Twenty-five
years ago, a little old day, Alice
was her
name, told me about her co-worker
at
the Domtar office, a cute young lady fresh
out
of high school, who loved to gossip. Every
morning
when she went to work, she would
say
to Alice, “Have you heard any new gossip?”
as
though the salvation of her soul depended
upon
the latest scandal. Alice died, and Brenda,
that
was the young gossip’s name, got married;
but
her much older husband was not a very nice
man.
He drank and beat his wife and screwed
around
on her, almost as though all of that juicy
gossip
that Brenda liked to talk about with Alice
had
come back to haunt her. Brenda finally got
divorced
and now lives with a much younger
man,
but her son turned out to be like his father
and
is in and out of jail; and her daughter, who’s
only
twenty-three, got divorced for the second
time.
Brenda is still working for Domtar, but not
one
day goes by at the office that she does not
ask her
co-workers the same question she used
to
ask Alice every morning twenty-five years
ago,
“Have you heard any new gossip?”
Composed
in Nipigon, Ontario
Date
unknown: 1990-2000
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