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## Postcard Lit

Winners of the 8th Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest

## Spooning

Davey Thompson and Cameron Tully

nobody wanted to take care of the dead guy’s bed but the rest of the staff were all new kids from university mostly just on for the summer what did they know about grief ? he’d been gone three days now Mrs. Nazarenko his wife hadn’t left the suite since they’d wheeled his body out I opened the blinds got into his bed inclined to a forty-five with the remote “can I get you anything?” I shook one of his pill bottles morphine “anything at all? this stuff’s all going back to the pharmacy by the end of the week” she didn’t even let on that she saw me come in I took one of the tabs the clock on the bookshelf chimed eleven times Wheel of Fortune was coming from the suite next door she shifted and Kleenex fell off her comforter like ants being sprayed with a garden hose “back in the heyday he used to love the Oilers” she said “he used to think he could communicate with Grant Fuhr telepathically like the games would come on and he wouldn’t let me say a word to him ‘I have to concentrate’ he’d say ‘Grant needs to know where the puck is at all times’ but the Oilers hardly ever make the playoffs anymore Fuhr retired the kids who drop off my meals don’t even know who Grant Fuhr is and the telepathy well it stopped he said he didn’t feel a psychic connection to the players anymore” she looked at the pill bottle then at me for the first time “maybe I will take one of those after all” “why don’t you crawl in with me?” I said “the sheets still smell like him there’s a hair on the pillow I won’t tell anyone” my chest pressed against her back she had the warmth of a woman who hadn’t been out of bed in days “I should call Grant Fuhr” she said “see if there’s any way just an off chance you know that Grant could talk to him” her heart raced against my forearm she turned her head our faces pressed against each other our lips touched not kissing as though testing the temperature on a sick child’s forehead we held each other for a long time like that I was drifting in and out what the hell I thought I owed it to the guy I’d borrowed two hundred bucks from him a few months back when I told him about my daughter and first wife he carried it to the grave “why don’t you tell me more about him?” I said “lying here in his bed and all I think I’m getting something your husband wasn’t the only telepathic one you know I can’t talk to sports stars just regular folks not that Mr. Nazarenko was just a regular guy but let’s try it” so we lay there spooning I told her anything she wanted to hear that he was thinking of their first kiss moving to Canada small-town Saskatchewan drifts of snow up to the eaves and the ’84 Oilers her breathing slowed heart slowed for a while I thought she might check out too right there in the bed with me but she started snoring her eyes fluttered Gretzky was tipping the puck up to Kurri in the slot a surgeon’s hands gingerly ricocheting it to the back of the net the crowd on its feet foam fingers draft beer sloshing over plastic cups I levelled the bed cleaned up her dishes for a moment we were all in a better place

## The Paper Dress

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Susan Steudel

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Sheila had a paper dress. She took it out to show us. Light pink, just thick enough to block the light. It neatly scraped the hanger, falling flat. How would Sheila wear this dress? Wouldn’t it rip? I didn’t understand the dress. It seemed cut from a single sheet, front and back. A pleat effect: four darts folded into a seam at the waist. Slight perforation. I thought of poppies blowing open, streamers unrolling. Wouldn’t this dress do the same? It would refuse to fall correctly. I imagined going out in it, the risk of it catching in bus doors. Or wearing it on open sidewalks, no awnings. And if it began to rain, how it might feel more shadowlike. More like skin.

## Layover

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Michelle Elrick

A woman sits on a bench outside the Edmonton VIA Rail station. 11:36 p.m. Behind, the train hums and sighs. Service attendants huddle in long blue coats, smoking. Fresh passengers wait inside the station for the boarding call. In the parking lot to the east, a young man runs and skids on hard-packed snow, enticing his German shepherd to play. The dog sniffs the ground and tracks a line toward the lamppost. The seated woman lights a cigarette. Pockets the lighter. From around the corner a second woman approaches. She stops at the bench and looks around, squinting. Turns a full circle and then stops. She gestures to the empty portion of the bench.

—Is anyone sitting here?

The first woman shakes her head, no. The second woman sits down. Fidgets. Time passes. She looks the first woman over. Looks away. Looks back. Finally she speaks.

—Where are you from?

—Seattle. Sea-Tac, actually.

—The airport?

—Yes.

—Oh.

They both look aside.

—Like, you work there?

—No. I’m from there.

—From the airport.

—Yes.

The second woman leans back. Uncrosses her legs. Crosses them the other way.

—Like, in one of the hotels there?

—No. In the terminal. On the bench beside the stairs underneath the glass pyramid.

—Oh.

Pause.

—I didn’t realize that was allowed.

—It’s a loophole they created with overnight layovers.

—Aren’t you coming from Ontario?

—Most recently.

—But you’re American.

The first woman shakes her head, flicks a dry leaf of ash off the end of her cigarette and resumes smoking.

—How long did you actually live at Sea-Tac?

—Just one night.

Pause.

—It was a long night.

—So you’re not actually from there. You just slept there between flights.

—I guess if that’s how you want to see it, yes.

The dog across the parking lot pauses, head raised, and stares intent at some hidden point beyond the realm of light. The station door opens and closes. Luggage wheels begin to roll and scrape across gravel-salted pavement. The second woman speaks again.

—Where are you headed now?

—Abbotsford.

—What’s in Abbotsford?

—That’s where my family lives.

—Is that where you grew up?

—Not really, no.

—Let me guess. You grew up at Vancouver International?

The first woman smiles. She tosses her cigarette into butt-pocked snow covering a concrete planter.

—I’d say I grew up on the Trans-Canada Highway. Though my true adolescence was spent in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.

—What did you do in Beacon Hill Park?

—I slept on a rock next to my puke.

—That’s disgusting.

—I’m just glad it didn’t rain.