As I think you know, I am a fairly modest individual. I don’t take any pleasure in blowing my own trumpet. I need hardly tell you that on mentioning that to Sylvester he trotted out some trite comment. He really can be quite coarse at times.
With the small amount of celebrity that I have garnered over the years there are naturally moments when I am recognised and photographed, when out in public. I don’t resent this. I accept that it comes with the territory of being a transgendered account executive at Canada’s seventeenth most awarded advertising company. Apparently, with great power comes great responsibility, to quote Maya Angelou.
It was during the Pride Parade in Vancouver recently that a flock of paparazzi recognized me and descended upon me flashes flashing and video videoing. I must say, in the centre of this light storm I found myself very lightheaded. Perhaps it was the hot weather, or maybe the noise of the parade, but quite suddenly I felt very feint. A moment later the world seemed to tilt on its axis and I was suddenly falling, falling, falling.
When I opened my eyes I found myself in an unfamiliar place. I was surrounded by mist, and there seemed to be no horizon. There was a soft white light, no walls and no floor. A gentle fog rolled about the place, a little like when Sylvester had that smoke machine in the car and couldn’t turn it off and we got pulled over by the police. Sorry, a story for another day.
From out of this monochromatic landscape a figure emerged with a long white beard and a scroll. Now, I know what you’re thinking. They always have a scroll, right? Why no Ipad? I know – I’ve asked the very same question.
The man, dressed in a long white robe came directly to me, smiling and with his hand outstretched, and said, “So nice to see you again, Fiona.”
I stared at him, taken a little off guard.
“Have we met?” I asked.
“Oh just a couple of times,” said the man. “It wasn’t your time though. You wouldn’t remember. I’m Peter. If you like you can call me Pete.”
“Hello Pete,” I said awkwardly. “Nice dress by the way. Am I dead?”
“Oh, gosh, no,” he quickly replied.
I looked about the place and said, “It’s a bit spartan up here, isn’t it?”
“We like it,” replied Pete sounding a little affronted.
“You should think about having the place Feng Shui’d,” I said. “If you need someone I can fix you up.”
Pete looked me up and down before saying, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I should say, at this point, that I was dressed for a Pride Parade rather than for socialising with celestial deities. I wore a rainbow colored wig, a blue leotard, pink tutu, and black fishnet stockings. My feet were killing me in a pair of heels you could use to skewer meat. It wasn’t the outfit I’d have chosen for the occasion had I known.
Pete looked down at his robe self consciously and said, “Perhaps I am a little underdressed.”
“Why have you brought me here,” I said still feeling a little affronted.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” said Pete, and then he consulted his scroll. “Yes, here we are. You just follow me, and let’s have a little chat with your father.”
I reeled. My father died four years ago.
“My father’s dead,” I replied doing my best to sound casual.
“Well, in a sense I suppose he did,” replied Pete. “Don’t worry about that, he’s just through here.”
And with that, my father materialised before me, wearing his long dressing gown and blue and white pyjamas and sheepskin slippers. That was what he’d been wearing when he’d finally expired in the Sunset Home For The Terminally Banjaxed.
He looked angrily in my direction, and said “Who the hell are you?”
Well, I suppose that was predictable. I had spent most of my life trying to prove what a man I was, and here I was before him very much ‘Fiona’ instead of ‘Michael’. This was going to be a shock.
St. Peter, for that is who I know understood ‘Pete’ to be, chimed in, “I’d like you to meet your daughter.”
“Nonsense,” said my father gruffly. “I had three boys. Fine strong boys.”
“I don’t remember you ever saying we were fine strong boys, Dad,” I said.
He stared at me and peered closer.
“Good God,” he said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Dad. It’s me,” I said. “I go by ‘Fiona’ now.”
There was a touching moment of recognition, followed by the frown the recognition of his second son would usually invoke. It said both silently and eloquently, “Oh, I had hoped you were someone else.” Well, now I was.
“That’s a rather odd get up you’re wearing,” he said his eyes taking in the sight before him.
The make up, the costume, the breasts and the glitter in my cleavage, I think it was all a bit much for the old man.
“Three boys, you say,” said St. Peter. “I rather think you might be mistaken there.”
The hardness in my father’s demeanor seemed to fade a little. He smiled at me, and for a moment I sensed something like acceptance.
“I never knew,” he said a little weakly.
St. Peter consulted his scroll and said, “I thought you should know. I mean, all the bigoted things you’ve said, some of the things you believed. It’s just that, if you’re going to answer for your sins, you might as well know the extent of them.”
“I don’t think he meant them,” I said. “I mean, it’s just how people were back then.”
In a heartbeat a stream of visions seemed to flood through my mind, yet these weren’t my conscious thoughts, they were thoughts being played into my head. Almost like watching a movie at high speed – information suddenly right there in my consciousness, as though I had just experienced it.
Before my eyes I saw the angst ridden years of my teens, the awkwardness of being a young adult. And there I was lying in a bath, blood squirting from an open vein. Again, a few years later, an empty bottle of pills and my body curled up beneath a duvet in a darkened room. My heart slowing and the feeling of cold. And suddenly it was gone. Just the echo of an uncomfortable memory remained.
Yes, he had been harsh. As much as I might tell myself otherwise, there were moments in my life I’d felt like the pain of death would be better than the pain of life. I couldn’t attribute this all to my father, but there were moments that might have been different had I been nurtured differently.
I glanced at St. Peter.
“I think I see what you mean,” I said.
My father was looking tired.
“You know,” I said, “I am who I am today, largely due to my father. I am not a bad person, I know that. My journey hasn’t been very easy but I can’t blame my father for that.”
“Well,” said St. Peter, “that will count in his favor.”
The figure of my father seemed to evaporate in the mist.
“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked St. Peter.
He turned to me and looked surprised at the question.
“Judgement, of course,” he replied. “You people! You seem to forget that you will be held to account. It doesn’t seem to sink in. It’s like you just don’t get the message.”
“Maybe you need a different communications strategy,” I said.
“What do you mean?” replied St. Peter.
“Oh, maybe you need a better way to get your message out. You should try Facebook. I hear Mastodon is quite good. Stay off TikTok though.”
St. Peter frowned a little, “We don’t really do social media up here. HE doesn’t like it. Says it’s all about pride and we shouldn’t be on it.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment.
“I hope he’s going to be alright,” I said, referring to my father.
“He will. It will only seem like an eternity.”
“Are you going to send me back,” I asked.
“Of course,” replied St. Peter. “It’s not your time yet.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” I said and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve still got so much to do.”
“No, you can head back,” he said and I felt myself fading away. “I’ll see you later this week!”
“What?” I shouted and suddenly was back standing before St. Peter.
St. Peter was doubled over, laughing.
“Sorry, just a ‘heaven joke’. We do that sometimes,” he said. “No, really. You’re good.”
With that he gave me a friendly smile and slowly faded away and the next thing I knew I was back in the Pride Parade in Vancouver, picking myself up of the ground.
Sylvester leaned over me and said, “You’re looking a little odd, Fiona. You ok?”
I shook myself to clear my head.
“I felt a little feint for a moment there. That’s all.”
Sylvester handed me a bottled water and I took a sip. I could feel the warm sun on my face. There were people cheering as the march moved along, and pride flags were waving in all directions. I was back in Vancouver and there wasn’t a dead parent in sight. A few photographers were moving to the next float.
“It’s good to be back,” I muttered, but my words were lost in the sounds of the parade.
The End
