Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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THE ASHBURIAN JS' silently on its grimy pyre far below the crests of green above. It would shiver the numbest flesh. Now he knew what was expected of him. lle was to become like the rest. He nmst accept this pain, dilute it with indifference. beer and time, and let the FCSI of his emotions YCgCf1lfC. This is what had happened to everyone else. Now he could see the reasons for their elaborate ceremonies and organizations. They were all moral cowards. Once before they were hurt, so now they hid and refused to acknowledge the pain, hoping it would go away. Indifference was their only hope. Nerves shocked and burnt from the terror of the past now only calmed by that same terror. The point had been reached where the exodus from the heart was a salvation in itself. This was his choice to accept his father's life or salvation. He could stay here and try to become indifferent to the whole issue, or he could try to accept it as it really was and live according to his emotions. But like his father he wasn't very strong. His father built his life from sand. praying for rain to wash away the decay. XYhen the rain came he found his ideas the truth and was so horrified he couldn't face them. He melted into a group, and tried to forget himself as an individual person, until finally he found the time and knew what he had lost. Our youthful friend now placed in the same slot began to under- stand a little the destiny of man. He remembered the cause and reasons for his father's death. He felt horrified and even more terrified for his visualization of himself in the role of his father. The idea destroyed his moral code. Pained and horrified, the role intrigued him. XYhat could his father's life hold for him? VVhat salvation and relief from his own personal torment? A little peace, if only it were possible. His curiosity had broken through its chains and he made the fatal mistake of straying from private reflection to his own private reality. His own private reality now became his own reality. He was now in the role he had previously only contemplated. He stood up, horrified and with a wail of despair ran through the door. The people he passed became snarling, grunting animals. Uutside the day was just leaving. Dusk seemed to beautify the area. hiding the ugliness and illuminating the beauty. A soft rain refreshed his flushed face. The rain was gentle and kind. Behind came only soft sobbings and the silent death of a dozen souls. He stopped. The sky was turning deep blood-red. an old hen's egg. His head drooped between his shoulders. He looked down. A noise softly echoed below him. He leaned wearily against the bridge. Below the green waves played noisily, rising and breaking against the shore. I. lf. Carrigan

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2-I THE ASHBURIAN to contrast more effectively with the deep black eyes that looked like a deep dark void broken only by the glorious flashes that struck novas in the universe. He knew taat the townspeople didn't like the way he was acting but he didn't care. He was determined not to let them destroy what feelings he had left. His gaze drifted uninterrupted slowly around the smoky tavern. How could his father have accepted these people as friends? These people who thought to show any emotion openly was bad manners. He could feel the scorn they felt for him as they sat with their cigars and beer and pointed at him with their pudgy fingers but he didn't care. He was still outside their group. You could see the cold flame burning inside him, a flame that refused to be extinguished. He still had the strength to think, to question, and not to accept anything without fact. How could his father have accepted this for so long? How often had he sat in this chair, staring at these surroundings, drinking, smoking, talking, content with his filthy environment? The whole place painfully cramped the mind and shrunk the soul, cutting down one's scope to a place bordered by pine and oak. This is what he left his own family for? The whole bar was nothing but a dark black box with its key slowly turning in a lock that could never be re-opened. These thoughts left the poor man in misery, for he was looking for an answer and no one was there to fill the gaps. Time would answer everything but first he IHLISI' find his own faith: something he could hold out onto and let time and space flow through, enough for life and death. These ideas had stopped his weeping. His pain had been replaced by curiosity. Last night his father had been late. He was usually late, but this time me was later than usual and our young man had to look for him. lt was still dusk and the evening fog came in clinging to his face. As he crossed the bridge he couldn't see the water underneath but he knew what it was like, brown water shifting and slithering against the beams of the bridge. Ahead stood a solitary figure leaning on a rail, black and terrifying against the crimson sky. A figure with drooped shoulders and between them a weary head staring at the gurgling below him. The young man had screamed, terrified in anticipation, but the other just sadly turned his white face toward him and then back to the water. Below a pale hand receded under the water as the ripples silently rushed away to leave its surface unbroken once more. He could feel the icy water around his father's neck and the burning as it found its way to the nose and throat. The powerful current tugging at his body bringing him down to the muddy bed, sending a shower of filth into the already rancid water. Then the scum settled slowly on and over the body, lying

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26 THE AsHBU1c1.4N CATULLI CARMEN LXXXIV Arrius, a fool, said S iootable when he meant suitable, Hinsidious when he meant insidious: F-attered and flapping the While He had spoken so well. I believe his mother spoke like that, AQso an uncle And his motherls people. Tien, thank God, he was sent to Syria: XVe all had a restg Had just begun to forget the dissonance XYhen back came the word, That from old Arrius' passage XVe now had the damn'd Hionian she. M. P. Howes PRESENT TENSE The town lies on a flat Wasteland by the side of the river. The river is dirty and so is the town. All through the summer the river smells, dirt lies in the streets of the town. The paint on the houses peels off in strips. The wood underneath is grey but the sky is blue. Then it snows and all the dirt is covered. The sky is grey but the river is frozen. The air smells clean. The snow embraces the wasteland with maternal concern, pleasantly shadowed lumps mark the site of the dirt. The winter wears on and the snow is criss-crossed with hundreds of self-important footprints. The dirt mingles with the White of the snow and a horrible brown oozing slush, interspersed with pickets of white, masks the town. The snow catches in the cracks of the paint and hides them. Pleasantly tapered icicles hang from broken eaves and an ivory tracery on the windows covers the cracks in the panes. The children of the town play in the snow and their teeth stand out yellow against it. ln the local store the floor is covered with the brown slush. The white dress of the big woman at the counter is spotted with it. The paint on the church is whiter than snow. Christmas tree lights hang from the fits by the door - and it's February. The snow melts, the ice on the river breaks up - spring thaw. The brown slush gives way to brown puddles. Sodden dirt emerges from its long winter sleep. The clothes of the children are no longer white when they get up from the ground. The ground is wet and brown. The sky is grey and so is the river. lt starts to move sluggishlv. The season of hope is upon us. i P. G. Loftus ln School, including Margaret and Mr. Alexander's pigeon hole. Photographs by A. E.