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Chapter 1

May you live in interesting times –Ancient Chinese curse (purported)

**

David bar Elias looked up from his crossword puzzle when he heard his cat Rosie meow loudly. He smiled when he saw her slowly beginning to stir from her resting spot (a dog-eared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird -3rd edition – price $1.50) on the window still.

‘Prospero’s Books’ was a fixture in the neighbourhood, having been in the same location for nearly half a century. Thirty-three of those years had been under the ownership of David—who had gotten his start working as an assistant to the first owner, coming in three days a week after his high-school classes and stacking bookshelves. It was the first real job he had and in a way, he never really left the place.

David’s bookstore was very much like every other used bookstore in existence– a complicated and claustrophobic maze of bookshelves that not only occupied three dimensions but in a few forgotten dark and dusty corners may have even occupied four dimensions. It certainly gave the illusion of being much bigger inside than outside – so much so that David could always tell who were the new customers just by the way they had that ‘Hey-wait—hang on—something’s not right here…’ look on their faces when they walked in.

Of course—it’s been some time since I’ve had a new customer thought David ruefully…

The books on the wallshelves were meticulous categorized but the middle parts of the bookstore had a series of tables and desks laid out haphazardly. The books on those areas were what David cheerfully called the ‘Grab-bag Category’ (translation—“Stuff I found in the boxes in the basement that I’m too much of a lazy procrastinating sod to bother sorting so I’m just dumping them on the tables”).

‘Grab-bag’ sounded so much better –David’s brother Jon (the one in advertising) suggested it.

Rosie stretched herself and then jumped onto the floor and took up a position directly in front of the doorway and glared at the entrance for a full two minutes.

Her daily duties as the duly designated bookstore guard cat now accomplished, Rosie was feeling rather exhausted from her ordeal and, after about three tries, managed to jump onto one of the larger Grab-Bag tables.

David noticed that the five or so regulars in the store were staring intently at Rosie. Of course they are, thought David, there’s money riding on this….

Rosie plodded along the entire length of the table, staring intently at each book. She glanced briefly at The Paris Hilton Prison Diary and turned up her nose at it (That’s my girl! thought David, wiping away a small tear from his eye), jumped over The Hunt for Red October (Special 15th Anniversary Edition), gave a moment’s contemplation at Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine, debated for a brief moment on Being and Nothingness, flicked her tail over Paradise Lost, nearly lost her footing on From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life and then—stopped. Finally making her decision, she lay down on top of Bully for Brontosaurus, curled up into a ball and fell asleep.

One of the customers turned to the other, a grin expanding on his face. “You owe me a dollar, man! Told ya she’ll go for the Gould books”. The other man dug into his pocket and, grumbling, started counting out some change.

“I thought for sure she would pick the Sartre book!”

“Sartre? God—Sartre is, like, so 1960’s!”

The bell over the door rang and David noticed the delivery boy from the corner deli at the entrance. He was holding a large bag. David broke into a smile.

“Ah—my lunch! Over here!”

A few minutes later David was happily munching on his repast- smoked meat sandwich (lean—extra mustard), fries and a cherry coke. Brushing some crumbs out of his beard, David leaned back in his chair. The bright late morning sunshine was casting long shadows into the store and a cool breeze was starting to blow through the open doorway.

It’s going to be a good day, thought David.

**

Dr. Charles Leon Caesius glanced up from his lecture notes and looked at his students.

“I’m sorry—I lost my train of thought—what was I talking about?”

There were a dozen students in the classroom –all summer exchange students of assorted Middle-Eastern nationalities trying desperately to make up some extra credits by taking some courses. A bearded man in his late 30’s in the front raised his hand.

“Armenian genocide, sir”.

“Ah—yes—thank you, Behrouz. The Turkish government and a number of scholars - including Bernard Lewis and my old boss, Steven Katz, director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University, and author of the Holocaust in Historical Perspective- claim that it was not a genocide but an unfortunate massacre. The Turkish government makes the following claims about the event.”

Dr. Caesius started ticking off the points on the fingers of his right hand.

“One- the event happened initially under the Ottomans until 1908 and subsequently under the rule of the Young Turks and the Committee for Union and Progress-the CUP for short- which governed until 1918 when it was abolished and succeeded by the current Turkish government, officially founded in 1923; therefore, the current government bears no responsibility for it. Two-the Armenians of Western Anatolia and Istanbul were not deported or massacred; therefore, the intent of the CUP was never a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the entire Armenian race, merely to “relocate” them; Three-

the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia were a “Fifth Column” in the employ of the Russians and other Great Powers intent upon carving up the Ottoman Empire, and therefore the military actions against the Armenians must be viewed in the light of the state of war against them and other military threats against the Ottomans; and lastly-most of the actual massacres were committed by the Armenians’ Kurdish neighbours, not the Ottomans or Ottoman citizens of Turkish ethnicity.”

“Now obviously these points are contested by many of my colleagues. My colleague Dr. Piccone, for example, is vehemently against the suggestions that it was not a genocide and has gone on record of going so far as to call the current Turkish government ‘Appeasers of Genocide’ and—“

The alarm on his wrist went off. Dr. Caesius gave it a quick glance.

“Ok—class dismissed! Now remember that Thursday is the last date to hand in your assignment. I will be in my office tomorrow but not Friday so please don’t be late.“

A few moments later, Dr. Caesius was walking across Livingston Campus. Livingston campus was located in the middle of an ecological preserve and occasionally one would get to see ducks, beavers and even the occasional deer poking around the campus. Fortunately the pleasant sunny weather seemed to be convincing most of the critters to do the animal equivalent of kicking back in a nice comfortable chair and drinking a couple of beers, so today it was quiet.

Well—most of the animals were quiet. Charles noted with some annoyance that the damn

cicadas were out in force today. Again.

Charles wasn’t a violent man by any stretch of the imagination but after a few weeks of listening to the damn insects the phrase Wipe them out-All of them started sounding like a pretty damn good idea.

Getting into his dark and comfortable and above all quiet office was a joy.

Charles leaned back in his chair and turned on his computer. A few moments updating my lesson plan and I’m out of here thought Charles.

He had gotten as far as typing the word ‘The-’ when Charles felt two very warm and feminine hands clamp over his eyes. Charles leaned his head back. He felt the hands leave his face and he looked up into the face of Janice. Her long black hair was spilling over her face and covering up Charles’ own black hair. She was grinning evilly.

“So—working hard? Does my super-smart and good looking and handsome ex- teacher need a bit of….relaxation?”

Charles grinned. “Why—now that you mention it—I do seem to be under a lot of stress at the moment.”

“Oh—my poor baby! And I notice that there seems to be some unnatural looking swelling going on here” she said, patting his groin.

“Perhaps we should have a nurse look at it?”, Charles said, leering. “Hey—isn’t your roommate a nurse –“

Janice suddenly pouted. “Yeesh! You and your damn threesome fantasies! Get up and get over here to the couch before I change my mind—“

A few minutes later Charles was in the arms of Janice and having a very nice time.

This is turning out to be a really good day, thought Charles, still grinning.

**

“Reservation number please, sir”

The tall balding man handed over his documents and leaned back, his fingers tapping idly on the countertop as the Air France service rep ran his information through the system.

“Ah-yes! Mr. David Wostyn. Flight AF110 non-stop from Paris to Shanghai. Flight time is 10 hours and 55 minutes. You should be arriving in Shanghai at about 4 am Paris time. Pre-Boarding will occur in just about one hour from now. Thank you for flying Air France, Mr. Wostyn.“

“Thank you”

David wandered off to the lounge to grab himself a cup of coffee and try to relax. He hated flying and he wasn’t looking forward to being cooped up for so long.

On the other hand—he was fulfilling a life-long dream, so he was willing to make allowances for the discomfort.

He glanced up at the TV monitor. CNN was running yet another piece on the upcoming experiment at the CERN facility. After months of delay, the Large Hadron Collider was finally going to go online. The usual gang of talking heads (David could never keep their names straight) were on. A pretty blonde woman was speaking:

“Within 10 hours the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be switched on. The Large Hadron Collider promises to recreate the conditions right after the Big Bang. By revisiting the beginning of time, scientists hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our Universe.

Within these first few moments the building blocks of the Universe were created. The search for these fundamental particles has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the Universe that it has been dubbed the ‘God’ particle. It explains how fundamental particles acquire mass, or as one scientist plainly states: "It is what makes stuff stuff..."

“However-“ said another talking head, an excitable young guy with perfect teeth (and much to David’s annoyance) perfect hair, “-many inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even our entire Universe. These disasters range from the creation of a stable black hole to the creation of so-called strange matter, to name only two possible scenarios. With us to counter those claims is CERN scientist Dr. Macfarlane”

The camera switched to show an older and somewhat overweight man with receding white hair. He had that strange beard that some men liked to wear that consisted of a line of hair along the jaw line but with no accompanying mustache. A chin curtain I think it’s called thought David. Apparently it was suppose to make you look “distinguished” but to David it always seemed to him to bring up “troll” imagery.

Dr. Macfarlane seemed to be having a bad day.

“Now Doctor about these allegations that—“

“Oh for pity’s sake—Look! We are well aware of these concerns—so aware that five years ago we commissioned a report. The report concluded and I quote, ‘We find no basis for any conceivable threat.’ Even if by some fantastic set of circumstances a black hole is somehow created, they will evaporate almost immediately. Those doomsday people have no idea what they’re talking about! The strongest argument for the safety of colliders such as the LHC comes from the simple fact that cosmic rays of much higher energies than the LHC can possibly produce have been bombarding the Earth, Moon and other objects in the solar system for thousands of millions of years with none of the effects that they describe. Let me state once again for the record: the LHC is 100% perfectly and completely harmless.”

“But doctor—what about the warnings of Professor Bob Jaffe, director of the Centre for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? He is on record stating, ‘There have been fears that strange matter could alter the structure of anything nearby. The risk is exceedingly small but the probability of something unusual happening is not zero.’ What is your response to that, Doctor?”

David stopped paying attention to the interview. This was the—what?—eighth time that CERN had brought in some guy to defend their experiment. It was getting rather tedious –all the more so in that the arguments invariably degenerated into the usual “You’re stupid—No, you’re stupid!” arguments.

David really couldn’t be bothered. He was finally going to visit China after god knows how many years of trying. Everytime he had tried before, something—family death, health problems, financial difficulties, whatever- had always come up. But now—everything had fallen into place with nary a problem.

David sighed wistfully. A whole month and half in China. His friends used to make jokes about his Sinophile - that he was the product of some wayward soul accidentally reincarnated in France. David—never a religious man—actually rather liked that idea.

In any case—in just one hour he was going to be fulfilling his dream.

This is turning out to be a good day, thought David

**

“Daddy!”

Sion Davies –age 8 and ¾ - ran into the den and jumped on the couch where his daddy was sleeping.

“Daddy! It’s Tuesday morning! You said that if I did all my chores you’ll show me how to shoot a rifle today! You promised! Wake up daddy!”

There were very faint sounds of life from daddy as he stirred.

“This is going to be so great! We’re going to go hunting and then you’ll show me how to shoot and then we’ll go do some camping and then I’ll get to tell all the kids at school and then-“

“Junior”

“—after I do all my chores next week we’ll go for another lesson and this time we can go hunt for rabbits and then if I get more practice on it we can then –“

“Junior”

“--go hunt deer and I promise daddy that I’ll be really really really extra special careful when holding the gun and then we—“

“Junior!”

“Yes Dad?”

“Can you move your knee please? It’s sitting on my – uh—on a very sensitive spot of daddy’s body”

“Oh—ok!” said Sion, nimbly jumping off the couch.

“So—are we going to go? Huh? Are we? Are we? Are we gonna? You promised that—“

Sion’s dad patted him on the head, smiling, as he got off the couch.

“Yes we are. But first daddy is going to have to get some—“

“Honey!” said Mommy’s voice from the kitchen “Coffee’s ready.”

Sion walked into the kitchen with daddy to see Mommy sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee. Sion saw Daddy and Mommy smooching as she handed him his cup.

“Oh ick!” said Sion, making gagging gestures with his hands. Rather than stop, this seemed to make daddy and mommy smooch even more. After a few minutes, they—finally—stopped.

“Honey—I’m going to be taking junior to –“

“—show him how to properly use a rifle. I know—it’s about time you did that.”

Daddy rolled his eyes a bit but was still smiling “Now all I have to do is make –“

“—sandwiches are in the fridge along with some fruit juice and water for junior and a thermos of coffee for you.”

“Ah—did I ever tell you you’re the best?”

“It’s been a whole 36 hours since you last said that—you’ve been slacking off, dear! Now move your butt!” said Mommy, slapping Daddy on his behind. Sion noticed that mommy seemed to be pitching daddy’s behind for a few seconds before turning around and walking off into the living room.

His ponytail swinging behind him, daddy grabbed the bag of food and drinks and walked towards the gun cabinet that he always kept locked and pulled out two rifles. From another cabinet and using a different key, he pulled out a box of ammo and put it into his pocket. He then pulled out several safety googles, protective headphones and a stack of paper targets.

Daddy stuffed the food and drinks and the other stuff into a knapsack and gave it to Sion to carry. Swinging the rifles over his shoulders, he and Sion walked out into the bright sunshine.

Sion took a deep breath like he always did when he walked out, letting the smells of the woods around the house wash over him. By closing his eyes, he could almost hear all the sounds of the insects and the birds and the animals.

It was all Sion could do to keep from jumping up and down.

Today is going to be a great day! thought Sion

**

Philippe Laroche ran down the stairs two at a time and managed to make it into the subway car mere seconds before the doors closed. Breathing heavily, Philippe collapsed into a chair and tried to catch his breath.

That was a close call thought Philippe. If I missed this one I would have been totally screwed. As it is—he glanced at his watch –I’ll still be cutting it pretty close. Hopefully Jean-Pierre will be taking his usual noon cigarette break by the time I’ll come in.

Philippe leaned back in his chair, smiling.

Today was going to be a really busy day—but, oh so productive. Ok—so he has to do his stupid 5 hours at the crappy McJob. But Fréderic was –finally—going to pay him that 100 bucks he’s been promising him. Fréderic felt bad about making Philippe wait for so long for the money so he was throwing in a dimebag from his brother’s stash. And not that crappy Toronto skunkweed he tried to palm off last time—this was the good shit—the stuff from B.C.

And best of all? He managed to get himself invited to that party at Matthew’s house tonight—and Natalie from his Sociology of Sexuality class from last semester was going to be showing up. And if the rumours in the grapevine were true—Natalie not only found him ‘cute’ but ‘very cute’.

Philippe leaned back into his chair some more and rested his feet on the chair in front of him.

**

James Taylor rolled out of bed and fell face down onto the floor. It took a few seconds before consciousness streamed into his brain. When it finally did, James groaned and staggered up to his feet.

Walking through the apartment wearing nothing except a dirty and faded yellow t-shirt and a pair of equally dirty boxers that still retained faint vestiges of fluorescent letters that spelled out ‘Please! Please! Please!’ in sunlight and ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’ in the dark, he staggered towards the kitchen, knocking over an empty bottle of beer that was lying in the hallway. The bottle bounced off the walls several times before coming to a rest against the front door—where it lay there next to a stack of newspapers.

James stopped at the living room table and glanced down at the coffee mugs and piles of letters on it.

Picking up one coffee mug, emblazoned with a cartoon of an unshaven duck stomping on an alarm clock with the caption ‘I don’t do mornings!’, James sniffed it dubiously. Shrugging his shoulders, he drank the remnants of the coffee-like substance that was in it and continued his way to the kitchen, knocking over the stack of envelopes with his elbow in the process. A cascade of letters—all marked with large red stamps that read ‘Notice’, ‘Second Notice’, ‘Final Notice’ and ‘Legal Action’ – fell to the floor and lay there among all the dirt and dust.

Opening the door to the fridge, James peered in.

Hmmmm….a half-bottle of milk – James sniffed it and pulled his face away – make that a half-bottle of cottage cheese…a bottle of ketchup…6 slices of -more or less- fresh bologna… a bag of bread containing three slices of brown toast…Wait a minute—the label on the bag says that this bread is white bread…a chunk of cheese…Hey! What’s this Tupperware container? It looks like it’s filled with…salad?…James peered at the label on it….Meatloaf?!...June 200…7?!....what else?.....let’s see….Ah! There it is! 3 bottles of beer!

Cracking open a bottle, James walked towards his computer and turned it on. He chugged a gulp of beer and stared at the screen.

The blank…empty….white screen.

James rested his forehead against the keyboard, letting out a small moan.

James leaned back and gulped the rest of the beer and pulled out a cigarette from a crumpled pack lying near the computer and lit it.

And then…

Like a drowning man who spots a small chunk of driftwood and lunges at it in desperation, deep in the back of his mind a germ of an idea flared up for a brief moment and James seized it with both hands and pulled it into the light….

James started typing, his fingers a blur on the keyboard as the ideas just flowed and flowed out of him like a torrent.

**

Tuesday Aug 19, 2008 - Lago Piratuba Nature Reserve – near Macapá, Brazil

Victor Ayzenberg slapped his forearm, killing yet another of the apparently giant mosquitoes that seemed to make their home here. Despite using an entire can of insect repellent, the insects seem to be seeing him as the largest bowl of borshch in the world and were –apparently- calling in all of their friends and relatives in the forest so that they won’t miss the feast.

It was also hot and humid and Victor was fairly certain that a rock had slipped into his boot. Plus he had not done this much hiking in…well, never…and various muscles that he didn’t even know he had were currently lodging some very loud complaints.

By all rights he should be the most miserable son of the bitch on earth.

Instead—despite all the hassles—Victor was happy. No—not happy—ecstatic.

The reason for this state of ecstasy came up behind him and gave him a rather long fondle on his butt.

“Hmmm….I do believe that all this exercise is making your ass more sexy than before, if that was even possible” purred Shantala, brushing a lock of red hair away from her eyes as she walked past him. She blew him a little kiss and continued forward, leaving Victor behind---and giving Victor an excellent view of Shantala’s ass as she hiked ahead of him.

Oh yeah—this was definitely a good idea….

Victor twirled the ring on his left hand, still trying to get used to the feeling of its weight.

A joke he heard somewhere floated to the surface of his mind.

Victor smiled and shook his head. If this is prison, then it’s a pretty damn good one and I’m not leaving. Ever.

Victor noticed that the half dozen or so other hikers kept giving him funny looks.

No giggling for a full—he looked at his watch—60 seconds. Very good!

An errant thought suddenly showed up in Victor’s mind—last night, when he and Shantala were in bed and she ran off to the bathroom to ‘surprise him’ with something and then came out a few minutes later in a nurse’s uniform and crotchless lingerie underneath and then she…

“Oh stop that already!” yelled a fellow hiker—Australian by the sound of his accent. The Aussie passed by him, turning around every now and then and giving him dirty looks.

“Sorry” said Victor, still smiling—and giggling.

This is a really good day! thought Victor as he hiked forward.

**

Lucien Robichaud opened up his gummed up eyes and cringed in pain at the bright sunlight.

He was sitting in a chair. On a porch. Surrounded by empty beer bottles.

Lucien blinked again, trying to shake the fog from his brain.

There is a well established protocol that comes into effect whenever a guy wakes up from an obvious drunken bender and is not entirely sure what has happened the night before. The steps are simple and straight forward and Lucien proceeded to do them now.

Lucien looked down at his limbs and gingerly tested various parts of his body. Aside from a few insect bites he seemed to be uninjured.

Lucien looked around. Yup—he was most certainly sitting in a chair on a porch. A porch attached to a small country cottage. Overlooking a rather nice and quiet lake. Surrounded by lots and lots of woods.

Lucien nodded his head in satisfaction—at least he knew where the hell he was now.

Lucien cleared his mind and thought back to yesterday. Yesterday morning he was in… Toronto…with…Abigail…

Things went as one would expect from that point onwards.

He vaguely remembered her giving the ring back and him angrily chucking it out the car window a few minutes later as he drove off. There was a stop at a bar…no…make that two bars….and then he…

The case of 24 was a bit of a pain to put into the boat but he persevered. He was already on his second beer by the time he reached the dock for his cabin. It was at that point he realized that lugging the case of beer up the narrow pathway to the cabin was going to be difficult. Twelve beers up the path wasn’t a problem. Fifteen was possible. Eighteen was pushing it but doable. Twenty four—ummm—twenty-two now-- beers? Nope. Can’t be done.

Lucien came up with—what he thought at the time—was a brilliant plan.

Drink four more beers while sitting on the dock. He decided to drink five just to be on the safe side—his arm has been giving him some problems lately. It was quite dark by the time he lugged the beers into his cabin.

The cabin was quite nicely furnished for something ‘out in the boondocks’. It was hooked up to the power grid, had running water, electric stove, a telephone and even a TV and DVD player.

Nothing like ‘roughing it’…

It also had a rather well stocked liquor cabinet and Lucien proceeded to do his best to make a dent in its supplies.

He wasn’t sure if he started drinking the tequila before or after he decided to go ‘hang out’ on the porch….

Lucien nodded his head.

As for his ‘sweet deal of a job’ as the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development –well, he was the dude in charge of all the federal programs that involved paying out money—everything from student loans to unemployment benefits to homeless shelters and everything in between. On paper, this meant that he should have been everyone’s best friend. In reality—half the country was convinced that he was paying out too much money and the other half was convinced that he wasn’t paying out enough. Despite the fact that he was the guy who was just managing the whole mess rather than deciding who actually gets what, whenever something screwed up take a wild guess who got the blame? In the last 30 years only one Minister lasted more than four years in the job—and most of the others have barely survived one year.

It would be six months this September that he had the job.

There was something else….some other thought that was trying very hard to get Lucien’s attention…something about today’s date…

Lucien eyes widened—and then, like a balloon deflating, he groaned and buried his head in his hands.

Lucien got to his feet, swaying unsteadily.

Lucien staggered back into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind.

~~

On to Chapter 2

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