The air in here — it is as if we are walking to the cafeteria and the bingo room in a warm vapour of piss. Not that the place isn’t clean. They keep it pretty tidy and if anyone has an accident they are good about cleaning that up. This week I am coping by reading the autobiography of Gabrielle Roy, which is hardly cheerful, I know. I have been trying to get one of my older sons, André or Gilles, to show me how to operate the flat screen TV they bought me, but they have not had time. The thing takes up a quarter of my room, mute, its useless lights flashing at all hours. And now Madame Poirer is coming to live here, and for some reason she is behaving as if we have been lifelong friends. She has called me every morning this week, wanting to know this and that.
Jillian TamakiWe asked five celebrated writers to devise five guidelines for composing a short story of poem. They all traded lists — and played by the rules.Alexi Zentner’s guidelines for composing a short storyAs followed by Kathleen Winter1. You may not describe any characters physically (beyond using “he” or “she” or their given name).
2. Include a peach, but don’t make it sexual.
3. You must have dialogue, but you may not use the word “said” (or any variation of the word “said”).
4. Evoke warmth without mentioning the sun.
5. A dog must bark in the distance, causing a character to state that he or she finds people who treat dogs like children sort of creepy. Somebody else must take offense at this comment.
No, Madame Poirer, never a close friend, there are no buses because how can the staff take 275 of us out? There will be no bowling here, and no soft serve at Le Glacier Dillon on Rue Rivard. Last week two twenty-dollar bills disappeared from my room, and no, the food has no enzymes. Come on, Armand. It’s noon. That’s the thing about Armand, you can’t rely on him to be on time. But what I love is that he reminds me of things I have forgotten. Do you remember this, Maman? Do you remember that? What a laugh we had last week.
“Do you remember Madame Poirer’s dog?”
We dipped celery and radishes in salt. Armand escapes his wife in Montreal and we snack. His wife is intelligent but not sensible. She does not understand that my youngest son will not thrive in the city. I tried to teach her, when she married him, how to look out for certain things, but she is one of those women who believe if men are stupid enough not to check their pockets for fifty-dollar bills before they go to the laundromat, then that is the men’s own problem. This is something I find hard to understand, but I don’t hold it against her.
“I do remember that dog.” The celery was cold, the radishes bitter, and I have always loved salt. “Even before she got that dog, Madame Poirer was dog crazy. I remember we were at Le Glacier Dillon and some hound yelped across the terrace and its owner bought it a cone. When I gave my opinion on it you would think I had personally insulted Madame Poirer. People treating dogs like real children. There is something creepy about it. Oh, she disliked me that day!”
Madame Poirer and her husband began poor. We all did. But her husband started driving a school bus. Soon he had a whole fleet of buses, and he made a fair amount of money with that, then he opened a shop. He was not the smartest of men. He was naive. But he managed his little business all right. He and Marcelle, that is Madame Poirer’s given name, began to think more highly of themselves. Madame Poirer became a snob, then she acquired that little dog.
“Armand, what was that dog’s name?”
We had a dog ourselves, a dog my husband had named Alphonse Daudet, after the French writer.
“Nanette?”
“No. I think it was Dentelle.”
“That’s it. A frilly dog.”
