RAY AND JAY AND BOB (Part 1)

 

Ray and Jay and Bob, part 1

Montreal, Canada, 2018

The late September sun had that particular Montreal gold, the kind that gilded the crumbling brick of the Plateau and made the dust motes dance in the air of Ramon Atila’s Civic. The sun warmed the asphalt of Boulevard Décarie, casting a honeyed glow that made even the traffic seem cheerful. Ramon navigated the chaos with one hand on the wheel and the other holding an expertly-rolled blunt, its tip glowing like a tiny, fragrant amber. The scent of high-grade Sour Diesel filled the car, a familiar perfume for his morning commute to his shift at the YMCA.

He was, as ever, blissfully unaware. His phone, plugged into the aux cord, was a repository of 347 unread emails and 82 unread texts. He’d been off-grid, holed up in his Mile-End apartment finishing a new treatment, his mind a universe away from the mundane.

The radio was tuned to CJAD, Barry “The Bull” Buchanan’s voice a familiar, grating comfort. Today, the airwaves were crackling with a particular kind of generational fury.

“—and I’m telling you, Barry, the book is a blueprint!” a reedy, passionate voice declared. “The protagonist literally says, ‘Why cage two birds when the whole sky is empty?’ It’s a metaphor for the oppressive nature of monogamy!”

Ray chuckled, taking a long drag. “Oh, man,” he exhaled, a cloud of smoke filling the car. “You missed the point by a mile, kid.”

“...and the caller says the book explicitly argues against the institution of marriage, that it’s a failed colonial construct! I’m telling you, Gen-Z is using this novel, Pigeons of Park Ex, as a manifesto to swear off dating! We’ve got a city full of incels because of this guy, Atila!”

Ray took a long, thoughtful drag. “Ay, papi,” he mumbled to the windshield, his Italian-Latino heritage manifesting in a sigh of profound annoyance. “They don’t get it. Not even a little.”

He’d written Pigeons of Park Ex, a self-published novella he’d hawked at local zine fairs, as a melancholic ode to the lonely, beautiful chaos of his neighbourhood. It was about interconnected loneliness, not celibacy.

Barry’s booming baritone cut in. “So you’re saying Ramon Atila, this local author, is telling a generation to give up on love?”

Another caller, a young woman named Chloe, clicked onto the line. “It’s not about giving up, Barry, it’s about opting out! ‘Pigeons of Park Ex’ isn’t a novel, it’s a manifesto. It argues that traditional marriage is a failed economic model that doesn’t serve our generation. We’re the pigeons, pecking at the crumbs of a system that doesn’t nourish us!”

Ray almost swerved. “A manifesto? Mamma mia.” He’d written the meandering, semi-autobiographical story after a bad breakup, fueled by cheap wine and existential dread about his future. The pigeons were just pigeons—messy, resilient, and everywhere.

The calls kept coming, each one layering on a new, absurd interpretation.

“He’s obviously promoting a polyamorous commune structure!”

“It’s a call to embrace solo happiness! The main character finds peace alone with his thoughts and his, you know, his birds!”

“It’s anti-capitalist! Marriage is just consumerism applied to human connection!”

With each new take, Ray felt a growing, stoned indignation. They were dissecting his emotional vomit like it was sacred text. They were building whole philosophies on a foundation he’d laid while eating cold poutine and feeling sorry for himself. He pictured them, all these intense, bright-eyed Gen-Zers in cafés along this very boulevard, using his name to justify their fear of getting hurt.

He wasn’t a philosopher. He was a guy who worked at the Y and wrote weird little stories. This was getting out of hand. He couldn’t let his sad little book about a lonely guy watching birds become the handbook for a city-wide movement of romantic surrender.

Someone had to set the record straight. Someone who knew the author’s intent.

As Barry segued into a commercial break for a local depanneur’s two-for-one special on maple syrup, Ray made a decision. He’d call. He’d clear this whole thing up. It was the responsible thing to do. He tapped the number on his screen, put the phone to his ear, and took one last, steadying hit from the blunt. The city blurred into a pleasant, sun-drenched haze. He was ready to enlighten the masses.

“CJAD, you’re on with Barry!”

“Yeah, hi Barry,” Ray said, his voice a relaxed, smoky baritone. “I just… I resent the fact that these kids are turning my book into some kind of incel bible, man. I didn’t write it to turn everyone into incels. I wrote it to turn everyone into… I dunno… people who look at pigeons and feel something, you know?”

There was a beat of silence on the other end. Then, a low, knowing chuckle.

“Well, folks, we have a treat. That is none other than Ramon Atila himself on the line. The author. The voice of a generation, whether he wants to be or not. Mr. Atila, it’s an honour. And hey, while I’ve got you—huge congratulations on the Universal deal! directing the adaptation yourself! Montreal is proud, son!”

Ray blinked, merging onto the highway. “The what deal?”

“The Hollywood deal! The one every media outlet in the city has been talking about for a week! Universal Pictures? Seven-figure deal? Your agent, Sheila, has been on every news show from here to Sherbrooke trying to track you down!”

Ray’s brain, moving at the speed of thick maple syrup, tried to process this. It made no sense. He was on his way to supervise the swimming pool at the Y.

“Barry, man, I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m Ray. I work at the Y. I wrote a weird little book about birds and sadness.”

“Ray,” Barry said, his voice dripping with theatrical glee. He knew he had radio gold. “I’m looking at the front page of the Gazette right now. It’s your face, my friend. Under the headline ‘Park Ex to Hollywood: Local Genius Gets Major Deal.’ Now, are you telling me you don’t know?”

A cold, sobering shock began to cut through the cannabis haze. “I… I haven’t checked my email in a bit.”

The city held its breath. Drivers stopped honking. Café owners turned up their radios. In offices across the downtown core, people gathered around speakers.

“Well, Ray,” Barry said, his voice the calm eye of a hurricane. “Why don’t you check it now? We’ve got time. We’re all listening.”

With trembling fingers, Ray pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He put the phone on speaker and opened his email app. The number ‘347’ glared at him. He searched his agent’s name: Sheila.

There they were. A thread titled URGENT: UNIVERSAL DEAL - FINAL OFFER.

“Okay… I see something from Sheila,” he mumbled, his voice echoing across the airwaves to thousands of captivated Montrealers.

“Open it, Ray!” Barry urged, a co-conspirator in the unfolding drama.

He tapped the most recent one, sent three days ago.

SUBJECT: THEY’VE BLINKED! WE DID IT!

Raymond. WHERE ARE YOU?!?! Universal has agreed to all our terms. Director attached. Final offer. $2.5 million. YOU HAVE TO SIGN THIS. CALL ME. THE WHOLE CITY IS LOOKING FOR YOU. YOU’VE WON.

The world outside his car window seemed to warp. The hum of the highway faded. He scrolled up. Dozens of emails. Each subject line more frantic than the last.

SUBJECT: UNIVERSAL IS IN A BIDDING WAR WITH A24!

SUBJECT: RAMON, ANSWER YOUR PHONE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL

SUBJECT: CONGRATULATIONS, YOU MAD GENIUS. YOU’VE DONE IT.

“Holy… holy smokes,” Ray whispered.

“Read it to us, Ray!” Barry commanded, the ringmaster of the greatest show in town.

“It says… it says I got the deal. To direct. For Universal.” His voice was a mix of awe and pure, unadulterated shock.

The moment he said it, a car pulled up next to him on the shoulder. A convertible full of university students, their radio blaring the same station. They pointed, their faces exploding into grins.

“RAY! HOLY SHIT! CONGRATS, MAN!” one yelled, giving him a triumphant wave before speeding off.

Then, it was like a ripple effect. Another car honked, the driver giving him a thumbs-up. Another. And another. On the highway, in the heart of his city, Ramon Atila was getting a rolling, impromptu parade of congratulations.

He looked from the phone, to the emails, to the waving, cheering strangers, and then back to the half-smoked blunt in his ashtray. A slow, dazed smile spread across his face.

“Barry,” he said, his voice cracking with a laugh. “I think… I think I’m gonna be late for work, man. Fuck!”

•••

The Montreal air outside the YMCA was a familiar cocktail of exhaust fumes and dampness. Ray took it in like a sacrament, the smoke from his joint adding its own earthy note to the mix. He was on the phone, the device wedged between his shoulder and ear, a precarious lifeline to the hurricane that was his agent, Sheila.

“I’m telling you, Ray, it’s a minefield. A beautiful, gold-plated, seven-figure minefield,” Sheila’s voice crackled, a symphony of manic energy and curated calm. “The New York Times wants a profile. ‘The Reclusive Genius of Park Ex.’ We need to lean into it. Lean in until you sprain a metaphorical muscle.”

Ray took a long, slow drag, letting the smoke coat his lungs. He watched a pigeon with a fucked-up foot hop along the curb. A character. Maybe a whole half. “Mmm-hmm,” he drawled, the word stretching out, lazy and thick as molasses. He blamed the cadence on his left eye, the lazy one, damaged in a long-forgotten childhood scuffle. It gave him a perpetually contemplative, slightly confused look, a built-in excuse for the hazy slowness the weed induced. People just thought he was deep, or maybe a little simple. They never guessed he was orbiting a different planet entirely.

“Don’t ‘mmm-hmm’ me, Ramon. This is your life now. We need a statement on the… you know, the diversity of the writing room. It’s a thing. A very important thing.”

A flicker of movement caught his good eye. A police cruiser, rolling to a stop a little too deliberately. Shit. He subtly flicked the roach into a storm drain. “Sheila, I gotta—“

“Is that a siren? Are you being arrested? Don’t get arrested. A DUI is a narrative we cannot afford right now. A possession charge, however, could be… bohemian. Call me back.”

The line went dead. Perfect.

The cop was out of the car now, aviator sunglasses reflecting a miniature, distorted Ray. He had that walk, the one that said I am not just enforcing the law, I am the physical manifestation of a minor inconvenience.

“Afternoon, sir,” the officer said, his voice flat. “You know why I stopped you?”

Ray blinked slowly, letting the world swim back into focus. “Officer… my eye. It’s… the depth perception.” He gestured vaguely toward his left eye, which drooped just enough to sell the story. “Was I on the crosswalk? I thought I was… adjacent to it.”

The cop sighed, the sound of a man who’d seen too many jaywalking philosophers. “You were in the middle of the street, sir. You can’t just amble across St. Catherine like it’s your living room.” He leaned in slightly, sniffing the air around Ray. His expression didn’t change, but a new layer of weary understanding settled on his features. “You from around here?”

“I… work at the Y,” Ray said, the truth feeling like a costume he’d forgotten to take off. He could feel the weight of the Universal contract in his back pocket, a radioactive piece of paper that made this whole interaction surreal.

The cop looked him up and down, taking in the slightly-too-worn jeans, the hoodie that had seen better days. He glanced past Ray, toward the bustling, slightly shabby entrance of the YMCA. The narrative in his head was clear: Unhoused guy, probably high, shuffling between soup kitchens. Not worth the paperwork.

“Look,” the cop said, his tone shifting from authoritative to vaguely paternal. “Just use the crosswalk, alright? The light. It’s there for a reason. You gotta be careful out here.”

Ray just nodded, the drawl ready on his lips. “I appreciate that, Officer. I surely do. The world moves… fast.”

The cop gave him one last, pitying look, got back in his cruiser, and drove off. Ray stood there, the newly minted millionaire director who had just been mistaken for a homeless drug addict. A deadly, hilarious terror bloomed in his chest. He was a ghost haunting his own life.

He fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, a more socially acceptable vice to steady his nerves. As he lit one, he noticed the people on the street. A young Black couple, dressed in the kind of effortlessly cool, expensive minimalist wear that screamed Mile-End elitism, were staring at him. Not with pity, but with a dawning recognition. The woman elbowed the man, who pulled out his phone, glancing between the screen and Ray’s face.

A different kind of panic, colder and more precise, seized him. The cancel culture comedy sketch was writing itself in his head: Local White-Passing Latino Genius, fresh off a Universal deal, harassed by cop for the crime of being high and poor-looking. Film at eleven. He could see the think-pieces, the outrage, the way his vague, melancholic book about pigeons would be weaponized by everyone and understood by no one. The white guilt, the Black outrage, the performative allyship—it was a raunchy, deadly circus, and he was the bewildered ringmaster.

He took a drag of his cigarette, the smoke a welcome shield. The couple approached.

“Hey,” the man said, his voice tentative. “You’re him, right? Ramon Atila?”

Ray gave a slow, non-committal nod, his lazy eye making it look like a profound, weary acknowledgment of the universe’s absurdity.

“Wow. We just… we love the book,” the woman said, her voice full of a reverence that felt entirely misplaced. “The way you capture the… the quiet violence of urban disenfranchisement. It’s so… raw.”

I was just sad and liked birds, he thought. But Sheila’s voice echoed in his head: Lean in.

“The city… speaks,” Ray murmured, the drawl making it sound oracular. “If you know how to listen.”

They beamed, as if he’d just handed them a secret key. They took a selfie with him, his stoned, contemplative face a perfect monument to their own refined taste. As they walked away, giddy, he heard the man say, “See? I told you. He’s so… real.”

Real. He was real, alright. Real high, real terrified, and real enough to know that his old life—the YMCA, the pool schedule, the simple, unexamined existence—was gone. It would be vaporized the moment he’d sign that contract. He was a character in a story now, a cancel culture comedy where every glance held the potential for a firing squad.

He finished his cigarette, crushed it under his heel, and looked at the YMCA doors. They seemed a million miles away. He was outside, and he had a feeling he was going to be outside for a long, long time. He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over Sheila’s number. He had ideas. For future novels. They were all about a man watching the world from behind a pane of very, very thick glass. And purple alien baddies with big fat asses.

•••

The YMCA lobby smelled of chlorine, old sweat, and industrial-strength floor cleaner—a holy trinity of mundanity that Ray found deeply comforting. He’d come to quit, to sever this last tether to his old life before the vertigo of the new one swallowed him whole. He never stood a chance.

“Ramon! Mon cher!”

He was swarmed before he’d taken three steps. “Les Amis de Ramon,” his fan club of octogenarians, descended with the slow, inexorable force of a glacier. They presented him with a hand-knitted sweater. On the front was a lumpy, slightly cross-eyed pigeon.

“For our genius,” clucked Madame Lafleur, patting his cheek. “To keep you warm in Hollywood.”

The sweater was hideous. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever been given. This was it, he realized. The last moment of pure, uncomplicated love.

His boss, Dave, burst from his office, a man perpetually on the verge of a coronary, his tracksuit a testament to a life of compromise. “Ray! Thank Christ. Get in here.” He pulled Ray into his cluttered office, the pigeon sweater still clutched in Ray’s hands. “I need a miracle. The seniors are demanding a ‘Pigeons of Park Ex’ mindfulness workshop. You’re the only one who can do it. I’m promoting you. No more pool duty. You’re our… Wellness Visionary.”

Ray stared, his brain, softened by a morning blunt, struggling to process the crushing absurdity. “Dave, I… I can’t. I came to—”

•••

The chlorine-scented air of the YMCA staff lounge was a familiar blanket, but today it felt thin, stretched over a new and unsettling reality. Ray leaned against the chipped Formica counter, trying to look like a man who hadn’t just signed a seven-figure deal with a Hollywood studio. He was failing.

The room was a cross-section of his old life. Dave, his boss, was nervously hovering, having promoted him to “Wellness Visionary” in a desperate bid to keep him. A few of the older lifeguards, “Les Amis de Ramon,” were beaming, having presented him with a hand-knitted sweater featuring a lumpy, cross-eyed pigeon. And then there was the new energy: a cluster of the Y’s cooler, younger employees—both male and female—who usually acknowledged him with a nod at best, but were now looking at him with a mixture of awe and sharp curiosity.

“So it’s true,” said Chloe, a yoga instructor with biceps that could crack walnuts. “You’re really the guy. The Pigeon Prophet.”

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” Ray mumbled, his voice a slow, stoned drawl that he hoped passed for enigmatic cool. His lazy left eye, a relic of a childhood scuffle, helped sell the vibe.

“We read it,” said Liam, a personal trainer who was usually too busy flexing in the mirror to read a stopwatch. He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s deep, man. The part about the ‘hollowness in the collective coo’… it’s like you’re inside my head.”

Ray took a slow sip of his water. He’d written that line after a three-day diet of expired yogurt and existential dread. “The city… speaks,” he murmured. “If you know how to listen.”

A ripple of appreciation went through the group. But it was the women who were really throwing him. Sarah and Jenna, from the front desk—two women whose effortless beauty had always made him fumble his keys—were looking at him not with their usual polite detachment, but with a warm, focused intensity that felt like a spotlight.

“We were talking,” Sarah said, her smile a perfect, devastating curve. “A bunch of us are going to that new bar on St. Denis tonight. You should come.”

Jenna nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, and my roommate’s away. We could all head back to our place after. It’d be fun.”

Ray’s internal monologue short-circuited. Back to their place? This was a plot twist his life’s script had never included. He kept his face neutral, a feat of immense willpower, and gave a slow, considering nod. “I’ll… see what the evening holds.”

Liam leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Dude, are you high right now? You’ve gotta be. How else do you explain this?” He gestured vaguely at the orbiting attention of the two women.

Ray almost laughed. He was, in fact, riding the gentle tail-end of a morning blunt, but that wasn't the source of the magic. The magic was the contract burning a hole in his back pocket. He was about to deflect with a comment about his faulty depth perception when Jenna stepped closer.

“I just have to tell you,” she said, her voice softening. “I couldn’t believe you were such a good writer. The way you capture the little details… it’s so precise.”

The compliment landed not like a feather, but a brick. Ray’s cool facade almost shattered. They read it. They actually read it. In his mind, his book was a sad little secret, shared between him and a few pigeons. The idea that women like this—women who looked like they’d stepped out of a sun-drenched indie film—had held his words in their hands, had turned the pages he’d stained with coffee and self-pity… it was a paradigm shift so profound he felt the ground tilt.

He managed a grunt of thanks, hoping it sounded more grateful than guttural.

Then Sarah asked the question. The one that separated the fans from the critics. She tilted her head, her expression one of genuine, art-school curiosity. “There’s one thing I’ve been dying to ask. How do you write dialogue for women so well? A lot of guys… they can’t. But your female characters, they feel real. How do you do it?”

The lounge went quiet. Even Dave stopped fiddling with the pool schedule. This was the test.

Ray set his water bottle down. The lazy, stoned haze seemed to evaporate from his expression, replaced by a sudden, startling sobriety. The question had reached a part of him that took the work seriously, a part untouched by the absurdity of his new fame. He looked directly at Sarah, his good eye sharp and focused.

“I think of a man,” he said, his voice low and clear, devoid of its usual drawl. “But then I give the man creativity and vision.”

For a second, there was silence. Then, a collective, almost synchronized intake of breath from the women. Sarah’s hand went to her chest. Jenna’s eyes widened, shining with something that looked like revelation.

“Oh my god,” Jenna breathed.

“That’s it,” Sarah whispered, her gaze locked on Ray as if he’d just unveiled a fundamental truth of the universe. “That’s exactly it.”

They swooned. It was the only word for it. A subtle, powerful shift in the atmosphere, a magnetic pull that seemed to draw them a step closer. Liam looked back and forth, baffled but impressed, giving Ray a surreptitious thumbs-up.

Ray, his moment of intense clarity passing, allowed the slow, hazy smile to return to his face. He had no idea what he’d just done, or why it had worked. He just knew that the world had flipped upside down, and for the first time, he was landing on his feet. He picked up his pigeon sweater from the counter.

“The pool isn’t going to visionary itself,” he said, the drawl returning as he walked out, leaving a room full of stunned and admiring colleagues in his wake. The evening, he decided, was suddenly looking a lot more promising.

•••

A shadow fell across the frosted glass of the office door. A sleek, black town car was idling at the curb outside. The door opened and Sheila, his agent, emerged. Dressed in a power suit sharp enough to slice through reality itself, she moved through the shabby YMCA with the predatory grace of a panther in a yoga studio.

She didn’t knock. She entered, and the very oxygen in the room seemed to thin.

“Ramon,” she said, her voice a silken lash. She then turned a thousand-watt smile on Dave. “You must be David. Ramon speaks so highly of your… innovative leadership here.” She charmed him, disarmed him, and extracted Ray in under sixty seconds, leaving Dave blinking and agreeing to things he didn’t understand. She gently pried the pigeon sweater from Ray’s grip and placed it on Dave’s desk. “A keepsake,” she purred. “For the archives.”

The seniors waved from the lobby, their faces a mixture of awe and profound sadness. Ray gave them a weak, helpless wave back. The YMCA door swung shut, severing the connection.

Inside the town car, the world accelerated. Sheila was a whirlwind, simultaneously on two phones and a tablet. “Universal. They blinked. Final offer. You’re attached to direct. Don’t speak, just breathe and try to look profound.”

Ray, overwhelmed, mumbled, “I was just gonna… the pool schedule…”

“The what?” Sheila snapped one phone shut. “Listen to me. A producer’s niece read your book in a Café Olimpico. It became an insider status symbol. There was a bidding war. You, unreachable in your creative cave, became a myth. We leaned in. ‘The Reclusive Genius.’ It’s perfect. Don’t. Ruin. It.” She shoved a stack of contracts into his hands. The numbers on the signature page had more zeroes than he’d seen in his life. The reality was a physical pressure behind his eyes.

•••

Sheila’s office was a sterile, modern box floating above downtown, all sharp angles and a view of Mount Royal that felt like a postcard. Waiting for them were Chad and Brittany from Universal. They were young, dressed in expensive casualwear that cost more than Ray’s car, and spoke in a language of curated inclusivity.

“Ramon! So epic,” Chad began, not shaking his hand but offering a complex series of fist bumps and finger guns that Ray failed to reciprocate. “We see it as a searing, post-capitalist, neo-noir thriller. A Molotov cocktail thrown at the glass prison of late-stage modernity.”

Brittany nodded vigorously. “The pigeons are a powerful metaphor for the digitally-dispossessed underclass. It’s ‘Chinatown’ meets ‘The Social Network’ but with, like, more feathers.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Our first note is a positive one: we’re going to gently scrub any of the, you know, homeless aspects from the script. The grime, the sleeping on vents. It’s a bit problematic. We want to uplift, not depress.”

Ray, lost in the buzzword blizzard, tried to be agreeable. “Sure. Yeah. I mean, the pigeons are kinda homeless, right? They live on the street. Whatever.”

A silence fell over the room so complete and deadly you could hear the hum of the smart fridge. Chad and Brittany’s smiles did not so much freeze as become strained, their eyes wide with a sort of polite horror. Chad cleared his throat. “We… we were thinking more ‘unhoused,’ Ramon. And it’s a metaphor. We don’t literalize the trauma.”

Sheila moved like a snake. “What Ramon means,” she interjected, her voice cutting through the ice, “is that he appreciates your nuanced approach to the socio-economic allegory. He’s playing with the tension between the literal and the figurative.” She stared at Ray, her eyes delivering a silent, brutal message: You are one ‘whatever’ from the abyss.

Chad, trying to reset the mood, forced a chuckle. “Right. Well, we’re committed to a safe, inclusive set. A real collaborative environment.” He patted Brittany’s knee, his hand lingering a moment too long. “Brittany and I are a real partnership. We finish each other’s…”

“Sentences,” Brittany finished, giggling and placing her hand on his. She then turned her gaze to Ray, looking him up and down with a slow, appraising smile. “I’ll be your direct creative liaison, Ramon. We’ll be spending a lot of late nights together, really digging into your… vision. Making sure everything is fully… explored.”

Ray felt a fresh wave of dread. The way she said “explored” felt anything but safe.

Dazed, he took the proffered pen. It felt heavy, alien. He scrawled his name—Ramon Atila—on the line. The pen left a faint, shiny smear on the paper.

“Congratulations, director,” Sheila said, her smile genuine now, and therefore more terrifying than ever.

Chad clapped him on the back, his grip firm. “Welcome to the family, man. We’re gonna make something totally disruptive.” He winked. “And don’t worry, we’ll workshop that homeless pigeon line. We’ll find a safer, more productive angle.”

Ray didn’t feel disruptive. He felt dissolved. He was no longer Ray, the guy from the Y. He was Ramon Atila, a man who had just agreed to an endless series of “late-night creative sessions” with Brittany while trying to navigate a minefield of unsayable truths.

He looked past them, out the vast window. The city sprawled below, a mosaic of familiar streets now rendered strange and distant. Somewhere down there, a pigeon was pecking at a discarded bagel, utterly unconcerned with being problematic. For a single, vertiginous moment, Ray felt a pang of pure, unadulterated envy.

•••

The gravity in Café Depot was all wrong. It wasn't the gentle pull of earth, but a dense, celebrity-warped singularity centered on the worn velvet armchair Ray had just collapsed into. He felt heavier here, as if every eye in the room was a tiny, additional point of mass pulling at him.

He’d barely settled when the pull became a direct force. A barista with a geometric undercut slid a large Americano, extra shot, onto the table without a word. "For the Visionary," they announced to the room. A ripple of recognition passed through the café, a wave of nods and whispers.

Before Ray could process this, the fans converged.

A woman clutching a well-thumbed, tear-stained copy of his book approached, her voice trembling. "The part where the pigeon with the limp remembers the crumb it lost in 2017… it’s me, isn't it? You've been watching my life." A man in a moth-eaten cardigan interrupted, jabbing a finger at a passage. "This bit about the 'hollowness in the collective coo'—a stunning indictment of the service industry, yes? You’ve articulated the soul-crushing ennui of every barista in the Plateau!"

They were a chorus of misinterpretation, a Greek chorus dressed in thrift-store finds and intellectual certainty. A young couple explained how "Pigeons of Park Ex" had saved their open relationship, proving that "nesting was a capitalist construct." An elderly man with a trembling poodle claimed the book was an allegory for his failed import-export business in the 80s.

Ray felt the narrative slipping from his grasp, his simple story of urban loneliness being rewritten by a committee of strangers. He tried to stand, to mumble an excuse about the YMCA pool, but the gravitational pull was too strong.

And then, the singularity acquired a new, massive density.

A shadow fell over him, long and deep. Ray looked up into the face of a person who looked sculpted from marble and righteous fury. They were at least six and a half feet tall, their frame a testament to countless hours of disciplined weightlifting. A loose "Plants Not Prejudice" shirt did little to conceal their powerful build, and their hair was a magnificent, rainbow-colored wave.

"So," their voice was a low, tectonic rumble. "The 'Visionary' has to get back to his 'work'." They made the word sound like a profanity.

"The pool," Ray squeaked. "It's just... seniors doing water aerobics."

"Don't play dumb," the bodybuilder boomed. The entire café was silent now, a captivated audience. "Page 27. 'The pigeons cooed a song of passive consumption.' You were calling vegans complacent! You were mocking our ethical stance! You're a speciesist, a carnist apologist!"

The accusation hung in the air, thick and dangerous. The bodybuilder’s hands, capable of snapping a kettlebell in two, clenched into fists. The other fans watched, not in fear, but with a rapt, almost religious intensity. This was part of the show. The confrontation. The test.

Ray’s adrenaline spiked, a pure, cold shot of terror. He was going to be the first Hollywood director publicly deconstructed by a vegan bodybuilder over a metaphor about bird sounds.

But in that white-hot panic, his mind, conditioned now by a week of surreal events, performed a desperate, brilliant pivot. He wasn't Ray the pool supervisor. He was Ramon Atila, the Visionary. And a Visionary didn't get corrected; he re-contextualized.

He straightened up, meeting the giant's furious gaze.

"You misunderstand," Ray said, his voice finding a strange, resonant calm. "The cooing isn't a critique of veganism. It's a lament for its lack of teeth."

The bodybuilder froze. A single, perfect tear welled in their eye.

Ray pressed his advantage, the lie flowing like a revelation. "The pigeons accept their crumbs because they've forgotten how to hunt. They've forgotten their own power. My words weren't an attack on your compassion. They were a call to action. To stop being polite pigeons and become… hawks of compassion. Eagles of ethical consumption."

The effect was instantaneous. The bodybuilder’s fury shattered, replaced by a look of ecstatic revelation. They let out a shuddering breath. "Hawks of compassion…" they whispered, the words a prayer. "We must be predators of peace."

They surged forward and engulfed Ray in a hug that compressed his spine and lifted him from the ground. "Thank you," they rumbled into his ear. "You've shattered my cage. Forgive my aggression. I was still a pigeon."

The café erupted. The woman with the tear-stained book was sobbing with joy. The cardigan-clad man was applauding, his poodle yapping in agreement. The chorus of fans swarmed him, patting his back, shaking his hand, their faces alight with the glow of shared epiphany. He had taken their madness and reflected it back as sublime wisdom.

Dazed, trembling, and riding a colossal wave of adrenaline, Ray managed to extract himself. He floated through the crowd's adoration and stumbled out the door, the sound of their cheers ringing in his ears.

He fell into his car, slamming the door on the madness. The silence was deafening. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest. He stared at his wild-eyed reflection in the rearview mirror.

A slow, shaky, but exhilarated smile spread across his face. He had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea what any of it meant. But he had survived. He had won.

He started the car, the engine’s reliable growl a anchor in the surreal storm. He pulled into traffic, the adrenaline still singing a fierce, triumphant song in his veins. He was a success. They loved him. And he was absolutely, terrifyingly, out of his depth.

•••

The Greyhound bus smelled of stale cigarettes and despair, a scent as familiar to Jay as his own BO. He elbowed the large, silent figure next to him, who was staring out the window at the passing industrial outskirts of a new city.

“Look alive, Bob! Or, you know, just keep doin’ what you’re doin’. We’re here, baby! Montreal! Home of poutine, strip clubs, and hopefully, that crazy bastard writer we keep hearin’ about on all them fancy podcasts.”

Silent Bob didn’t turn, offering only the slightest of shrugs, his gaze fixed on a crumbling brick factory that looked like it had given up on life sometime in the 70s.

“Ramon Atila,” Jay continued, undeterred, pulling out his phone and squinting at a grainy photo. “Dude’s a legend. Writes a book about pigeons and it, like, breaks the whole world’s brain. They say he’s a prophet. They say he sees through all the bullshit. I gotta find him, man. I gotta look into his eyes and see if he’s for real.”

This got a reaction. Bob slowly turned his head, his expression a masterpiece of weary skepticism. He raised a single eyebrow.

“I know that look,” Jay said, pointing a finger. “That’s your ‘Jay, you’re bein’ a dumbass groupie’ look. But this is different, Bob! This ain’t like chasin’ down Affleck for an autograph. This is about, like, the search for meaning, yo! This Atila cat, he gets it. He sees the hollowness. The… the failed world that needs a reboot!”

Bob’s other eyebrow joined the first. He made a small, circular motion with his hand, the universal sign for “You’re spinning your wheels, go on.”

“He’s not like all these other phonies, man! He’s the real deal! I can feel it in my nuggets! He’s probably sittin’ in some dark café right now, writin’ the next thing that’s gonna save all our souls, not surrounded by a bunch of yes-men and star-fuckers.”

Bob’s face remained impassive, but he let out a long, slow sigh through his nose. He then pointed a thick finger directly at Jay’s chest, then gestured vaguely at the entire bus, and finally tapped his own temple.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m the one with the rose-coloured glasses on? That I’m just another celebrity-chasin’ asshole who thinks this Ramon Atila is gonna have all the answers?” Jay’s voice rose, attracting stares from a few other passengers. “That’s bullshit, Bob! And you know it! This is a pilgrimage!”

Bob simply shook his head, a gesture of profound disappointment, and turned back to the window, effectively ending the conversation.

The dismissal was total. It was one thing for Bob to be silent; it was another for him to be mute in a way that screamed “I’ve lost all faith in you.”

“You know what? Fine,” Jay spat, standing up as the bus hissed to a halt at the station. “You think I’m just another groupie? You sit there on your high horse of silence. I’m gonna go find the man himself. I don’t need your cynical, judgmental vibe killin’ my buzz.”

He grabbed his duffel bag and stormed off the bus without a backward glance. Silent Bob watched him go, then heaved another, heavier sigh. He collected his own bag and stepped off into the Montreal evening, turning in the opposite direction. The prophet and his hype man were, for the first time in a long time, walking their own separate paths.

•••

The silence in the Mile End apartment was a fragile thing. Ray could feel it cracking at the edges. Outside, the city hummed its familiar, indifferent song, but inside, the only sound was the frantic scratching of his own thoughts against the inside of his skull. He’d been staring at the same blank document for an hour, the cursor blinking with metronomic mockery.

Universal Pictures. Director. $2.5 Million.

The words were ghosts, haunting the periphery of his vision. They had no weight, no texture. They were less real than the lingering scent of sour diesel OG on his pillow, or the dull, satisfying throb in his newly-set migraine. Peace of mind had left an hour ago, a hurricane departing with a kiss that tasted like his own blood and a whispered, “Don’t disappoint me, Visionary.”

Now, the panic was setting in. The high from surviving the café depot, from facing down the vegan bodybuilder—it was evaporating, leaving behind the cold, hard floor of expectation. He was supposed to have a vision. He was supposed to direct.

He fumbled in the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a tightly-rolled joint, and lit it with a hand that trembled only slightly. The first hit was a sacrament, the smoke a familiar balm smoothing the jagged edges of his fear. This is it, he thought, taking a deeper drag. This is where the ideas come from. This is the well.

He waited. He let the THC soften the world, blur the sharp corners of the expensive, impersonal furniture. He stared at the blank page, waiting for the constellations to form, for the characters to march out of the haze and start speaking their lines.

Nothing.

Just the empty white field and the growing, icy certainty that he was a fraud. That the devils dancing on his shoulder were right. He was a pool supervisor who’d gotten lucky, a stoner who’d written a sad little book that people had wildly misinterpreted.

A new, more terrifying thought bloomed in the center of the high, clear and sharp as broken glass: What if all my problems are because of this?

The thought was a heresy. Weed was his identity. It was the lens through which he saw the beautiful, melancholic chaos of the city. It was the fuel for his late-night writing sessions, the comfort after a long day of herding seniors in the pool. It was the reason he had a drawl people mistook for profundity instead of a slow processing speed.

But what had it really given him lately? A blissful ignorance that had let a life-altering deal sit in his inbox for a week. A passivity that had made him a target for everyone from outraged ex-friends to philosophical vagrants. It had let him float through the chaos, a spectator in his own life, while other people built empires—and firing squads—around his name.

He took another hit, a defensive one this time, trying to drown the thought. The smoke curled towards the ceiling, a grey ghost of his ambition.

His phone buzzed on the desk, shattering the silence. He flinched, his heart hammering. It was an unknown number, but he knew, with a stoner’s sudden, paranoid certainty, who it was.

He let it go to voicemail. A minute later, a text popped up. Not from the unknown number, but from an old friend, Liana, a thread in the city’s vast, invisible grapevine.

Hey Ray. Heard about the deal. Crazy. Also… heard a rumor. Gilda was at Barfly last night, telling people she’s ‘re-evaluating her life choices.’ Said she misses ‘real connection.’ She was asking about you. Just… be careful, okay?

Ray stared at the text. Gilda. His ex. The one who’d looked at his dreams of being a writer like they were cute, childish drawings to be stuck on the fridge before moving on to the serious business of dating a man with a five-year plan and a matching sofa set.

She wants back in.

The phrase landed in the center of his stoned paranoia and exploded. Of course she did. He was Ramon Atila now. He was a commodity. A success. And the vultures were circling—the studios, his ex-girlfriend. They all wanted a piece of the Visionary, and none of them would want the piece that was a terrified, insecure guy who got his ideas from a plant.

He looked from the phone, to the joint, to the blank page. The three pillars of his old life. One was bringing him problems from the past. One was failing to provide solutions for the future. And one was just… empty.

The high suddenly felt different. It wasn’t a creative fog; it was a cage. It was the thing that kept him from seeing the world clearly, that made him slow, that made him miss the 347 emails that changed everything. It was the reason he’d almost been beaten to a pulp over a metaphor about birds. It was the haze through which Gilda now saw him not as Ray, but as a trophy.

With a sudden, violent motion, he stubbed the joint out in a ceramic ashtray, the sweet scent of burnt cannabis now smelling like failure. He stood up, his head swimming slightly, and walked to the window. Down below, the city was the same as ever. But he felt different. The cracks weren't just in his life; they were in his foundation.

He had a movie to direct. A hometown to appease. A storm to keep up with. And an ex-girlfriend sniffing around the edges of his new fortune.

For the first time, getting high felt like the most dangerous thing he could do.

•••

Ray was halfway through microwaving leftover poutine when a knock came at the door. Not a friendly knock, not a landlord knock—this was a knock with… intention.

When he opened it, the universe handed him Madame Gagné: sixty-five, his ex-girlfriend’s mother, and, insult to injury, his former adult education principal. She leaned against the doorframe like she’d just sashayed out of a casino lounge.

“Ramon,” she said, voice dripping with honey and menthol smoke. “I know what you really meant in that book of yours.”

Ray blinked. “Uh… pigeons?”

She smiled like a cat about to eat a canary. Stepping inside uninvited, she pulled a crumpled copy of Pigeons of Park Ex from her oversized purse. “The sad man, feeding his little birds. Everyone thinks it’s about loneliness. But I know better.”

Ray tried to answer, but she spun, bent forward in her sequined mini skirt, and—God help him—flashed him. Two sagging bird-wing tattoos framed what time and gravity had not been kind to. Wrinkles and cellulite glistened in the light of his Ikea lamp.

“This little birdie,” she purred.

Ray staggered back, choking on his own breath. “Miss Gagné, please—”

But she was already moving to the Bluetooth speaker, pressing play. The cursed synth of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” burst out. She began swaying, unzipping her jacket, tossing it aside with theatrical flair.

“You see right through me,” she crooned, kicking off her orthopedic pumps. “You’re a genius. You’ve always seen me. The real me.”

Ray’s poutine cooled in the microwave, forgotten, while his ex’s mother launched into a full striptease. Scarves, jewelry, tights—discarded like she was on the Vegas strip in 1979. Beneath it all, a leopard-print leotard that had clearly seen things.

“Ramon…” she said, dragging her nails down her thighs with the passion of a woman auditioning for a soap opera. “This—” she spun, bent over, and smacked her backside for emphasis—“this is my corned beef hash. And my front? Also corned beef hash. Deluxe platter. All yours.”

Ray clutched the edge of his futon like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic. His brain screamed: Hotel. You need a hotel. Any hotel. Even one with bedbugs. Just get out.

But she kept going, grinding against his coffee table until his unopened Hydro bill fluttered to the floor. “Back when you were my student, I knew. I knew you were different. Destined. You didn’t just fail math, Ramon—you failed my defenses.”

Ray gagged. “Please don’t make failing math sound erotic.”

She tore off the leotard’s straps with a flourish, belting along to the chorus: I wear my sunglasses at night— her hips jerking like a marionette in the throes of demonic possession.

Ray slipped on his hoodie, grabbed his keys, and bolted for the door. “Miss Gagné, Isabelle, you’re… timeless. But I have to… direct my destiny. Somewhere else. Preferably far away.”

“Run if you must,” she called after him, striking a triumphant pose, leopard leotard sagging. “But you’ll never escape the corned beef hash! You’ll always see through me!”

Ray sprinted down the stairwell, the music still thumping above, and vowed not just to find a hotel—he’d find Hollywood. Immediately.

•••

The lobby of the Sherbrooke street hotel was a temple of quiet opulence, all muted greys and indirect lighting. Ray, clutching his duffel bag like a life preserver, felt like a pigeon who’d accidentally flown into a museum. He was halfway to the front desk when a man with a kind, intensely focused face stepped into his path.

“Ramon Atila?” the man said, his accent a soft Quebecois lilt. “It is an honour. Denis Villeneuve.”

Ray blinked. The name meant nothing. He offered a weak, confused smile. “Uh, hey. Nice to meet you.”

Villeneuve’s brow furrowed slightly, then cleared with a look of bemused understanding. He simply nodded, shook Ray’s hand firmly, and moved on. Ray’s phone buzzed instantly. It was Sheila.

“Was that DENIS VILLENEUVE?!” she shrieked, her voice tinny through the phone. “Did you just meet DENIS VILLENEUVE in the lobby?!”

“I guess? Who is he?” Ray mumbled, heading for the elevators.

He could practically hear Sheila tearing her hair out. 

Ray welled up. “You know I was schizo for ten years right? All I watched was Bengali soap operas for three years straight at one point. Give me a break, I kinda fell off the nerd horse.”

“He’s only one of the most revered directors on the planet, Ramon!”

“Oh,” he said. The elevator doors slid shut, sealing him in silent, air-conditioned shame.

The shame was short-lived. As he fumbled with his key card, a figure detached itself from the shadows at the end of the plush hallway. Marco. An ex-friend from his days writing angry zines about municipal politics. Marco’s face was a mask of pure, undiluted contempt.

“Atila,” Marco spat. “The sell-out. Look at you. Hiding in a five-star hotel while the city you ‘love so much’ gets gutted by developers.”

“Marco, man, it’s not like that—”

“It’s exactly like that!” Marco stepped closer, his eyes burning. “You think your little pigeon book is fiction? You’re gossiping about our lives, our pain, and selling it to the highest bidder. There’s no such thing as fiction, Ray. All literature is gossip. You’re a demon whispering our secrets to Hollywood.”

The words hit Ray like a physical blow. He stumbled into his room, slamming the door and sliding the bolt shut. His heart hammered against his ribs. He fumbled in his duffel, his hands shaking as he lit a joint, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs, trying to drown the echo of Marco’s accusation. A demon.

An hour later, high and emotionally frayed, he was patched through to a popular American podcast. The host’s voice boomed with transatlantic bonhomie.

“Ramon Atila! An absolute privilege. I’ve got to tell you, the first time I saw your work, I was getting a prostate exam. Seriously. My doctor had your short YouTube film, ‘Concrete Sky,’ playing on his phone. There I was, in the most vulnerable position imaginable, watching this profoundly beautiful, bleak meditation on urban alienation. It was… transcendent.”

Ray, floating on a cloud of weed, managed to engage. He spoke about the “hollowness in the collective coo,” about the failure of modern connection. The words came easily, lubricated by THC and a genuine, shy passion. Then, unprompted, he landed the punchline he didn’t know he’d been crafting.

“It’s like… nowadays they’re just tryna reboot everything except the failed world we live in,” he said, his voice a lazy, stoned drawl. “Reboot Spider-Man, reboot Batman. Nobody’s talking about rebooting the concept of community. Or happiness. Or not being terrified all the time.”

A stunned silence crackled through the line. “Holy shit,” the host finally breathed. “That’s it. That’s the thesis. You’ve just… you’ve just defined the malaise.”

Ray gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “What can I say? I’ve been kind of a loser and a nerd all my life. It’s a curse, having a handsome face and the soul of a basement-dwelling philosopher.”

The call ended with the hosts falling over themselves to praise his genius. The high of it was better than the weed. He felt seen, understood. He decided to go for a walk, to celebrate with the city he’d just defended.

He was halfway out the door when his phone buzzed again. It was a link from a friend, timestamped to a popular film podcast he followed religiously, “The Reel Deal.” He clicked play, expecting more of the cerebral analysis he’d just experienced. Instead, he was met with a cacophony of excited, overlapping voices. They were discussing the very same "failed world" quote that had just rocketed from his own lips, but they were contextualizing it within a bizarre new framework: celebrity endorsement.

“—and you see it with the people who are drawn to him,” one host was saying. “It’s not just the arthouse crowd. It’s a real cross-section. I mean, look at the list! There’s a whole faction of Hollywood A-listers who’ve been quietly rocking the Atila gear. We’re talking about the intense, brooding types, the guys who probably have strong opinions on Kierkegaard. People like Adam Driver, for sure. You can just picture him reading Atila’s ‘Concrete Sky’ manifesto in some stark, minimalist loft.”

“One hundred percent,” a co-host chimed in, her voice crisp. “But it’s bigger than that. I’ve heard from a very reliable source—my aunt knows his stylist—that Timothée Chalamet was spotted in an incredibly rare, pre-release ‘Urban Bleakness’ hoodie. That’s the one with the frayed hem and the single, inexplicable stitch of blood-red thread. It’s practically a membership card for the cultural elite.”

Ray stopped walking, his mind reeling. Adam Driver? Timothée Chalamet? This was insane. He was just a guy from Montreal who made sad little films about potholes and alienation. But the podcasters weren’t done. They were now gleefully cataloging what they called the “Atila Adjacent.”

“Don’t forget the musicians,” a third voice added. “FKA twigs? She’s the muse for his spring line, I’m calling it now. Her whole ethereal-yet-grounded vibe is pure Atila. And Thom Yorke? I bet he’s got a whole closet of it. The man practically soundtracked the ‘failed world’ aesthetic back in the 90s.”

Ray leaned against a brick wall, the coolness of the stone a stark contrast to the heat of his confusion. This was all abstract, a funny, surreal game of celebrity dress-up. But then the host dropped the bombshell, the one that made Ray’s heart stop and his stoned brain snap to a terrifying, crystalline focus.

“But here’s the real kicker, the one that proves this thing has legs in every subculture,” the lead host said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “My producer, Marc, he was just in Montreal scouting locations, and he swears on a stack of Criterion discs that he saw them. Together. Coming out of a depanneur on St. Laurent, both wearing Ramon Atila beanies. The ‘Silent Bob’ black one and the ‘Jay’ tartan one. I’m talking about Bluntman and Chronic, man. In the flesh. Or, as Marc called it, ‘the prophet and his hype man, paying sartorial homage to the new voice of a generation.’”

The world tilted. Jay and Silent Bob. The architects of his entire teenage worldview, the sacred texts of his nerdhood. They were here. In his city. And they were wearing… his brand? The brand that, until an hour ago, was just him and his friends? A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. This wasn't abstract anymore. This was a direct, personal assault on the very foundations of his fandom. The high of the podcast call curdled instantly into a nauseating vertigo. The gods of his youth had not only descended to Montreal; they had apparently anointed him, and the sheer, impossible weight of that thought was enough to make him slide down the wall and sit right there on the cold sidewalk.

The Montreal evening was cool and alive. He walked through the Plateau, anonymous in the crowd, a silent king among his subjects. The gold of the setting sun gilded the crumbling brick, just like in his car that morning, a lifetime ago. He felt a profound peace, a sense of belonging. He had made it. He was Ramon Atila, Visionary.

And then, a guy leaning against a brick wall, clutching a tall can of Molson Export, shattered the illusion.

“Hey! Atila!” the guy slurred.

Ray turned, expecting another fan.

The man sneered, his face a roadmap of cheap beer and cheaper opinions. “You’re a fraud, man. A wannabe nobody. You don’t know how to direct a movie. You can’t even direct traffic, you hack.”

The words were a bucket of ice water. The high vanished. The peace evaporated. Ray stood frozen on the sidewalk as the man stumbled away, leaving behind only the echo of his venom and the scent of stale beer. The two truths of his new existence—the genius and the fraud—collided, leaving him hollowed out and utterly alone in the middle of his cheering city. The reboot of his life was already crashing.

•••

The plush hotel carpet was developing a bald patch from Ray’s frantic pacing. In the corner, a director’s chair—a gift from the studio that now felt like a taunt—was stenciled with ‘RAMON ATILA: VISIONARY’. He was pretty sure his only vision was an astigmatism and a deep-seated fear of authority figures. Directing a $100 million movie? He couldn’t even direct himself to a balanced breakfast. He was a writer, for god’s sake! His most commanding leadership role was deciding which YMCA senior got the broken stationary bike.

The thought of the old men at the ‘Y’ made his stomach clench. They’d started a fan club, ‘Les Amis de Ramon’. They’d knitted him a sweater with a pigeon on it. He couldn’t come back to Montreal a failure. He couldn’t let down the only fanbase that also discussed fiber intake with such fervor.

A shriek from the street below sliced through his panic spiral. Leaning over his balcony, he saw what looked like a one-woman tornado having a meltdown on Rue Sherbrooke. A woman was manically flinging a wardrobe’s worth of clothes into the air. A sequined top landed on a horrified poodle. “YOU CAN’T GO TO HOLLYWOOD!” she screeched to the heavens.

Ray sighed. Just another Tuesday in Montreal. He was about to go back to mentally storyboarding his own professional demise when a lamppost illuminated her face. It was Flavia. High school Flavia. The girl who’d once told him his artistic soul was “about as deep as a sidewalk puddle” before dating a guy named Chad who could benchpress a small car.

Now, she was trying to benchpress her own sanity and losing badly. She started tearing at her own designer dress like she was Hulk after a bad day. “IF YOU LEAVE, I’LL DO IT! I’LL SPREAD MY BRAINS ALL OVER THIS AUTHENTIC BELGIAN BLOCK PAVEMENT!” she yelled, which was a weirdly specific threat.

Then she pulled out a gun. It was a tiny, pearl-handled thing, the kind a villainous grandmother might keep in her purse. She pressed it to her temple with dramatic flair. “THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, ISN’T IT? A SCANDAL FOR THE TABLOIDS!”

This was no longer quirky local color; this was a live-action episode of a very bad soap opera happening directly beneath his hotel. Panic. What was the protocol? Throw down a complimentary mint?

“Flavia!” he yelped.

She wobbled, looking up. “Ramon? The writer? Oh god, you’re witnessing my rock bottom! This is so much worse!”

“Just… put the tiny gun down!”

“NOT UNTIL YOU PROMISE YOU WON’T LEAVE ME FOR SHALLOW HOLLYWOOD STARLETS!”

They had never dated. They’d spoken maybe three times, all of them humiliating. But the gun was still there. Thinking of the YMCA seniors and their pigeon sweater, he knew what he had to do. He had to direct his first scene.

He leaned over the railing, summoning his best auteur voice. “CUT! Flavia, darling, your motivation is all wrong! Of course I’m not leaving you! I… I’ll take you back!”

The gun wavered. “You will? You promise?”

“I promise! Now for god’s sake, put the prop away before you scuff the pavement!”

She lowered the gun, a beatific smile breaking through her mascara-streaked chaos. “Oh, Ramon! I knew it!”

Ray slumped against the railing. He had just agreed to a relationship with a human hurricane to avoid a mess on the sidewalk. Directing Robert De Niro suddenly seemed a lot less terrifying.

•••

The hotel suite door clicked shut, sealing Ramon and Flavia in a bubble of plush, sound-deadened silence. The only evidence of the madness outside was the faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a dance club several stories below, a ghost of a heartbeat in the sterile air.

Ray leaned against the door, watching her. Flavia stood in the center of the room, not as a guest might, but as a conqueror surveying new territory. The wild, gun-wielding energy had subsided, replaced by a simmering, focused intensity. She shrugged off her ruined designer jacket, letting it fall to the floor with a whisper of silk.

“So,” she said, her voice husky. “The Visionary and the Lunatic. Sounds like a shitty band name.”

Ray managed a weak grunt. “You know, most first dates don’t involve firearms.”

“Most men aren’t worth the theatrics.” She walked to the minibar, her movements fluid and unselfconscious. She didn’t ask, just popped it open and pulled out a tiny bottle of whiskey, cracking the seal with a sharp twist. She drank it neat, her throat working as she swallowed. “You were different in high school. Quieter. You had that lazy eye even then. Everyone thought you were slow. I thought you were just… collecting.”

Ray blinked, thrown. “Collecting what?”

“Everything. The way Madame Gagné’s perfume clung to the chalk dust. The specific sound a Molson Export can makes when a guy crushes it after his girlfriend says no. You were a sponge, soaking up all our pathetic little dramas.” She tossed the empty bottle into the chrome trash can. It landed with a definitive clink. “I told everyone you were boring. I was wrong. You were just patient.”

This was not the script. The groupies at Café Depot, the yoga instructors at the Y—they saw a prophet, a misunderstood genius. They projected their own meanings onto his hazy metaphors. Flavia wasn’t looking at the prophet. She was looking at the patient, collecting boy. The distinction was so profound it left him breathless.

“They don’t get it, you know,” he mumbled, pushing off the door and venturing further into the room. “The book. They’re all building these… these philosophies on top of it. It’s just a story about being sad and watching birds.”

“Of course it is,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s why it’s good. Because you weren’t trying to be smart. You were just being honest. And now…” She gestured around the opulent suite, a sweeping motion that encompassed the Hollywood deal, the town car, the entire crushing edifice of his new fame. “…you’re surrounded by people who wouldn’t know honesty if it bit them on their professionally sculpted asses. You’re a raw nerve in a world of Botox.”

She saw through it all. The curated mystique, Sheila’s “Reclusive Genius” narrative, the terrified man hiding inside the Visionary’s costume. It was the most terrifying and exhilarating thing that had happened to him all week.

He felt a sudden, desperate need to cling to her, to this one person who saw the bedrock beneath the absurd construction. “You… you really get it,” he said, the words sounding pathetic and needy even to his own ears.

Flavia’s expression hardened. She crossed the space between them in three quick strides, stopping so close he could smell the whiskey on her breath, mingling with the jasmine.

“Don’t,” she snapped, her eyes flashing. “Don’t you dare make me your new anchor. Don’t look at me with those grateful, wounded-puppy eyes and decide I’m your ‘real one.’ I’m not a life raft, Ramon. I’m the fucking storm.”

Before he could process this, her hand shot out. Not to caress his face, but to grip his chin, her fingers digging into the tender flesh of his jaw. The pain was sharp, clarifying.

“You think because I’m not one of them, I’m your salvation?” she hissed, her face inches from his. “You’re so desperate for something real, you’ll attach yourself to the first person who calls you on your bullshit. You’re a success, act like one. Stop apologizing for existing. It’s weak. And I hate weak men.”

The insult landed, clean and true. It wasn’t the generic “fraud” yelled by a drunk on the street. This was a surgical strike from someone who had seen the core of his cowardice. The self-pity that had been his constant companion curdled into something else—a hot, bright spike of anger.

He pulled his face from her grip. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he growled, the drawl vanishing from his voice.

“I know a man who’s about to be eaten alive because he’d rather be liked than respected,” she shot back, her gaze unwavering. “You’re so scared of being the demon that journalist Marco Mondino called you in his blog that you’re letting everyone else write your story. It makes me want to punch that stupid, handsome nose right off your face.”

The threat was so specific, so visceral, it hung in the air between them, a challenge. The anger in him boiled over. He was tired of being misunderstood, patronized, pitied, and beat up. He took a step forward, crowding her.

“Do it, then,” he dared her, his voice low and rough.

Flavia’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Then a slow, dangerous smile spread across her lips. “Okay, Visionary.”

She didn’t wind up. There was no theatricality to it. It was a short, explosive, professional-quality jab. His head snapped back as her fist connected with his nose with a sickening, wet crunch.

White light exploded behind his eyes. He staggered back, clutching his face, blood immediately welling hot and thick between his fingers. The pain was immense, a roaring in his ears that drowned out everything. He saw stars, the room tilting.

Through the blinding pain, he saw her standing there, shaking out her hand, her chest heaving. There was no regret in her eyes. Only a fierce, feral triumph.

And in that moment, through the agony and the shock, he saw her. Truly saw her. Not the high school airhead, not the unhinged groupie, not a symbol or a salvation. She was chaos and clarity, violence and truth, all wrapped in a devastating package. She was the only real thing in his plastic new world.

He let out a wet, bloody laugh, dropping his hands. Blood streamed down his lips and chin, dripping onto the pristine white of his shirt.

Flavia watched him, her gaze hungry. “Now you look like you feel something.”

He didn’t answer with words. The last vestiges of his passive persona burned away in the fire of the pain and her terrifying honesty. He crossed the space and grabbed her, his hands tangling in her hair, his blood smearing across her cheek as he crushed his mouth to hers.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a collision. A battle for dominance fought with teeth and tongue and the shared, metallic taste of his blood. She met him with equal ferocity, her nails digging into the back of his neck, her body pressing against his with a raw, untamed energy.

They stumbled toward the bed, a tangle of limbs and torn clothing. There was no seduction, no soft music, no carefully constructed intimacy. It was a raw, frantic, and glorious claiming. It was the wild animal love the prompt demanded, a physical conversation that was louder and truer than any interview or podcast. She was the storm, and he was finally, exultantly, letting it sweep him away. For the first time since this insanity began, he wasn’t thinking about pigeons, or contracts, or his public image. He was just feeling, anchored to the world by the most dangerous and wonderful woman he had ever known.

•••

The hotel room door clicked shut, a sound as final as a coffin lid. Ray leaned against the cool wood, the plush silence of the hallway a stark contrast to the riot in his skull. Flavia’s perfume—a mix of jasmine and pure, undiluted chaos—still clung to his clothes, a fragrant ghost of the hurricane he’d just let into his life.

He had a girlfriend. Or a co-star in his impending psychological collapse. He wasn't sure of the distinction anymore. One moment he was contemplating the terrifying blank page of a $100 million screenplay, the next he was talking a deranged, gun-wielding Flavia off a Belgian block pavement with a promise of eternal devotion. Directing was just advanced crisis management, he decided. And his life was a perpetual, five-alarm crisis.

He needed air. Real air, not the recycled, temperature-controlled opulence of the Sherbrooke hotel. He needed to walk, to feel the city under his feet, to remember the man he was before he became “Ramon Atila, Visionary.”

The Montreal night was cool, a gentle reprieve. He walked without direction, through the familiar maze of the Plateau. The gold of the late September sun was gone, replaced by the sodium-orange glow of streetlights reflecting off crumbling brick. He passed Café Olimpico, where a producer’s niece had supposedly first read his book. He saw kids who looked like they’d stepped out of his story—messy, beautiful, and full of a loneliness he once understood. Now, he was just a tourist in their world, a ghost haunting his own life.

He found himself on a quieter residential street, the sounds of the main drag fading. He lit a cigarette, the flame of his lighter a tiny, defiant spark in the dark. This was better. This was real. For a few, precious minutes, the noise in his head subsided, replaced by the simple rhythm of his footsteps.

That’s when he saw the car. A black Lincoln Town Car, old but impeccably clean, rolling to a stop at the curb just ahead of him. The engine cut. The silence that followed was heavier than it should have been.

Ray’s pace slowed. A primal instinct, one that had been dulled by weed and sudden fame, sharpened to a point. He took a final drag and flicked the cigarette into the gutter.

The driver’s side door opened. A man got out. He was built solid, like a retired wrestler, dressed in a simple, expensive-looking tracksuit. He had a kind of quiet, unassuming power that didn’t need to announce itself. His hair was slicked back, and his face, in the dim light, was a mask of calm disappointment.

“Ramon Atila,” the man said. His voice was calm, with a subtle Italian-Canadian inflection that was pure Montreal.

Ray stopped walking. The name, spoken in that tone, felt like an accusation. “Yeah? Can I help you?”

The man didn’t smile. He walked around the front of the car, his movements economical and precise. He stopped a few feet from Ray, looking him up and down as if assessing a piece of faulty machinery.

“My uncle,” the man began, his voice deceptively soft, “he’s a big fan of your work. A real… visionary, he says.”

Ray’s heart, which had been slowly climbing into his throat, now lodged itself there. Uncle. The word hung in the air, charged with a meaning he was only just beginning to comprehend. The pigeons.

“Look,” Ray said, his voice tighter than he wanted it to be. “There’s been a misunderstanding. The book, it’s all made up. It’s fiction.”

“Sì, fiction,” the man nodded, as if agreeing with a child. “That’s what we thought at first. But my uncle, he’s a deep reader. He sees the patterns. The details.” He took a small step closer. The street was deserted. “A ten percent cut. A bagel order. A safe behind a hockey poster. That’s some very specific fiction.”

“It was coincidence!” Ray’s voice rose, edged with panic. “I just see things and I write them down! I’m a writer! It’s what we do!”

The man’s expression didn’t change. “You know, in our line of work, coincidence is a luxury we can’t afford. It looks like carelessness. Or it looks like disrespect.” He sighed, a sound of profound weariness. “My uncle, he’s a sentimental man. He didn’t want to do this. He thinks you have a gift. But you left him no choice. You embarrassed the family. You made us look like… pigeons.”

The last word was a whisper, a venomous punchline.

Ray’s mind raced, a frantic montage of every mob movie he’d ever seen. He should run. He should scream. But his feet were rooted to the spot, his body a statue of pure, undiluted fear.

“Please,” Ray whispered.

The Italian-Canadian man gave him a look that was almost pitying. “It’s nothing personal, artiste.”

The movement was too fast to track. There was no wind-up, no theatrical warning. Just a sudden, explosive shift in weight and a fist that moved like a piston.

Ray saw it coming in the last millisecond—a blur of motion in the periphery of his good eye. There was no time to flinch, no time to even register the impact before it connected with his jaw.

The world didn’t fade to black. It shattered into a supernova of white-hot pain. A crack that was both sound and feeling reverberated through his skull. The taste of copper flooded his mouth anew, a brutal echo of the beating he’d just endured in the cafe basement. The familiar streets of the Plateau tilted on their axis, the orange lights smearing into streaks before his vision tunneled into nothing.

His last conscious thought wasn’t of Flavia, or his movie, or his pigeons. It was of the knitted sweater with the lumpy, cross-eyed bird, left behind on his boss’s desk. A simple, ugly, beautiful thing from a life that was already a million miles away.

Then, nothing.

•••

The world swam back into focus as a bucket of ice-cold water hit Ray’s face. He sputtered, choking, the shock jolting him from unconsciousness into a worse reality. Every muscle screamed in protest. He was tied to a heavy wooden chair, his wrists bound tightly behind his back. The air was thick with the smell of damp concrete and stale cigar smoke. A single, bare bulb hung from a wire, casting a harsh light that made his throbbing head pound in rhythm with his heart. He was in a basement. And standing over him, his face a mask of cold fury, was Salvatore “Uncle Sal” Iacono. The beating was about to begin.

•••

The basement of Resto Cafe Italia smelled of stale beer and profound regret. Ramon Atila, known to his few friends as “Ray,” was currently intimately acquainted with all three. His left eye was swelling shut, and a coppery taste filled his mouth. The business end of a Beretta was being used to punctuate the questions posed by the man seated before him.

The man was head of the Iacono Crime Family. He was a man who wore his custom-made suits like a threat. Beside him, a mountain of a man named Gino provided the percussive accompaniment with his pistol.

“Let’s try this again, artiste,” Sal said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He held up a literary journal, its pages dog-eared. “This story of yours. ‘The Pigeons of Park Ex.’ You wanna tell me it’s a coincidence?”

Ray spat a glob of blood onto the floor. “It’s about birds, man. Metaphorical birds. It’s about urban alienation in Montreal.”

“Urban alienation,” Sal repeated, nodding slowly as if Ray had just confessed to a profound truth. He turned to a specific page. “Right here. You write, ‘The alpha pigeon, a fat grey bastard with a damaged foot, knew the other flocks were cutting their seed with cheap millet. To maximize profits, he decreed a further ten percent cut, and the next breadcrumb drop would be at the corner of Rue St.-Laurent and Rue Bélanger.’” Sal looked up, his eyes wide with faux-incredulity. “Milord! What a specific detail for a metaphor! And what a crazy coincidence that last Tuesday, my operation cut the product a further ten percent to save money, and did the drop on the corner of St.-Laurent and Bélanger!”

Gino thumped Ray in the kidney with the pistol butt for emphasis. Ray grunted, seeing stars.

“I… I was sitting at a café there!” Ray gasped. “I must have seen something! Subconsciously!”

“Subconsciously,” Sal said, his tone dripping with skepticism. He flipped a page. “Okay, hotshot. How about this one? ‘The Pigeon King’s nephew, a foolish young bird named Paulie, was told to stop squawking about his new BMW on the wire. But he didn’t listen.’” Sal leaned forward, his chair scraping. “My idiot nephew, Paolo, gets a new 7-series and won’t shut up about it on the phone we explicitly told him was for business only. The Sûreté picked it up! He’s awaiting trial! You expect me to believe that’s a metaphor for squawking?”

“It’s a common trope! Hubris!” Ray pleaded.

Sal ignored him, getting more animated, practically narrating his own indictment. “And this! This is the kicker! ‘The Pigeon King’s favourite courier, a swift bird named Enzo, always stopped for a sesame seed bagel at Fairmount Bagel before his long flight.’” Sal slammed the journal down. “Sesame seed! Not poppy! Not all-dressed! Sesame! That is the exact order my top runner, Enzo, places every Thursday before he drives the shipment to Toronto! A detail only someone on the inside would know!”

Gino swung again. BANG. Ray’s world tilted.

“Who are you working with?” Sal demanded, now standing over him. “The cops? The Roncis? Is it that hack reviewer from the Gazette who said your endings lack punch?”

“No one! It’s fiction!” Ray wailed, his voice cracking. “You’re reading what you want to see!”

“I’m reading a blueprint of my entire operation, you little worm!” Sal roared, his face turning purple. “The part about laundering the money through the doomed puppet show at Théâtre Sainte-Catherine? Genius! We’d have gotten away with it if the puppeteer hadn’t talked! And the thing about the backup safe being behind the fake poster of Les Habs 1993 Stanley Cup win in the back room of the cheese shop on Rue Jean-Talon? A masterpiece of misdirection! How did you even know about the safe?”

Ray could only stare, dumbfounded. Salvatore Iacono, in a frantic effort to prove Ray was a rat, was comprehensively ratting himself out to a man who was, by this point, mostly just a bloody ear and a sense of utter bewilderment.

Sal straightened his tie, breathing heavily. He looked from the bewildered, battered artist to his enforcer.

“Gino,” Sal said, his voice calm again. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

Ray felt a surge of relief so potent it almost numbed the pain.

Sal nodded. “He’s not a rat. He’s a prophet.” He picked up the journal, handling it with newfound reverence. “The details… the clarity… it’s unbelievable. This isn’t an exposé. This is a strategic assessment.”

He looked at Ray, a strange, hungry glint in his eye.

“The beating is over. Get him ice. And a pen,” Sal commanded. “We’re not killing him, Gino. We’re hiring him. I want to know what happens in the next chapter.”

•••

The world swam back into focus as a bucket of ice-cold water hit Ray’s face. He sputtered, choking, the shock jolting him from the darkness. He was in the back of a van, his wrists zip-tied. Sal Iacono’s man, Gino, sat opposite him, cleaning his nails with a switchblade.

“The boss changed his mind,” Gino grunted. “Said you’re too high-profile to disappear. Said you’re a ‘natural resource.’ But you need to understand the stakes.”

The van door slid open, revealing a dingy alley behind a Korean BBQ joint. Gino shoved him out, the knife flashing to sever the plastic ties. “Stay useful, artiste. Boss wants a 5,000-word prophecy in one week.”

Ray stumbled into the evening air, bruised, humiliated, and profoundly shaken. He fumbled for his weed, his hands trembling as he tried to roll a joint. It was his only anchor, the only thing that could sand the sharp edges off this terrifying new reality. But before he could light it, his phone buzzed. An unknown number. He answered.

“Ramon? It’s Gilda.” The voice of his ex-girlfriend was a silken dagger. “I heard about your… good fortune. I always knew you had it in you. We should celebrate. Reconnect.”

Ray leaned against the greasy brick wall. “Gilda, I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

“Of course you are. A man of your stature. But don’t forget the people who knew you when.” The line clicked off. The anchor of his past was now tugging him into a different kind of deep water.

His phone buzzed again. This time, it was his mother. “Mijo! The whole family is talking! How could you write such things about your Tia Rosa? That story about the pigeon hoarding rosaries? She’s devastated! And the things you revealed about your secret life! We had no idea you were involved with… with those people!”

“Mami, it’s fiction! I don’t have a secret life! I smoke weed and the ideas come. That’s it!”

“Don’t you lie to me, Ramon Atila! The whole city knows! You gossip about us to the whole world and then pretend it’s art?” The line dissolved into a torrent of Spanish and Italian, a familial scolding that was somehow more terrifying than Gino’s knife.

He finally managed to light the joint, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs, begging for the familiar haze to descend. But the peace wouldn’t come. The cracks were widening. His ex wanted a piece. His family thought he was a traitor. The mob thought he was a prophet. He was a ghost in every room, a character in a story he no longer controlled.

He started walking, the joint glued to his lips, puffing furiously. He needed to get back to his hotel, to barricade himself against the onslaught. He turned the corner onto a busier street, and saw a crowd gathered outside the very Korean restaurant he’d just been dumped behind. A commotion.

His heart sank. As he got closer, he saw the source. A group of young, dedicated "Atila-ites," having spotted him, had decided to stage an impromptu vigil. They were sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, passing around a massive, expertly-rolled blunt, chanting lines from Pigeons of Park Ex.

“The sky is empty!” one yelled.

“So we fill it with smoke!” the others chorused back.

They saw him, their prophet, approaching, a joint in his hand—a living symbol of his philosophy. They cheered. They swarmed him, offering hits from their blunt, their eyes wide with adoration. The smoke thickened, a fragrant cloud enveloping the entrance to the restaurant.

Ray, trapped in the ritual, took a hit. It was strong, laced with something that made his head spin. The crowd grew, spilling off the sidewalk, blocking the door. The manager came out, yelling in Korean, waving his arms. The scene was tipping from a peaceful gathering into a full-blown, weed-smoking blockade.

And then he saw her. An elderly Korean woman, trying to leave the restaurant with her family. She was trapped by the wall of stoned, chanting bodies. The confusion on her face turned to fear as the smoke swirled around her. She clutched her chest, her eyes wide with panic, her breathing becoming ragged, shallow gasps. She was having a panic attack.

Her son was shouting, trying to clear a path, but the Atila-ites were too lost in their own euphoric interpretation of his work to notice. They were literally smoking his words while suffocating an innocent woman with them.

Ray stood frozen, the lit joint dangling from his fingers. He looked at the terrified old woman. He looked at the mob of his own creation, their faces blissful and utterly oblivious. He heard his mother’s voice: You gossip about us to the whole world. He felt Sal Iacono’s cold gaze. He saw Gilda’s calculating smile.

The cracks in his life weren't just widening; they were chasms, and he was falling. And in that moment, watching the old woman struggle to breathe through the haze of his own supposed philosophy, a terrible, sobering thought cleaved through the high.

Did weed do more to hurt me than help me?

It had been his solace, his creative fuel, the lens through which he viewed the world’ beautiful, melancholic chaos. But it had also made him passive, blissfully unaware of the 347 unread emails that changed his life. It had given him the drawl to hide behind. And now, the culture around it—the very culture he’d inadvertently become the figurehead for—was physically harming someone.

The joint fell from his fingers, extinguished on the dirty pavement. The vision of the panicked woman’s face was a splash of cold reality more effective than any amount of Gino’s ice water. For the first time, the comforting haze didn't feel like a refuge. It felt like a cage he had built for himself, one that was now trapping everyone around him.

•••

The stale Montreal air tasted like regret and poutine fumes. Ray – half-Italian, half-Latino, and one hundred percent wrestling with a craving that coiled in his gut like an anxious snake – was pacing outside a depanneur, debating the merits of his sobriety, when a voice cut through the frigid evening.

“Yo, home-skillet, you’re walkin’ a hole in the concrete. You gonna buy somethin’ or just give the place a free polish?”

He turned. Leaning against a lamppost was a figure out of time. A backwards Yankees cap, a trench coat, a face perpetually stuck in a 90s stoner comedy. It was him. Jay.

“Whoa,” Ray said, intelligently.

“Whoa yourself, hombre,” Jay shot back, pushing off the lamppost. “You got the look. The hunger. The need for the green. Am I right, or am I, like, prophet-level right?”

Ray shrugged, defeated. “It’s a battle, man.”

“Battle? Dude, it’s a full-scale war. And your general just went AWOL. But I got a new recruiter for ya.” He clapped a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “His name is J.C. And no, he don’t stand for Jay-C, though that’s a dope name. I’m talkin’ the original. The big guy. The Nazareth Nailer.”

Ray stared. “You’re telling me to find Jesus?”

“I’m tellin’ you I found Jesus! Well, he found me. Behind a Hot Topic. Long story. Point is, the hole you’re tryin’ to fill with the dank? That’s a God-shaped hole, son. Trust me, I’m an expert on holes. Snoochie boochies.”

Ray was too bewildered to crave weed. “Why are you in Montreal? And where’s your… other half?”

Jay’s bravado deflated. “Bob. My hetero-life-mate. We had a… a thing. A disagreement.”

“About what?”

“The theological implications of the ‘Clerks’ ending. He called my interpretation ‘juvenile and hermeneutically unsound.’ We haven’t spoken in three days. It’s a record. I’m lost, Ray. I’m a Jay without his Silent Bob.”

A strange solidarity bloomed in Ray’s chest. Jay’s loss mirrored his own, however different. “I’ll help you find him,” he heard himself say. “If you… you know, keep talking about that God-shaped hole thing.”

Jay’s face lit up. “Deal! Now, think. Where would a heartbroken, philosophically-minded fat man in a trench coat go?”

Meanwhile, across town, in a chic Plateau apartment, Silent Bob was not being silent.

He swirled a snifter of expensive brandy, wearing a surprisingly luxurious navy housecoat over his usual attire. “So, I told him,” Bob said, his voice a rich, sonorous baritone that stunned the circle of intellectuals hanging on his every word, “that Kierkegaard’s concept of the ‘leap of faith’ is fundamentally misunderstood when applied to choosing between Tasty Cheese and All-Dressed chips at the depanneur. It’s not a leap into the absurd; it’s a surrender to sublime, flavorful mediocrity.”

The guests chuckled appreciatively. A woman in thick-framed glasses nodded. “And what of your friend? The… vociferous one?”

Bob took a dignified sip. “Jay is a philistine, but he’s my philistine. His heart, however obscured by a cloud of pot smoke and profanity, is in the right place. He’ll come. He always does. He just requires a suitably dramatic backdrop for his apology.”

To Be Continued….

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       AtilA

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