Tag Archives: writing

On this other writing

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It’s the sort of thing I wanted to do with my first comedy pilot. I can’t bring you right in of course, that’s physically impossible. But it’s also part of my goal, to change your perception to mine, even if for three to four minutes.

Songwriting.

Now of course, not all songwriting has to be deep and cerebral. Kurt Weill championed the writing of silly songs and the “just fun”. Hey, we gotta eat too, right?

I’ve been writing since I simply could. Even before that, considering it certainly kicked off before I played my first note on that purple Series A bass I had at the age of nineteen. Guitar would still wait a year.

Actually doing it scared me at first, like it was only done by geniuses who were born under a music school piano or something. Between people I jammed with in those early days and music I was learning it seemed more and more reachable. Then came my first role model.

This guy.

Martin Lee Gore of Depeche Mode was the first person to not only pave my first road, but also to show what could be so great about it.

He brought in the idea of taking every subject without filter, layering the modern and creatively limitless atop the traditional, and the storyteller’s approach to sounds versus the idea of endless rock solos. From the first album I got ( a friend’s tape of Some Great Reward ) I was hooked. My first multitrack cassette machine was soon going to arrive.

And I sucked. It wasn’t good at all. It’s one of the reasons I don’t believe that there’s such a thing as bad art. First because any attempt beyond our day to day is beautiful like an early cave painting, but also I will beat anyone to the finish for the just bad.

But you go through this and soon I became a Socan member after getting on the radio a few times.

Since then it’s just always been there, though just recently it has got a resurgence to when I first heard Martin’s work (not to steal his thunder)

This guy.

Ryan Karazija of Low Roar. I discovered this music in the way many probably have, by simply surfing in and seeing the intriguing album cover for the self titled debut (a deer with birds flying out of it’s mouth. It reminded me of the Canadian artist Hayden). I was doing morning pages and other writing and just wanted music to work to, like my use of Harold Budd and Cocteau Twins that had been my go to for just years. That album of Ryan’s was instantly a favorite and it sparked the idea of trying to actually move forward again. So from the beginning of this year I started working on my first song “She lives There”, and while it’s becoming clear that I need to upgrade my recording equipment before I put out a first EP, I still would love to do that and until then I want to hone my sound and songs in preparation.

Songs for me come from anywhere and have come in on literally any instrument. I’ll hear something or learn about something and go “ooh that’s good”.

An example of this was Moonwatcher which is now on my SoundCloud page, which came from studying my girlfriend’s First Nations culture in a dissertation by her late Aunt, Allis Pakki Chipps-Sawyer called Standing on The Edge of Yesterday

In it she mentions the traditional Moonwatchers who would literally stay up all night and observe the moon and there findings would make decisions easier for Elders in the day. Just the name sparkled before me, but I knew it would be too much like Moonshadow if I went and did it acoustic, so I tried for an almost dance feel.

Precipice on the other hand had to be written as I kept having a waking nightmare of being swept over Niagara falls, on a loop so I never actually fell (clearly a stress thing). The cascading arpeggio at the start came first and then the first half fell in place. I resisted the dramatic “chorus” at first but it grew on me. Is it a hit? Probably not, but I love both songs for what every song I have ever done. It is a capture of me exactly at that moment, in both the words and how those words reverb.

Have a listen to Precipice

https://youtu.be/hKC82a_d8JE

Cheers,

Tom

😊

Library Firepower

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It was once stated that no place is as dangerous on earth as that local place in town, that one with the books. I like that, but I can see the reasoning. It’s the same reason barista’s were once thrown into rivers in sacks to drown. The last thing the powers that be want you to be is sober and learning.

There is so much you can get out of your local that it’s not even funny! In this age when the best thing you can have is a “side hustle” the place to fire up your ideas is in a place just down the road. Unlike this overwhelming thing the library is a single task environment. Your eyes scan over shelves and see things, dropping you in ideas and stories that you would never have thought of. Here’s the kicker…your not alone in this endeavour!

Exactly the environment those powers that be would hate! Then you add music, media, online cataloging and more things than I could describe and well, the revolutionaries of Les Miserables or Che Guevara’s would envy you.

Start the Revolution today.

😎

Cheers,

Tom

Man’s Search for Workspace

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There’s a strong possibility that it’s all just procrastinating. I used to romantically think that I should work on things in the least fancy possible locations because then it was..well..romantically unfancy I suppose. Like if I did my writing or reading in a McDonald’s then I really meant it. Kind of like busking in the roughest area of town. Seems a bit Vincent Van Gogh out there. As I said in a previous post I have done writing on buses and that is true, but its usually the back of a fairly comfortable one with earphones in.

Victoria used to have some amazing late night locations back when there were 24 hour cafe’s. Cafe De La Lune was on the corner of Douglas and Pandora, across from city hall and sported a comfy second story that was perfect for writing. Then there is Qv’s on Government that made for lots of late night work while listening to “Warm Beer, Cold Woman” by Tom Waits. I think I ran into someone from the song there. She smoked menthol cigarettes like Waits said, but I dont remember much else that night. Didn’t turn into anything that seedy (though part of my imagination is fascinated by anything like that.)

I can’t really work at home. On music I mostly can because its more physical I think and active and there’s headphones and shiny blinky lights. Lots of stuff to keep a now forty four year old Adhd’r humming along. But with anything like this I feel like I like to be near activity, though not actually in it. I know, right?

This has lead me to search high and low for just ages, trying to find the best places. I even rented part of an office once with a former cowriter, and i do miss that. I like the idea of a downtown office but as anyone can imagine, the cost would be mind blowing. That was the corner of a room and it cost us a combined hundred and thirty in a building that the police had once raided due to extreme drug problems.

Its like wanting to be near the energy of downtowm but still keep it locked out. Otherwise you get situations were it tries to get involved with you and then you instantly regret your decision.

“What is that…homework?”

And now your a man with a coffee, putting away books to explain why you spend your time off work doing homework when you dont go to school.

Yay.

Do you have any favorite places to work? Maybe you do work at home, or have a perfect time that’s never failed you.

Ironically this is written at home early on a Sunday with Cece asleep next to me.

So maybe I’m growing into the homebody role. Ooo I sure hope so.

😁

Cheers,

Tom

Right here and now

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Bit of a different situation this morning has me here actually doing morning writing which hasn’t happened in a year or so.

It was the same thing that spurred on the first filmed script I ever did. It’s basically how I am. I don’t really relax that much when I know there’s still things I could do or I want to do.

After things happened a year ago I moved heavily towards music. In truth both things are always and have always been there. I just swung the creative pendulum hard. It is sort of fair as my band is literally the longest running job I’ve ever had and there has been other musical successes along the way (which helps me end the long running question of “I don’t know, am I meant to do this” amongst other reasons. Trust me this has been heavily considered, both from without and from within.)

Presently, along with trying to push my work with Cookeilidh to a new level I have the goal of compiling a cd of my own recordings. I have been writing and trying these newer songs out on Soundcloud/Instagram. My principle inspiration came from the story behind the music of Low Roar, who reputedly wrote a song a day for ages. With everything else that’s pretty out of my range but I have held to at least one new one per week since last year, some of which still haven’t been on social media for different reasons. Others aren’t born yet, and are still in note form.

I’d like to get back to writing again, perhaps in a new partnership process but this is exactly the thing. My way of working was very specific back then and now it’s finding a new way. Velios was part of that exploration process, despite it’s flaws. I dont have the glacial patience for writing novels like I used to. I wrote a book back in my late 20s (not published) and it was such an albatross its just put away. It’s the time it takes, and when I say that, I mean the loss of time if you’ve spent months or years only to find it’s a dud. In film or music you can sniff out a dud in under a day. Films start with the pitch process, music with the first take. Let it sit and look again. Very easy in fiction to make it more complex that a show which has to be a simple episodic product. Or maybe I’m wrote. Just can’t imagine pitching to myself.

We have company over which is why I’m not in our living room, in bed having coffee, which brings me to my rambles as the city of Victoria undoubtably wakes up outside the curtains.

Was thinking I could get back into those blog a day things you find as they were fun. I mean, i dont exactly wake up and immediately snap my headphones on every day so it’s not impossible. That and morning pages which this post virtually is now. Not in the purest sense of course as morning pages are much less filtered and…ok…one thing I find annoying is that I was told morning pages have to absolutely the first thing you do. That first thing tyranny drives me crazy. What doesn’t vie for that morning pole position anyways?

Seems like a good spot to finish.

Can’t drink my coffee when I want to also stretch my legs into the cooler parts of the blanket.

😀

Tom

The Room called OOG

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Hi there!  My name is Cece Sawyer.  I am Tom’s girlfriend and I have a very strange tale to tell.

It all started back when we moved into the little apartment in Victoria, British Columbia a couple years ago.  Tom was always working.  Every single day it was a kiss goodbye before heading out to his office to do writing, heading out to do shows with the band or heading out to clean the big building up in Saanich.  He’d send me little texts now and again to let me know how things were going, and after doing some housework I would keep myself occupied with coming up with ideas or meeting the neighbours.  This would usually happen when I went downstairs to get the mail or do the laundry.

There were two strange things about the building.  One was how the staircase on the front of the building lead to a big empty room with plants.  We live on the top floor so this room is just one floor above us.  I remember when I first went up there.  The room was dark so I actually wondered for a moment if I was intruding on someone else’s space.

“Hello?” I said as I neared the dark room.

It was a bit silly as I found out, turning on the light to reveal a single room on the top of the building, filled with old furniture.  It was like someone had gone to a second hand store and bought everything.  Big leafy green plants were in every corner.  There was an old record player with one of those metal horns that you only see pictures of.  There were old couches that looked like the one my Grandma had in our house on the Beecher Bay Reservation where I was born.

And there were books.  So many books and old copies of National Geographic that I also hadn’t seen since being at Grandma’s house.  She had them in the basement and didn’t want to throw them out because they were Grandpa’s.  I recognized one of the ones that were on the coffee table in the room.  I was from the 1960’s and had a big pull out map of the moon.  There were issues with that classic yellow border about Zimbabwe and Nepal and the first plays in Greece.  I liked reading when Tom was away so at first I would just pop upstairs and go through the books.  Some of them were kept in this one shelf with a glass case and they looked very old, like they had been rescued from a sunken sea chest.  I had to be very careful as I open these books as the binding was very frail and the first couple pages had disappeared.

I did this until months ago when I asked our neighbour about the other room.

Down by the laundry room, and around the corner from the mailboxes was this room or apartment, or at least a door that had no number.  Over the security viewing hole, like an apartment’s door, was the word “OOG.”

To this day I’m not entirely sure why it said that, even with what I know now.  Or I think I have an idea.

Anyways, I noticed after a while that I had never seen anyone ever coming in our out of that door.  I was sure I would bump into someone when I carried our big, round laundry basket downstairs but it never happened.  I feel a little bad about this, but one time I even dared myself to listen closely.  I never had the nerve to knock or go right up to it. 

So, I ended up talking to our neighbour Wayne who had lived next to us on the top floor the whole time.  He’s lived there for just years and he was always going upstairs to take care of the plants. 

“Oh, that’s just storage.  Yeah, no-one actually lives there,” he laughed as he went upstairs with his mail.

So that was that, but don’t worry because it gets way weirder.

It was when I was doing laundry downstairs, in the big white room next to the OOG door.  I had just done the dry cycle and was putting clothes on the long table under the bulletin board.  Everything was going normal as I was taking clothes from the white basket and organizing them when one of the socks fell off the table and went right behind the dryer.  I was annoyed of course, but more relieved it missed the garbage with all the lint in it so I moved that out of the way and went down to reach behind the dryer.  The sock had somehow gone into this little square opening on the back of a dryer which was sort of hard to get to.  After moving the whole dryer a little and squeezing behind there I finally got it and was about to leave when a flash of something got my attention.

It was a key.  Attached to the key was a little brown wooden tag that said, you guessed it, “OOG.”

Now I know what I really should have done.  I should have popped it in the mail slot in the office since it was clearly property of the building and maybe they needed it to get into the storage room.  But maybe they had another key.  Surely they would have noticed if a key went missing.  I sat there kneeling for a bit looking at the little copper colored key and its wooden tag for a moment.  I heard the click of the front door of the building close and some people talking and at that moment the key slipped into my pocket.

I gathered up the rest of my laundry and went upstairs.

With the laundry put away and everything else done, my mind was immediately drawn back to the key.  I seriously tried to not think about it.  That was impossible.  I mean, it couldn’t hurt to look inside the little room.  I mean it was just a storage room and the building manager was only here for an hour in the morning.  It was already the afternoon.  As long as I closed the door behind me, no one would be the wiser.

And that’s exactly what I did, my heart just pounding the whole time until I closed the OOG door from the other side and found the light switch.

It was a storage room, alright.  It wasn’t just boxes but tonnes of stuff that I couldn’t work out what they were for.  The room had been a large bachelor suite on the lower front of the building and light from outside crept through the white curtains into the low light from the overhead, illuminating the dust and the hodge-podge of everything from long water pipes, to sinks to very old appliances.  I walked along the wall just kind of having a look.  I couldn’t see anything that was really that interesting as everything looked a bit old and I didn’t want to actually take anything from the room because that would be stealing.

After all, my rule was I was going to just look.  So, I was just looking.

Then I got to the door.  Not the same door that I had come from but one at the corner by the front window.  It was interesting to me because there was a door in the laundry room, so I naturally supposed this was going to lead back into that.  It was kind of funny as the door wouldn’t really need to be there.  The laundry room was literally around the corner from the front door so why would this flat need a second door just for that?  I opened it and came into a hallway.

That’s right, a hallway.

It was very short and went to another door that was locked from this side.  I have no doubt in my mind now that the second door is the door to the laundry room.  I’ve never gone through that way because that isn’t the interesting bit.  Stepping into the hallway is when it got interesting.

This is when I discovered what I have just come to call The Grotto.

For you see, between the door back into OOG and the door into the white tiles of the laundry room was an intersection of a hallway that sloped sharply down towards a blue painted door that had been left slightly open.  I could not resist this.  I went down and, just like upstairs…

“Hello?”

Nothing.

Going inside was a like a trip back into the nineteen sixties, not that I had ever been there.  What I found below what I thought was the lowest floor of the building was a fully furnished and rather extravagantly laid out apartment.  There was an old fridge that was thankfully empty (in no-one had been down here since the sixties…UGH!), big raised couches that curved around like something out of a magazine, doors of beads, paintings, more books and in one room there was even blankets hanging from the roof.  There was a glass ball in water that when you turned it on would turn about and put out little clouds of white smoke.  There were little eves in the wall that had shot glasses from all over the world and two pistols over the couch with mother of pearl grips.  There was some very expensive looking wine and family photos in the kitchen.  There was this one room that was locked and so help me, I couldn’t open that one.

And the photos!  The place was obviously rented by a very handsome young man back in the day, because he seemed to be in every photo next to famous people from Freddy Mercury to the Dali Lama. 

It took me a moment to realize…someone was still paying for this place.  Someone was paying for it but no-one had been down here in decades.  I looked to see if the television still worked, like the electricity.

It did. 

And this is where things got really crazy.

(To be continued!)

Diner Lights Ep1 Road’s End

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Bus Depot on Douglas Street, Victoria, BC 2014

Sam knew something was wrong.  It was the first time they had ever separated, but the reason for it seemed perfectly legit.

“Ok man, can you just go ahead and we’ll meet you there.  We’ve gotta sort shit out with Donna.”

That was the last thing Gav told him at the bus station in Vancouver.  The gig that night didn’t happen because it never would have.  The next one was a fall through as well for reasons of some kind of confusion between Donna and the venue which turned out to have way less money and naturally Gav wasn’t going to go for that.  They could have played anyways but Gav was in a mood.  Donna suggesting busking didn’t help.  Nothing like being stuck in a rainy night in a hotel where everyone pretends the others aren’t there.

The next show would have been some place called Steamers in Victoria.  There was a local funk band called Three Sixty that was going to open.

Sam sat on the wooden bench inside the old bus station, looking stupidly through the houses in a real estate magazine.  It was the only thing you could count on to be free.

There were payphones but he didn’t know if they were on the ferry or even on that last leg that goes through all the farms and small communities in the Saanich Peninsula.

All he could do is wait.  He looked inside his pack of cigarettes.  Not many, but he wasn’t too bad.  He looked around but the place still had those ashtrays on the metal stands so he lit up and blew smoke towards the stained plaster roof.

“Excuse me!”

Sam almost dropped the smoke as he looked up to see a man looking at him from behind the sliding glass window of the bus station’s office.

“Sorry, man…I thought,” he said pointing towards the ashtray.  Some places were becoming non-smoking but then, why would the ashtray still be out?

“No, no you got a phone call buddy.”

Sam butted the dart out and went over to the glass window, the next of his guitar bag hanging over his bag on the end of the long bench.

He picked up the phone.

And got the news.

The band was over.  Donna and Gav had just this huge fight.  Like, huge.  Like cops were involved.  They hoped he could somehow get back to Perry Sound.  After that Sam didn’t really take in what they were saying.  He just felt faint.

“Yeah, that’s fine.  I understand.  No it’s ok.”

Sam gazed off into space while the man in the back occasionally looked at the young man with the mess of dark hair whose face had just gone pale.

“Right.  Bye.”

He put the plastic black phone back on it’s cradle and nodded to the man with the striped white shirt and grey balding hair.

“You ok, there?”

“Oh, uh thanks,” Sam stammered “Yeah.”

Sam went back to his stuff and just sat there.  He picked the cigarette out of the ashtray and struggled to find his lighter.  Then it wouldn’t light.

“Come on!”

Nothing.  It was out.  He tried shaking it.  Sometimes that stuff works.  It didn’t

“Here,” said the older guy holding out a pack of matches.

“Oh, thanks man!” he said quickly getting them and sitting back down again.  He lit up and looked at the matches that said Empress Taxi.

He had some money but only just enough to get back to Ontario.  That’s what he should do,, he thought.   Back to the group home where he was staying. Back to that tiny room in late October with the frozen air coming off Superior.  He looked at the board and the next bus back to the big station across from Science World was coming up.  He would have to buy a ticket soon.  From there he could get a bus to Winnipeg and from there he could get that same route they took months ago, just heading east.

He sat with his smoke and looked out the window where the bus that brought him here was still lurking under the canopy out of the light rain.

 

(Ps I must add, my band is fine lol)

 

Things

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Interesting watching the building crumble across the road.

Hauled down by men with thick gloves, defiant to frost a foreman’s rough speech, the old

taskmaster.  They break center first, cutting, smashing

breaking and then sweeping, clearing away what was there before.

They spread to the wings.  It’s still going on now.  You wonder if it will ever

ever end, but it will.  And as it falls you know it will.   That part of the city

is alien land.  You see what’s it like when it’s cleared, when it’s fully cleared, before we.

ever set our devious plans.

 

One day the last stone will be swept

away.  It’s just a memory.  They’d have to convince you that you

drank coffee, bought that book on Vaudeville’s

fall.  New memories will be shaped

on the place the stones became powder.

 

demolition.jpg

Ollie and Emma is now online!!

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What makes this webseries different than all the other indie films and romantic comedies?  Is it just because she’s First Nations and he is a white suburban guy like myself? 

Well, there’s that.

But to me as one of the writers on the show, Ollie and Emma is something that needs to happen.  We need to see cultures coming together and making connections.  We need to see First Nations characters played by First Nations actors in day to day life.  And while there is certainly very serious and sobering realities about Native culture that everyone should research, there is also laughter, love and friendship.

My working partnership with Saulteaux comedian Cheri Jacobs is an example of this.  We started work together almost four years ago now on a previous project and the subject of her being of Indigenous heritage never really came up until we started the first initial sketches of Ollie and Emma.  I didn’t inquire before that or think “How do I work with this person?  Do I have to be careful how I talk here?”  It was more like “let’s write something funny!”

Since Ollie and Emma, and with some of the other First Nations projects we started (some more serious in tone, some set in earlier times) I have been asking more, reading more and listening to Elders speak about culture and holy cow…I have been just overwhelmed by the diversity of history, language, complex social structure, traditions and folklore.  It is such a steep learning curve that for anyone to think “I’m going to learn about Native culture”, I like to say it’s a little like saying “I’m going to learn everything there is to know about Europe, Africa or Asia.”  Dude, they’re all huge!  You’re going to need an absurd amount of Red Bull, and even then you won’t get through it in one lifetime! 

So yeah, I’m mostly focused on Coast Salish culture now.  And even then, I have stacks of books to plow through (and being mostly an oral history, books are more of a tip-of-the-iceberg starting place!)…(whew!)

Returning to my point thought, Cheri and I are an example of where we are right now and how we all could one day be, all over the world.  We can all make connections like this.  I grew up on shows like Robotech where the whole world pulled together to make the impossible possible.

But don’t get scared after my little(ish) rant!  Ollie and Emma is fun.  It’s non-political, get’s a bit meta and plays with stereotype.  I am so lucky to have worked with not only such a kickass co-writer/co-producer but also such a hardworking and talented cast and crew and of course our production team of Less Bland Productions and Telus Optik.  I still stand in wonder how they took us on (not that we’re not good, but wow!)

To me, I’m still Jim and Joan Pogson’s kid whose somewhere in the rumpus room, sitting crosslegged somewhere amongst the storage boxes in the old house we had in Langley, BC, reading books and making up random stuff.

Enjoy the show!

Just click the link below!

http://www.ollieandemma.ca

Cheers,

Tom  

 

The Ollie and Emma first look!

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Please check out the first Ollie and Emma webseries trailer!  So excited to begin sharing this story I have been working on with Cheri Jacobs for over two years now.

The story to me is all about starting a conversation across divides, something that has to happen for everyone’s sake.  This can happen when we are inclusive, and everyone can join the fun.
So click below and enjoy!  Look for our show on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress to find out about this upcoming release!

Ollie and Emma YouTube trailer

Government Street, 1910

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                Janice was the last person Samuel ever expected that afternoon. Outside the drowsy city moved on, the street cars, carriages and passersby oblivious to the moment she emerged into his store barely upsetting the chiming of the bell Samuel had nailed into the frame.

                There was nothing to prepare him for the moment.  That Thursday in mid September the morning sun glinted off the bottles on the west side of the room like they always did when he arrived to unlock the dispensery.  Sun poured across the street between the buildings on Government street.  The younger clerk arrived in a rush under the slight scowl of Samuel’s gaze, the key his was given lost somewhere in his coat pockets.  Samuel waited for a moment, looking over the rim of his steel frames as the man outside continued to fumble, his movements jerky and his face occasionally looking up to stare contrite at the older man in the white coat behind the black cash register.  Finally, pushing the latch to open the low swinging gate he came to the young man’s rescue, with the boy in the long coat and felt riding hat looking regretfully at the older face on the other side of the pristine, clear glass.

                “Eight thirty, Joshua,” the older man said simply as he opened the door.

                “I’m sorry sir, I mean…it’s not an excuse but the tram left early…I tried to run after it but…”

                “Well, at least you’re here,” he said as they both went back behind the counter surrounded by vials and bottles, the disinfecting alchohol in the large teardrop shaped glass and the wall of pestal and mortars.  The room smelled only slightly of lavender and the disinfectant that was used to clean everything in the white walled dispensary that sat near the corner of Broughton between the café and the grocery.

                The young man scurried into the back quickly as Samuel continued to go over the notes he made the day before on Mrs. Wensten’s prescription for anti-fungal cream and her Humalog diabetic insulin supplements.  He kept all his notes in perfect order, his handwriting as clean and clear as the Colonist’s printing press, with every necessary note organized within the confines of the single black leather book.  The book remained in the same place of his low front shelf, it’s corner’s frayed and smooth like the skin of a well worn leather shoe.

                Samuel had just finishing entering the journal notes when he realized they were getting closer to opening time.  Exactly fifteen and half minutes away by the pocket watch which never left his favorite red waistcoat, the watch a gift from a friend of the St. Andrew’s and Caledonia Society which he met with on Wednesdays like so many others who had come from Scotland or, like in his case, had parents from the old country. 

                Soon, Joshua emerged from the back of the dispensery in his white coat, doing the regular cleaning that was his job first thing each morning, only the young man was trying to do the same cleaning at twice the pace, quickly rushing over the furthest corner with the store’s straw broom.

                “Slow down there!” Samuel said firmly with his eyes never leaving the black book and his smaller notes ledger beside where he wrote down the specific notes for that day.

                “I’m sorry Sir, it’s just…we open in just over ten minutes and I was late.  That’s my fault.”

                “I’m very aware of the time, Joshua.  You can continue to clean after opening hours just this once.  I can’t afford for anything to be damaged,” he explained.

                “Yes, Sir.”

                “Now, can you please open the front door and clean our exterior walk?  Mrs Amberson will be by early this morning to pick up her supply for the St. Joseph’s dispensary.  I’ve already laid out the packages on this back table with the documentation.  I hate to keep the lady waiting.”

                “Hallie Amberson!”  He replied suddenly with a desire to straighten his coat and tie, pushing his hair back, looking at the mirror that hung over the topical creams on the south wall “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

                “None of that, if you please,” Samuel said to the smirk of Joshua.

                Soon the young nurse from the Fairfield hospital arrived to the smiles of Joshua who continued to sweep door the outside walk.  Samuel felt back the urge to roll his eyes at him as the young man then came in to gather all the parcels for her to put in the large case that she had brought.  She smiled back at him and he just stood there for a moment, mooning like a cat.

                “Now you can sweep the back of the store, Joshua.”

                The young man managed one more smile at the young lady before going to fetch his broom.  Samuel could swear the young man was one step away from being better off as a coal miner like his brothers.  It seemed if he wasn’t prattling on about this or that he was talking about his new accommodation over by the bird houses. 

                Samuel could only just remember those younger days in his life when he was still studying under Mr. Hainsbury.  He now owned a small house down Moss Street which was perfectly situated near the Foul Bay streetcar line.  Each morning he woke quite early in the quiet when the sun had not yet risen, having his breakfast in the front room that was shaded during the day by the two arbutus trees he had planted himself out front.  After his morning routine was finished he would head out early, paper under his arm to the corner of Moss and May where he would meet Scott Cook driving the first street car run of the morning, a fellow member of the Scottish society and a recent arrival from Aberdeen.  The red and white sided car would click and clack its way along the smooth rails towards Cook Street and the park before turning it’s way towards the heart of town.

                Lunch was the small café just next door run by Annie and Nathanial Humphries, which had been a family business since the earliest days of Victoria.  She was always happy to see Samuel and frequently insisted that she could offer him a discount for her famous coffee and sandwiches that always comprised his meal.  This was due to Samuel looking into a diagnoses that he found didn’t square correctly with what she had been diagnosed before.  Samuel had actually visited and discussed with the physician so the prescription was changed to medication that took her relentless migraine headaches away.  Samuel appreciated the offer of the discount each time she brought it up, but respectfully declined, not out of a dismissal of charity (which he also did not approve of) but due to the fact that it was his job to do exactly that and that he would stop practicing the moment he ever cut corners.

                Back in his shop, with Joshua over by the other side of the room cleaning the tables where the recent shipment had just arrived by train, the door chimed softly.

                That was the moment when Samuel’s eyes went wide.  He felt something inside his chest that he had not felt since he was the same age as the young man across the room.  He set his pen down and walked slowly to the front of the counter as the two people entered, their presence in the room raising Joshua’s eyebrows as well.  They rarely ever saw people from the Songhees inside their dispensary.

                Behind Janice, whose brown eyes fixed on Samuel, stood her large framed brother, George Andrews Jr.  She was dressed in a shawl and he was dressed in the clothes of a labourer.  Samuel pushed his glasses back slightly.

                “Good Afternoon…George…Janice,” he said trying to steady his voice.  He could only hope that his voice didn’t sound wrong.  Beneath the cotton white coat, waist coat and shirt, his heart thudded hard.

                “Samuel,” George replied, with Janice just looking at him before averting her gaze to look around the room.

                “Um…what can I do for you both?”

                “Janice?” George asked his sister.

                “Yes…sorry,” she said before looking at Samuel sorrowfully and then looking down into the pockets of her shawl and finding a written paper.  She walked up to the counter and Samuel swallowed slightly as she came close, her shawl brushing the other side of the white wooden counter.  She handed him the prescription, Samuel looking down at her soft slight brown hands covering the doctor’s scribbles.  He looked up at her and then back to the paper which he took.  Coughing, he studied the paper.

                “I can…” he said before coughing again “set up an account for you with us, if you want so we can track…”

                “That won’t be necessary,” George said firmly.

                Joshua came over the side of his employer, looking at him with his head slightly tilted to one side.

                “Can I get you something, Sir?”

                Samuel just looked at the notes on the paper, his head focused on returning to his work immediately.  People came to him because he was a professional.  In truth, he was considered the best pharmacist in the finest run dispensary on the south island, but he always refused to accept this notion.

                “It’s…it’s a prescription for Miss Janice Lynn Andrews for the following medication,” he said beginning to write a note for Joshua to follow in his usual precise handwriting so their could not, would not be a mistake.  One was an expectorant…one 250 mg of Azithromycin…another special tropical cream that was less commonly used but otherwise benign.  At least, he thought for a moment, it was nothing really bad.  Most of these were for simple ailments.

                “These are for yourself?”  he asked.

                “Yes,” she answered.

                He cleared his throat and with his hand slightly shaking he wrote the note and passed it to Joshua who rushed off with a small bag to fill for her. 

                “How much this gonna be?” George asked, his voice firm.

                “Shouldn’t be too much.  These are fairly common medications and from what I understand the physician you met set a one-week trial dosage.  If anything feels wrong, stop taking them immediately, but they should clear up things within one week,” he explained consulting the pricing book next to the register and entering the numbers. 

                She handed him the forty-two cents it cost for the bag of medication that Joshua produced.  He fingers brushed his only slightly when she gave it to him which set a rush of fire through Samuel, something he felt in his legs so strong, he had to keep one hand flat on the counter.  For a moment, all for of them stayed put like they were posing for a photograph.

                “Come along, Janice.”

                “Goodbye, Sam,” Janice said with her eyes locked on him.  The rest of the world seemed to stop.  The rest of the world seemed quiet.

                “Take care,” Samuel replied.  He could not move.

                “Come along, Janice!” George said more firmly.  It was firmly enough for Joshua to look at the taller Native man with concern.

                As they left, the younger clerk looked at his employer who seemed dazed, staring out the door as they left.

                “You alright, Sir?”

                “Yes, perfectly fine.  Let’s get back to work.”