Dear Brutus,

Please accept this story for possible publication on your site. It’s a lively little tale about a silly thing I saw on the way to work. I hope it meets your submission standards. 

There’s a patch of dirt in the centre of the city that no one wants to develop. It’s prime real estate, surrounded by businesses and busy streets. From this patch of dirt, you can hear cars rushing by, see pedestrian traffic, and smell the wafting aroma of sizzling street food. Oddly, no one seems to pay much attention to it. Like a smile with a missing tooth, you’d think the absence would be noticed, but it isn’t. It’s a fair enough length, two fifty square meters and change. The grass over it is dead, flaxen yellow, and periodic patches of clumped brown clay perforate its crumbly dirt. I wouldn’t have noticed it myself, though I walk past it every day on my way home from teaching. 

Like the dirt patch, I really don’t stand out, even if I don’t resemble my surroundings. Most people under the blue mirrored international style of Vancouver’s high rises wear a gradient from business-formal to t-shirts and sweats. I on the other hand have picked up my grandfather’s aesthetic of antiquarian British, v-necks over collared shirts with pressed slacks or tan chinos if I’m feeling cheeky. I cover myself in a black peacoat and wear black boots with generous treads. Like this patch of dirt, I’m wordlessly mocked by blind eyes, unregarded from a young age. I’ve gotten used to the neglect, and even cherish it, for without my invisibility, when would I find time to read? 

It was a rainy day when I stopped by the pub on Davie St. It’s a humble joint, and has invested little imagination in departing from your typical British bulldog pub. Leather booths in auburn, worn stools along the bar, crystal chandeliers and soccer on the screens. Perfect place for a pint of stout, or on this tempestuous day, two. After I’d finished my second, I considered a third, but thought better of it. The rain had started pummelling, and I would want to brave it in the complete dark, drivers these days being careless as they are. At the rate it was going, my umbrella wouldn’t make it out intact. I paid my tab and wandered out into the tempest. 

Whipped by the wind and rain, I rounded the corner where the empty lot sat, and struggled past its weatherworn wooden fence, which barely retained the whitewash on its grey splinters. At that point, my umbrella blew into the lot, and I scrambled after it through a gate that hung upon its exhausted hinges and scraped against the ground when I pushed it open. The gate sprung back defiantly, hurling me forward knees-first into a patch of mud. I knelt with my hands in the cold, grainy muck like a prostrated worshipper at a holy shrine, when I looked up–and what I saw! I tell you, Brutus, and this is the reason I write to you: no one but you would believe me. I shouldn't even make this public for fear that I would be committed. I’m having second thoughts about revealing this, but it’s too tantalizing a prospect to let die with my final breath. What faced me in that ostensibly empty lot on Bute and Nelson was a genuine fin-de-siécle residence, and a stately one at that. The dirt below me had blossomed into well-cropped turf surrounded by rose bushes of all varieties. This impossible house had a veranda curling around its sidewalk corner, and sprouting from its main floor was a cylindrical spire, oh, I could only be creating this in my imagination! The front door creaked open, and a bearded, black-booted gentleman holding a pipe edged out from the entrance. 

Spooked, I tore away from the residence without looking back, without rescuing my umbrella, as I was unsure if it was even still there. I ran three blocks in the rain to my apartment complex, itself a refurbished turn-of-the-century build, and jumped under my covers as quickly as I could muster. My mind circulated the possibilities of the affair. It is possible I never noticed the building. However, in five years at this address, I’ve walked past the site several times, so I can rule that out. Perhaps the stout was strong, and I wandered down another street by accident. But surely I would have noticed. Maybe someone slipped something into my drink, and I was confused. No one would go to such an expense, without a clear purpose. It was certainly a dirt lot before I entered, or at least I think it was. 

These thoughts followed me the next morning on my walk to the West End commercial zone where my employment sits on the fourth floor of an office tower established in 2003. On my walk, I glanced at the lot–still empty. Through my first class, and halfway through my second class at the private academy, I ruminated on the vision I’d seen the night before. It wasn’t until a student noticed my withdrawal and mentioned,

“It seems that something’s on your mind, teacher.”

I looked straight at Ayşe, the student who perceived my mental absence, and snapped out of my funk. It would be useless to confide in any of my students about the lot, they’re all newcomers to Canada and would be just as lost as I was. I held my thoughts until I reached the staff room, where the director, Margaret, sat drinking tea and pouring over a recent budget review. 

“Margaret, sorry to interrupt.”

Marge looked up from her work and cocked an eyebrow. I knew I only had a minute or less.

“I was wondering if you know anything about that dirt lot on Bute and Nelson. You’ve lived in this neighbourhood a while, haven’t you?”

“Since before the Expo,” she offered. “Wasn’t always a dirt lot, but that was before my time.” 

“Why doesn’t anyone develop it? You’d think it would be prime real estate.”

“It would, I suppose. It’s not for lack of trying.”

“Oh?”

“It’s assumed there’s some kind of gas leak. Anyone who’s ever worked the lot has reported strange hallucinations.”

“Like?”

“That’s just what I heard. Don’t know much more about it. Why, you run into some money?”

“No, I’ve just been saving up the big bucks you’re paying me!” I chuckled, but terminated my mirth when I saw that Marge wasn’t in on the joke.

I finished my third block of classes, my mind settled on the conclusion that whatever I’d witnessed the previous night was clearly some foggy fantasy, a gas leak, or some other fanciful trompe l'œil. Come to think of it, I might not have even been on Bute and Nelson. I was so sure I’d taken the correct route, but in reality, two pints is a bit much for me, and I could’ve been anywhere. The wind was furious, the rain came down in sheets, there’s no reason to think anything else. Having put myself through such an odd experience, I resolved to return to the pub and celebrate my fanciful delusion with a round of three. 

I hope you've enjoyed my tale of odd delusion, and that it fits your publication standards. Thank you in advance for taking my submission seriously enough to include among the posts included by your retinue. I haven't launched any social media surrounding the affair, for I fear this letter is a one-off.


Sincerely,

Weller Mayburn.


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5/13/25>>