Not a serious incident, but an incident nonetheless.

My wife Rachelle bought a phone that had been advertised on a community message board she belongs to, and it turned out the phone did not work. All sorts of texts flew back and forth between us and the woman who sold us the phone, but to no avail. The woman would not take the phone back or reimburse us the money we spent on getting the phone fixed.

Here is the ending of the text thread between the three of us:

ME: Don’t you think you at least owe us some of the money we spent to repair your broken phone?

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: I AM WITH A CLIENT NOW AND CANNOT TALK!!!!!

Me: You’re a cat walker. Are you actually telling me you cannot deal with this matter because a cat is on your lap?

Rachelle: Look, I am sorry to pester you, but the phone you sold us does not work. We had to get it repaired and it cost us $75 extra. I don’t for a second think you were trying to deceive us, but it’s only fair that at the very least we share that cost.

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: ALL SALES ARE FINAL!!

Me: But you deceived us. The phone did not work. We told you that. You said we must have done something to break it. Is this how you treat your clients? Do you deceive the cats and then try to gaslight them?

Rachelle: If I was a cat I would scratch you.

Me: The cats will rise up against you. They will fuck you up. Make no mistake.

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: IS THAT A THREAT???!!!!

Me: It is a prediction. I know cats.

Rachelle: It’s true. He’s watched the broadway production of Cats 27 times.

Me: Passionate about it. Dressed up as a creepy cat every halloween for—wait for it– 27 years in a row!

Rachelle: Body suit and everything. VERY creepy.

Me: Would send you a photo but the camera on the phone I just bought doesn’t work!

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: IF THIS CONTINUES I WILL BE GETTING A LAWYER INVOLVED FOR DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER!!!

Rachelle: Oh my, that is funny! I would like to see that.

Me: Please, please, please get the law involved!!!

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: YOU TWO ARE FASCISTS AND I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH YOU AGAIN!!

“THE HOLY CROSS BE MY LIGHT
LET NOT THE DRAGON BE MY GUIDE
STEP BACK, SATAN!
NEVER TEMPT ME WITH YOUR VANITIES
WHAT YOU OFFER ME IS EVIL
DRINK YOUR OWN POISON!”

Me: Did not take her for the religious type.

Rachelle: Me neither.

*****************************************

Rachelle: Really?!!

Rachelle: Wow!! Having Lyle Lovett like one of your Tweets is amazing! That must be a real feather in your cap!

Rachelle: I’m proud of you, Pickle!

Rachelle: Yes, of course I do.

Rachelle: He’s one of The Avengers, isn’t he?

Rachelle: The Jewish one.

Rachelle: The one who could turn himself into a plane that’s also a tiger.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: I thought one of The Avengers could do that.

Rachelle: And that they embraced all religions, that they fought for freedom of religious expression and each hero represented a great faith.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: Well, I guess I don’t know who Lyle Lovett is then.

Rachelle: Hmm, a musician.

Rachelle: No, none of those songs are familiar to me.

Rachelle: Just before my time, I guess.

Rachelle: Not a dig, Pickle. You’re just a lot older than me.

Rachelle: No, I’d say 12 years is a lot. Anything double digits.

Rachelle: What??

Rachelle: He was married to Julia Roberts?

Rachelle: You mean the guy who looks like a scarecrow/funeral director is Lyle Lovett?

Rachelle: Wow.

Rachelle: It’s true, personality does counts for a lot.

Rachelle: And yes, it is almost as if Julia Roberts liked your Tweet!

Rachelle: Aww, that’s sweet!

Rachelle: Well, if I’m your Pretty Woman, you’re my little Lyle Lovett!

Rachelle: Yes, my power skating class is over and I’ll be home soon.

Rachelle: With the wings.

Rachelle: Extra mild. Sauce on the side. Extra wet naps. No carrot stick taller than the others. As always.

Rachelle: It’s a little bit of a serial killer kind of order, you know.

Rachelle: That was auto correct.

Rachelle: I wrote “You’re a sweet kind of order.”

Rachelle: Well, auto correct works in mysterious ways.

Rachelle: Through a glass darkly and all of that.

Rachelle: Yes, you probably will start getting ads in you Facebook feed for serial killer things now.

Rachelle: Well, they say technology knows you better than you know yourself, Pickle!

Rachelle: Oh, I’m kidding, honey.

Rachelle: You’re no serial killer.

Rachelle: In fact, you would be the worst serial killer in history.

Rachelle: Well, your allergies to start. Always blowing your nose and sneezing. You’d be detected straight away!

Rachelle: And then there’s your general physical and mental weakness. Serial killers have to be on the ball! I bet serial killers get 10 hours of sleep a night!

Rachelle: Ha Ha!! I know, I would kill for 10 hours of sleep, too!

Rachelle: But look, the fact that you could never be a serial killer is a compliment, not an insult.

Rachelle: I know, these are confusing times.

Rachelle: The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Rachelle: It’s from a poem.

Rachelle: I think the falconer is the person who dresses the falcon when they go hunting. Picks out the outfits. Not positive.

Rachelle: Anyway, see you in about half an hour! xo

Jones and I are standing on the sidewalk and I am asking him about his dream from the previous night.

What was it about, Jones? 
Santa.
What was he doing?
He was bringing presents.
Did you get to open any?
Yes! There were chocolate eggs, and inside of them was apple juice!

It’s movement a kind of flight. Jones watches this impossible thing, it’s long, thin tail passing above like an airplane. The jellyfish are pink clouds that pulse mysteriously, belonging more to outer or inner space than this world we imagine we inhabit. Jones’ face against the aquarium window, his little finger prints visible as he watches a shark move indifferently past. The face is impassive, the blank eyes heartless and never in doubt. It moves through the water a kind of God.

It’s the coldest day of the year and somewhere within, each one of us feels a premonition of mortality shudder our bones. The foyer of the Western Hospital has more homeless people than usual. Mostly men with jagged, unfashionable beards, they curl into the hospital’s available lounge chairs. Shapeless under their winter gear and salvaged miscellany, they appear to be melting—whatever had lived inside, now collapsed and unsupported. These people, so candid, they doze all around us.

Our son Jones loves to dance. It’s his thing. You can see the joy in his eyes. They shine, lit from some spot deep within. Each morning he jumps up on our bed and dances for us, and it is no small thing. It’s beautiful and unpredictable and so ecstatically rendered that it feels like being blessed by a higher order of being. It’s a good way to start the morning.

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Both with sticks, Jones and I walk quietly to daycare. Both of us lucky. Somewhere in our bones we know this unspoken thing. Big, slow snowflakes drift like dandelion puffs around us. A delivery van stops across the street. Bollywood music blaring. Just blaring. Jones has never been quite so astonished. It is a miracle, and he looks at me like we’re both witnessing a miracle. He’s glowing. The snow increases, squalls for a moment. It’s the gentlest invasion of white, as if silent, weightless birds are schooling around us, as if the world fundamentally changed before our eye. Jones points, “There are so many of them, daddy!” The Bollywood music is still pouring out of the van and Jones begins to dance. In his puffy jacket. His rain boots. His ridiculous hat. His glowing face. A woman with heavy snow flakes, glistening and then melting into her dark hair, smiles as she walks her dog through us.

All these things coming together.

This day being made, this day being blessed.

It was packed with children, as you might expect, but still, it remained a sweet and manageable excursion. Jones was an explosion of excitement, running from one tank to the next, his finger pointing, his face animated by the most desperate urgency, “Look, look, mommydaddy, look!!” And a fish would glide mysteriously past, unaware of this constructed universe in which it lived. A world not quite of this world, beautiful and narcotic, it manifested around us like the dream it most surely was. And then we came upon the eels, and something in them sent a shudder into Jones’ soul and he was done with the aquatic for the day. “No more fish,” he yelled, running off to the Christmas tree in the foyer, to the decorative presents beneath, certain in his heart that each one contained a universe constructed for him alone.

Dr. Oz was on.
Somebody talking about nuts
Which ones were good for you, which ones were bad.

We were a rapt audience in the waiting room, each one of us happy for the bland distraction, but also sincerely curious. Something had happened in our lives that had changed us. We’d all crossed a line, moving from our natural selves to the types of people who now hoped if only they ate the right kind of nuts then everything would be okay. A woman leaving the clinic stopped and looked at me. Having noticed the oxygen concentrator on my back she abruptly said, “I HOPE YOU DON’T SMOKE!” I assured her that I didn’t, that I had quit, and as I was saying this the person who had accompanied her said– in a voice meant to convey to us that we should think of this woman as a child–“It would be great if you could quit, too, Beverly! Maybe this man can tell you how to do it?” And we all stopped watching Dr. Oz. We all stepped from our anxieties. No longer thinking of ourselves as people who needed to be helped, we thought of ourselves as people who needed to help. And in this, we were released. The grief that had hung in the room dispersed, and as if by saintly intent, we were left there, still and light for a moment, the tv flickering irrelevantly in the corner.

A cold morning.

The wind down the empty street invigorating, almost inspiring– a reminder that we are of this world, and not the other. Such deep in the bones gratitude in these moments. The day still brand new, still a kind of wilderness. A field of potential stretching endlessly before us. Jones sucks on a green lollipop. His favourite colour on account of the Hulk, the creature his three year old body most yearns for, and above us the sky is changing. The clouds tumbling. The blue of the sky often indistinguishable from the overcast grey, and all around us the stripped trees and withered vegetation. Jones wants to know where all the leaves have gone, and as I am explaining he sees a tree in a yard that’s been decorated for Christmas. He points and shouts, describing the colours and shapes like the miracles they are. And as we look up and through the tree, a cloudbank rolls away from the sun and for a moment we are struck blind by the radiance, and for the rest of our journey ghost lights flicker before us like answered prayers.

When you approach from the back you will see workmen and scaffolding. You will see concrete, lines of vehicles and pylons. You will see obstacles. You will see a place you do not want to be. And at the top of the driveway leading to the entrance, there is a small bench beneath an overhang. It’s utilitarian, a place for patients to sit as they wait for transport. There is no view to be had, just cars and cement and shadow, and sitting there you feel like you’re in a parking garage. On the ground beside the bench, sesame seeds are scattered. A patient almost certainly makes a slow procession to this place each day. Feeling fragile and less than he remembered, his bare legs exposed beneath his hospital gown, he would cast seeds to the tiny birds who would come to feed. Amidst all this mess, this construction and revision, this tangle of concrete and flesh, he would sustain them. This mercy, his daily gift. And he would watch the birds hop and cheep, marvelling at their perfect eyes and darting movements, their little, old man legs and mysterious feathers, and how with one small breath they were up and away, lifting into the blue skies just beyond.