University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 2005 For home--- (Original writing). Daryl Sneath University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Sneath, Daryl, "For home--- (Original writing)." (2005). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2134. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/2134 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). Under this license, works must always be attributed to the copyright holder (original author), cannot be used for any commercial purposes, and may not be altered. Any other use would require the permission of the copyright holder. Students may inquire about withdrawing their dissertation and/or thesis from this database. For additional inquiries, please contact the repository administrator via email ([email protected]) or by telephone at 519-253-3000ext. 3208. For home— by Daryl Sneath A Creative Writing Project Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research through English Language, Literature & Creative Writing in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2005 © 2005 Daryl Sneath Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and everyone who makes it so Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Contents Beaverton 1 Weh guk sahram (Foreigner)— 2 The lumberer— 53 The station master— 72 The piano player— 95 The garbage collector— 134 Fisher— 171 The cottagers— 202 The Apprenticeship of a Short Fiction Writer 246 Vita Auctoris 256 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Beaverton At Beaverton River, on Simcoe Lake shore Post office, two churches, and also six stores, One teacher, one doctor, one lawyer for all One wharf at the harbour, town pound, and town hall, Steam boat and propeller, three schooners that sail, And stages bring passengers, light freight and mail, Shoemakers and bakers, and carpenters build, Bricklayers and painters, enamel and guild, Do turning, and planing, and carding of wool, Do grinding and sawing, they tan and they full, Waggon Makers, and blacksmiths and tailors abound, Coopers and butchers, and farmers all round. In summer it’s lovely to view the road lake, The groves and the islands, and fishes they take. — A.G. Churchill, Poetical Dictionary, 1860 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For home— Sneath 2 Weh guk sahram (Foreigner)— Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For home— Sneath 3 She folded and tucked the hand-drawn map of the route from Beaverton to Pearson International into the inside pocket of the fall jacket he was wearing, and then drew the zipper to the top. ‘Just in case,’ she said. And he smiled. It was a standing joke between them. Next, she handed him the prescription sunglasses and told him to make sure he wore them because the sun was not what it used to be. Then she squeezed the skin cream into her hands and reached up to his nose with it and his cheeks and his ears and told him to rub it in. Closing his eyes, he circled his palms on his face and the lotion disappeared, all except for the slivers of white which remained thin along the line of greying hair by his temples on either side. Like the autumn whitecaps that have now begun rolling in and lining the shore with foam, as though the fall wind were somehow rinsing the lake of summer. ‘Young ha say yo,’ he said and bowed, which was supposed to mean ‘How are you?’ in Korean. Literally, ‘Are you in peace?’ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For home— Sneath 4 She placed the tweed cap on his head while he was forward, and wiped away the remaining lines of lotion with a finger. ‘Is that a custom?’ he said. ‘Should I wait for him to put a hat on me and touch my face?’ She rubbed the residual lotion into her own hands and swatted him softly on the shoulder. Still bowing, he took her hand and kissed it. The fresh clean smell of aloe and the unchanging softness of her skin. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils. ‘God bless the senses,’ he said. She smiled, faint lines at her eyes and mouth, and tussled her own short hair which also had streaks of grey in it. She never saw the point in makeup or dye, never saw the point in pretending or in making things what they are not. ‘An young hasayo,’ she said. ‘And remember you’re only supposed to say An- young. He’s just a boy. Hasayo is for older people.’ He unzipped the jacket, reached in and took out the folded map and a pen from the inside pocket. ‘Hmn. Beautiful and smart,’ he said. ‘How did I get so blessed?’ With his eyes still on her, he turned his head slightly and grinned. To strangers, his voice might have seemed touched with sarcasm, but beneath the playfulness was his constant sincerity, often joking but never saying anything he didn’t mean. He put the sunglasses on, and said, ‘An, young,’ and wrote it down. With two hands, she held the case for the glasses at her waist, and smiled. Except for the marks of age, he was the mirror image of the teenage boy she had met thirty years ago. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For home— Sneath 5 Never one to join, she had reluctantly signed up for the Global Awareness Club at the urging of her young English teacher whom the students all called Map, short for Mr. Mappins, the club’s founder and supervisor. Map was a new teacher from the city and eager to bring the outside world into the halls and minds of the rural Ontario high school. She took to him instantly. Recognizing her keenness and ability, Map would often give her literature to read that wasn’t on the course, but asking her not to tell anyone about it. She thought the reason for asking her this was that others might get jealous and think he was giving her special treatment. Really, he wanted to make sure no one who might protest the titles of the books would discover where she got them. And although she thought her maturity would prevent her from such typical teenage behaviour, she even found herself coming to have one of those kinds of crushes that high school girls so often get on their young male teachers. Bordered by farms of sheep and cattle and hay, the school was as isolated physically as she was socially. Often alone at lunch in an empty classroom, she sat with her sketchbook writing poems or shading in imagined overseas landscapes of places she’d rather be. Or she sat on the hill behind the track in the months of spring and fall with Map’s copies of Kerouac and Ginsberg, reading lines out loud to herself like under the burden o f solitude, under the burden o f dissatisfaction and the only people for me are the mad ones ...desirous o f everything at the once. The young Charles walked into the club’s inaugural meeting with the same tweed hat he had on now and a pair of large round sunglasses.