses and there was some great stuff, but she only had a few hundred bucks to her name and she was hungry and needed weed and needed to get to California and back, so instead she walked up to the front and asked them if they had scissors. “What for, dear?”

“My pants.”

“Why don’t you leave them be and get yourself a pair of shorts?”

Lucy spotted heavy fabric scissors in a metal mesh penholder beside the cash register. “Can I see those?”

“If money’s an issue—”

“Would you mind?” Lucy didn’t appreciate having her decisions question.

“Come nighttime, you may wish you had them pants.” The woman handed her the scissors.

Lucy undressed behind a musty curtain, cut the legs off a few inches below the crotch, put the now-shorts back on and walked back to the cash, the severed legs draped over her arm.

When she gave the woman her scissors back, the woman held her hand out and said, “Let me put those in a bag for you.”

“I was gonna ask you to throw them out.”

She paused and smiled. “Either way’s no trouble.”

Lucy looked at the limp denim. “Yeah, sure. That would be great.”

The woman took the legs behind the counter, stuffed them in a bag then handed the bag to Lucy.

“Thanks, eh.”

“Welcome to America.”

After a burger and milkshake at a place called Ford’s, Lucy got back on the highway.

Three hours later, Lucy was in Butte. Her sister had a friend there whose name she’d forgotten, but who she said could get Lucy weed. She pulled off the highway and gave him a call. He asked her to pick him up. Lucy followed his directions to a grey bungalow with a steep roof deep in some old suburb.

“Hi, Lucy. I’m Rich.”

Lucy looked at his house. It seemed fine, but—

“Richard. My name.”

“Oh.” She laughed.

“Can I get in?”

“Of course,” Lucy told him.

He threw his sweater into the back seat.

“My connection’s out of town a bit.”

“Whatever.”

“That’s cool?”

“Sure.”

He nodded. “Your sister’s right, man. You are pretty.”

“Thanks.” He was alright looking, but not winning points for brains yet. “Where’re we going?”

He directed her out of the city. As they drove through sandy hills covered with scrub and stone, Rich scanned the radio. “It’s mostly shit, isn’t it?”

“You don’t listen to the radio,” Lucy asked him.

“Does anybody?”

“I guess I didn’t before I had this car.”

“Right, of course. The car.”

“You drive?”

“No. I mean, I can, but I don’t. Don’t own a car. Wish I did.”

“No job?”

“I guess I just haven’t bothered.”

“With a job?”

“With a car. I wash dishes at an old folks home.”

The dealer lived in an apartment in the stable at his father and step-mom’s ranch. “Is that the Dick Man?” he shouted when Rich knocked.

“Hey Leslie.”

“Come in.” Leslie got up when he saw Lucy. “Wow. Anybody ever tell you how pretty you are?”

“You’re the first,” Lucy said.

Leslie was confused. “Wait. You’re lying, right? Right, Dickie?”

Rich looked at his feet. “I did it, actually. When I got in her car.”

“Oh,” Leslie said.

“Where’s the shit?” Lucy asked.

“Business,” Leslie said. “I like that. I like that.”

As soon as she had her weed, Lucy was ready to go. “Kay,” she said.

“You like horses?” Leslie asked.

Lucy shook her head.

“Or we could go for a walk,” Rich said. “It’s, like, beautiful out here.”

“I got a long drive,” Lucy said.

It nearly made her laugh how disappointed the guys looked.

“If you’ve got some food, though,” she said.

“Of course,” Leslie said. “I was about to make dinner.”

“Cool,” Lucy said. “I mean, is that cool?”

“Totally. Yeah,” Leslie said.

He threw some ground beef into a skillet. Rich showed Lucy around. There were five horses way off in a dusty field. Rich said he thought the ranch was just for fun, that Leslie’s folks had other work. Lucy and Rich walked down a path, dodging mounds of horseshit at various stages of decomposition, a process that to Lucy always just seemed like flies gradually clearing all the feces off of undigested straw. A cold wind came up. Lucy toughed it out for a few more bends in the path, but they eventually turned back.

Leslie’s apartment smelled like burnt garlic and pasta sauce. The bun he used for Lucy’s sloppy joe for sure had some mold on it, but she ate it anyway and was grateful. She had a bottle of Bud to wash it down, too, so that helped, except it also made her hands cold, which made her feel cold all over. Leslie offered to smoke them up, but Lucy said, No, she had to drive. Then Leslie offered to do Tarot readings for them. Lucy wasn’t sure if Rich was into the idea because it meant Lucy sticking around or because he had a thing for cartomancy. Either way, Rich had grown on her and she knew that after tonight she probably wouldn’t see him again, maybe ever, so what the fuck? “Just let me go grab a sweater or something.”

“Me, too,” Rich said.

“I’ll grab yours,” she said.

Rich understood that she wanted to be alone. On the way to the car Lucy decided that she would throw on a sweater, sure, but that she’d also just use the cut legs of her pants like legwarmers and tell the guys that that was kind of her thing.

When she opened up the bag, though, there was this extra pair of pants. She pulled them out expecting them to suck, but they were baggy and high-waisted and made of this amazing floral material. She actually teared up, she was so grateful to that woman back in Great Falls.

What sucked, though, was that she was like allergic to tears. Under her eyes got so puffed up when she cried even the littlest bit. Then Lucy saw the fox mask lying crumpled on the back seat. She walked back into Leslie’s apartment wearing the mask. The guys liked that. They laughed. “You wear it while you do our readings,” Lucy said to Leslie.

“Sure.”

She took off the mask.

Rich looked at her. Lucy thought it was because she’d been crying. Then he stood up and she remembered. “Oh, sorry. I forgot your sweater.”

He smiled and told her it was no problem and she knew he meant it.

She went to the bathroom and put on her new pants. They fit right. Really well, actually. Maybe on her way back she’d stop in at that place again to thank that woman. Maybe make her a card or something. Yeah, that would be nice. That was what she’d do.

Toronto, ON, August 2015

Emoji sequence: writer and artist Juliana Carlevaris, contributor to The West Enders, Vol. 1, Issues 1 and 2

Story: Lee Sheppard

The Oblititrons Drive The Prairies

In the mountains there’d always been something new to look at.

In the months leading up to tour, Willa had been saving up podcasts. But from Kamloops to Calgary, Willa and Kiki—a.k.a. The Oblititrons—listened to their last episodes of This American Life and the last of the All Songs Considered episodes with music.

They were sick of listening to The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs and were well done with the Neil Diamond Greatest Hits CD, Dusty In Memphis and Le Tigre’s Le Tigre. All Songs had done nightly roundups from South by Southwest, one of which they’d listened to, all of which had just one song at the end, so they’d skipped them. Then, between Edmonton and Saskatoon—actually between Vegreville and Vermilion—they listened to them all.

And apparently THEESatisfaction had synchronized dances.

So, in a hostel in Saskatoon, where they hadn’t been able to book a show, they played their song “F.U.T.U.R.E.” at the lowest audible volume and creaked around the floor practicing moves somewhere between a cheerleading routine Willa remembered from middle school and a ballet choreographed by Miss Marlene, the woman who taught Kiki dance in the basement of the United Church in downtown Oakville when Kiki was eight. They debated over handclaps and only did the routine through twice because Kiki was embarrassed about the sound the floorboards made.

Out of new music and podcasts, from Saskatoon they listened just to the hum of the tires. Kiki, in the passenger seat, started guessing how long it would take to get to the next visible grain elevator. Willa blamed Kiki for the poor turnout at their Canadian shows, which had been Kiki’s responsibility to book. And why hadn’t she been able to find a show in Saskatoon, hunh? Kiki said the US shows weren’t much better and accused Willa of picking the easier job. After that the prairies seemed to get even flatter and the grain elevators even further away, though Kiki realized that she was counting in rhythm to her faster, angrier breath so she practiced some mindfulness to slow that down, which got the elevators back to predictable distances.

Willa pulled the car over onto the gravel shoulder.

“What’s up?” Kiki asked.

“I’ve got to piss.”

“OK.”

“What?”

“Normally you say so before we pull over.”

“Isn’t this spot good?”

“Well, I’d prefer to strategize—like maybe we could stop somewhere with coffee or chips or something—but whatever.”

Willa rolled her eyes and got out.

While Willa squatted in the ditch, Kiki looked across the street. She saw the prow of a boat peaking around the corner of an overgrown hedge. She got out of the car.

“Good idea,” Willa said.

“What?” Kiki asked.

Willa zipped up her pants. She saw Kiki looking both ways along the highway. “Oh, I thought you were getting out to pee too.”

“Nope,” Kiki said. She crossed the road and took her cell phone from her pocket.

Willa followed her across the street.

The boat had been beautiful. The boat had been a boat. Now it was a crumbling pile of painted wood belching an anchor onto overgrown grass. Kiki was taking pictures on her phone. “For your dad?” Willa asked. Kiki nodded. Willa looked around. There was a rutted trail leading around a windbreak over which she could see the roof of a house. There was a field of stubble behind them that curved neatly into the horizon. Kiki’s phone made the whooshing “message sent” sound.

“Who’s that for?”

“My dad and sister.”

Willa nodded. Kiki’s dad was really into wooden boats. His bathroom in the basement, where he was exiled to shit, had a stack of Wooden Boat magazines, one of which always had a pen tucked inside it so he could make little notes in the margins. Willa couldn’t figure out why Kiki had sent the picture to her sister, Linda.

Hinges squealed, a screen-door banged and someone ran across a wooden deck. Willa ran instinctively towards the boat’s prow and the edge of the ragged hedge—the only hiding places for miles around. The hinges squealed again once, twice, and feet supporting tinier bodies beat an arrhythmic staccato across that same stretch of deck. Kiki just stood there. Willa ducked down and leaned against the boat’s hull. Kiki’s phone jingled and when Willa looked up her band-mate was wondering at a text.

A boy, seven or eight, came running around the windbreak between the Oblititrons and the house. He was wearing a skeleton costume with the hood and mask hanging between his shoulders. Playing cards fluttered in the air behind him and he was laughing. Two girls, one wearing a stained pink dress, the other a too large hockey jersey, chased after him picking up cards and whining, “Jaw-on,” or squealing “John!”

When he saw Kiki standing in his yard, John’s body spasmed and the playing cards burst into the air. They hadn’t finished fluttering and falling to the ground, though, before John had clearly decided that Kiki was no threat. John waved to her, then started picking up the cards. The girls were almost immediately at his feet and for a moment they were both tugging at cards in John’s hands. The girl in the dress managed to snap the card she was pulling free of John’s grip. John stepped backwards, dragging the girl in the hockey jersey along the ground a few feet. When the playing card she was tugging on popped out of her hands, John held it above his head and started dancing with his pelvis. Never mind how rude it looked, doing that at girls who were, presumably, his sisters—both Kiki and Willa knew that crotch was what their dance had been missing.

The girl in the hockey jersey spotted Kiki and let out a high-pitched scream before turning and running for the house. The girl in the princess dress was startled, but recovered quickly, set her brow to scowl and walked menacingly towards Kiki, who turned and ran for the car. Willa followed. They hopped in, giggling and sped away.

A few kilometers down the highway Kiki said, “So, I sent that picture to my dad and sister, right?”

“So?”

“Look what Linda sent me back.” Kiki held her cell phone up just under the rearview mirror.

“What is it? I can’t see it,” Willa said.

“A skull emoji.”

Linda was some sort of fortune-teller, seer person. “Whoa,” Willa said.

“Right?”

“And she sent that without knowing any of the . . . ?” Willa waved her hand in the air, her body tingling.

“Yeah.”

“That’s amazing.”

When Kiki texted Linda the story of what happened, Linda wrote back and said that she thought someone had died in that boat, but that you couldn’t always know how to interpret visions.

When they got to Winnipeg, they went shopping for CDs. Kiki bought Missy Elliott’s The Cookbook and THEESatisfaction’s EarthEE. Willa bought a Gordon Lightfoot Complete Greatest Hits.

That night at the club, during “F.U.T.U.R.E.”, The Oblititrons broke into their dance and it was sort of synchronized, but when they got their pelvises into the act, the modest crowd clapped and laughed and shouted for more.

Toronto, May 2015

Emoji sequence: Regan Clarke

Story: Lee Sheppard
Read more about The Oblititrons here.