Patterns // Kris Bone

In his piece on patterns and lack of patterns, Kris Bone wraps up his guest edited month looking at how "Life is Stranger than Fiction."

This story is true, and it isn’t.

One of my closest friends recently had a child. In his apartment, we spoke in hushed voices as the baby slept in her bassinet. It was the first time I’d met her. We both watched her closely. She is rosy-cheeked and remarkably serene, with eyes that, when open, are an umbral shade of blue-black I’ve never seen before.

We lay the baby down in her crib under the watchful eyes of his wife, and then we pulled on our coats, riding the elevator to the main floor and wandering out into the cold to fetch coffee and doughnuts. We’ve known each other long enough and well enough that silence is no longer uncomfortable, so we indulge that for a while in the crisp, stinking spring.

We take our coffees to go. I ask him how it feels to be a father, and he tells me, smiling after a moment, that he’s not sure. He tells me that his mother is elated. He tells me that he now feels the weight of legacy—he is the first of his siblings, four strapping brothers, to have a child.

I think of the tenderness with which he held her and I think of him once being held, and then I think of arms cradling cradling arms, linked backwards through centuries.

* * * * *

One of my closest friends is a diligent student of the world. She is humbling to be around. Her knowledge of the things around us is extensive and unpretentious, driven by nothing more than curiosity and an abstract love. When I’m with her, I’m self-conscious, because I understand how little I actually know about my surroundings. I sometimes feel as though I’m running my hands over objects in darkness, fumbling to understand them with nothing more to go on than a vague notion of their shape; she helps me to understand the importance of asking questions and finding answers.

Her most recent discipline is the sky. Before that, it was the sea; before that, birds and waterfowl. And so on. She is compiling a taxonomy of clouds.

We walk across the Bloor Street viaduct underneath a sky whose steadfast blue is streaked with an afterthought of white. She points up—with her finger, she traces a pattern in the vapour. As usual, I am astonished. I hadn’t even realized there was anything above me worth knowing.

* * * * *

One of my closest friends wants to engrave tombstones. We're standing in his basement. It’s easier than I'd imagine, he tells me, handing me a bottle of Canadian and gesturing at the steel structure he’s assembled. I take a sip of beer and tell him that I’m flattered that he thinks I have any inkling of a sense of how difficult it could be. He explains that he’s modified a 3D printer engine to operate a mobile plasma cutter. I try to act like I have any idea what that means.

I’ve known him long enough that I can remember him struggling through his classes in junior high. I remember the sunny June that he had to take the bus across town for summer school. I remember the days that he would show up in a stained t-shirt and doodle instead of doing the work. He’s a salaried electrical engineer now. He gets flown across the country to attend conferences and learn about the kind of technology that I still consider science fiction. He’s a genius.

Back in his basement, he tells me that all he needs to do is source the tombstones themselves—once he has access to those, the engravings will be a piece of cake. I just shake my head. I’ve watched this man bloom, watched his potential unfold like a nova. I couldn’t be prouder of him, but I couldn’t have predicted any of this. Sometimes even the people you know best can surprise you.

Isn’t that wonderful?

* * * * *

As human beings, we love patterns. That much we know to be true. We find them wherever we are. We see tessellations and telling repetitions in the people and places around us. We tell stories to ourselves and to others, because we understand stories—they make sense. But sometimes, even though all the pieces seem to be there, the jigsaw won’t fit together—sometimes the whispered promise of a pattern that will make everything coalesce never pans out. We’re left with disappointed theories and a feeling of having been deceived, as though the shadows we mistook for spies in the darkness should rightfully have been spies all along.

I love that about us. About people. The truth is: sometimes, strangeness isn’t really strangeness at all—it’s just our expectations being undermined by reality or by chance. Sometimes what feels strange is benign, or simply benignly banal. That, however, will never stop us from draping mystery and suspicion across our lives like a garland or a silk scarf—we’re simply not meant to lead lives that aren’t at least a little strange.

* * * * *

This month has been all about strangeness, and a strange month indeed it has been. If you’ve been reading the Town Crier this April, I hope that you—like me—are narrowing your eyes when considering your own lives lately. Strangeness permeates the world around us, be it in our behaviour or the behaviour of those around us, in the spaces we occupy, or in the objects we hold dear. Strangeness can be a weapon or it can be a strength; it can set us back or, if we are strong enough, it can set us apart.

We are all strange, maybe, or nobody is. And the latter might be the strangest thought of all.

I’d like to offer a heartfelt thank-you to all the authors who contributed to this month’s series: Richard Kelly Kemick, Walt Palmer, Napatsi Folger, Rebecca Salazar, Brendan Vidito, Dr. Daniel Alati, and Ashish Seth. You folks are all beautiful machines (like monster trucks, maybe), and you made my life very easy this month. And to you, reader, wherever and whomever you might be: thanks for tuning in.

I’ll see you around.