Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

It was Saturday morning. Frowning in his unlit bedroom, young Robert Towell sat on his bed with his bowling shoes on his feet, his nylon shorts and his crappy yellow and brown bowling logo T-shirt snug around his scrawny frame. The curtains were drawn tight, but it didn't matter, it was as if he had never seen the sun to begin with. Three times a week he participated in the concrete shame-lung Olympics, and was paid to play, paid to stay out of the sunlight. His parents thudded on his bedroom door. He got up and walked towards the noise. It was game time again.

With second-hand smoke and the stink of coffee muttering through the building, he prayed for a coma. As he stalled for time and retied his shoes, he tried to avoid eye contact with the diseased carpet pattern. The sport that would never appear on the surface. For three long years, every weekend was spent chained to the ball return, his parents fist-fighting in the stands, the pressure, the unavoidable exploitation; Robert Towell took it all, his raven black hair, absorbed the crowd chants, the television camera blinking, the trophies sullied with a thousand fingerprints. He hated the carpet design; the puke post-modern abstract designs that melded the colours of fox orange and Aqua Velva blue, with hints of spray-paint pink long faded. This was young Robert Towell's childhood, kept sealed in a jar, the sun never lubricating his mind or body, never warming the back of his neck. Instead, overcooked hot dogs from the darkest caverns of Ontario flipped, never vilified by the health inspector. One day, thought young Robert Towell, I will murder each rule, each pin, and unthread each stitch in this foul, pleated sport.

OUTSIDE OF BOWLING ALLEY:

Coach:

Well Bobby is doing amazing, he has to memorize bowling lines for their weekly promos and has to spend countless hours getting three strikes in a row for these spots, that part is a bit staged, but he's really comfortable with it. The rest of the time he was competing on live television almost every weekend.

INSIDE OF BOWLING ALLEY:

Martha Towell:
(screeching above crowd, holding a thermos)

Come on Robbie, we're all watching.

David Towell:
(mumbling and sneering, hot dog bits stuffed in his mouth)

Robert, come on son!

Robert Towell knocks down the remaining pins and wins the game. He holds the under-15 provincial trophy as the camera crews and hosts swarm the small boy. He looks into the camera with dead gray eyes that begin to tear.

Nathaniel G. Moore will strike again.