Glenn Kubish

That was as close to a sublime rainbow as I have ever witnessed. I almost missed it. I was pedalling east down the MacKinnon Ravine. I had just said hello to the stand of spruce trees I greet going by.  It's curious to hear your own voice talking to trees. I have done this for years. After the trees, the trail curves to the right and then swoops to the left and, ahead, a woman stood off to the side of the trail. She was pointing to the sky behind me. I stopped. A rain drop hit the top of my hand. "Look," she said. "Look" does not give a person much of a clue about what is about to be seen. I turned around. I saw a ribbon of lights arced across the western sky. And before I had the instant needed to apply to it the concept of rainbow, I saw it as a colossal faucet turned on full bore, emptying a torrent of coloured water into the sink of the North Saskatchewan River. In another instant, it stopped being a spout of light, and became, again, properl...

You never forget how to ride a bike. In those simple sounding, nostalgically lacquered eight words divided neatly between two thoughts, a) you never forget and b) how to ride a bike, and in the even distribution of syllables across those two thoughts, you ne-ver for-get (1-2-3-4-5) how to ride a bike (1-2-3-4-5), and in the memorable way those two thoughts of five syllables displays the storyteller's proportioning out of tension and release—first, the tension of You never forget (never forget what? What is this thing that cannot be forgotten? In a world where our grip on so much, namely, names, ages, dates, facts, memories, computer passwords, the TV remote, loosens, what is this thing that we cannot but hold tight to?) and then the release of how to ride a bike  (yes, the satisfaction of a proposition posed and not left suspended), in this artful use of tension and release that makes a story memorable, that saying,  you never forget how to ride...