Tonight is my second night as a temporary Canadian resident. I celebrated by enjoying a bit of my neighborhood, which I will not be moving into ’til Wednesday.

After eating a very large casserole which was described as a “perogi”, and enjoying a loverly-bodied Smithwick’s, (at my next around-the-corner favourite – “The Dickens”, which is a very English-style pub) I decided to take a walk towards the lakeshore and down a few blocks.

This is when the air
began to make me aware
that its bite
‘d turn me neck to ice.

I was forced to don my tuque. But I could have also used a scarf, a full face garment, and a snowmobile suit, four inches thick, please.

I stuck it out, with the tuque and the collar pulled up on my rugged Carhartt, and I did not give in a la Jack London’s “To Build A Fire”. I gritted my teeth and made my way back to my vehicle, feeling victorious and restoring my warmth.

Until I noticed that the read-out on my dashboard came to life and notified me that the temperature was a piddly negative three degrees. Twenty-one eff, or so.

I cursed my somewhat-thinned blood, and nonthickness of skins. Oh, and also the fact that I am a giant pussy; I cursed that too.

Anyways.

I should say that I adore my new neighborhood. I have potential for becoming a Burlington scenester, if such things exist. I look forward to becoming the young bourgeoisie innerterpolator that the off-hours has always expected of me, and the barebones menialissimo workaday dude that my pride has been scared to dream of.

Oh, such things for coming the true!

a watched bridge never bburns .

what is true, is that i am driven by the need to locate and control a certain treasure.

this treasure has been lost to the human race for so long, that no one is remembering it. people may occassionally glimpse the treasure in dreams that they do not recall when they wake up. they are only left with a sense that something has been lost to the glory of civilzations, as they suckle their coffees and toastss.

something is missing, true.

a man by the name of roy once harnassed this treasure. slowly, the treassure overtooked his soul, and ray stephens died too early in a premature death at thirty-six.

here is a picture of roy with the all-powerful treasure, which some say is a portal through which the essence of God is viewed.

others call it a flip-open pocket-sized television.

few know that, shortly after this photograph was taken, roy produced the key to the great space coaster from the top pocket of his overalls, smiled a sort of weary smile to gary gnu, and leapt into the vehicle, with the holy holy treasure, and sped off never to be seen by his friends again.

somehow, gary g-knew that roy’s mind had been overtooked, and his subsequent broadcast was his most well-known, and solemn, burning the first part of his sentence: “everyone, i’m afraid i have some bad g-news…” into everyone’s brains, except for baxter, who would remain confused, and forever tormented by the loss of the coaster.

there is only speculation on where roy may have taken the treasure. there are some who say that he lodged it within a crevasse, in the ceiling of an icy cavern, in the most remotest part of the globe, which means antarctica or svalbard. after leaving the treasure behind, roy would not have long to live. some even saw him in his last days, with a fraught expression on his face, and he was wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt, instead of overhauls, which could only mean that he was unrecoverabble. he would speak to no one in this short time. except that he was leaving clues even while no one was noticing. he drew charts of the sides of elementary schools, and he left laminated notes within the piped frames of swing sets, and possibly even a map.

a map to the treasure, to the portal through which one can see the universe, and all time, and the inner dialogue of all souls, if one can only control themselves enough to control it, oh mercy… oh, i’m having a flashback…

–

whatever you do, don’t look at it! close your eyes, dammit! it’s just like when they opened the lost arc!! don’t look!!!!!

–

oh, i am gasping, and recovering from my flashback.

but anyway.

and so i adventure, first to find the clues of a man named roy.