less and less
Translated by Neil Smith from Jean-Christophe Réhel
i am
less and less
i say goodnight chair good night ventilator
water becomes my favorite animal
i am
less and less
tonight i make myself a tomato sandwich
i am no longer afraid of dying
i am
less and less
like your heart
i let the cold water get too warm
i am
less and less
i will never reach retirement
i will never have a house
i get a head start
i dress like an old man
i speak like an old man
i have no patience
i have never had any patience
i like nature and birds
i get bored fast
i get up i am already tired
i am
less and less
i make an effort
i stand up
i make an effort
i stay standing
i judge my generation
and i judge old people
i hate old people
in the morning
my depression does not let up
i put it on mute
i tell it to back the hell off
just until i can eat some toast
just two pieces of toast
i try to survive these times
i try to survive the air holes in my chest
i am an airplane
i tie my shoes i lose altitude
i say hello i lose altitude
i look for hope i open one hand
i can see only light too much light
i am young i am out of breath
old people laugh at me
i hide myself in their laughter
i plant bombs in their laughter
i am no athlete
i only run to turn off my beeping microwave
i am
less and less
i see things that touch me deeply:
i see a woman walk from the kitchen to the living room
i see my friends grow older
i see my friends travel the world
i like their pictures i click like
i add hearts everywhere
i click like
i disappear i click like
i have air holes in my heart
i tie my boots i go back to bed
i lose altitude i freak out
i end up in the hospital
i have autoimmune hemolytic anemia
i get a biopsy of my bone marrow
i wait two months
i learn i do not have cancer
i talk i do not know what to say
i click like
i listen to the ringing in my ear
the ringing keeps me up at night
i tell myself that folding laundry requires me to concentrate
just as much as watching a bird in the sky
i am
less and less
i have wasted time
i have played too much zelda
i do not want to be that guy who died too young
i want to see my friends’ kids grow up
i want to be a godfather
i want to buy gifts
i want to go swimming
i want to feel your legs in the water
always feel your legs in the water
i am
less and less
my new winter boots hurt my feet
i have a new bacteria in my lungs
i need to be kept away from other patients
i go to the special friday clinics
i sleep i wake up i am still here i click like
i am
less and less
i work i sweep the floor
i take the bus
i have a headache
i always have a headache
i burn up on the bus
i am
less and less
i am fragile i am a dandelion
i open the kitchen window
and catch another cold from the breeze
and waft away a little
i pull away from the light
a little more
The original poem in French appeared in La fatigue des fruits published by L’Oie de Cravan.
ABOUT THE CREATOrs
Neil Smith is a Montreal-born writer and translator. He has published three books of fiction with Penguin Random House Canada. He has also translated three novels, including All Kidding Aside by Jean-Christophe Réhel, which comes out this fall with QC Fiction. Neil has won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Prize and been nominated for several awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Translation.
Instagram: @neilwordsmith
Jean-Christophe Réhel is a Montreal-born poet, novelist, and scriptwriter. He won the Prix littéraire des collégiens for his novel Ce qu’on respire sur Tatouine and was a finalist for a Governor General’s Award for his book Le plancher de la Lune. He has put out seven poetry collections, including his most recent book Taureau Taureau published by Del Busso. He is also the creator of the TV series L’air d’aller and a regular columnist in Le Devoir.
Website: jeanchristopherehel.com
Greetings, friends! We’re thrilled to bring you issue 51—an open-themed collection of thirty exceptional works spanning fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, photography, translation, and comics.
Creative non-fiction by Elisa Carlsen
Righty, from Surf Pines, was one of six free chickens my neighbor Rudi called to tell me about. He knew a guy who knew a guy and offered to give my partner and me a ride to get them.
Creative non-fiction by Marion Cline
The purpose of the complete breath is to acknowledge mortality. Just as it easily enters, it easily dissipates. The purpose is to hold the breath, let it swim for a little while in the lower pit, and to let it go.
Creative non-fiction by Alana Friend Lettner
I was eighteen and living in a small flat in Argenteuil, a forlorn-looking suburb of Paris that had, in a past life, been a favourite place of Monet and Renoir.
Creative non-fiction by Eve Krakow
Before leaving the house, she double-checks her bag: music binder, pencil, glasses, water bottle. There’s something comforting about the ritual of going to choir rehearsal, the same day and same time each week, year in and year out.
Comic by Kaya Davies
Kaya Davies (b. 2002) is an artist who seeks to understand what she does not through the process of creation.
Comic by Elias Doering
Elias Doering is a pen and ink artist from the East Coast of the United States. They primarily work in black and white to make comics about the sea.
Comic by Josie Levin
Josie Levin (she/him) is a visual artist and writer whose visual work has appeared in a variety publications
Comic by Jem Woolidge
Jem Woolidge is an emerging artist based in Tiohtià:ke (so-called Montreal).
Fiction by Rachel Mattingly
Misty is undoubtedly splattered somewhere outside the IHOP a few blocks down. Gives a whole new meaning to the house of pancakes.
Fiction by Erik Moyer
Jackie Flapjacks stacks eight plates on each side of the barbell and drizzles them with custom syrup-colored spring collars. Some new gym-goers peek out of the corners of their eyeballs.
Fiction by Amber Nuyens
The first time Jamie goes to a gay bar, she thinks of those viral videos of cows being released into fields for the first time in their lives.
Fiction by Jordan Thibault
The yo-yo they used was blue. It was not their favorite color—red like their frumpy hair—but of the remaining primary colors, blue would do.
Fiction by J.M. Young
I’m not supposed to be in the line of deep lifeguards. I’m a registered shallow guard who has miserably failed the deep guard test, not once but twice.
Photography by Phi Phi AN
These photos are part of a long-running visual archive series named “As far as half the way to the Gateway,” a flow created based on traditional analog photography techniques.
Photography by Austin Cullen
Our relationship to the natural world is inextricably tied to technology; and as technology changes, so does the way we represent the world around us.
Photography by Judy Thorn
This series was shot during an exquisite period before the pandemic. It came together only in retrospect. Each photo tells of a stalwart friend, lover, seer.
Poetry by D.M. Bradford
Slow and funny in the gut, our year of home ownership. Would love to tell itself it's going to be spent being written. Would love to tell itself its lack of poetry is already sidelined and collected.
Poetry by Katherine Chiemi
I like the fragile eggs, just the size to crack between molars.
I like the Rube Goldberg of it all, the little egg engines and the rattle of the dice tray: watch me
Poetry by Judith Lapadat
Its hulked form nosing into steel grey bay
the chop, its incessant slap, the cold salt
Poetry by Madi Haab
there: in the hollow
concrete medulla
of the city skeleton
Poetry by Alessandra Lynch
HERE IS—THE MESSAGE---TO THE RAIN---NOT A TELEGRAM---"I DON’T WANT TO--- STOP----TALKING TO YOU”---LIGHT
Poetry by Dawn Macdonald
without stiffening. a bump,
a rebound. a dampening
Poetry by Aaron Rabinowitz
She separates from the distance from the other moving forms across the canvas—you mean campus—like a sticker unpeeled from its backing
Poetry by Dominique Russell
Peut-être pas maintenant, mais bientôt et pour toujours
à tout jamais, éternellement
Poetry by Mazzy Sleep
The sun in the morning.
It was snowing so hard it seemed like
it had always been snowing, since Eden,
Poetry by Lily Thomson
After hearing about it for so long
I finally ate an orange
In the shower
Translated by Neil Smith from Jean-Christophe Réhel
i am
less and less
i say goodnight chair good night ventilator
Translated by Willow Loveday Little from Jean-Guy Forget
my girlfriend and our friends
blossom into a choir of laughter
Photography by Angeline Teoh Simon
My collage work is an examination into personal ancestry and immigrant history. As a second-generation Canadian, I have felt disconnected from my German and Malaysian-Chinese heritage, motivating me to focus on a collection of family photographs that were passed down to me.