Oakwood Collegiate Institute - Oracle Yearbook (Toronto Ontario, Canada)

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MAN IN THE 6TH DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY Russel A. Steventon THE QUALITY OF MERCY S STRAINED A handful of brave reporters huddled around the observation window to witness the gruesome spectacle and convey it to the public. Strapped to his nemesis — the electric chair, sat a young man awaiting the inevitable. The observers re- marked on his resolute expression, like that of the Roman gladiators as they paid tribute to their emperor in the words Nos morituri te salutam- us . He too, was about to die. His eyes had lost their lustre, and were directed towards the huge glaring lights, which hung like elixers of life above him. His nose, once a tower of strength and determination, now stood mean- ingless above a motley complexion. Tiny beads of sweat danced in a macabre fashion on his fore- head, but an aimless movement of the arm, swept them into oblivion. His parched dry lips caressed each other in a final farewell. Now all eyes were on his hands — his ever-twisting, ever-turning hands that, after a final gasp of agony, were taut. Thus a man, like the beads of sweat before him, was swept into the dark shadows of obUvion. — Bernard Marlow THE VICTORY The crowds moving to the starting hne stirred a pall of dust which hung over the track. Beads of sweat on the foreheads of the runners were as much due to the waiting as to the muggy at- mosphere. His nostrils were irritated by the motionless dust; each fibre of his body tightened and every pore was persecuted by sweat. Time, like the dust, hung motionless in the air. The pall stirred as at a signal. The metallic voice cut the silence, On your marks ... For a few ete rnal seconds every muscle strained for the sound. With a crash the starting pistol ' s re- port descended on his mind like a curtain of steel. His taut muscles, freed from the yoke of inaction, now propelled him furiously. Thought would have been an intruder in his mind from which every spark of energy was drained to feed the screaming muscles. His senses, his instincts, the taste and fear of an impossible victory, drove him on like an emerald spearpoint. Thus, by infinitesimal degrees, he drew free of the fleeting shadows who taunted him with their presence. All but one fell back — one, recorded only by the dim light in the corner of his eye, only by the whispered sounds of its passing through that chaos. His own breath was a gale, the dust that had irritated now made lungs scream for mercy and the sweat was now a bUnding tormentor. And onward before the green flame. Suddenly the goal flashed before him with a crystal brightness, the white horizontal line gleam- ing in the distance. Dimly beside him he sensed the shadow. He leapt before the flame which forced the supreme agony from his physical be- ing. The goal ahead, the shadow fleeting with him, the flame; all combined in the final flash of ecstatic misery. The pure white tape snapped be- fore him and darkness fell. The sobs which racked his body lessened. Dis- tantly the voice of cold steel said, upsetting yourself again? The flame was gone and his mind returned. Bitterness and disgust over- whelmed him as he gazed at the sterile, stuffy room; the harsh whiteness of the nurse ' s uniform, and the emerald twinkle of his tears on the chrome of his invalid ' s wheelchair. Warren Bourgeois 110

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THE BARBER SHOP Sleepily, Erwin Ronner, Canadian Citizen, working man, opens the front door: it is time for work. Walking, half-dreaming, down the street, he remembers his youth in Germany — He was happy then, ambitious. Not every German youth of the depression had the chance to attend Uni- versity, especially to study medicine. No, he was a very lucky boy. He will be someday surgeon, his parents had boasted. Now Erwin grappled in the bottom of his frayed pockets, well worn with the use of years, and fitted them into the lock of his shop — well not quite his; he only rented the store. Wiping off his soiled shoes and entering the store, he removes his dingy brown overcoat. It ' s a good overcoat though; twenty years old now; might last another five years; he might not last another five years. He is forty-nine now, father of two boys and a girl. The boys were killed in the war, the Great War, but he tries not to think of that too often now. He left Germany in nineteen forty-eight; more opportunity in Canada, they had said. Herr Ronner, ambition stifled by fate, yet still proud, scrubs himself as he learned to do so well at university. He even learned Latin. At home, he knows, scrubbing the dishes, is his wife. His daughter married an Austrian businessman; doesn ' t write as often as she used to. Children get that way. Erwin, a man without a future, but a barber with a dream opens the door of his barber shop with a dehberate pull, sits down, and waits for his first patient of the day. He will someday be surgeon, they had said. — John Lejderman MOTHER AND CHILD Russell A. Steventon From a closet in the corner he takes out a stiff white frock, ties the strings behind, and looks at himself proudly in the spotless mirror. He had been proud of another uniform, but that is better forgotten. Expanding his chest, smiling, breathing in the almost antiseptic air, he can catch a glimpse of a nurse fading away in one corner of the mirror, while from the corner be- hind, just faintly, he can hear Doctor Ronner, Doctor Ronner, will Doctor Ronner please report to the operating room. He sets out his tools, his operating instruments, as though preparing for brain surgery. SUMMER COMES The days whiz by Like Roman candles Like pinwheels Like long skinny strips Of sizzling firecrackers. In streaks of red Bursts of yellow Trails of green So summer nears. — Sharon Singer 111