After I finished this one the first time, yesterday, the narrator got in her car just before I got in mine, she was going to Baltimore, I was going to yoga, and sometimes yoga changes your mind. Turns out she doesn’t get in her car after all and I think she made the better choice, I mean there’s something about longing isn’t there, in life and on the page, it intensifies atmosphere and only the sharpest bits of jetsam get through. I’m posting this quickly before it rains because I think it has a soft intrigue right now, and hopefully, a certain grace.

Rapunzel Falls by Sherry Cassells

I remember Baltimore.

There’s something about the syllables in that sentence. I remember Baltimore. Like if you said it over and over it would tumble into nothingness, we used to do that with the word chrysanthemum, it eventually fell apart in our mouths, just a few abstract scraps of colour.

crumumsesanth

Baltimore is an eastern Ontario township so shift the spot in your mind to rural Canada.

There were falls in Baltimore, and you might think – and why wouldn't you – they were more than the beautiful little squirm of water they were. They were named Glory Falls long before the damn dam. I've no idea the strength of the water now – it's been seventy odd years – odd being an adjective concerning the word to its right. It's been exactly seventy years.

We called the falls Rapunzel for the cascade of golden rock we climbed like a tower to our cave, we crouched behind the stream, such a surprising perspective – I never got used to it – it felt like prying, we stuck our tongues into the wet and caught it in our palms.

I remember Baltimore.

It wouldn’t sound much different with a mouth full of marshmallows.

Can you stand one more?

I remember Baltimore.

Those false falls, Haskin’s Drug Store, Langley’s Grocery, The Read Bookstore – painted red for clarity – they sold used books. My friend Tillie's grandparents owned it, she lived with them summers when we were kids, they corrected every person who pronounced it reed and almost everybody did, that’s what you get for naming your store a homonym. 

Me and Tillie we used to ransack that town daily and lightly lightly every night Rapunzel.

Tillie Tillie Tillie.

 Last night I dreamed of her again. 

What a strange thing it is to wake up with her on my mind. It’s only 6:37 and already I’ve lived those years again.

There’s a storm brewing this morning, I can feel it in my sternum, my centre of gravity is off-grid, it’s one of those secret storms that send little shifts of light you’re not sure you actually see, maybe it’s a fault of the eye, and the roll of thunder you also deny, maybe it’s your guts or maybe somebody’s beneath your window calling without calling. 

She used to roll against the house, the clunk of a shoulder, her flat back, another shoulder, and out I’d tumble into the purple, she greeted me in vibrant silence – an exuberance I've not seen since – but it came again last night like an elixir, and today I crouch in this purple dawn, the rain comes now, I remember Baltimore.

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