A Canadian Literary Journal
Agnes and True: a Canadian online literary journal dedicated to providing a place for the work of Canadian writers, both established and emerging.
A Canadian Literary Journal
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As the Heart Grows Older
by Paul Moffett
Wesley loved the chickens, but he knew Max was the most important animal on the farm.
The Klassen farm was only about three hundred acres of workable potato fields—not large, but enough. The potatoes mostly went to McDonald’s, to become anonymous French fries.
The land was flat, but the homestead was sheltered by a small forest, and the house itself sat on a hill. It wasn’t a livestock farm, but they did keep chickens.
Wesley took personal responsibility for their daily care, and for collecting the eggs. Waldemar and Sheila sometimes whispered that Wesley might be the real farmer among the children. Maybe the land would go to him. Leslie was destined for university, and the whole world seemed open to the twins. Waldemar said it was a shame to divide the land. But nobody much wanted to think about his death. It […]
Sugaring
Amira was hauled to the centre of the airless attic.
“Look who I found spying through the keyhole, bent over like an old man,” said Sadie, Amira’s newly married cousin.
The women faced Amira—stood unabashed in their half-nakedness—their bums and utooshies armoured in belly-button-high white cotton underwear, their white-coned breasts aimed at her.
Looking past their gazes, Amira twirled her hair and counted bra straps: eight pairs. Each pair pinned with dangling turquoise beads and medallions of […]
The Bench
I came to the park again today. The bench sits unobtrusively at the top of the bluff overlooking the river. It never changes, day to day or season to season, it simply sits and waits, taunting me. The doctor says that I should either approach it and make my peace with it or stop torturing myself. But I can do neither.
I’m closer to the bench than I’ve ever been, and this makes me jittery. Beyond […]
The Order of Things
by Lauren Stein
It’s time for the third glass of wine, and Bubbie is asleep.
At the kids’ table, my youngest cousin swings her party shoes into my overlong legs, and I don’t say anything. She shovels tiny bites of spongy matzah ball into her mouth, distracted by the older kids and their tablets.
Last year, I was pissed about being relegated to the kids’ table. I was twenty-one. I could drink all the glasses of wine. I could even […]
A Murder of Crones
When Albert proposed to Celia, back in 1961, he balanced on his left knee in her parents’ living room, held open a little box from Birks that offered a sparkling diamond ring on midnight blue velvet, and opened his mouth to pop the question. But the words that tried to climb the ladder between his heart and lips never made it — he just looked at her with his deep, chocolate-brown eyes, clearly desperate to […]
We Were Witches
by R.E. Rule
We were witches, Delilah and I. All that summer we braided old thread into charms and walked invisible when barefoot. Once we held hands and chanted until thunder cracked the horizon and rain dug rivers in the dirt. Maybe she’d always been a witch. She’d come to live with Ms. Gray down the street, and I’d always been too embarrassed to ask why. But I’d never known what I was until Delilah came.
It was Delilah […]
The Swan Maiden
by Eolas Pellor
Haræm bent down and plucked the feather from the snow. Even in starlight, it was hard to miss a raven feather, black against the luminous white that blanketed Gwälen’s island. The tip of the quill was driven into the drift, and the vane stood upright from the glistening powder. As if all other things had faded from sight, Haræm’s eye was drawn to it.
Ravens do not moult under the Wolf Moon, which had not yet […]
Daddy Hack
by Jeff Dupuis
Spectators on blankets dotted the hills around Dominico Field. Bicycles lay on the grass. Old timers sat in folding chairs along the rim of the hill, having arrived before the national anthem was played over the PA system. Fans continued to trickle in throughout the first few innings, searching for a free patch of grass, ready for a summer night’s ballgame after a long day.
It was just me; the AI was not watching the ballgame. […]
To Be Loved
by K. S. Nelson
Suli lies curled in the nest of pillows she calls a bed, under the heap of tattered blankets that smell like sour socks and a bit like berries because he’d poured cherry soda on them when she said she didn’t want to drink.
He might still be home. She can’t tell because the door deafens the discord enough that if she lies perfectly still only her spine aches.
Her fingers twitch, tightening around her shawl, hand-painted […]
Prayer
The year that Pa died, the air was so constantly fixed with dust that even those of us without evil-laden lungs couldn’t draw breath without a filtering rag between our chapped lips and the intolerable wind.
In those days, I still prayed to God. Mama told us how locusts, hunger and drought had been foretold—even happened before, in the bible times. Mama said it always happened when men grew too wicked. I knew loads of […]
Your Favourite Sweater
by Carola Brus
Your favourite sweater is amber.
It is a crew neck with ribbed cuffs. Oversized, hiding your large frame. We think the colour suits you. You have one just like it in navy, which you never wear.
But this one, you wear often. Three days in a row, at times, until it smells like your aftershave. I find it at the bottom of our hamper every week. We like to have it folded at the top of the […]
Sweetheart
That summer he moved into the house where she had raised her children. He brought with him patience, self-knowledge free of ego, minor flaws that come from living too long alone. Strong hands willing to pull weeds. Height to reach the top shelves. A warm laugh. Also, two dogs.
She had not chosen to live with dogs, although she’d grown up with them. Farm dogs—who stayed outside—kept away coyotes and skunks, tangled with porcupines then ran […]
The Club
by Lissa Muir
“Is this okay?” I asked. We were going to meet my husband’s boss and his wife for dinner at their private members club. As luck would have it, my body had undergone a transformation recently, and an old designer silk dress—bought when the expense of children and aging past forty hadn’t yet wreaked havoc—fit.
Tom nodded absently. He didn’t like his boss, had taken the job out of necessity rather than want, and was perhaps even […]
War Story
Light slanted through the bars on the hotel room window, dust swirling in lazy golden rays as they fell across the bed where The Boy dozed, curled up in a nest of blankets. An old computer on the desk in the corner, wedged in next to the hot plate and kettle, played the day’s football match over a stuttering internet connection. Leaning over the bathroom sink, The Woman applied makeup in between the streaks on […]
For Sale: Heritage Home on Lakefront Property
by M.W. Irving
It’s a gravelly ten-minute walk from my parents’ place to the lake, with plenty of weeds, loose rocks, and thorny vines to trip on. A childhood spent walking along that path had resulted in countless scabby knees and hot tears. It’s a particularly awful trek at four o’clock in the morning, sleep-soaked and fretting in the dark. The relief when I spot Dad standing at the water’s edge is almost worth the torment. He’s a […]
Wanderer
The house sits on a hill, far from the dirt road, partially obscured by half-dead appendages of once mighty trees. A wooden structure: large, square, and battered. Cavernous when unlit. Inelegant in its rusticity. I see this image as might a stranger. But my detachment is always disturbed, because what I also see, as I drive my car along the unwieldy dirt road which leads me back to the familiar, is a swarm of spectral, […]
