I have to write a novel (part three). Yesterday, I trekked up to the Xerox building, camera in hand and lump in throat. Heading up Yonge Street it was easy to spot the salmon tinted tower among the uniformity of apartment buildings and cookie-cutter houses that make up the North York skyline.
As I stood there taking the photo, a man walking past looked back and forth between me and the building a few times. At the next block he stopped, looked back at me, and then took his own photo of the tower. The cheek!
I quickly walked past him a few feet and took another shot of the tower a bit closer than he had. I gave him a look that clearly indicated "I'm the obsessed blogger 'round these parts and don't you forget it."
He walked on, and at the corner he quickly lifted his camera and snapped a sudden second photo of the tower. Then he looked at me as if to say "don't be so quick to judge, Mr. Smarty Blogger, because maybe I've got two essays in there." And then he actually ran away.
Well, I guess it was more of a jog than a run. Okay, a rapid mosey. But still, he rapidly moseyed up the street and around the corner before I could take another photo.
Weird. And I guess he won, dammit.
I crossed the street and entered the looming pink tower. Can a tower loom? If it contains a date that might doom you to an inevitable and very public failure, then you betcha it can loom. And loom it bloody well did.
aside:
Yeah, yeah: giant pink tower equals phallic symbol. We all get it. I was feeling unconfident, worried about creative underachievement, and entering a place that's held sway over me since puberty. So don't blame me if I'm a little heavy handed with the symbols of creation, power, and emasculation. It's not like I'm a professional novelist or anything. Thanks for reminding me. Bastards.
end of aside
My first thought as I stepped out of the revolving door was "oh no, the time capsule is gone!" Yes, I thought it with an exclamation point. The lobby looked nothing at all like I'd remembered it, and more importantly there was no big plexiglass shell anywhere to be seen.
I'd been worried about this. For some reason I'd been secretly hopeful that the uncorking date was in 2017. I'd had that year in mind, though I couldn't recall why. Perhaps I'd had a vague idea the capsule was meant to be sealed for 30 years and it had been closed in 1987? Frankly, I don't know what I'd been thinking. But I do know what I thought at that moment, and it rhymes with "oh tuck."
aside:
It was "oh fuck," in case you are as good with rhymes as I am with penis metaphors.
end of aside
What if the time capsule was supposed to be sealed for twenty years? And what if it had been sealed in 1986? Or 1985? That would mean it would have been opened earlier this year, or even (gulp) last year.
The ceremony was over. It happened without me. I'd already missed my deadline. The reason the capsule was on my mind was that subconsciously I'd recalled that this year was the unsealing year.
It was this year.
The capsule was gone.
I was a failure.
Or maybe the capsule was around the corner behind the elevators? Oh, right. There it was. Fwew!
I hadn't missed the deadline after all. Now all I had to worry about was when that date actually was, and would there be enough time for me to become a published novelist beforehand? Confidently, I looked at the plaque.
And my heart sank…
Next time: a highly disappointing date, a blood soaked hand, and a confrontation with security.
