My version
of different.

The kid who never needed the lesson.

School came easily. I could get marks over ninety without studying or doing homework. Teachers sat me in the front, but if I got bored, I could disrupt the entire class. Then they sent me to the back — where there were even more ways to get distracted.

I was smart enough for the front row. I just never followed the path quietly.

A thousand-dollar lesson at thirteen.

At thirteen, I was teaching myself HTML, JavaScript and Flash. I found an editable 3D intro on FlashKit, transformed it into something of my own, and sold it for $1,000.

Then the original creator challenged the person who posted it. I had to refund the sale. It was my first real business — and my first lesson that making something your own is not always as simple as changing it.

The day everybody jumped in.

There was a kid who picked on everybody and said he could beat anyone. I finally told him to meet me after class. He disappeared. When he came back, I waited by the lockers. We argued, he swung first and missed, and I hit him in the jaw.

My brother joined in. Then the hallway became a crowd. The police were called, and I was in trouble.

Standing up was one decision. What the crowd did with it became something else.

The fall that split life in two.

I went off a snowboarding drop too high and too far. I overshot the landing and hit a tree in mid-air. The crash put me in a coma. When I woke up, I did not know who I was.

Everything after that became rebuilding: words, movement, memory, discipline, identity. Not returning to the old path. Making the new one mine.

Point it straight down.

First year in Calgary, school trip to C.O.P. The instructor was over-explaining what it felt like, so I went up alone and pointed my board straight downhill. Halfway down I thought: shit — how do I turn? I caught an edge, snowballed all the way down, and my own board cut my face. I went back to the lodge, cleaned up the blood, and headed right back uphill. This time, I magically knew how to snowboard.

I was seven, eight years old.

Naw, I’ll handle it.

Some sixth-grade kids were picking on my brother after school. He was a shy kid. I was maybe in third grade — my brother was in fourth. He asked me if he should tell mom — I told him naw, I’ll handle it. One day they were beating him up. I ran and jump-kicked the big kid in the back. He slammed his face on the concrete wall, and he never bothered my brother again. Another day he asked us: do you guys know what time it is? I said: it’s time for you to go buy a watch. He caught me that time — he was bigger — stuffed my face full of snow, and just kept walking home.

He’s my elder. I always protected him.

I found it.

In the Parc du Domaine Vert, a few steps from Ralph’s birdhouses. I didn’t build it — I found it. It’s destroyed now.

August 2020.

Back in the time of the pharaohs.

My companion, right where he belongs — lying back in the sand by the Nile, working on his stick like he has all of eternity.

October 2026.