Atlantic Canada Tales by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

.923076

A6

3rd

6th

Fractious, Ferocious, Fantastic, Fanciful Fractional Notes A repeating six-digit decimal appears; wil this be like the 7ths?

Another, very dif erent, repeating, six-digit decimal emerges; odd A sly permutation of String A1 with the same looping sequence Another String A permutation; wil String B be a lone anomaly?

An upshift permutation of String B; no anomaly - it’s game on!

Another String B upshift permutation; we’re suddenly al tied at 3

String B strikes yet gain to take the lead 3-4; this is wacky stuf String B does it yet again; pads their lead over String A (3-5) String A final y breaks String B’s winning streak; the score is 4-5

String A repeats; it’s now al tied-up at 5 with two fractions left String B gets it and goes up 5-6; it’s must-win time for String A String A ral ies; the contest ends in a 6-6 draw; triskaidekaphilia!

Monticia notices a layer of dust on the flat-black, toner-type printer on her bedroom desk. All of these particles were once in the air – the air that I breathe in here. Yuck! Well, add dusting to the to-do list. Can do it while the wash is running.

Where did I leave that spray can?

Her smartphone chirps. Bet that’s him. Yep.

“Whassup, [ sic] dude?” Monticia blurts.

“Greetings, sexy dudette. Yes, sorta similar to the sevenths, but there are not one, but two, repeating six-digit-series alterations. Great analysis. Love it! You knew that would be right in my wheelhouse.” Huh?

“See any patterns?” Monticia queries.

“Yeah, I see a pattern: String B bagged the middle four, second, and second-to-last fractions; there’s a symmetry to this 2-5-6-7-8-11 marching order,” Marvin attests. “And did you notice that the numbers 3 and 6 appear in both strings?”

“Those dastardly double-agents on the sly,” Monticia retorts.

“The positions of no. 3, in fractional order, are 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 5th, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 3rd; the positions of no. 6, in fractional order, are 3rd, 6th, 5th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 5th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th. They, numbers 3 and 6, are always three positions separated. Moreover, the patterns are mirror opposites. Your grand table is seething with symmetry. But, this 13 is an odd number – a most oddly prime number at that, which includes its teenths.” [ sic] Marvin coughs.

“Interesting fact, philo-sly: the sum of the six digits in both String A and String B is 27.” Monticia yawns. Sweet.

“And here’s a not-quite-as-interesting fact, Tish: [Monticia]

the products of the two decimal strings are radically different; String A is zero and String B is 2,880.”

“Ok, here’s a somewhat interesting, though maybe expected, stat, bro: the sum of the six String A variants is 2.999997; the sum of the six String B variants is also exactly 2.999997.

Maybe it’s the price of truncation.”

“So very close to 3. Well, let’s just add .000003. Three for three.” Marvin chuckles.

“Ok, one last stat, which is kind of strange. The sum of the 12 thirteenths’ decimal strings is 5.999994, which we can also arrive at by doubling the just-mentioned 2.999997. But then we need to add 1 for 13/13 – not listed for obvious reasons – to get a sum total of 6.999994. Though, doesn’t it seem like 6.5 – the halfway mark – would be expected? Is 13 being mean to the mean?” [laughing] WTF!

“It’s not really that strange; the sum of the thirteen fractions –

from 1/13 to 13/13 – is 91/13, which is precisely 7.0. Thus, 6.999994 is close enough. And even if we chose to ignore 13/13 , we get a sum of 78/13 , which is precisely 6.0; hence, 5.999994 is close enough for New Brunswick stew.” Marvin clears his throat. And laughs. What?!

“Make mine nagev-vegan,” [ sic] Monticia counters.

And it went on like this up to Friday evening, July 13th. That’s when Monticia’s texts to Marvin began going unreplied.

Marvin would die on the Centennial Bridge in a freak, mysterious-and-never-conclusively-determined accident at 7:13 PM.

Monticia thought about attending the funeral, but got cold feet and took a pass. This would haunt her for years.

It’s another mostly cloudy, brrr-it’s-chilly, many-would-deem-dreary-though-not-Monticia, mid-autumn Friday (November 10th, 2023) morning in Moncton. Monticia recalls portions of her correspondence with Marvin in her fourth-floor office. Did he have a – even if ever so slight – premonition of his untimely death? Any eerie sensation? A vision? A prescient dream the night before? An overlooked omen? A passed-over portent? Or nothing? At all. Merely random chance?

Triskaidekapensive. [sic]

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory



Jill of St. John’s by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | late May 2024

Jill of St. John’s

by Mike Bozart

© 2024 Mike Bozart

Jill is a petite (compared to most Canadian women), 23-year-old, raven-haired Filipina nurse at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital in St. John’s (Newfoundland, Canada). She is from the town of Santander on the southern tip of Cebu Island to be more precise.

It had been a scrimp-and-scrabble-and-then-scramble-and-repeat-and-gosh-I-am-so-tired-of-this-harsh-sentence-of-an-impoverished-infernal-existence, bleak-as-appearing-devoid-of-all-hope upbringing. But, Jill was studious and determined to break out of the familial cycle of poverty. One step at a time. School was taken seriously; studies were pursued earnestly. And vigorously.

With a nursing degree in-hand and some job experience in the bank, she enters Canada via FSWP – the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP). The requirements for immigration: a valid degree + at least 1 year of job experience. She feels lucky and goes all-in on making the most of this overseas employment opportunity.

Jill initially lives with two other Filipina nurses in a three-bedroom apartment that is on the Metrobus route along with her place of work: the century-old central hospital. After a well-deserved promotion, she decides to get her own place: a

modest,

by-no-means-Jellybean-Row-but-satisfactory-nonetheless studio apartment that is only a five-minute walk to the hospital. She still uses the bus and her bicycle when the weather is bearable; moreover, a car-free life in ‘La ville de Cabot’ is not so bad. Not so bad at all.

It's June 29th, 2018, and today Jill is a bisexual bicyclist in a tired flat with a tired flat tire. Her secondhand Schwinn 6-speed is resting on an improvised bike stand. After having applied clear sealant to the rear inner tube on four occasions with no air-tight success, she thinks: If I got paid every hour that that leak continued, I bet that it would suddenly seal –

like really quick. [internal chuckle]

Maritime Canada was quite the climate adjustment. She had no idea that any place on Earth could get so cold. Prior to her arrival in St. John’s, the coolest outside temperature that Jill had experienced was 19° Celsius (66.2° Fahrenheit). And all the snow. Meters of it. She often thought during that first winter: Am I living in a non-frost-free freezer?

Jill’s first purchase after her YYT (St. John’s International Airport) arrival: an extra-padded purple parka. She thought that she knew what the cold Canadian winters would feel like, but she had underestimated. By a wide margin.

However, she would go from cursing the frigid weather to actually embracing it. She often mused on chilly mornings and nights: A cold winter is worth it if it means a mild summer. Gosh, I so very much detest hot weather now. Not sure if I could survive back home without an air conditioner blowing full-blast in my old bedroom. Have I become Canadianized? [internal giggle]

<beep-beep> The car horn two levels down broke here reverie. Two toots? Something must really be amiss down there. Could I become a writer? What would I write about?

Do I really know English well enough? Could get online help.

Hmmm … Maybe someday.

Jill finishes reading Russ L. Newsom’s [died 10/2/2017] short story about these two, red-hot – literally – lovers who would sprinkle capsaicin powder on their genitalia. Well, that sure was something different. That NoDa area [of northeast Charlotte, NC, USA] in the 1990s seems like it was quite the scene. Bummer. Missed it. Joe Behm’s [died 9/8/2004]

Aardvark Bar with the tip bell. ‘If we lose control of the bell, we lose control of everything!’ Wack shack. Autumn 1993.

Bet he chose Aardvark to appear first in the tavern listings.

It was a tragic house party on the bay side of Signal Hill.

Halfway up. The bright pastel-colored houses looked like a page swiped from San Francisco, though with its own unique style, à l’ Avalon Peninsula. Sans warning, the power surged. She paused on a low-level balcony recalling her electrical lessons. Is the neutral floating? An uncommon common? How long will this last? How long does Earth last?

Who will be the last recordkeeper – the final notator?

Probably a program. I should make notes of these thoughts.

Maybe use them someday. But, would anyone really want to read such?

It was a day of hiking. It started out in Quidi Vidi (pleasant place) on a spring Saturday in 2023 after a wee-hour graupel dusting, of which some conical, fluffy, granular deposits remained on shaded rooftops. Jill thought: Looks like the sky god dropped a slew of Hershey’s white chocolate Kisses.

God. Is there really a god? So much evil and wickedness in

this world. [Jill had stopped attending the local Roman Catholic church six months prior; she felt the fit wasn’t right anymore.]

The morning fog gave way to mostly sun by noon. The 19.44° Celsius (67° Fahrenheit) air felt perfect as she admired the waterfalls and cascades along Cadet Road between Quidi Vidi Harbour and Quidi Vidi Lake. She thought: Quidi Vidi sounds like one sly spy. ‘Where did you hide it, Quidi Vidi?’ ‘Hide what?’ And she slips away.

Quidi Vidi Village Artisan Studios, at the wharf of the harbour, full of arts and crafts – and tchotchke – trinkets to remember the date. And she did indeed buy a strange, tiny piece made from recycled plastic bottle fragments. It was mostly a morning of browsing the shops together, hand-in-hand with Lawrence, who was quite decent and quite horny.

His pecker pounded my cave pretty darn good last night.

Great orgasm. / I can’t wait to fuck her again. Harder.

Longer. Stronger. [internal chuckle]

They were going to be smartly wild and daring forever.

Theirs was going to be an amazing odyssey. Bad things happen to other people. Well, until …

“Apparently Mr. Murphy [Jill’s Canuck boyfriend] was highly intoxicated on strong opiates and fell through a 3rd-floor, wrought-iron, improperly installed balcony railing at Ballerton Manor on Signal Hill. Very tragic. More details as I get them.

Back to you, Phil.” Youch! Smash! Call in the mechanized spatula. Scrape. Spray. Rinse.

It's now almost four years later. Jill is doing some math on her smartphone’s calculator. Jill saw that the nightly room rate at the pension house with an incredibly expansive ocean view was 650 Philippine pesos on a Cebu website. In the lower left corner of the available-rooms web page, there was the current exchange rate to the American dollar: 1 USD

= 57.70 Philippine pesos. Wonder how many kano [slang for American] greenbacks that is. Let’s see … 650 divided by 57.70 equals 12.12121212121212. Wow! Never expected that repeating one-two-some. Wonder if David [a math whiz coworker] is aware of this. Bet so. Now to find the Canadian dollar equivalent.

A puffy puffin puffs by puffedly [ sic] as Jill notices that 1 USD

= 1.37 Canadian dollars and 1 Canadian dollar = .73 USD.

Most interesting. The 3 and 7 switch positions. So, how many Canadian dollars is it? 16.60606060606. Wow!

Another odd repeating decimal duo. But, that’s not the correct way to find the Canadian dollar conversion. Need to look up the Canadian exchange rate and divide. Ok, there it is. Let’s see … 650 divided by 41.908 equals 15.51.

[Canadian dollars] A palindromic number. This is nuts!

Maybe I should buy a 6/49 lottery ticket today. Why not?!

Could it be my lucky day? Who knows? ‘If you don’t play, you can’t win.’ [internal giggle] Now, which numbers to pick?

Oh, just go with 3 – 7 – 12 – 16 – 37 – and then what?

Which number is the sixth propitious gem? Well, 57, 65, and 73 are too high. Hmmm … Just go with 41, I suppose. Yeah, who knows? Don’t think it will lead to an addiction. Or, will it?

Jill would intimately befriend an Indian female nursing assistant named Uda, who was a Dalit (untouchable). None of the upper-caste Indians at the hospital would associate with her. Uda shared childhood tales of woe, oppression, and demoralization with Jill. There was something about Uda’s life story that deeply intrigued Jill. Though, she tried not to pry too much.

Mid-spring arrived. She wondered aloud: “Sleet in mid-May?

Does it ever warm up here? Is there even a summer?” The first cycle of the seasons really shook Jill. Though, she fell in love with July. August, too; her no. 2.

It’s now October 2038. Jill is back in the Philippines after having worked for two satisfactory decades in St. John’s.

Her frail, ailing mother had been begging her to return. She finally relented after her mom fell down a half-flight of stairs and then needed a walker to get around. Being the sole daughter, she felt it was her responsibility. Her three younger brothers were scattered around the globe – Berlin, Osaka, and Seattle – and had no plans of returning home long-term anytime soon.

As Jill gazes across the Tañon Strait (in the central Philippines) at Mt. Talinis on a sunny September Tuesday afternoon in 2039, a 41 on a paper cup triggers a string of thoughts. Where is that tchotchke? Is it under a dresser? In a suitcase? Or in the sea? Who knows? I bet the current tenant has no idea about what happened. So long ago. And whatever happened to dear Uda? Where’s she right now?

Probably somewhere in India. Should have stayed in touch.

Who sent the last transmission? When? And where might that that section of faulty railing be lying? Where is it rusting away? Or was it cut up? Nothing lasts forever. Atoms rearrange. Memories meander. And fade. The natural processes proceed. Gonna die alone. Might as well start writing down these recollections. For whomever finds them.

<Ssssssssssss>

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory



Rigolet by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | late June 2024