Eric Vaz

There is this strange lingering sensation on the tip of my finger. This finger has pointed all its life in the right direction. Sometimes, wrong directions, too. Most of all, this finger, which now nudges toward a corner made of plastic, pointed my two daughters toward the constellations. "See Aries rising slowly northwest of that tree, right over there." Her eager smile juxtaposed with a yawn at 10 pm. The other rascal runs back through the cabin. Well, that very finger, stretching towards something that feels like a button, no less, once held a lock of hair with my wife's smile open and shining brightly over an Aegean sunset. In winter, it cleaned the frozen bits off my old Suzuki Samurai, anno 1987, second hand, when my house was the size of a washroom.

I wish my finger hadn't aged with blemishes, some of them caught by surprise, with a reverie of the unknown. With a cadence of blame and a tainting of time. I've often cut my nails and cleaned the corners of that finger with my grandfather's pocketknife. Now, it resides quietly next to me, encumbered by no movement. This finger dug potatoes in spring and scraped the corners of too many pages of things useless to memorize in college. It followed the minuscule handwriting of my advisor's notes hastily, with red curvilinear ink, only to celebrate my dissertation's defence three years later.

Time has surprised me, and so has my finger in its ruggedness, marking the passage of things beyond my wildest imagination when I was caught up in a tenure-track position and finally became tenured. This finger pointed nonchalantly and half-tipsy at my best friend and colleague during twenty Christmas parties, and with some hesitation, wrote notes on the sexiest beast I could muster sitting next to me in LaGuardia — flight of several hours, direction unknown, who cared.

It did a fairly good job of not being totally butchered by an electric saw while cutting a Christmas tree in the sticks, and it mustered its way out of a shady accident, which I swear wasn't my fault. As I look at it resting on this very red button tied to the rim of the bed, I can't help but wonder how lucky of a bastard my index finger has been. Its nail, as usual, cleverly cut. As days go softly here with a hospital gown and someone trims it just right for me, I can't help but wonder, in the last days of yearning freedom and the upset stomach that bewilders my hands, will I be so lucky as having it point towards the sun when I am gone? For now, it serves to call the nurse as I, as well as the finger, do go too gentle into that good night.

It was 5:08 p.m. when I pulled in. Tavira Plaza's underground garage yawned cool and shadowed, echoing with the low boom of bass. Portuguese summer. A Peugeot — dented, silver, tired — sat idling across two spots. Its windows were open. Inside, three young men. South Asian, maybe Pakistani. Loud Arabic trap throbbed from a speaker duct-taped to the dash. Tires dirty, hood clean. One of them leaned out the window, flicking ash from a cigarette. The other laughed too loud at something on a phone.

And I — I was supposed to just walk past. Like everyone else, the groceries done. My newspaper resting between my arm, just coincidental of its own space of being very much Portuguese. Proper Lisbon sway, eclectic gaze, espresso and Tom Ford — Grey Vetiver. Sapatos de vela. But I didn't. I slowed my step. A half-second of fear, not for safety, but for being misunderstood. My autism does go beyond the facade of intentions. The unmasking. I could still turn around. Just get my coffee and go home. Be a man of silence. Dream mitigation. But my soul tugged forward. My body shrugged. I stepped into the wave of music and raised my hand lightly to my chest.

"Salam alaikum," I said. Not performative. Not exaggerated. Just honest. I was unmasked. "I read the Qur'an. I'm not Muslim… but I found peace in it."

The music didn't stop — but the world did. It left an empty space. The boy in the passenger seat blinked. His smirk collapsed into something soft. The one smoking straightened in his seat, like someone remembering their own name. The driver nodded — once, slow. The space became the warmth of sand dunes.

"Wa alaikum salam, senhor," he replied, in Portuguese-accented Arabic. "That… that means a lot." Broken English.

I smiled. I wasn't there to convert or praise or correct. I was just one proud Canadian-Portuguese man speaking to another man in exile. Caught between the providence of Tim Hortons and the scent of summer. "Shukran," I added.

The driver turned down the music. Not off. Just… lower. And for a moment — beneath the concrete and dust, under the weight of difference — two worlds that touch.

I walked on. Espresso and Pedras Salgadas still to be had. Groceries still to buy. But the air behind me now buzzed not with trap beats, but with something older. Something holy. Back in my car, Paulo Gonzo sings "É nas pedras da calçada que a canção nos sai melhor." Bismillah to the good people of love.

Whenever I ventured north from Keswick, past Craigmawr Beach, I felt the cool breeze from Cook's Bay urge me onward. The ethereal quality of Lake Simcoe seemed to wash over me and soften the edges of my memories. Near the boundary of Georgina Island, I always found myself drawn to a solitary grave. As I recalled from my younger days, the grave had sat in a meadow facing the lake's southern expanse for centuries, nameless and unmarked. Its headstone bore faint carvings, with only a few letters still visible — an "E" in the first name and a "W" and "T" in the last. The snow and rain had worn away most of the inscription, leaving the rest of the name lost to time, and no colour remained to bring clarity to the weathered stone.

Moss had formed a green path leading eastward from the grave, inviting the curious to explore. About thirty years ago, another grave appeared beside it — a woman was laid to rest there, yet she remained as nameless as her eternal neighbour.

Without a sense of foreboding, the neighbours had always viewed her behaviour as rather sullen. Each evening, she would stand overlooking the bay, beyond the picket fence that separated the hill from where the sky met the sea. Her lips moved in a murmur, sounding more like a prayer than anything else. Her expression — somewhere between devotion and eagerness — was enigmatic as she held a weathered stone between her fingers, chanting words that hinted at Gaelic origins…