¿Por qué están ustedes sorprendidos? TAP TO SPEAK ¿Por qué están ustedes sorprendidos? Nice! Meaning: Why are you surprised?

Gilles can feel his grumpiness lift like an early morning fog. He would prefer not to make this four-hour road trip to set up his tripod in front of a giant rooster, but admits that the ritual has its comforts. The drive is scenic (Burnt Lands Provincial Park), ironic (Sinders Bridal House), full of sameness (Notre Dame Catholic School) and sleepiness (Art’s Mini-sheds) that make him feel at once wholesome and innovative. Despite the windy November day, his mood is buoyant as he drives. Stephen and Sophia sit in the back seat with their individual playlists. They are less than an hour into their annual road trip to Sonny the Rooster who has been the background feature of their Christmas card for three years now. Linda’s idea of course; she is a wizard in the curation of such things. A hoot and a half.

Linda is in the passenger seat with her sock feet on the dash, a habit Gilles discourages because of the strain this posture will put on her lumbar spine. Her low back pain stems from having two C-sections in two years, yet there she is, curled over her iPad like a gremlin, bingdonging through Duolingo Spanish, steadfast as ever.

Denada You missed a space. De_Nada.  Translation You are welcome.

Linda imagines the front of her brain flooding with dopamine as she advances into eighth place in the Duolingo diamond league. Top ten finishers make it into the Promotion Zone. She thinks for a moment of the makeshift puppet show from nursing school five million years ago when Dr. Mike—or was it Dr. Matt?—glued cardboard brains to popsicle stick spinal cords to illustrate the activities of the central nervous system when one is presented with a reward. Earlier this morning she received the Sharpshooter award for completing twenty lessons with no mistakes. She has a sixty-three-day streak. A row of badges from the leagues through which she has advanced illuminate the top of her screen. Bronze, silver, gold, sapphire, ruby, emerald, amethyst, pearl, obsidian and diamond. A rainbow of progress that is having its way with her neurotransmitters. One of the app’s cartoon characters, Junior, jumps and throws his arms in the air, vibrating as if he might explode with happiness. Another character, Nadira, sports a purple asymmetrical bob and slow claps whenever Linda gets things right. Cómo te llamas? Mi nombre es Linda. Mucho gusto.

They pass through the suburbs—carbon copy beige and grey accordion-like houses. She can trick herself in the suburbs. She can pretend she’s in any number of places. Any number of the places she has lived in since marrying Gilles and the army. This suburb in particular, the width of its streets, the style of its fences, the skinny trees, is remarkably like Kingston, and even Petawawa, if the trees were more mature. Who would have thought that a military life, with all its upheaval, could have so much monotony? She remembers when she first spotted Sonny the Rooster perched atop his horn of plenty. It was during their move from Winnipeg to Ottawa three years ago. Or was it two years ago? Immediately she knew Sonny would be memorable. In the outskirts of Ottawa now, the fields are vast and rolling, ploughed in parallel lines that flash before her. Oh there’s that farmhouse. A cross-stitch-worthy stone build with pale blue trim. Adjacent, in a sprawling junkyard, a pod camper sits slant, its windows broken, its door removed. The farmhouse is smart against the bloat of the junkyard. Objects at rest long enough to create a savage sort of harmony. It occurs to her that this is their last Sonny the Rooster road trip. They are posted to Colorado Springs this coming July. Her giddiness wanes into that vacant sense of being between two places. A menacing, tumbleweed mood that infiltrates the months before a military move. She can anticipate the lack of bearings she will have in a new city. It used to be an adventure, but now she imagines the brain synapses that will burn out as she bumbles through the maze of another new place.

It’s been three years in Ottawa, she figures out gradually. Three years. Linda feels stretched like plastic wrap across the surface of the city, instead of existing as a meaningful element within it. Sonny the Rooster, at least, offers a sort of tradition, a waypoint that doesn’t blend in with its surroundings. A short-lived feeling of intense happiness. Emocionado, meaning moved by emotion. Not to be mistaken with excitado which means sexually aroused or horny.

“Duo says I’m crushing it,” she says.

“You’re still in the Promotion Zone?” Gilles asks, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Eighth place, with twenty-three minutes to go.”

“How far are you from first place?”

“Oh God, like over three thousand XP,” Linda says. “Pointless to even go for it. Pointless. Jaquie42 has 4186 XP. I mean, she must never do anything else.” She looks up briefly. “I do admire her commitment though.” 

Tap the matching pairs: table—mesa; boy—niño; or—o; cheap—barato. BING DONG Correct!

“Have you connected with this Jaquie42?” Gilles asks. “Can you do that?”

“No. It’s just random people. They change every week.” 

Type what you hear ¿Tu estás también sorprendido, Pedro? BING DONG  Nicely done! Translation You are also surprised, Pedro?

“Did you know you can buy coffins at Costco?” Linda asks.

“I did not know this.” 

From the driver’s seat, Gilles glances at Linda. He desperately wishes she would stop competing with random people on the internet and maybe spend these hours researching Colorado. It is so windy, he has to grip the wheel with both hands, and can feel a dull ache in his forearms. Lengthy road trips such as this one typically give them the time and enclosed vehicular space to—a veces tú te levantas cansada. BING DONG—develop upcoming family plans, vacations, etcetera. He would like to discuss the move, start organizing themselves. Schools? Neighbourhoods? Family physician? Dentist? Nearest airport? Swim lessons for Stephen? Dance for Sophia?—El niño nunca se levanta a las siete los sábados. BING DONG—Driver’s licences? Insurance? Vaccinations? Why hasn’t she started looking into rental houses yet? Just this week he noticed a three-jar package of natural peanut butter from Costco. Seems like poor form, given that they will be moving in six months. Is she no longer on board with the move? She had expressed enthusiasm when he’d first mentioned Colorado. He would almost definitely get a promotion to Major as a result of his job there—¿Te duchas la mañana o la noche? BING DONG.

Gilles reaches into the side compartment for a clear plastic container that holds balls of wax. He rolls one between his fingers and presses it into his right ear. Linda notices. 

“Situational awareness much?” she says, not removing her gaze from her iPad.

“My situational awareness is intact. These take the edge off the bings of your second language training.”

“Duo thinks I’m amazing,” Linda says. “According to Duo, my hard work is paying off.”

Gilles winks at Linda while pushing the ball of wax deeper into his ear cavity. He feels a sense of triumph as the decibels around him relent into vague underwater tones. He places his hand on her thigh and she touches the back of his neck for a moment, a light, placating rub before she returns to her iPad. He loves it when she touches his neck like that.

Winnipeg. Was it four or five years ago? Stephen was in Kindergarten. So flippin’ cute. Gilles glances in the rearview to see Stephen racing against himself on his Rubik’s Cube for which he has memorized the algorithms. He is likely listening to NF or Chance the Rapper. Thirteen already. How? And Sophia, folding and linking squares of origami paper into transforming ninja stars. Sophia is like Gilles. Everyone says it and it delights and worries him in equal measure. She is almost too even-keeled for eleven. A shape-shifter. A people-pleaser. Calm and steady until her reserve expires. Gilles can sense the weariness that exists beneath her placid front and it gnaws at him. But what was he just thinking? Winnipeg. Linda found that little house in an older neighbourhood, dense with trees, a stone’s throw from a basement wine bar where they had double-date nights with another military couple, Carrie and Martin. Then there was their little house in Kingston, before kids. Linda had found a brick house on Belvedere Street with maroon velvet wallpaper. They joined a swing dance club. Met up with her nursing friends at Wallace Hall to watch vintage swing videos and dance. Seems like another lifetime. Every new place they live in is sort of like a lifetime.

When Gilles was deployed to the radar station in Clear, Alaska, Linda decided to take the kids to Newfoundland for the year. It was a place she’d always wanted to visit, she’d said. What a rash move. A recipe for burnout. Linda with a newborn and a two-year-old on her own in a new place. But there was no stopping her; she was like high tide. She found a furnished apartment on York Street just minutes from the harbour-front. She met her neighbours while shovelling herself out of a snow drift, she told him later. They were musicians with a five-year-old. They hung out, drank tea, made Wikki Stix eyeglasses, paper bag monster puppets, clothespin dragonflies, fuzzball bookmarks. They lit sparklers after dark and ran around in the snowy street with winter coats unzipped and cape-like.

The flow of pictures from York Street kept Gilles afloat that year. He had almost no human contact in Alaska. He worked night shifts, only seeing the sun every eight days when he had four days off that he spent mostly alone and always depressed. He was able to work out every day which made him almost content with his body, but he’d never felt so hollow. With so much downtime, he could have improved his French language profile, or completed DP4 and 5 of Leader Development which would have won him three PD points on his annual PER, nudging him closer to a promotion. He didn’t do any of those things. He watched Game of Thrones and played Legend of Zelda. What a waste; he’ll never have that kind of time again. He missed them though, Linda and the kids and their infinite needs. He’d wake from sleep convinced he was dying.

“Dad, the cows are eating in the same field as those giant electrical towers,” Stephen says as Gilles turns on the radio—callin’ my phone like I’m locked up, nonstop—switches the station quickly—from the plane to the fuckin’ helicop—turns the radio off. 

“It’s a perfectly good place for the cows, Stephen.”

BING DONG

“Mom, don’t you think it’s weird? The cows?”

“Stephen! Leave your mother alone.”

Linda looks over her shoulder. “Sorry, what hon?”

“The field with the cows and the big electrical towers.”

“What field, hon?”

“It’s gone. We passed it.”

Linda checks her leaderboard. She’s moved into sixth place with sixteen minutes to go. The ten names inside the Promotion Zone are flashing. She has won ten lingots. 

How do you say pen?  Bolígrafo BING DONG Good job!

Gilles breathes in, exhales dramatically, putting his chest and shoulders into it.

“Would you like me to drive?” Linda asks.“No.”

“Your mood shift is palpable and in poor taste.” 

“That’s rich. I’m impressed at your ability to sense my mood, what with your current competitive streak.” 

“Fair, but still…and yes, I have a sixty-three-day streak, and also you are being—” she pauses, searching, “niggling. You are niggling.” She makes a face, scrunchy nose, sourpuss.

“Thank goodness,” Gilles says, looking straight ahead, two hands on the wheel.

“Yes, thank goodness.”

Linda is being generous with niggling. Gilles is a killjoy. His body language is at odds with his words. It is clear he didn’t want to come on this road trip. Last night she poured him a glass of wine, one of their favourites, and he had made no comment. No swirl swirl, plunge of the nose and contemplation: “Notes of boot. Notes of boot when said boot is first removed from box…at Winners,” like he had done that time in Winnipeg with Marty and Carrie. She had laughed so hard in that delightfully cavernous wine bar. Last night though, Gilles was glossy-eyed as Stephen went on and on and on about Pixel Car Racer mode, upshift, burnout, nitro clutch, in-game cash, drivetrain. Gilles focussed on chewing his food. Gulped his wine. Retreated into hibernation deep within his brain cave. 

Maybe he’s depressed, she thinks. Maybe it’s the pandemic. Oddly, the pandemic has hardly altered her existence. She doesn’t miss large family or social gatherings because they haven’t been a part of her life for years. Isolation feels like home. Her nuclear family. Her island existence.

After supper last night, she watered her plants which have become lush and jungle-like over the past three years. They overflow their pots and lean into the sun. Gilles’s suppertime silence had grated on her, but as she cleared away dead foliage and loosened tangles, her irritation also loosened. Her plants demanded so little of her. 

Which of these is the husband? El esposo BING DONG Excellent!

Linda walked out on her first husband after only nine months of marriage. An old hockey injury left him with a jaw that clicked. When he chewed his food he sounded like a starving, hiccuping beast. He refused jaw surgery and elected to live with the misalignment, ignoring the clicks. Often, at the crest of a yawn, his jaw locked, painfully out of joint, forcing him to manually realign his face. Linda’s first husband did not communicate with words but with clicks and grunts, groans, sniffles, sighs, stormy exhales.

Linda knew that Gilles was a keeper the first time she saw him naked. It wasn’t the sex. Sex was tame—awkward even. No, it was the folds in his skin that sealed their future together. Gilles and two of his army friends had participated in an extreme weight-loss challenge and he’d shed seventy-five pounds in less than six months. Excess skin draped like molten layers with a texture of something shivering. When he removed his shirt, the acoustics of the room shifted. He became shy, he cradled his core, and Linda felt lighthearted and dreamy. Somehow she knew that it was these particular folds that gave Gilles the ability to ward off her particular chaos. She leans over and kisses Gilles’s cheek, shuts her iPad and places her hand on his lap. He cups his hand over hers.

“Giving up on your leaderboard?”

“Pacing myself.”

Gilles feels himself relax. Just like that. All Linda has to do is touch him like that. She can be so callous, closed, cold. She can say something like, Oh Gilles, you are such a prude, you are eroding my very soul, who cares Gilles, gawd, why are you so rigid? and it upsets him, and most times makes him spiral into his own hell in which he considers his bulging stomach. His belt at this moment cuts into him as his stomach piles over it. The belt and his jeans will indent a track across his skin that will be numb and itchy when he removes his clothes tonight, quietly, so as not to disturb Linda. She will be sleeping soundly, having taken anti-inflammatories for the back pain that will have set in after eight hours in a car with such a gremlin-like posture. He will try his best not to disturb her, but will secretly hope, as he hopes every night, that she will wake and reach an arm over to his side of the bed, and that this reaching arm will lead to slow, hushed sex, and intense eye contact that ends in naked spooning. It’s been so long, and his stomach–excessive traveling in the last two years has derailed his workout routine and he’s heavier than ever, but all she has to do is touch him like that. It’s like a reset. Linda removes her hand from his lap and opens her iPad.

“Ninth place!” she shrieks. “This week’s leaderboard is wolfish!”

Gilles will never forget the conversation they had on their very first date. It was in Edmonton. Linda explained that a red flag for her was an inability to articulate emotion. Gilles thought he would faint with happiness; he was a sentimentalist. A few weeks following their first date, something locked into place when they saw each other at a Mexican eatery. They hadn’t planned to meet that day. He had not expected to see her, but had been thinking of her constantly since the Sunday prior when they’d had sex for the first time. He had been thinking about her solid body, her broad shoulders, the folksy shape of her un-manicured fingernails. She had been astonishingly alert and attentive during sex. All he wanted was to be near her, to sink his teeth into her, gentle bites. When she appeared in the Mexican eatery where he was having lunch with his boss, Major Lake, and his boss’s boss, Colonel Haire, he thought his mind had conjured her. She was alone and wearing plum-coloured corduroy pants. Surprised to see him, she waved, bouncy as she approached his table. Gilles rose to greet her and when she neared him, she did an awkward kung-fu kick. There was no contact (it was an air kick), but yet, he ducked his head playfully, held his fists below his chin. A back and forth of jerky sparring between them and he was overcome with animated feelings. He did not introduce her to Major Lake and Colonel Haire because he forgot they were there. He could only think of the way she guarded her face with her fists. That kick. 

A whiff of something vile fills the car. Something off. Like the inside of a plastic container that’s stored pickled things, but even more putrid. A yeasty, sourdough smell. Roadkill? Linda doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe, was it her? What is going on there? She has often expressed that she can’t help the gas. That it’s all linked to her hormonal journey. Nasty. Truly.  

“Stephen! Gross,” Sophia yells from the backseat. “Put your shoes back on, Stephen.”

Stephen sits with his leg crossed over his thigh, figure four, rancid foot bobbing. 

“Ugh…whatever, Sophia. What—ever.”

“Like…” Sophia scooches away from him in the backseat. “They smell like fish. Ugh. I’m gonna puke.” 

“I’m gonna puke,” Stephen mocks. “Unbelievable.” He opens his window and the inside of the car is blasted with wind as squares of paper flit like a frenzy of winged insects.

“MY ORIGAMI! STEPHEN! CLOSE THE WINDOW!” Sophia screams. “STEPHEN!”

“STEPHEN, CLOSE THE WINDOW! NOW!” Gilles yells over the wind, glaring into the rearview. “LINDA? COULD YOU HANDLE THIS PLEASE?” 

Linda doesn’t look up from her iPad. 

Stephen closes the window. Silence.

BING DONG

“I have two minutes left,” Linda says.

“I am driving.”

“Not a crisis, Gilles. Not a crisis,” she says, tapping her iPad. 

It is beyond irritating to Gilles when she does this. Her inner charge nurse capability. You haven’t been a nurse in over a decade, he wants to yell. You are an expired nurse. Let it be, Gilles, she’ll say. Not a crisis, Gilles, and it irks him, and there she is, look at her, calm, collected, but sometimes, you know what? She’s lazy. She is lazy. I could be calm, he thinks, and chill. I could be calm and chill if my only priority was beating out this week’s Duolingo diamond league.

This week, for example, on top of his normal workload, he completed the Complex Project and Procurement Leadership: Soft Systems Methodology—a course required for his promotion. Awake until after 2 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, answering time-sensitive emails about the Maritime Patrol project for sonars and sonobuoys. And what’s her priority? Scoring experience points on Duolingo. He grinds his teeth.

“Stephen, Sophia,” he says now, masking irritation with incisiveness. “I want you to start looking at extracurricular activities in Colorado Springs.”  

“No thank you,” Sophia says sweetly.

“Seriously?” Stephen says. “You don’t want to move to Colorado? After two weeks there, your body will have more red blood cells because of the altitude. Did you know that?”

“I don’t want to leave my friends,” Sophia says. “I have friends, Stephen.”

“I have friends,” Stephen says.

“No you don’t.”

“I do.”

“Nope.”

“I have friends, Sophia,” Stephen says, annoyed. “Logan.” He pauses. “Philip is a good friend.”

“Logan?” Sophia folds a square of star-patterned paper. “Logan didn’t even invite you to his Laser Tag birthday party, and Phil is a ghost. He is never even in school.”

“His parents only let him invite six people,” Stephen says. “Whatever, Sophia.” He cycles a row of his Rubik’s Cube. “Your five hundred BFFs will forget you in two seconds. They will move on. You’ll see.” 

Translate this sentence Linda, why do you feel sad? ¿Linda por qué te sientes triste? BING DONG Nicely done!

The Duolingo bear cartoon character has a unibrow and a blue scarf and is unflinching in this section on emotions. Linda would like to joke about this with Gilles, but can sense that he is in a mood. This is how it would go down: Look at this, hon, Duolingo is asking me why I feel sad. And Gilles would say, Hmm, capping the conversation. Utter killjoy.

Does she feel sad? Her York Street neighbours had that song, Are you sad little bee? Are you sad? What a foggy, whimsical year that was in Newfoundland. The kids were babies, Gilles was in Alaska. Her friendship with Erin was the most nurturing thing. There had been a reckless sort of abandon between them. Erin’s generosity was bottomless. She kept a bag of stuff from the dollar store in a cupboard over her dishwasher and they made Wikki Stix glasses, and little dragonflies and finger puppets. Erin would pick up her guitar and sing about monsters or milk moustaches. She was everything Linda could have wished for in a friend. Linda was sick with sadness when it came time to pack up and leave. She didn’t want to meet new people. She didn’t want to invest in new friendships. After a few months in Winnipeg, Carrie and Marty came along, and although it wasn’t the same kind of kindred, it was cozy and fun in that underground wine bar. She didn’t sink in though. Why set yourself up for future sorrow? Which reminds her, she has to confirm Carrie and Marty’s new mailing address for Christmas cards. They were posted last summer. Marty had shared a picture of their Yucca tree on Instagram, wilted after four days inside a moving truck. 

“Shit!” Gilles yells, leaning into the steering wheel as a glossy animal bounces off the windshield. They swerve to the right. The front of the car lightens when the tires hit loose gravel. Gilles wrestles with the wheel as the car slides.

It isn’t an animal but a black garbage bag, and it doesn’t come apart right away, but volleys off the windshield and flies over the top of their car, catching on the railing of the roof rack where it tears open. Gilles gets the car back on the road as garbage spews past the backseat windows and the rear windshield. Cans, cardboard, paper coffee cups, a flourish of nondescript detritus in their wake as if the car is blasting out of a dumpster. A flier sticks to Stephen’s window, flapping: Reliable Heating and Cooling Ltd., Almonte. 

Gilles’s posture is upright, rigid, an exaggerated straightness, his two hands cemented on the wheel as they decelerate. A crackling hiss as the empty bag, still hanging on to the roof rack, flaps in the wind like a mainsail.

“Jesus!” he says. “Fuck me.”

“Whoa.” Linda touches his arm as she hands him her water bottle. “Language, love,” she hushes. 

Gilles glares at her. The iPad is open on her lap.

“I thought it was a bear,” Stephen says from the backseat.

Linda turns to the kids. “Everyone OK?”

“ANOTHER ONE!” Sophia points and shouts, her eyes bulging.

A second bag of garbage flies out of the pickup truck that is well ahead of them now. The bag rolls and bounces in the wind, then flies off the road. Bumbling into the trees, it splits and scatters pieces of styrofoam in a climactic smithereen pomp, tiny white specks swirling in the wind and dispersing like ricochets. 

Gilles slows the car again. Breathes deeply.

“Want me to drive?”

“No. I just need a minute.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Linda checks her leaderboard. The time has elapsed. She made it! Barely. Duo the owl is lying down, exhausted, zzz’s floating. Congratulations Linda, you finished in ninth place in the Diamond league. Complete a lesson to join a new leaderboard. 

Excited to see what the next league will be, she starts a new lesson in the section on routine.

Write this in English Quiero ir al cine con mis amigos. I want to go to the movies with my friends.  BING DONG Nicely done!

She finishes the lesson. On her new leaderboard there’s Mimi6, DarkeK, Anne Cobs, Livio, Jean42Caro, FMonahan. HoboLu has a photo of lily pads for their profile picture. But wait! It’s still the diamond league.

Linda refreshes her page. Diamond league.

“I didn’t advance,” she says in a panic. “I’m still in the diamond league.” 

“Something wrong with the app? Can you report it?” Gilles says, his face still pale.

Linda Googles—Duolingo after diamond league–after reaching diamond league: duolingo–Reddit—Gamifying the gamification of the language game—no more promotion zone after diamond league—ladder of leagues reach the diamond league in Duolingo—

“The diamond league is the highest level,” she says, deflated. “No more promotion after the diamond league. Only demotion.”

Gilles pats her leg. “Look at you! Duolingo Diamond Leaguer!”

“It’s disappointing,” she says as she tucks the iPad into the glove compartment.

“We’ll get through this.” He smiles at her.

“Don’t mock me. I like my Duolingo world, seeing progress, making gains.”

“Why don’t you Google some schools in Colorado Springs?” 

She stares out the window, ignoring him. 

“I thought you were happy about Colorado.”

“I am…but I don’t know. Another move. Such a brain drain.”

“What’s going on, love? And anyway, why are you shopping for coffins…”

“I wasn’t shopping for coffins, Gilles, it just gave me pause,” she says. “I saw coffins at Costco and it gave me pause.” Gilles reaches for her hand now, rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “I just…the idea of another move, packing up our life again…” she says.

They continue in silence as they drive through the outskirts of some remote northern Ontario town. Outside a large truck and trailer dealership, a line of bright yellow dump trucks, about twenty of them, are parked with their dump boxes raised. Linda imagines that the cabs are heads with their bare necks exposed. “Also, I’m going to stop watering my plants. I’m just going to let them die in peace.”

“OK, not peaceful.”

“Well, I don’t want to shove them into a boiling hot moving truck where they’ll bake for seven days in the dark.” “Give them to someone.”

Linda’s eyes linger on the passing trees. They are priggish in the violent wind. Slight and jerky movements, they could be hard plastic. “Who though?” she asks, still staring out the window. “Who would I give my plants to?”

“Sonny the Rooster!” Sophia cries from the backseat. “It’s Sonny! What’s that stuff all around him?”

“He’s boarded up,” Stephen says.

Sonny is a construction zone. Slats of board cordon off the space around the giant rooster and a black garbage bag is wrapped around its wattle, which has been damaged. The pale green styrofoam interior is visible and morsels of styrofoam are scattered among the fruit and nuts of the horn of plenty below the rooster’s clawed feet.  

“Vandals?” Linda says, lowering her window as they approach Sonny. The wind is bitter cold on her face, causing her eyes to water. 

“What are vandals?” Sophia asks.

“It might have been the storm,” Gilles says. “There was a major storm in this region on Wednesday.” He puts the car in park and slumps back in his seat. “What do you want to do?”

“I want us to stand in front of Sonny and smile.”

“Great,” Gilles says. “And don’t worry about the mess, I can blur the background.”

The camera is set up. Gilles uses bricks and pieces of wood that are scattered near the base of the rooster to secure his tripod in the wind. Standing in front of Sonny, the four of them bend their knees a little as they lean into the wind, smiling. Their eyes water, their hair is blown in the same sideways direction, and if one didn’t look too closely, if, during the hectic holiday season, one cast only a passing glance, the natural conclusion would be that this family is  brimming with wishes for a joyous holiday season and a prosperous New Year. 

Sara Mang is a storyteller from Labrador, whose work has appeared in journals across Canada, the US, and the UK. In 2022, she was a finalist for the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award and received a nomination for a National Magazine Award in the fiction category. Her short fiction won The Malahat Review’s 2022 Open Season Award and placed second in The Toronto Star Short Story Contest. Sara currently lives in Ottawa.

Image by Caroline Waters @cwaters21