Isobel and Emile

Alan Reed

Coach House Books
Toronto

copyright © Alan Reed,
2010

first edition

This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 263 9.

Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Reed, Alan,
1978-
     Isobel and Emile / Alan Reed.

ISBN 978-1-55245-227-1

     I. Title.

PS8635.E35I86 2010           C813'.6           C2010-901663-7

‘How much less than dreams
  are the things we actually do!'

– Paul Poissel

CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Acknowledgements

About the Author

They are sitting.

There are two of them. They are sitting beside each other. They are in a room.

There is a bed in the room. There is a sink. There is a window. There is a door. There are things scattered on the floor and there is an empty bottle under the bed.

They are sitting on the bed. It is a small bed. It has plain white sheets on it. Before they sat on the bed they slept in the bed. They lay together with their arms around each other and their legs together. It was quiet in the room.

They slept.

When they woke up they did not get out of the bed. They stayed the way they had been lying when they were asleep.

They were not wearing clothes. They were naked. They had been naked when they went to bed the night before. It had not troubled them then. It had been dark.

There was light coming in through the window when they woke up. It was early in the morning.

There were specks of dust floating in the light.

They got out of the bed. They did not look at each other. They got out of the bed and they looked for their clothes on the floor.

They had to look for their clothes because they did not know where their clothes were. They knew that they were on the floor. The night before they had taken off their clothes and they had thrown them onto the floor. They did not look where they had thrown them.

They did not care what happened to them then. They wanted them off their bodies. Now they had to look for them.

They found their clothes. They put their clothes on. They looked at each other with their clothes on. They still looked naked. It was their eyes. They were too tender.

They looked at each other and then they looked at themselves standing in the room.

There was nothing else in the room. There were things in the room but they did not matter anymore. They were nothing.

There was nothing else in the room and there was nothing left to do.

They were standing beside the bed. They were wearing their clothes. They did not say anything. There was nothing to say so they did not say anything.

They sat on the bed. There was nothing else to do. They sat beside each other on the small bed with plain white sheets.

It is still quiet in the room. They are sitting beside each other on the bed. It is early in the morning.

They are not sitting on the bed anymore. It is still early in the morning. There is still light coming in through the window.

One of them is standing beside the bed. He says: ‘We should go.'

The other one of them is not standing. She is still sitting on the bed. She does not say anything.

She pulls her hands through her hair. She is trying to make her hair lie the way that it is supposed to. Her hair is not lying the way that it is supposed to.

She pulls on it.

If her hair would lie like it is supposed to then something would be different.

She is sure that something would be different. She makes her hands into fists. She pulls on her hair. Tears come to her eyes. It does not matter. Her hair will not lie like it is supposed to. Her hair does not lie like it is supposed to when she has slept on it.

He says: ‘We should go.' She closes her eyes.

She nods her head.

There is a suitcase by the door. On top of the suitcase there is a knapsack.

He goes over to where the knapsack is on top of the suitcase. He picks the knapsack up. He puts it on his back. She is sitting on the bed. He bends over to pick the suitcase up.

She looks at him standing by the door. He looks like he does not know how to stand with a suitcase in his hand and a knapsack on his back. He holds them awkwardly.

He says: ‘We should go.'He does not say it like he is sure they should go.

She nods her head.

She stands up. She stands in front of the bed for a moment. She pulls at her hair again. It is still not lying like it is supposed to. It does not matter anymore.

He opens the door. She puts her shoes on.

There are stairs on the other side of the door. They are stairs going down.

She goes through the door and she starts to walk down the stairs. The steps are made of wood. Her shoes makes sounds when she steps on them.

After she goes through the door he goes through the door. He closes it behind him. He follows her down the stairs.

In the room they have left there is still light coming in through the window.

There are specks of dust floating in it.

They are outside now. It is brighter here than it was inside. They have to squint their eyes.

They are standing on a street.

It is the main street of a town. There are shops along it. They are not open yet. It is too early in the morning. There is still a chill in the air.

They are going to the train station. They walk down the street and then they turn onto another street. There are no shops on this street. There are row houses built along it. They walk down this street and then they walk out of the town.

Outside the town there are fields. There are fences around the fields. There is nothing left in them. They have been harvested. They are bare now. The light is brighter here. There are no buildings to shade them from it. The light feels like it is pressing down on them.

The train station is here. It is in a field.

The train station looks like a barn. It might have been a barn once but it is not a barn now. Now it is the train station. There is a sign over the door that says that it is the train station.

The train station is painted white. The letters on the sign are painted green.

They walk down the road that leads to the train station. It is getting warmer. They are starting to sweat. They walk and then they are standing in front of the train station.

There is a door that goes into the train station. There is a woman there. She is in a booth. She sells tickets to the people who come into the train station. There are no people in the station to sell tickets to. She is knitting a sweater instead.

They go inside the station.

They go to where the woman is knitting a sweater. He puts his suitcase down. He reaches into his pocket. He takes a piece of paper out. It is a ticket for the train. He shows it to the woman. He asks where he should go to catch the train that is written on the ticket.

The woman there tells him to go to the first platform. She points with her finger. She is sitting on a chair behind a pane of glass. She is very fat.

He picks the suitcase up. They walk to where the woman pointed. There is a door there. It is propped open. On the other side of the door there are the platforms the trains stop at.

There are two platforms. One is for the trains going one way and the other is for the trains going the other way. They go to one of the platforms.

There is a bench on the platform. There is also a bench on the other platform. There is no one sitting on either of the benches. There is no one else here.

It is still early in the morning.

They sit on the bench. They sit so that they are beside each other. They do not say anything. They look at each other and then they look at the bench on the other platform.

There should be something to say. They want there to be something to say.

They cannot think of anything to say.

It scares them.

One of them says: ‘I am hungry.' It is not much of something to say. It is stupid. But it is something.

The other one says: ‘We should get something to eat.'

They stand up. They go inside the station. There is a snack machine there.

When they go inside the station the woman stops knitting. She watches them.

She watches them as they go over to the snack machine. They stand in front of the snack machine. The snack machine makes a humming sound. There is an electrical motor inside it.

They put coins into the snack machine. Gears inside the machine turn. The snack machine gives them snacks.

The woman inside the station is still watching them. They can feel her watching them. They take their snacks and they go back to the platform.

They were the only people on the platform. Now they are not the only people on the platform. There is another person here.

The other person is wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. He is carrying his briefcase in his hand. He has taken the jacket of his suit off. It is getting warmer. He is holding the jacket in his other hand.

The man wearing a suit is not sitting on the bench. He is standing near the edge of the platform.

They sit on the bench. They have their snacks. The snacks are wrapped in brown paper. They take the paper off their snacks. They start to eat their snacks.

The man on the platform does not look at them. They are relieved that he does not look at them. He puts his briefcase down. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket. He wipes his forehead with his handkerchief.