10
The Bingo Hall lies awake under the stars, listening to Radio Finland. The voice of the night host, deep and clear through the ether, speaks slowly in a language the Bingo Hall doesn’t understand. He likes to not understand. It’s a relief. The voice fades through the winter dark, swirls, overlapping with a melancholic tango where space opens behind space, and the Bingo Hall dreams of swimming naked in Lake Inari under the northern lights. The only Finnish word he knows is “Juoksentelisinkohan?” which means “I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?”
30
The telephone rang at two in the morning. I stared at the phone, half-asleep, wondering what to do. It needed help but I wasn't sure how to assist. The phone rang again, and I realized the only way I could help the phone was to answer it. I picked it up, said hello. "Sorry to bother you,” the Bingo Hall said, “but could you do me a favour? I’m afraid of spiders, and there's one in the hallway. I feel it crawling through me. Can you come over and get rid of it? I'll shine a light so you can spot it." I hung up the phone, slipped on my boots and jacket, and stepped outside. I walked across my yard and reached the Bingo Hall. The automatic doors opened as I approached. A single light glowed in the hallway, shining against a wall. I studied the illuminated wall and saw a spider crawling across it. I carefully picked up the spider and placed it gently inside my pocket.
33
During the warm months when people keep their windows open, one can hear the bingo caller all over the block and beyond, and someone, leaning out of a window or walking by in the street, will always merrily yell “Bingo!” and then giggle and smile. Old and young alike. It feels good to yell “Bingo!” in a light voice. One Sunday in June, walking past the cathedral during service, I could hear every word spoken inside through the open doors, every psalm number called sounding like a bingo number, the music floating beautifully through the air, but no one is filling their sheets.
75
One of the many things the mailwoman loved about her job was that she never knew day-to-day what she’d find in her mailbag. Sometimes it was a sack of fish, addressed to the sea. Other times she carried tiny envelopes of raindrops, sent from a cloud to a puddle. Yesterday her bag was empty, nothing in it, but the mailwoman still went door to door, delivering the emptiness, the nothingness. Today she delivered a handful of snipped hair to a barbershop floor. “Thank you. It’s my mother’s hair. I miss her so much,” the barber said, sweeping the strands into a pile.
50
The number four dreamt it was back home in the Country of Four, where things were simpler. There were only four days a week, four weeks a year. It remembered eating four meals a day. Those were good times. But there were dark moments too. When its parents died it buried four coffins. The number four woke from the dream, confused, unsure where it was. But when the clock struck nine and didn’t chime four times it knew it was still in Trondheim.
72
The Bingo Hall sits by the window in a night open café, looking out at the harbour. A westerly gale slams the herring boats together. The wind surges through the streets. A lighted kitchen window floats in a rain puddle on the asphalt. Inside, a man is having kippers and potatoes. When his coffee arrives, the Bingo Hall knocks over the cup and spills coffee all over the floor. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Don’t worry about it,” the waitress says, “it’s OK. I’ll get it cleaned up in a whiff.” “I’m so sorry,” the Bingo Hall says again, “I was just gonna... and then...” “It’s OK, really, it happens all the time,” the waitress says, walking off to fetch a cleaning cloth. “You’re a mess,” the Bingo Hall’s lungs wheeze at him. “We just want to be left alone,” his hands say. When the waitress returns, she says, “I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you the Before-Man in that beauty product commercial that was all over TV a couple years ago?” “That was him alright,” his heart says, “and what’s more, he was perfect for the part.” “That’s what I thought, too,” the waitress says. Then she smiles, gives his hand a quick squeeze.
Jason Heroux lives in Kingston. His recent publications include a chapbook Blizzard of None (Puddles of Sky Press) and the collection of prose poems Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions). He was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022.
Dag T. Straumsvåg (b. 1964 in Norway) has been employed as a farmhand, sawmill worker, librarian, and sound engineer for a radio station in Trondheim, where he has lived since 1984. He is the author and translator of ten books of poetry, including A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse (2006), The Lure-Maker from Posio (2011), both from Red Dragonfly Press, Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), Eleven Elleve Alive, with Stuart Ross and Hugh Thomas (shreeking violet press, 2018), and But in the Stillness (Apt. 9, 2024). He runs the small press A + D together with his girlfriend Angella Kassube. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.