Featured Writer Lorna Crozier
The Midnight News
Everywhere and nowhere an old rain is falling. It stinks of mud from the trenches and animals in too-close quarters in the ark.
A small war hasn’t ended.
The second greatest story ever told was told, and you missed it.
Scientists in Belgium confirm there’s no kindness left in the world. One hundred percent of people won’t stop to assist a fallen man crying out for help. Dogs, even golden retrievers, won’t turn toward him or tug on their leashes as they walk past.
In Salzburg the newborn babies are covered in horse blood.
Bicycles have stopped. They’ve turned into exercise bikes, some with small computers attached to the handlebars to clock the distance the rider isn’t travelling. Tour de France officials are working through the night to change the rules of the race, which begins next week. Commuters, bound for work, are spinning in their driveways; children are stuck in the schoolyards, pedalling for all they’re worth. In a statement released today, the Mayor of London claims this started as a curse on couriers in rush-hour traffic. He warns the phenomenon could shut his city down.
Greenland reports that the ice that hasn’t melted is turning black.
The ghosts of larks baked in pies in Paris are batting into the heads of sleepers. Insomnia is plaguing the city.
On the universal clock, seven years have passed. All the cells in your body have just died.
Cockroaches mate for life.
There’s too much sadness in inner-city rooms even if there’s a small balcony for a barbecue.
Here’s what’s up next. We’ll go to Jerusalem, where a suicide bomber has turned herself over to the authorities. She is nine months pregnant, they are afraid to touch her, she stands at the end of everything, it could be ashes falling around her, it could be snow.
About the writer:
An Officer of the Order of Canada, Lorna Crozier has been acknowledged for her contributions to Canadian literature, her teaching and her mentoring with five honourary doctorates, most recently from McGill and Simon Fraser Universities. Her books have received numerous national awards, including the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. The Globe and Mail declared The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things one of its Top 100 Books of the Year, and Amazon chose her memoir as one of the 100 books you should read in your lifetime. A Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria, she has performed for Queen Elizabeth II and has read her poetry, which has been translated into several languages, on every continent except Antarctica. Her latest books are The Wrong Cat and The Wild in You, a collaboration with photographer Ian McAllister. She lives on Vancouver Island with writer Patrick Lane and two cats who love to garden.
Image: “mIStakE”by Ferrandis Issaev, Spain. Digital image. No technical information specified. No completion date specified. By permission.
