1940

There is a loud persistent knocking on the front door.  Carl gets up.  "That couldn't be the cops already", mutters Sheila. ,"They're coming in the morning". mumbles Melissa, getting up and stacking together all our dirty dessert dishes.  "Christopher is going to help me with the dishes.  Just as I am getting up to follow her into the kitchen, Carl comes in with Tron at his side, only he is not dressed in robes, but a bright green T shirt and golden beige coloured shorts and sneakers. "Hey everyone", says Carl, "This is Ethan.  We saw him riding  his bike on the road.  He is going to be an overnight guest." "Offer him some cake", says Melissa. "Thank you", says Tron, or Ethan, sitting down with Carl. Before following Melissa into the kitchen, I lean down and whisper to our guest, "Does anyone else know you as Tron?"" "They will find out soon enough", he says with a small knowing smile.  And to you and Kenny I am Ethan.  Now I believe you are needed elsewhere." I cross glances with Kenny, who reveals to me nothing  but changes his seat to put himself right next to Ethan.  They are just entering into a discreet conversation as I turn my back and head into the kitchen...

1944

As she brings the coffee pot and fills our mugs at the table Melissa sits down across from me.  "We both prefer our brew black and bitter", say I. "Like life", she quips but without even a meek suggestion of a grin.  "We both have synesthesia.  Do you know what that means?" "That we're both a little bit unusual?" "Besides that", she snaps. "I'm not sure what you're getting at." "Synesthetes are both highly sensitive and highly aware, highly conscious, it's like we can never quite reach  our off switch.  Do you have trouble staying asleep, dream vividly? ""Yes, and yes." "Greta Thunberg, the environmental activist, is not neurotypical and she calls her asperger's a superpower.  See what I'm getting at?" "Yes", and now this needs no further explaining, and yes, now suddenly, it is like being an archeologist and finally discovering the key to Linear A script and unlocking all the secrets of Ancient Crete... I did not see this coming, and bodily I am instinctively backing away from the table while still remaining in the chair.  "What do you mean?" "Did Carl tell you that years ago, when we found our dad lying dead with a bullet wound in his head out in the back, did he tell you that we buried him there, him and I?" "Yes, he did." Melissa takes a premeditated sip of coffee, then, turning her face to the door, shouts, "Carl.  Get in here at once." It isn't long before her brother appears at the table.  "You bellowed?" he merely says, a quirky little smile adorning his face as he seats himself at the end of the table.  She gets up and without asking first brings him a cup of coffee, to which she has added cream and a spoon. "Table service from none other", he comments, pulling toward him the mug and beginning to stir. "You're welcome" she says flatly, seating herself. "Thanks Mel.  To what purpose have I been summoned?" "I just heard from Christopher that you told him you and I buried dad...no, don't worry, you're not getting scolded, but there is something i was meaning to tell you, and I couldn't do it on the phone, so now you are here, but so far, only Christopher needs to know, so we can talk about it right now..."  She is speaking rapidly, with quiet urgency... "Okay." "Yesterday I was chatting with our half-sister Naomi, who came over for coffee between her nursing rounds. Can you guess what she told me?" "Only if you are so kind as to enlighten me ." "As I'm sure you are also worried, like me. that one day they would find his body back there, trace everything to us and then the shit would really hit the fan." "It's been a recurring nightmare, Mel." "If Naomi is telling the truth and I have no reason not to believe her, then from now on we can both stop worrying." "You mean?" "Just after you and I left, basically running for our little lives, Carl, people from the Stolo Nation came, dug up the body and moved it to an undisclosed location." "You mean..." "I mean that we are off the hook. For now anyway. But that also complicates things." "By the way, Mel, where did you get this coffee, it is just wonderful" "There's a new coffee roaster and café in Chilliwack. It is their house blend. Now if we could remain on topic." "So what else is new?" "There is some question, according to Naomi, who has some pretty good sources with the band, that the remains they are wanting to track are going to be here, in this house..or should I say, under the house." "Huh." "And that Spanish guy who left that journal here in Spanish? He is the principal suspect, they have found and detained him for questioning, and he has agreed to help in the search tomorrow." "And", say I, "There is also the question of how did people in the Stolo Nation know that your dad was buried here..." "Naomi would have the answer for that", says Mel. "Then we should ask her.  Will she be here tomorrow?" "There is one little complication.  She ain't telling.  I was going to ask her then she totally shut up and backed off, like she knows more, maybe a lot more than she's gonna say." "Do you think someone from the Stolo Nation did it?"  I ask. "Oh I'm sure they know", says Melissa, "I'm sure they already know." "Do you reckon Sven Lindstrom might be the one." "Oh poor Mr Lindstrom", says Melissa, sighing, "Always the easiest target in the universe, and now there is no way we can reach him, and that holy adolescent sure ain't gonna let him out of his sight." "Nor us, but yes, he is, as it were, under special custody.  What about Cosme?" Whose name I once borrowed, "Where does he fit in?" "According to our half sister, Cosme, who is now eighty-one, has long enjoyed a friendship with the Stolo nation, including a lengthy common-law arrangement with a woman there by whom he has fathered three kids.  He has voluntarily given himself up to the authorities, and apparently there is a lot he knows that is not in the diary."

1943

"I am not surprised to hear that", I am wiping and scrubbing clean the ice cream scooping spoon. "He's quite a bit better now, but still loses focus and goes off on tangents sometimes." "Like when he got drunk in the diner." "Exactly so." I am not telling her anything about her brother's adventure at Wreck Beach.  Perhaps Carl can tell her, though I am sure that is one secret he is going to be keeping for quite a while from his darling little sister. "It looks like we're done", say I. As she is wiping down the counter and sink, Melissa says, "Sit awhile at the table here with me and I'll put on some coffee..."

1942

Melissa breaks the prolonged silence that has enveloped us.  "Christopher", she says, pausing to take a lengthy, slightly slurpy sip of her coffee, "You never had a mental illness.  We are unusually wired, and that makes us also unusually conscious and aware.  We are a threat to the normies.  Time to break free." The coffee before me appears particularly black, though with a certain betrayal of red beneath the surface.  It is strong, not really bitter, but deeply flavourful and aromatic dark roast.  "Jesus said that not only was Lawrence being taken away from mental health work, but that I am no longer going to be there either." Instead of replying, Melissa says, "There is something else I have been wanting to ask you...Has my brother told you about our father's death...?"

1942

"Do you have synesthesia" she repeats. "What is that?" "You've never heard of synesthesia?"  She is repeating the word as though she really wants me to learn it. "What is it?" "First, before I answer", she says, picking up to dry one of the lovely crimson and gold plates, "I want you to tell me something...  Have you always identified that shade of green with the number seven, and gold with four?" "For as long as I can remember." "What is number three for you?" "It's an intense shade of crimson, like the red on those plates, and deeper than the red of your T shirt you happen to be wearing right now." "Number one?" "Dark blue, more ultramarine than indigo." "Two?" "A light vibrant turquoise." "Five?" "Magenta." "Bingo!"  She has just pulled out of the rinsing water a coffee cup that matches the dessert plates. "Bingo, because..." "Because that is how I see number five." "Do you have this condition too?" "For as long as I remember.  Numbers, letters, days of the week, music too.  Do you see colour in music?" "Sometimes yes.  Sometimes."  And yes, sometimes, especially when hearing Carol on the piano the colours fly everywhere for me.  "Does Carl know?" "Still haven't told him." "How come?" "Don't know", she shrugs.  "We can both tell him tonight." "Will he be okay wñith it?" "My brother isn't a normie either." "You mean..." "He has ADHD...."

1940

"Who is that guy?"  says Melissa to me as I start filling the sink, first hot water, liquid soap which drips out an astonishing shade of sapphire blue, and now I am adding the first of several dirty plates and utensils to the swelling foamy mix. "We saw him on the road just a couple of miles from here", like my father before me, I never quite got used to thinking in kilometres.  Curiously, I work well with kilograms and celsius. "He looks familiar." I am just opening my mouth and suddenly remembering that he has told Kenny and me to know him as Ethan, forbids any words from coming out.  Instead, "I am really starting to notice colour these days." "Colour is everywhere " she replies, picking up to dry the first plate I have washed. "Like the beautiful intense blue of this dishwashing liquid." "Isn't it beautiful?  And did you notice the colours that the dude on the bike is wearing?  That is the most glorious and intense emerald-malachite green I have ever seen.  And those golden shorts of his." "That shade of green", say I , "Always suggests the number seven"  The plate I am rinsing has a particularly lovely pattern of deep crimson and gold lines in  fluid art nouveaux intricacies.  "And gold is number four." "Do you have synesthesia", asks Melissa...

1939

"Miss ...Thing?" he inquires with a dear little smile hovering over his lips "How did you know," says Glen, clearly astonished.  "Have we ever met before?" "Years ago, honey...years ago....And you are still handsome." "Wait a minute.  Years ago...How many years ago...Wait...It must have been back in the...Nineties?  no, wait...the eighties...It was back in the eighties...Stephen...You knew Stephen Bloom...Didn't you? "I knew her mostly as Tanya.  And you would have known me as...Cassandra." "You were both drag queens...you were working girls..." "The oldest profession. Good-lookin'...the oldest fuckin' profession." "Yes, and now I remember...you guys..or...you gals...That was your nickname for me...Miss Thing." "Well, fancy meeting you here, Glenda." "Yeah, that would have been your other nickname for me." "You are looking very well." "As are you...Kennny?...As are you."