I picked her up in the downtown area and, with the afternoon sky grey and darkening, took her along the water to Calderwood Drive, just off Portsmouth Avenue. She was in her early twenties and, dressed in black jeans and a black jacket, with numerous piercings in her ears, she looked as though she’d had a bit of a hard time in life – a little wary, and a little beaten down, and so not too warm or friendly. And, on the way, as we were approaching the back of KGH on one side, where the traffic was always a bit slow, especially near the emergency entrance, and an open view of the wind-stirred lake on the other side, with the rainclouds not very far off, she said she was epileptic and about to have a seizure and, since there wasn’t anything anybody could do about it – it just has to run its course, she said – I should just carry on to the address she’d given me, and at once as she stopped talking the seizure began …
Bio:
David Malone was born and raised in Toronto but now lives in Kingston, Ontario, with his family. A graduate of Queen’s University (Master of Theological Studies, 2008), he has had work published in the Antigonish Review, Queen’s Quarterly, the RavensPerch, and in several anthologies issued by Hidden Brook Press. He worked as a cleaner and taxi driver in Kingston for many years.