Tesseracts Seventeen by Colleen Anderson

Author:Colleen Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hades Publications Inc
Published: 2013-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Graffiti Borealis

Lisa Poh

Stepping out into the dark after work, Daniel put his parka hood up, plugged in his earphones, turned up the volume and started walking as quickly as he could. He hurried, almost jogged, through the icy slush on the edge of the pavement, keeping his gaze straight in front. By now, he’d figured out the best routes through the city, the cleanest ones with the fewest disturbances. But still, they were inescapable.

At the traffic junction, he had to stop. Immediately, a luminous gaggle of mermaids slithered almost off the brick wall at the street corner, beckoning with their neon green arms. Over his digital tracks, he heard their tinkling laughter. Against his will, he looked. They squiggled on their spray-painted rock, smiling, suggesting he come closer, only to switch to jeering as he shook his head and turned away.

Just before passing through the tunnel that led home, he braced himself for the seven screaming men. He didn’t want to look at them, but the hyper-realistic scowling faces always drew him to look. Red and bloated, veins bulging, they screamed so hard he could almost feel the hot steam against his right cheek.

He stopped at the bank to make a withdrawal for the coming week. But even inside the safety of the glass-enclosed foyer, the silver alien outside fixed its creepy bug-eyed gaze on him. When he turned around, the alien pointed to its sewn-shut mouth, but beckoned to him urgently as though it had a message.

Daniel rushed out of the bank without a backward glance. He didn’t understand why these graffiti artists, or whatever they called themselves, painted such strange things. Why couldn’t they stick to tagging with letters, or paint happy, pretty things? Sunflowers, cute puppies, even shiny sports cars— he would have no problems with that. But these creatures, they were tormenters that he had to endure in silence. Who would believe him if he said he saw graffiti come to life?

Home in his third-floor flat, Daniel collapsed on his bed and stared up at the bare walls. Moving to Montreal had been a mistake. It had only been two months, but he felt like giving up. Maybe his mother was right. He should quit his dream job, abandon the permanent residency that he’d jumped through hoops for, and go back home to a country full of rules. Rules like the one that called graffiti vandalism, and made it punishable by jail and caning. He hated those rules growing up, but there wasn’t any graffiti. Maybe that was the trade off.

One wintry afternoon, he came across the first piece of graffiti he liked. Half-hidden under the snow-covered spiral staircase of a Portuguese rotisserie that had gone out of business, the rooster peeped out and flapped its wings in a friendly fashion. Someone had taken the trouble to paint it in great detail: it had a tawny head with a scarlet comb, a shiny blue-black body and jaunty tail feathers of red, orange and gold.

Before really realizing it, Daniel had crouched down by the wall to look at it.

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