By Phelan Snow
What is a daughter?
A daughter is everything that�s right with the world.
A daughter is seeing beauty in all things.
A daughter gives you the chance to be free;
The chance to let go of the past.
A daughter is proof that there is a God,
Because nothing that incredible could have existed without Him.
A daughter teaches you how to accessorize.
A daughter lets you know that love is more than just a feeling.
That love is a breath of life.
That love simply is.
What is a daughter?
A daughter is a new lease on life.
A new reason to wake up.
A new reason to love a wife.
A kiss from the softest, most beautiful lips.
A smile like a solar eclipse,
Blissfully blinding;
A blast of sunlight
On a vague, rayless morning.
What is a daughter?
Everything to me.
***
"Black"
By Phelan Snow
As you awaken and feel that cold sweat,
remember what those black embers smell like
with the rain extinguishing your campfire;
or the sound of Buckwheat purring when you scratched his chin;
how the King of rock and roll shrouded himself in black leather,
and the black tuxedo you donned for your wedding.
Or ponder the monsters lurking in your black bedroom closet,
your deep, dark coffee as you nervously nurture the mug,
or the pitch black alleyways, pinpricked by the glow of the streetlights.
Or dream of the next time you�ll get to see Grandad; I miss him.
Or just awaken and feel that cold sweat,
and embrace your midnight fears.
***
"An Apology"
By Phelan Snow
This is a poem to my best friend, my God, whom I know I have disappointed.
Whose endless forgiveness
seems to be exploited by my endless shortcomings �
the eyes of a father, wishing for the best from me.
But the best I can give can�t be good enough,
not when I�ve failed so many times.
When the going gets tough, I turn away.
I turn away from the one I should be running to,
instead of away from.
I thought You knew that I love You,
You always keep me secure
(Your love will endure),
But now I see that you are like any other father.
You want so badly to be told you are loved,
told you�re adored,
for me to come to you to be restored
to beg forgiveness, and walk with you
my own demands are too much to live up to.
So I write you this with nothing but remorse,
for a relationship ignored,
too much emphasis placed on the temporal,
I�ll live for you, my Eternal.
By Phelan Snow
It all started about three months ago, when I overhead Mr. Lougheed, my boss at the time, talking to someone on the phone. CSIS is notorious for secrecy, but I had no idea it went this deep. Lougheed, or �the weasel,� as I�ve come to call him, told the person on the other end to �commence operation Trojan horse.� I assumed it was another governmental takedown; such oustings were commonplace in my line of work.
I thought little more of the phone call until yesterday. I had just arrived home from another uneventful day at the head office. I sat down with a cup of coffee and turned on CNN. The face on the screen closely resembled that of a man I had been acquainted with several months before. Dr. Henry Grates, the biologist behind a revolutionary line of nutritional supplements, proven to reverse the effects of cancer, AIDS and other lethal ailments.
The cosmetically altered brunette behind the news desk said that Grates had been gunned down in his Dallas, Texas home the night before. I was stunned! Why would anyone do such a thing to someone who had provided such a service to humanity? The anchorwoman went on to say that his death was a presumed assassination, though no suspects had been named as of yet.
An assassination�My mind immediately raced back to the day after I had met Dr. Grates. I remembered hearing someone in my office say that these products were going to get him into some serious trouble. Just a coincidence. CSIS couldn�t have any involvement in this horrific dispatching. Or so I thought.
The next day I casually mentioned the news bulletin to my boss, and his response was what tipped me off. Being a trained psychologist, I had a polished ability to pick up on nuances in people�s body language. The weasel seemed unconcerned as he said, �What a tragedy.� He proceeded to shift his weight from left to right, and rub his left palm with his right thumb. He knew something.
If I could have hooked him up to a polygraph, I would have right then and there. But at that moment, I realized that this was bigger than me. I knew I would have to use all the espionage skills I had accumulated in my training to get to the truth.
For the rest of the day, I nervously drudged away at the mountain of case files I had to sift through. The weasel poked his head into my office and told me it was six o�clock, �quittin� time.� I told him I was going to work late that night and waited about twenty minutes until I knew he was gone. That�s where the plot thickens. Maybe I shouldn�t have broken into his office and looked through his filing cabinet, but I needed an answer.
Wearing my dusted silicone gloves, I pawed around in his personal correspondence, to almost no avail. I was ready to give up when I came across a file titled �Trojan Horse.� Remembering the conversation I had overheard three months prior, my curiosity spiked, and I reached for the file. Upon opening the file, I was faced with a snapshot of one Dr. Henry Grates. My heart seemed to skip several beats when I found what I�d been looking for. Using my pen-sized image scanner, I made copies of each document in the file, and replaced it exactly the way I�d found it.
As I was leaving the weasel�s corner office, a �new email� notification popped up on his computer screen. I crept up to the machine, and looked at the message. The subject line read �Trojan horse complete.� I knew I needed that email if I was going to be able to prove anything, so without opening it, I forwarded it to my own address.
As the �message sent� confirmation screen loaded, I heard a door close somewhere in the building. If I got caught in the weasel�s office, he�d have me, shall we say, �silenced.� The only ways out of the room were the door that I came in, and the 15th storey window beside the desk. I knew if anyone were coming toward the office, they�d see me come out, and I didn�t have enough allies to keep me safe. I was left then, with the option of the window.
I covertly stepped up onto the ledge, and gently opened the window. As the latch released I heard footsteps just outside the door, followed by the jingle of a set of keys. I moved quickly out onto the one foot wide ledge, closed the window, and stood completely motionless, 150 feet from the pavement below.
As the wind blasted against me, I used every ounce of energy I had to keep from making a sound. The door inside opened and a small ray of light from the hall pierced the dark interior. I slowly pivoted my head to take a look inside the room, to see who was in there. A brief moment of relief came when I discovered the source of my fear as being Frank, the custodian. That moment soon fled when I realized that even if he discovered me, he would be required to notify the weasel. I had to get out of there and back to my desk to avoid suspicion.
I knelt down and dug my fingers as hard as I could into the concrete window ledge, and let my body drop down. As I hung there, praying that I didn�t get a sudden attack of vertigo, I began to swing my legs back and forth like a child trying to touch the sky at the playground. After two or three swings, when I knew I had enough momentum, I let go of the ledge above me. As my body flew through the air, my adrenaline level went through the roof. My feet hit the ledge below me, and I released a breath that it felt like I�d been holding for hours. I used my pocketknife to pry the window open, and crawled in to safety. I rode the elevator upstairs, gathered my briefcase, and got out of there.
While driving home, I started thinking about how I could go about exposing the truth without getting myself killed. This would be a dangerous mission, and it had to remain completely under wraps. I reached into my briefcase to retrieve my cellular phone. I had an old friend working at a national television station who I�m sure would be interested in this story. With one hand on the steering wheel and one hand digging through the pockets of my attach� case, my mind raced with thoughts of the email I had forwarded to myself. I wondered who the sender was, and exactly who else was involved in this devious plot.
I began to panic when I came to the realization that my phone was nowhere to be found. What if I had dropped it in the weasel�s office?! If he came in to work tomorrow ad found my phone in his office, my entire operation would be finished. My frenzy was cut short when I heard the familiar tone of my phone ringing coming from the back seat. Relief washed over me like a flood of Biblical proportions. I pulled my car over to the shoulder of the 401, and answered my phone.
�Hello?�
�I know what you�ve done. So will everyone else.�
"What? Who is this?�
Click.
The voice on the other end of the line had been a deep, raspy, male voice. I had no idea who it was, but I knew that I had to be extremely careful now that someone knew. I pressed *69, but the number trace didn�t work. My panic renewed itself at the end of that phone call. I realized then that I was racing against the clock, because it would only be a matter of time before they found me.
I pulled my car back out onto the highway, and dialed the number of my friend at the news agency. It took seven rings before she answered, and she sounded like she had been sleeping. It was about 10 o�clock at that point.
�Christy James.�
�Hi Christy, it�s Thomas. I�ve recently come into possession of some very compromising information about a top ranking official at CSIS. I need your help, I�m in a lot of danger.
�Thomas? What�s going on, what have you got?�
�You know Dr. Henry Grates, the assassinated biochemist? I have proof that Jackson Lougheed was involved in the murder.�
�Thomas, that�s huge! How did you find out?�
�Let�s just say, I did some independent research. Listen, someone just called my cell phone saying they know what I did. I�m afraid that my life is in jeopardy now. I need to get this information to you, and you need to get it out there immediately.�
�Of course Thom, I�ll do whatever I can to help you. Do you want to come to my place and give it to me?�
�To risky, if someone knows what I did, and was able to find my phone number, they might follow me there. Meet me in about 20 minutes at the coffee shop where we met.�
�I�ll be there. Thomas?�
�Yeah?�
�Be careful, ok?�
�You too. 20 minutes.�
I hung up the phone and turned onto the Don Valley Parkway. As I pulled into the downtown core, I saw a pair of headlights in my rear view mirror. I watched inconspicuously as I turned several corners. The car followed at every turn. I thought that whoever this was would have assumed that I�d be expecting a tail from someone, but he didn�t seem to care. He followed me closely, so I started to speed up.
As I approached the Queen and Dundas intersection, I started to slow down, and then floored my gas pedal, making a ninety degree left turn. The car behind me sped up so he wouldn�t lose sight of me. Lucky for me, I had grown up in downtown Toronto, so I knew all the back alleys and one way streets like the back of my hand. I began to lead my pursuer on a winding duck hunt through the residential haven of my childhood. I was gaining a fair amount of distance between our two cars, and when I knew I could do it without being seen, I pulled into the back lot of a little pizza place. I shut off my lights and engine, and laid down across the passenger seat of my car.
The perpetrator slowly drove past me, seemingly without seeing me. I waited patiently until I saw him turn the next corner, started my car back up, and headed for the little coffee shop on Lakeshore.
I parked my car a couple of blocks away from the shop, so no one would see me. I had walked these streets a million times, but never did they feel so unwelcoming. I peered over my shoulder from time to time, just to make sure my secret admirer hadn�t found me again. I arrived at the shop right on time. I could see Christy through the grimy window. She was sitting at our table, nervously watching the door. I walked in and her eyes lit up like bright blue spotlights.
�I�m definitely in trouble, Christy. I was just followed by someone.�
�Really? Thomas, I�m worried. I don�t know how I can help you.�
�I need you to get this information disseminated as quickly as you can. Get it to all the major news stations. If the info is published, then the people involved will be under a lot of scrutiny for their actions. With the public watching, it will be a lot harder for them to touch me.�
�OK, I�ll do it. What if they find out it was me, though?�
�I won�t lie to you Christy, if you get involved in this, your life will be in as much danger as mine is. I hate asking you for such a favour, but you�re the only person I can trust.�
��Alright Thom. Give me the information, and I�ll do everything I can.�
�Thank you Christy, you�re a life saver. Literally. Do you have your laptop?
�Yeah, it�s right here, why?
�I need to check my email.�
The email I had stolen from the weasel told me everything I needed to know. It gave me the names of everyone who had a hand in Project Trojan Horse, and explained exactly what the mission had been. I told Christy to forward that email to everyone she could. After a few more minutes, I told Christy to get home quickly, and I got out of there.
The walk back to my car was more enjoyable. I felt like I had hope now. I knew Christy would come through for me, she had before. I sat down in the driver�s seat, and breathed a sigh of relief. Just then, I felt a cold, hard circular object against my right temple. A voice in the back seat told me to drive.
I could feel the sweat drip off my brow, and my adrenaline levels shooting up again as I pulled out into the street. The man in the back directed me to a warehouse near my old neighbourhood. The building was cloaked in the blackness of night, with a few of the surrounding city lights casting their glow on the outer walls. There were no signs of life anywhere, but I knew I was in for some action.
The man pulled me out of the car, and directed me toward the warehouse with primitive grunts and nudges with the barrel of his gun. I could tell that he had done this sort of thing before. He seemed very comfortable with holding a human life in the palm of his hand.
When we arrived inside the warehouse, there was only one light on in the entire building. I could see several large machines lurking in the shadows. I was fully expecting to be hit from behind by this brute, so it came as no surprise when he walloped me with the butt of his pistol. I hit the ground pretty hard, I think my collision with the floor hurt more than being pistol whipped.
I finally caught a glimpse of my assailant. He was tall, about 6�4, and was completely dressed in black. His face appeared to be distorted in a wretched, sadistic smile, as he stood over me and buried his boot in my midsection. I winced in pain as the force of the kick drove the oxygen out of my lungs. As I struggled to get my breath, the thug asked me who else knew. I told him that nobody else knew, but he didn�t seem to like that answer, as he proceeded to hoof me again.
I�d been beaten up before, but grade eight was a long time ago. My ability to �scrap� had long been overshadowed by my formal combat training. I transitioned my mind into a state of hypnosis, as I simply blocked out the pain in my stomach. I waited for the barbarous gunman to wind up for his next blow, then quickly maneuvered my body out of his path and swept his feet right out from under him. He hit the ground with the force of a piano falling from a twenty storey building.
He was stunned and winded, so I took that opportunity to spring back to my feet. As he sluggishly arose, I threw a precisely aimed fist at the side of his head. The punch did little damage; I guess he didn�t have much in there to damage in the first place. I threw another punch, but this time he caught my fist, and wrenched my arm behind my back. It felt like it was going to snap off. I felt him reaching for his sidearm, and I instinctively reached around to grab his hand. I pushed the barrel of his gun away from me, and threw a straight jab into his chest. I felt a bone crack under the pressure, but he was barely fazed. I remembered my Judo lessons as the gun began to come my way again. I tightly grasped his wrist, tucked my shoulder into his armpit, and flipped him flat onto his back. In the process, I held on to his weapon, and left him disarmed on the warehouse floor. I now held him at gunpoint, and demanded to know who he was working for. He insisted that he didn�t know. He just got a call from his boss whom he�d never met, and was told to get rid of me. By this time I was tired of dealing with him, so I returned the favour he had paid me earlier of a solid pistol whipping, and left him unconscious in the dimly lit storehouse.
I was worried about Christy, so I called her cell phone as I drove back toward the city. There was no answer. What could have happened to her? If someone found out she was involved, she didn�t have the kind of combat training that I had. She could be seriously hurt�Or worse. I had to find her.
I drove to her uptown apartment, and buzzed her number. No answer. She had showed me a way to sneak into the building once a few years ago. Hopefully the building�s superintendent hadn�t fixed it yet. I hurried around to the fire escape and pushed the dumpster out of the way to reveal a two foot by two foot opening in the building�s hull. I crawled in, took a left and popped out in the basement storage area. I slipped up the stairs to the sixth floor, and knocked on apartment number 613. Still no answer, but I thought I heard something fall inside the apartment. I lifted the corner of Christy�s doormat and found her spare key (so predictable). As I twisted the lock, I definitely heard something, or someone moving around inside.
Allowing the door to open with its own momentum, I peered inside the dark unit. Listening attentively, I slowly crept into the apartment. I switched on the main light, and as I did, I saw a small black figure dash out of the room. I then remembered that Christy told me she had just gotten a kitten a few months ago, so that explained the movement I had heard. I looked around, hoping to find Christy, but what I found was completely unexpected.
There was a pile of papers scattered on Christy�s kitchen table. I briefly glanced at the stack, and the top sheet floored me. It was a personally addressed letter to Christy from none other than Mr. Jackson Lougheed. The letter was a thank you note for her assistance with keeping Trojan Horse silent. My heart and hope sank. I had trusted Christy, one of my oldest and dearest friends. Now I found out that I had made a drastic, irreversible error in judgment.
I knew I was in this alone now. Fortunately I had only given copies of my documents to Christy, so I still had the originals. I scrounged through the apartment looking for a rolodex, or contact book of some kind. I figured if I could go above Christy, then I still might have a chance at survival. Without remorse, I turned Christy�s apartment inside out until I located a small, black address book. I pocketed it, and went back down to my car.
Driving endlessly, with no real idea of where to go, or what to do next, my mind frantically buzzed over the events of the past few hours. My only idea, and so my only hope was to get downtown to the Chum City building, and get this information into the public eye. As I headed in the direction of my last chance, my foot seemed to get a little heavier on the accelerator.
I arrived at the massive broadcasting center to see none other than the top news anchor exiting the front door. I leapt out of my car, and sprinted over to her, what she must have been thinking�
I told her my story, and she was dumbfounded. I showed her all of the documents I had gathered, and she immediately agreed to help me. She escorted me up to her fourth floor office, and introduced me to her boss. She relayed my story, and he insisted on calling all the major news stations (after running the story himself, first).
I waited at the office until the story had been broadcast. Finally I felt a wash of relief douse me from head to toe. I was now protected by public knowledge. Or so I thought.
I began the long drive back to my apartment, with a much lower rate of acceleration. A smirk tickled the corners of my mouth as I thought about how much I had accomplished in the course of about five hours. As I was reflecting on my proficiency as a secret operative, I felt my steering wheel jerk to the left, followed by a loud screeching noise. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that same black car that had tailed me before.
I pushed my gas pedal halfway through the floor, but it was too late. I guess the driver had shot my back tires, because they were both flat, and the steering was almost sloth like. I felt another hard nudge from the car behind me, and the next thing I saw was the steel barricade of the highway shoulder, crashing into my windshield as the car careened over the boundary of the warm summer asphalt.
I was momentarily knocked senseless, but when I came to I heard a very familiar voice. It was Christy. In a monotonous, almost robotic tone she said, �That should take care of it.� I heard two sets of footsteps climb the embankment, and a car, presumably the one that ran me off the road, peel out and speed away.
So here I am. I can�t feel my legs, my right arm looks broken, there�s a warm liquid running down the right side of my face. Shattered glass is all around me, maybe that accounts for the warm liquid. I still have those original documents, but what difference does it make now. At least I have the comfort of knowing that the weasel, and Christy and their entire operation will be brought to justice, now that the public knows about their little scheme.
It�s not everyday that you nearly lose your life�But thousands of people die every minute of every waking hour.