cape-breton

Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone,_ her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. __here__e you been, what__e you been up to?___om, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?_ Mandy asked.__o, what in the name of god are you on about?_ her mom sighed in exasperation.__emember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?_ Mandy insisted.__o, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all,_ said her mom all too quickly.

I pulled the sheet off their faces. Their faces were black with coal dust and didn't look like anything was wrong with them except they were dirty. The both of them had smiles on their faces. I thought maybe one of them had told a joke just before they died and, pain and all, they both laughed and ended up with a smile. Probably not true but but it made me feel good to think about it like that, and when the Sister came in I asked her if I could clean their faces and she said, "no, certainly not!" but I said, "ah, c'mon, it's me brother n' father, I want to," and she looked at me and looked at me, and at last she said, "of course, of course, I'll get some soap and water."When the nun came back she helped me. Not doing it, but more like showing me how, and taking to me, saying things like "this is a very handsome man" and "you must have been proud of your brother" when I told her how Charlie Dave would fight for me, and "you're lucky you have another brother"; of course I was, but he was younger and might change, but she talked to me and made it all seem normal, the two of us standing over a dead face and cleaning the grit away. The only other thing I remember a nun ever saying to me was, "Mairead, you get to your seat, this minute!

Alecto, have you noticed how downhill this little island is becoming?_ Mandy questioned sadly. __ll these organic food stores and yoga studios and cellular phone towers_ Cape Breton was one of the only places left where it still had that nostalgic small town atmosphere but now_ I__e only been away for a year, how could things have changed so quickly? I mean, how can the world accept it?___'est la vie,_ said Alecto, looking extremely tired as he stared out the window at the late November maple keys fluttering down from vibrantly red trees lining the streets on either side of the windshield.

When the north wind blew across the tar ponds, voices were carried away.

Wendy__ house, unlike many in Cape Breton, had three floors, along with a basement and attic. Aside from Wendy__ bedroom, there was a laundry room. The dirty water in the sink would rush from the washer hose, bubbling up, threatening to overflow, but it never did. Next-door was a motel with a neon sign that read in turquoise and pink, __e have the best rates in town!_, but the ___ in __ates_ kept flickering on and off day and night so that every few seconds it would switch to, __e have the best rats in town!

I think we ought to find something else to do,_ said Mandy. __ut Alecto my love, you__e the first person to notice my retro diner kitchen. When my parents saw it, they thought I was creating a weird art project.___ like it. It's got that let__-drown-ourselves-in-better-days type ambiance,_ Alecto declared, his gray eyes narrowed.

And what if the other kids laugh at me?_ Kerry complained to her parents as she nibbled on a piece of toast that morning. __ have a Cape Breton accent! They__l know I__ from Canada and they__l start asking me if I lived in an igloo or ate maple syrup, bacon and seal meat every day!___ou__e really overreacting,_ Susan chuckled, sipping on a glass of orange juice. __anada is a lot like the States and the only thing separating both countries is an imaginary boarder! If anyone laughs at you, tell them it doesn__ snow year-round, you got free health care while you were there and that you never rode a polar bear to school. Besides, do you know how many popular movies and TV shows from the States were filmed in Canada?___t__ not just the Canada stuff mom,_ Kerry sighed worriedly. ____ from Dym, it__ an industrial dump!___eah, and have you looked at Pittsburgh lately?_ Susan asked. __ull of coal mines and steel mills, just like Sydney was when we lived there! I actually rather came to like the pollution, I don__ think I__ ever want to leave it.

Smile for the camera, pretty little Sydney Tar Ponds.

It's like I'm dreaming of the imaginary friend Katie and I had when we were little. She'd been so real to us as kids. We each remembered Anna, that's what we'd called her, just like we remembered bits of our parents. But now, in this dreamscape of Paradise Lost, our imaginary third twin has all grown up.

Yeah, you__e right about having entire rooms full of film and photos_ in that Sydney Mines house I have a darkroom, I have boxes of film and home movie footage_ I have a few projectors, I have piles of Kodachrome slides_ I like photographs. The world is always running away from society and the only way to keep the stuff that__ happened in the past is by taking photographs, I can keep memories of things alive with photographs,_ Alecto responded. __eople say that a time machine can__ be invented, but they__e already invented a device that can stop time, cameras are the world__ first time machines_ The steel mill, the coal mines, the train tracks, the smog in the sky, I__e been able to rescue it on super-8 and Kodachrome, and no one can remediate those photographs, I can keep them as long as I want to.

Super 8 film is the language of silence.