will work for food [or cotton swabs]

at the hospital. the one on the southwest corner of the montreal peninsula. the psycho ward. i've been left alone in a lab room with good light and fifteen bottles of cotton swabs that I'm to use every ten minutes to sample my saliva. a measure of cortisol. it's a stress study.

...it's clockwork orange. i walk into a dark room that V opens with a blue plastic glove. lit ominously with one lamp in the corner. a man and a woman in lab coats sit behind a table. "stand there on the tape and say your study number into the camera." "now?" i ask. when she nods, I look into the camera and say "Two." I look at the interviewers who stare back but initiate nothing. so i began selling myself for the fake job. V hands me two arrow-shaped swabs which I place under my tongue and continue to speak, cotton-mouthed, about my conflict resolution skills.

and then i'm to count backwards. 2023 as point of departure, moving backwards in increments of 17. and the swabs under my tongue shift about.

rewind two days. syrup season in the eastern townships. this was not my reason for travel. but the thought of being a participant in the sap's cycle of tapping and boiling and bubbling enticed me to remain. but before: three times on stage presenting films in french. a snowstorm pick up in front of the granada theatre in a CAA rental car, her parents. paul takes me down to the basement to describe the process, and talk about organic farming. ellie sends me upstairs with nighttime reading on martyrs. and the next day we haul wood from one shed to another, and conclude with leek soup and syrup-drenched muffins.