“Everything that happens to us happens for a reason and is part of our path, the only thing we can do after the fact is learn from it”

As they pulled out of the opening garage door James mentioned that the man at the gate of the parking garage had not mention that the lot was going to close in 30 minutes, James believed that it was the mans responsibility to do so. From his perspective it should have been obvious that we were headed to the city only for the night. Sandy responded “he was just doing his job – it’s not his responsibility to tell people the garage is closing, it’s up to them - there is a sign”. James was making a very valid point, in fact it represented a major problem in this god forsaken society, people tend to do what is minimally required of them, any more is often too much.

James told us a story – he was in Cincinnati, he and his friend had parked in a parking garage at a mall, when they returned the garage was closed, there was no one around and they didn’t know how to get their car. As they walked around James spotted a random man, the man was clearly a street person, he was also rolling a joint, James asked him about the garage, the man seemed to know exactly where to go, he gave James directions and asked for some change. The man was right, James followed his instructions and was able to get their car back.

James story was interesting, he was in the same situation at that time as we were just in an hour ago. In both situations a random person, seemingly out of no where showed up and had the answers to the questions that needed answering. This made Sandy wonder, looking up to the sky, is there something out there, something that makes everything work out, he also wondered why he was looking up at the sky, couldn’t this cause be all around him?

Back in the car the group was talking about the situation that had just past, in reference to it James pointed out that “if you can prevent something from happening and don’t, you are just as responsibly as the person who does do it”. There was lots of debate over what it takes to be able to prevent something from happening; are you able to stop the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, can you stop poverty.

As the radio sang “Heaven only knows, heaven only knows….” they past a billboard, Sandy repeated what it said “Foresight beats hindsight every time”, Sandy then said “things went the way they went for a reason, there is nothing we can do now, its in the past, but we can use this as a learning experience”. If this was true, what was the lesson, Sandy suggested that they learned to watch for signs, James pointed out that that may be true, but more importantly, we learned that we can not trust people to tell ‘us’ what we need to know. It would have been very easy for him – the parking lot man - to tell us that the garage was closing in 30 minutes, but he didn’t, he just did the minimum, which screwing us over.

Sandy said “We can learn to be aware”

James responded “But even being aware doesn’t assure that you will see the sign, what if its blocked, or its dark out……we learned that we can’t trust people”.

It was now 4:21 am, it would be another 30 minutes before any of them would get home to their warm beds.

As they were walking towards the parking garage, they stopped for some pizza, Sandy stayed outside while the others went in. Sandy approached a girl who was smoking a cigarette outside the pizza place, approaching random people was something that Sandy would not have been able to do in the past. But of course things were different now, he was taking control of his life, he was starting to understand that actions were required if he wanted things to happen. He said “hello” and asked for a cigarette, she handed him one and then passed her lighter. Sandy lite the cigarette and took a long drag, not being a regular smoker he instantly received a head rush and made light of it by saying “oh, what a rush, cigarettes are awesome”. After some small talk Sandy pulled out his pen and paper from his jacket and told his new friend about his ‘art experiment’, she liked the idea and decided to participate. Her friends soon came out of the pizza place, Sandy said “hello”. One of the males seemed territorial in regards to the girl, he wasn’t too impressed with Sandy talking to her, Sandy noticed this and mentioned the ‘art experiment’. He said he would participate and asked Sandy to hold his pizza while he did, this seemed to clear up any ill feeling he might have had.

Sandy’s friends came out of the pizza shop and were outside again, there was comment on the fact that he was smoking a cigarette. Ashely said “you know those things will kill you”, Sandy responded “but the head rush is soooo good, plus I don’t smoke enough of these things to worry about them killing me”. Ashely had a point but that didn’t matter, Sandy continued to take long drags, enjoying the head rush, the rush of course quickly passed and Sandy had nothing to show for it but that he smelt like an ashtray.

They continued to walk and Doug spoke “People that lie, are stealing from the truth, its like they are riding on the back of people that tell the truth. The only way that words can have any meaning is if people tell the truth”. Doug’s conclusion was that when people lie, they are stealing from the truth, they are making words less truthful and they begin to lose their meaning. Doug then mentioned that his mother had bought a fake candle, he had made similar comments to her, this is what a fake candle looks like:

Ashely and Mike had turned down Ashely’s street and were headed home, the rest of the group, Sandy, Doug, Danielle, and James continued to head towards the parking garage. When they finally reached their target intersection they turned and headed towards the garage. As they got closer to the entrance to the actual garage door itself, they realized that it was closed. Sandy ran ahead to check the hours of operation, he found out that the garage closed at midnight, it was now past 3 am. The others followed to take a look at the sign. What were they going to do? How were they going to get out of this situation? Just then they heard a man behind them yelling towards the street “Don’t park your car down here, it won’t be here when you come back”. James approached the man who happened to be a security guard and asked him if he knew how he could get his car out of the garage, the security guard responded “Thats not part of my building, but I can make a phone call”. The security guard left and headed into his building, after a few minutes he had not returned, so they headed into the building to see what was going on. The security guard told them he was not able to get a hold of the security guard at the other building, he told them to go check for themselves and gave them directions.They headed towards their new destination, it was very cold and very late, when they got to the building they looked threw the window, there was no one there. Sandy and James started to knock on the glass, no one came, Sandy decided he was tired of knocking, he turned around and started to run. Ironically, there were markings on the concert around the building that looked like this:

Sandy ran and jumped on each one, when he landed he yelled “No Smoking”, this took a couple of minutes as there were at least a baker’s dozen. After he was finished jumping he sang “oh, things are the way they are suppose to be, if they were not suppose to be this way, they would be different”.

Soon after Sandy’s dance finished the security guard from the building they were waiting outside of came to the door, he opened it a crack and asked what the problem was. James told him that his car had been locked in the underground garage. The security guard asked “Did you read the sign?” James replied “I could not see the sign” - I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes - this of course was the truth. The sign was far too small, even an eagle could not have seen it clearly. The security guard said he would open the garage for them, he closed the door and walked away. They were all delighted at this news and started to walk back towards the garage. By the time they arrived the door was moving upwards, James and Sandy ran threw the opening and towards the car, it was still there, they jumped in. James turned on the car and started to drive towards the exit, he stopped so that Danielle and Doug could get into the car. They were all in the car, they could finally leave, they pulled out of the parking garage, and were finally finally free and on their way home, it was now 4:15 am.

Of course, there was still a long drive left, and lots to discuss…

The story starts now, with the word now i am referring to the fact that this is the first chapter and also to the fact that the story starts now. In order to understand where we are now we need to understand were we have been and how that past has brought us here. Time is interesting; some times it passes quickly, while other times it passes slowly. The last year and a half has passed quite fast from my perspective.

The doorbell rang, Sandy got up from the computer and walked to the door, he knew who it was going to be so he was prepared. His pockets were full with the tools that would be needed for the night, paper, pen, cell phone, recorder, wallet, and key. As he opened the door, he saw Danielle, after a quick hello she noted that he would need to changes his pants, as the club may have a dress code that does not allow jeans. He ran upstairs to change, a couple minutes later he was ready, he ran outside and got into the car.

They were headed to the city, downtown Toronto to be exact. Sandy loved spending time with his friends, they always had insightful conversations. Tonights topics included the questions: should we help street people and is protesting against a war worth while. There was a lot of yelling, however this was not angered yelling, more of just yelling with the hopes that ones voice would be heard.

Once they got to the city they searched for a place to park, this was more difficult then one would expect, parking in the city is difficult, especially near Spadina and College. I could be wrong of course, as i do not live in that area. After driving around in circles Danielle spotted a perfect spot, it was in the area they wanted to be and the sign said it would only cost $3 to park from 6pm till 7am. It was 11:30 when they entered the underground garage. After parking the four of them headed out, in what direction Sandy did not know, but the flow seemed right so he followed without question. A couple of minutes later they heard a voice call out one of their names, it was the other two members of the group that would be participating tonight.

They were headed to the Flamingo for some salsa dancing, once inside the music was loud and very salsa-rific. There were a lot of couples and most of them were quite skilled salsa dancers. A girl approached Doug and showed him some dance moves, he seemed to pick them up quite well. She then approached Sandy and gave him some pointers. Sandy has never been good at dancing, he has poor coordination and two left feet. She tried to show him some steps, but that did not work out to well. She then started to dance around him in a circle, her phone rang, then she disappeared. A strange experience, but it was helpful, Sandy practiced the pointers from the rest of the night. Sandy seemed to improve throughout the night, next time there will be more then just a single step.

It was getting late, I approached a table where two girls were sitting, I introduced myself and said hello. I asked them some questions about what they did and why they were there. They were both students, however they claimed to not know each other very well. Tonight was the first time they meet, it was a mutual friend’s birthday. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my piece of paper and pen, this being something I have done in the past. I wrote down the name of this website ‘novelog.com’ and then asked them to participate in an ‘art experiment’. The art experiment consists of asking people to participate by writing or drawing whatever they want onto the piece of paper. There are no rules, and pretty much what ever someone wants to do is alright. Its fun to do and is a good ice breaker, it also servers as a promotional device from this website. My hope is to have people get into reading the novel by being part of it. I spoke to a few of their friends whom also participated, it was lots of fun and is a great way of getting to know people.

The art will be posted here soon.

It was getting late, in fact it was almost 3 am, everybody in the group was pretty much danced out and getting tired, we were all ready to leave. We left the club and stated to walk to the parking garage, little did we know the surprise that was to come…