by Andrew Wilmot
info
purchase in print
Purchase a handbound, individually numbered chapbook of this story from our Etsy store (quantities may be limited)
purchase the ebook single
read
YESTERDAY IT WAS SAFE. Yesterday it was Grace Kelly and Singing in the Rain. Allan had heard the music and seen the light flickering from beneath the door before entering her room.
Yesterday was a good day.
Today Allan woke at five to eight with what felt like a ten-pound medicine ball balanced precariously on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. He floundered in the dark for the liquorice whip of cord protruding from his torso and yanked it out, immediately discharging a deep sigh. He then reached over and switched off the alarm on the clock radio glowing green at the corner of the nightstand.
His thoughts were muddled. He wondered which of them — and how many—had plugged into him while he had slept. If he shut his eyes again he’d be able to hear their disparate thoughts, fading but still present. He thought briefly about turning on the light, looking to see who’d moved in the night, whose face was a little fuller, whose colour a little less pallid, but decided against it for fear of waking one or all of them sooner than was necessary.
Their bodies lay scattered between the bed and the door, limbs interlaced like fallen latticework. As Allan’s eyes adjusted to the light slicing thinly through the blinds, he viewed pockets of carpet like miniature demilitarized zones spread throughout the huddle of lightly snoring bodies. He slowly pushed back the covers and swung his legs out over the foot of free space right next to the bed. He charted a path through the still-slumbering bodies and made his way to the door. He gently turned the knob, careful not to brush the outstretched hands on the ground.
log in for the rest of the story
(or to download the ebook)
about the author
ANDREW WILMOT is a writer, editor, and artist living in Toronto, ON. He is a graduate of the SFU Master in Publishing program and spends his days writing a lot and painting stupidly large pieces. He currently works as a freelance reviewer, academic editor, and substantive editor with several independent presses and publications. To date his work has been published in Found Press, The Singularity, Glittership, Drive In Tales, and Turn to Ash, and he was the winner of the 2015 Friends of Merril Short Story Contest. His first novel, The Death Scene Artist, will be published by Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn, in Fall 2018.
more stories
by this author
When I'm Old, When I'm Grey
by Andrew Wilmot
13
After an unexpected malfunction, the technology which enables humanity to cross vast distances has separated an interstellar traveler from the love of her life — not in space, but in time. Now, while her companions remain in stasis, she must endure the loneliness of the journey until the moment her lover wakes.
Winner of the 2015 Friends of Merril Short Story Contest, When I'm Old, When I'm Grey imagines the strange — and strangely familiar — forms that fear and longing can take, as we venture forth into the unknown of the future.
buy this story:
Glass Houses
by Andrew Wilmot
5
One night, thirteen-year-old Ned Powell is horrified to discover that his skin has taken on the physical properties of glass. Over the years, he finds himself resented by his father, coddled by his mother, rejected by society, and always on guard for the next devastating crack. In order to make peace with himself, Ned must overcome a fragility that goes much further than skin deep.
“An original, tender, metaphoric story about a man made of glass.”
— Steph VanderMeulen, Bella's Bookshelves
buy this story:
from the library
Bright Lights on Broadway
by Dave Margoshes
2
Having lived a long, eventful life, Charlie Weinheimer’s only regret is that he has no one to carry on after him. After a near-death experience, he resolves to find out whether a secret buried in his past is proof he has a legacy after all.
“Margoshes gives us the life of Charlie Weinheimer: quadruple bypass patient, widower whose children all die tragically young, but not a whiner. In his hospital bed at age seventy-seven, he’s seen it all, right? Well, maybe not. Watch as Margoshes calls upon his raconteur skills to thicken the plot.”
— David Carpenter, winner of the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Award for A Hunter’s Confession
buy this story:
A young girl who has spent her childhood enduring and covering for her mother's irresponsible and dangerous behaviour, experiences the aftermath of a terrifying night that pushes even her seemingly limitless love and loyalty.
buy this story:
The Snake Crosses
the Tracks at Midnight
by Daniel Karasik
1
People grow in dimensions other than those we perceive. The teenage narrator of award-winning author Daniel Karasik’s latest story must deal with the fact that his older sister is now a grown woman, and Lucy, his crush-next-door, has become a mystery, with depths beyond his comprehension. Has he been coasting all this time, school and television his life’s only sources of momentum?
buy this story:
Deep Breaths Underwater
by Meghan Rose Allen
2
June's mother is getting married and there's nothing June can do about it. Counting down the days to the wedding while trapped with a sort-of friend and unwanted family-to-be at their lakeside cottage in the Kawarthas, June searches desperately for a way to make the world - and her life - stand still.
buy this story:
Decades ago, when bands like the Everly Brothers rode the airwaves and vacancy signs shone like beacons in the night, a young man gets his first taste of love, loss, and the ethereal satisfaction that comes with knowing that the world is turning and life is being lived.
buy this story:
What Endures
by Pauline Holdstock
1
Inspired by true events, this story by Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated author Pauline Holdstock tells of the incredible bond between a mother and daughter, and with gut-wrenching poignancy reminds us of the little things that make life worth living.
“Hers is the kind of prose you get lost in.”
— National Post on The Hunter and the Wild Girl
“Holdstock’s writing manages to be both heartbreakingly poetic and densely detailed ... sad passages, ghostlike recollections, written almost from the vantage point of the present, establish the book as a great work of fiction.”
— The Globe and Mail on Into the Heart of the Country, longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Holdstock, with a few deft strokes, pulls the reader into the tumultuous life of an alluring rabble of characters: painters, sculptors, patrons, fools, and slaves ... In Beyond Measure, she proves herself a master of pacing. Her lively, macabre plot trips lightly along in spite of its dark elements.”
— The Globe and Mail on Beyond Measure, finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize
buy this story:
Toronto in the twenty-first century: At night, a beacon on a lonely ancient lake, a drainage pond from the last ice age. In the daytime, a bulwark of glass, glinting in the radiant sun. Joe, Mary, and her cat, Sam, sit in a lakeside condo, trapped by a crazed, mysterious sniper. What has become of their lives? What has become of their city? What has become of their century? As the situation begins to unravel, Mary finds herself wondering, “What would Margaret Atwood do?”
buy this story: