Moments of Transition

By Peter Hassebroek

Stories hearkening back over a generation to the start of the millennium, a time without smart phones and social media. When subtle insecurities, frailties, and idiosyncrasies weren't easily masked by technology, and truths were consciously addressed. Or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Hassebroek
• Release date: Nov 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781999181567

Peter Hassebroek

I am an independent author from Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and emigrated to Canada before I turned seven. I grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario then moved to Toronto where I enjoyed a successful I.T. career for twenty years before my need for creative achievement compelled me to become a writer.I have written nine books, including six novels, two story collections, and a book of screenplays. I write general fiction and my work could be categorized as Upmarket Fiction.I also offer coaching for aspiring storytellers to take advantage of my unique combined experience in writing and project management, as well as other services such as proofreading and copyediting.

Book preview

Moments of Transition

by

Peter Hassebroek

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Moments of Transition

Published by Upbound Solutions

Copyright © 2023 by Peter Hassebroek

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, and to actual locations or organizations, is coincidental.

License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Power Failure, The Value of Dignity, and The Watchers were previously available in an e-Book entitled Three Stories, which is no longer available.

ISBN: 978-0-9991815-5-0

E-Book: 978-0-9991815-6-7

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Other E-books by Peter Hassebroek:

Upbound

Melange and Other I. T. Stories

The Dancer's Spell

Thylacine

The Journal Keepers

The Condo

family Values

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www.peterhassebroek.com

CONTENTS

Title and Copyright

Screw-Up

On the Train . . .

Kitty Litter

Moment of Transition

Mary Watson Had Two Lovers

Power Failure

No Chance

Boomerang

An Impromptu Wake

FILBEEMR

The Big Picture

New Boyfriend

The Umpire's Call

The Value of Dignity

The Watchers

Screw-Up

I was sauntering along King Street East on one of those dazzling mid-summer afternoons, the sun illuminating not blinding, warming not burning. Streetcar tings, car horns, bicycle trills quelling thoughts of petty politics, asinine assignments, dubious yet daunting deadlines: the gamut of bring-me-downs from my office.

Good riddance.

I slowed at an upscale furniture shop to ogle a heavy and intricately designed heavy oak dining room set at $4500; two chrome and leather bar stools for $655. Each. An ostentatious, oversized green leather sofa and love seat combo, with matching pastel yellow-legged coffee and end tables, temporarily reduced to $12,799 for the set—all of it hopelessly beyond the modest means of a temp like me. At the intersection with Jarvis Street a lighted walking man authorized my crossing. I hurried to take advantage of this time-limited offer, one I could afford.

Excuse me. Young man?

I stopped in the middle of the crossing, turned around. A woman's head jutted out the window of a turquoise Toyota Camry. She was in her thirties, smartly attractive, wearing a light grey business suit, sleeves rolled past her wrists. A pair of thick sunglasses propped up on her forehead. Her dark eyebrows didn't match her yellowy hair.

Can you tell me where St. Lawrence Hall might be? her voice friendly but urgent.

Instant frustration. I worked five minutes from the St. Lawrence Market but had never heard of any St. Lawrence Hall. Glances left and right failed to reveal candidates. I love to help people but am so rarely asked. If only she'd asked about the CN Tower or the Eaton Centre, the Island Ferry, the Esplanade. I rubbed my still thin moustache ponderingly before conceding.

I'm afraid I don't know, I said.

I proceeded through the intersection as did she, but after crossing she slowed to give me a note with a handwritten address: 157 King Street East.

Aha. I smiled, nothing could be simpler. Odd numbers, south side, hence across the street. I scanned, finger ready to point, but for some reason found the building numbers elusive. I did a rough calculation based on Yonge Street, only a few blocks away, and with confidence pointed east. She thanked me profusely. I left her to the task of working out how to manoeuvre a u-turn on the busy street, feeling good about myself for helping a visitor while providing an example of Torontonian hospitality.

Up ahead, a swarm of George Brown students advanced towards me so I crossed to the south side. It'd been only a year since my graduation. I wasn't in a mood to recognize anyone, or be recognized. Steps later I passed a building, number 161. Which meant the next building would be 159, and the next—sure enough, St. Lawrence Hall, its number and name prominently displayed. I looked back to see the woman struggling with the awkward turn. I waved but she was preoccupied awaiting gaps or apologizing to impatient motorists. No big deal. She'd realize my error upon seeing the numbers increase, right?

Unfortunately, the consolation of this rationale was soon replaced by agitation. The stupid building had been right there. Damn, damn, damn, fool, fool, fool. My failure was hard to swallow, I chided myself every step to the subway. Grey clouds were drifting in, as if hustling me towards the stairs leading down into the underground.

While the subway train shuttled north, repercussions of my mistake sparked my dire imagination. What if she had been rushing to a job interview, sales pitch, a significant appointment on which her future depended? Did my error make her late, get her in trouble? Would she blame a local named Dale (dummy, how would she know my name?) for having pointed her in the wrong direction? While true, that'd be a weak excuse. If honest, she'd take the blame for not allowing enough time in the first place. Still, her image of my city as represented by me would be tarnished. To friends and colleagues she might comment that, contrary to general opinion, Torontonians are friendly and helpful, but disoriented.

I exited the subway at Lawrence Station: cruel reminder. Was today to be a themed joke from the universe? Was I destined for an awful day? I let out a little hiccough-laugh, it made a few people look at me as if I was crazy. Couldn't blame them now, could I? I paused at the turnstile, halted by a notion to return to St. Lawrence Hall to find out what became of her and her appointment, if only to clear it from my mind. A slight but clearly impatient nudge dissuaded me.

At the house, I kicked off my dress shoes, found the ham and cheese sandwich Ma had made me, but I'd forgotten, still in the fridge, flopped on the sofa, and munched away, the house eerily empty. For once I wished my parents to be at home, not at work, I wanted to hear their comments about a son in his twenties still living at home, which at least would distract my obsessing over this trivial incident. Trivial? No, no, no. Even if the impact was tiny, the damage to my pride was not trivial.

Think positive. Think positive. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe I could learn from it. Certainly I'd know where St. Lawrence Hall was if the situation came up again. Though the likelihood of that was slim. And what if our minds are like computers, with limited memory? What information would have been dislodged to make room for this trivial, now likely obsolete fact?

The sandwich was dry—Mom is so stingy with butter—it made me thirsty. No beer in the fridge, but it was too early for that. An old can of Diet Coke. When I pulled the tab, it snapped off, forcing me to push the round part in. I slit my finger, swore, but at least no blood.

Why did she have to be there precisely at that instant? Why couldn't she have known where she was going in the first place? No, the woman, the bitch, had to ask me of all people to expose the one hole in my local knowledge. Then again, if I hadn't lingered at the office for goodbyes, or had lingered longer, a minute earlier, a minute later, none of it would have happened. To me. She'd have asked someone else, someone who knew.

A dull pain in my temple signalled the onset of another headache. I needed a distraction. Television. No baseball or football or any real sport, but one channel was showing a motocross race. Very intense, exciting. Perfect. I cheered for #75 in a black suit on a neon green and orange bike—apparently a huge underdog—who held on to a half second lead on #1, riding a blue bike with checkers and wearing yellow. On the last lap they were side by side and #1 hit a jump so fast he passed #75, in the air, almost cutting him off. A dangerous heart-stopping move. It worked, he went on to win. He took off his helmet for his interview. I could not believe how young he was. In fact, all the competitors were teenagers. I wasn't allowed to drive anything with a motor when I was their age. I always resented those whose parents let them. For revenge I'd play tricks on people in cars when they stopped to ask for directions. I'd look all sincere while pointing north when their destination was of course south. A terrible thing to do, shameful, but we were just kids. Maybe I was still a kid. Maybe that woman saw the brat in me and eventually concluded I'd sent her east intentionally, you never know the things people let their imaginations come up with. So much for television.

In the mail I found yet another letter for our neighbour Sally, but with our address—well, at least I wasn't alone in making mistakes—nestled in the community newspaper. I flipped through to get to the classifieds, came upon an ad for a multi-day fund raiser, beginning today, culminating with a formal dinner ($1700 a plate!). I nearly fell off my chair on seeing the location: St. Lawrence Hall.

That must have been why she was there. It was a relief to find the event began tomorrow, not today. At least she'd make the dinner. Still, being late could lead to something going wrong tomorrow because of a missed detail due to a rush to make up time for which she'd blame the people of Toronto. Or men in general, named or nameless.

The telephone rang just as my stalled headache arrived.

Good day, sir, a young lady said, I'm calling on behalf of the Toronto—

Not now, I said.

Is there a better time to reach you then?

Where do you live? I said.

Our office address is—

You sound like you live in T.O. Toronto.

Actually, yes.

Do you know where St. Lawrence Hall is?

Sure I do. It's on King Street East, west of Jarvis, on the south—

I slammed the phone down.

For a full minute I stared into space until a cool wind tickled my neck. I closed the window just before the storm hit. Rain pelted the streets. Loud thunder. Brilliant flashes of lightning.

When my parents came home, I retreated to my room in the basement to watch Jeopardy, then the Blue Jays game. I didn't enjoy either. A nagging guilt over the troubles the woman might have encountered continued to plague me. She seemed nice and was so obviously relieved at my help, comforted by the certainty with which I gave it.

That was it. I needed to know what happened to her, had to know. I rushed for the telephone book, but put it down right away. It was after business hours now, too late. Then it came to me: why not stop there tomorrow and inquire? It was on the way to work, after all. Something about that solution troubled me but I didn't dwell on it. This simple plan eased my mind enough to watch the Jays blow a two run lead against the Rays, but then hit a walk-off homerun in the tenth, letting me go to bed content.

In the ensuing dreams it's night, I'm perched on a ledge several stories above a main street. I see the woman from the Camry, or someone like her, waiting on a street corner in a nasty rainstorm with no umbrella. She's fatter than I recall and wears a nametag: Dale. The coincidence doesn't faze me at first. What does is her despair while studying a map under a streetlight, making no sense of it because it's upside down. Down the street a police officer watches her, snickering, with no intention of helping. She is unaware of him. Every time she turns the map around, the image also flips. She never gets it right side up but keeps trying. That frustrates me more as a witness than her as . . . as a victim. All this I observe from inside an old and elegant building. I try to yell out the window to her but the weather drowns out my voice.

The next day, after exiting the subway at King, my head began to throb in beat to my steps as I strolled to work. I'd slept in and had no time to look for the woman or her car. At the office I was accosted by odd glances before I came upon the stern mug of my boss, Larry. He looked more puzzled than angry.

"What the hell