Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

The clock was flashing 12:00 incessantly; he hadn't bothered to reprogram the time since the last time the power flickered, but it didn't stop him from instinctively looking towards it every morning. Groaning, he rolled over and sat up in his bed, only to immediately fall backwards again as a flash of pain seared just behind his eyes. Another day, and another vicious hangover. He knew it was the only way his body could communicate "CEASE AND DESIST" to him but he shrugged it off as he did any other day. Whatever doesn't kill me can only make me stronger, he thought to himself as he stood up out of bed, and wondered if that saying had ever been true for anyone in any situation.

He lurched out into the kitchen and squinted at the floor, averting his eyes from the rays of sunlight that cut through the room like blades. He flailed his arms blindly at the curtains in an attempt to get them shut, but the curtains relented until the curtain rod itself snapped in half and the whole fixture fell into the kitchen sink. He sighed, unsurprised. Abject failure was not a new sensation for him. He poured a pot of water into his coffee machine, and tore another page off his 365 DAYS OF GARFIELD calender. November ninth.

Had it really been a month? The fruition of a month of seeing the city dyed in blue with the occasional red or orange highlight, CBC's news anchors feigning surprise when announcing the Tory majority after 20 minutes, the happiest speech of Gerry Reid's career as Liberal leader, the coronation of the new Caesar in the Fairmont's open bar, all of that happened a month ago? That night seemed to have happened in both the immediate past and some ancient, primordial memory only dimly recalled when smelling homemade bread or that perfume your highschool sweetheart used to wear. He raised a cup of black coffee to his lips and sighed again, thinking yes, that certainly was an election all right.

He walked into the living room and looked over to the corner at his computer, its hard drive whining at him under the strain of a thousand different trojans and spyware programs because he refused to upgrade from Windows 98. Slurping loudly on his coffee, his thoughts returned to his neglected corner of cyberspace, buried under the weight of a thousand documents that needed immediate attention and an overpowering sense of political nihilism. What was the point? Luther could nail 95 Theses of Local Politics to the doors of the Confederation Building and it wouldn't make a lick of difference to anyone except that he'd be blacklisted from working in the civil service; an unread blog certainly wouldn't fare any better, even if time and workload permitted it.

He shrugged the thought off and sat down in front of his computer and cracked his knuckles. Might as well get some work done, then. As he opened up his inbox to check for new email, he noticed an advertisement at the top of the page and immediately spit out his coffee. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. No, it was real. He leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow contemplatively.



He thought for a moment at the inanity of it all, and took another sip of coffee. You know, he thought, maybe there is a need for Richard Raleigh after all.