J.G. Chayko

He passed through my life in a moment, a fleeting seventy-two hours, like a song lingering in the twilight. I was transported back to the days before the arrival of the old lady; energy flowed through my body, fatigue was only a fictional entity, and I moved with fluidity, like a young stallion racing through…

I stared at myself in the mirror. The bright lights illuminated the bumpy red stranger that materialized in a silent swagger across my upper body. I was mesmerized by the range of his trek. The bumps began behind my ears and spread their way down my torso, over my stomach to my waist. The itchy…

I sat in the chair, my mouth held open with taut synthetic objects wedged between my teeth and gums; the dentist disappeared around the corner to take his annual pictures. The dental assistant tipped me back, removed the offensive articles and began cleaning, the brush noisily whirring in the compact partition. My throbbing knees started…

Irony:  a literary technique in which the audience can perceive hidden meanings unknown to the characters. (Oxford Canadian Dictionary) I sat in the waiting room of my doctor’s office. The tiny space was packed with sniffling patients; the yellow walls replicated the color of their skin. I squirmed in my seat, jamming my elbow into…

Irony:  a discrepancy between the expected and actual state of affairs  (Oxford Canadian Dictionary) The emergency room is chock-full of moaning and wailing patients. I lay on the gurney staring up at the ceiling. The ambulance attendant stays by my side in the crowded corridor until I am admitted to a room. An old woman…

The store was crammed with groceries stacked from floor to ceiling on bulky metal racks. Only one buggy could squeeze into the narrow aisles. It was my first time in this specialty store as it carried those items not found in conventional grocery stores. I bore in mind the words of my doctor scrawled on…

The actors came rushing in for their call time. I was swept up in their exhilaration, and memories of my own time on the stage came swooping in around me. My girlfriend formed her own theatre company and I volunteered to help her with box office on her debut show. I dressed for the occasion,…

I sat down as the technician began to swathe my left arm in gauze. She wrapped the strips between my thumb and forefinger, and continued upwards beyond my wrist to my elbow. She pulled out a metal contraption that looked a bit like something from “The Terminator”. The metal thing was clamped over my arm and…

The summer fizzled out to cool evenings and chilly mornings. Jeans, long pants and turtlenecks emerged from the closet. The cool, cotton sheets that relieved hot skin on humid nights were now icy, giving me a slight chill every time I crawled into bed. One frosty night, I crawled between cold sheets and scrunched myself…