Theatre

(Taken from 'Sleight of Hand 2010')

Now, what I do so as not to burn the edges is actually cover them with tinfoil. First, I brush the pastry with milk. I bring the oven down to four hundred. I put foil around the edges and then take it off about a quarter before the time is up. And it’s perfect. You have to wait about two hours for it to set, really. My Dan insisted on having a slice once it came out of the oven. The first time I made it, I told him it would run everywhere. You have to give it time to set. See? But did Dan listen? Did Dad, rest his soul, ever listen? I left the pie out in the usual place afterwards, and I told him, I said ‘Dan. I’m leaving these pies here. I’m going over to Nora’s and I expect to find them as I’ve left them, or there’ll be trouble’. Well. Trouble. Trouble like you couldn’t believe. I get a call at Nora’s about ten minutes later. At first I didn’t know what it was. Just breathin’. All I could hear was heavy breathin’. I said, ‘Dan, is that you? Is that you, Dan?’I think he’s having a heart attack. His family has a history. And Dan, rest his soul, was not like the way the men are now, you know, with their ‘health’. Dan didn’t have health, not like they have it now. So I fly out of Nora’s and across the road. And everybody I pass says, ‘Marge, you ok? Where’s the fire?’ And I can’t even breathe I’m moving so fast. I’m movin’ so fast I think I’m having the cardiac arrest myself, and my family don’t even have a history, our history is of our nerves! Well, I get in the door, this door here, and I shout ‘Dan! Dan!’ Now, I’m expecting to see him dead on the ground. And the first thing I see is my blueberry pie with a kitchen knife and all the evidence slopped on the counter top. Didn’t even try to hide the evidence. So, all of a sudden, I’m not suspecting cardiac arrest anymore. So, I make my way through into the living room, same then as it was now, never changed a square centimetre of that room in all the years I’m living here, Dan never wanted to, said he wanted it kept just like how we decorated it as newlyweds. Anyway. I go into that room and here he is, sitting on the armchair, munching on chipped ice. I said. ‘Dan. Did you eat my blueberry pie’ and he pointed at his throat. Cardiac arrest, lord have mercy! He had burned his greedy throat. And I said, ‘Dan, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were dead on the floor the way you rang me up.’ And he gave me those eyes, you know the eyes, the way men do, and I said, serves you right, don’t expect me to sit here chipping ice and feeding it to you. And with that I slammed the door, took the pies with me, and gave them to the ministry the next town over. Came back in the evening, he was still sitting there feeding himself chipped ice. Well, he learned his lesson afterwards. He certainly learned his lesson afterwards. The only reason I started making them in the first place was cause Blueberry pie was the only way I could get him to eat an ounce of fruit.


I made him one every week on account of blueberries being good for the heart.

- Marge


***



Emery's Pet Cemetary

 'I give him what I give every person in this town. A foundation, a way of coping, a way of coming to terms with grief, and a memory they need' - Violet

Sleight of Hand

'Ten days ago a, whatdoyacallem, a hot air balloon came down from the sky. Now, you don’t get that kind of thing a lot around here. If you could imagine how excited the kids were. They all collected in their little groups, running around. Waving at it. Chasing it. That’s the kind of kids you have around here. Very happy. Very pleasant. Doesn’t take much for something to excite them. That’s what we all like about living around here. You don’t feel part of the rest of this country. Which is often a good thing, I suppose. Now ten of those kids are dead.I’ll never forget it. That red balloon. Just try and imagine it' - Frank

After Circles

'She used to dance in secret to earn money for the underground forces.
They ground crocus blubs to make flour they could bake with.
They actually had to do that.
Isn’t life terrible for some people? - Ava


Wonderful, Wonderful

Everyday I wake up I look out the window and I say to myself, ‘Osborne, there’s going to be a change.’ And I’m at work, and people are saying ‘Osborne, do this. Osborne, do that,’ and I do it because I know there’s going to be a change. I come home, like you, hard, and tired, and after I kiss my boys goodnight, and after I brush my teeth, and before I go to sleep, as I hold you in my arms, I say to myself, ‘Osborne, hold out for the change.’ (Pause). There’s going to be a change, Eurydice. There’s going to be a big change. So big. There has to be' - Osborne

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