Sol Seppy - "Enter One". I was flying back into Montreal, two months ago. It was night. Girls spoke in murmurs, boys dreamed. I heard the hushhhh of the engine and looked down onto dark fields, cloaked forests. There was no sky - just cloud, like fog, like the fog-wreathed edge of the sea, above us. Our craft was silver and in its way silent. I watched the clouds out the window and suddenly began to see these bright streaks of flash, these streak brights of flash. The mist was suddenly lit up, hotted and sparking. And still inside the airplane it was silent - murmurs, dreams, engine. I watched all these flashes, these lightnings, these bolts, and my heart jumped like a dial with each one. I ceased wondering about birdcalls, wind-whistle; I wondered just at the thunder I couldn't hear, the tiny thunders on the other side of the glass.

And then the craft turned and Montreal came into view, intricate as a coral reef, and a spotlight strafed the sky and I realised it wasn't lightning I was seeing, just the spotlight against the bottom of the clouds. A woman pointing a light at the stars & sketching accidental storms. One single person can do this, I thought to myself. From so far away, a person can touch another person, flash bright streaks across the clouds. Can send an incomprehensible message to a man in a flying-machine.

(Thank you, Marlisse.)

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I keep forgetting to mention, but I will be in Ottawa tonight, Thursday, at a reading for The Art of Trespassing. It's an anthology of short stories by emerging Canadian writers, and it's good. I'll be reading from my story, "Bluebirds". If you can't make it to Octopus Books for 7pm, you can also buy the book here.

Unfortunately, the "economic climate" has also resulted in the end of my column at the National Post. If you are involved with a (paying) publication that might be interested in my work, I'd really appreciate it if you got in touch. Thanks!