moreCHAPTER 15

Near my bus stop is a tree standing all by itself. It’s got a dark, ridged, gnarled trunk, and it’s so wide I couldn’t put my arms even halfway around it. It’s been rooted here for hundreds of years. Think of the change it’s seen! This tree remembers a time when everyone around it spoke Salish or Kwak’wala or a language I’ve never heard of. A time before steamships or cars or smart undies.

Smart undies? That was your joke? All of pop culture to laugh at and you picked smart undies?

Shut up, brain.

What about the Real Housewives of Iqaluit? Or pumpkin-spiced eyebrows? Lighter-than-air refrigerators? This tree remembers a time when refrigerators were heavy.

Shut. Up.

“Are you talking to our tree?”

I look up. A girl stares at me from the porch. Little girl, maybe five or six. Freckled skin, dark eyes, pink mouth, and they’re all wide open. Okay maybe not the skin, but the eyes and mouth are.

“No,” I say. “I’m talking to myself.”

Still no bus in sight.

I start jogging to the next stop.

There’s a Canadian flag flying over a building on the other side of the road. The maple leaf in the middle stays in the middle. The flag flaps in the breeze but is not calling my name. Good. I don’t like seeing things that aren’t there. Or hearing things that I might be making up.

What about having conversations with yourself?

Shut up. I do that on purpose.

Do you? Do you really?

Shut up.

Now, what about this giant pedalling toward me on his bike — is he real? He wears an eye patch. His bike is too small for him. It wobbles dangerously. His knees come up to his chin when he pedals. Will he turn into anything? Will he disappear? I mean, who has an eyepatch?

He’s almost up to me now. “Are you real?” I call.

Beads of sweat stand out on his bright red forehead. They don’t look real. They look like crystals.

“I’m Paul,” he says.

“But are you real? Tell me you’re real.”

As he passes me, he winks his one good eye. Is that yes or no?

I’m at the next bus stop. Did I run all the way? I’m panting. I must have run.

I look back. Paul the giant is gone.

You know how much time you can waste wondering if what you see is real? Start small and get bigger. Your hand, your body, you. The street you’re walking on, the giant on the bicycle, the world around you. Fundamental doubts. You can waste a lot of time.

On my left is the Georgia Strait. There’s the ferry boat, heading back to Vancouver. Is it real? No way to check.

Forget fundamental doubts. Focus on what you can do. Find a Number 6 bus.